Chapter 2 #2
The compliment was calculated. He watched it land, watched Lady Eleanor weigh the social cost of refusing against the personal cost of accepting. Beside her, the daughter stood very still, her eyes moving between her mother and Alistair with an expression he could not quite read.
“My daughter,” Lady Eleanor said finally, the words dragged out of her, “Miss Sophia Ainsworth. Sophia, Lord Alistair Cavendish.”
She curtsied. He bowed. When she straightened, her eyes met his, and he saw that she was not intimidated. Wary, yes. But not frightened. There was something else there, something that looked almost like anticipation.
“Miss Ainsworth. I believe the next dance is a waltz. Would you do me the honour?”
He saw Lady Eleanor’s mouth open, saw the refusal forming. But Sophia spoke first.
“I would be delighted, my lord.”
Her mother’s mouth closed. The girl placed her hand on Alistair’s arm, and he felt the slight tremor in her fingers before she steadied them. Not fear, he realised. Anger. She was furious at her mother for something, and this dance was her retaliation.
Interesting.
He led her onto the floor. The other couples were already arranging themselves, and they took their place in the pattern with the ease of people who had been trained to do this since childhood.
His hand settled at her waist. Her hand rested on his shoulder.
The contact was correct, proper, and entirely charged with something that felt like the moment before a thunderstorm.
“You have made your mother unhappy,” he said as they began to move. “I apologise for being the instrument.”
“You are not sorry at all.”
“No. But it seemed polite to pretend.”
She looked up at him. Her eyes were grey, he saw now, a clear cool grey like the sea in winter. “You sought this introduction deliberately. Why?”
“Curiosity.”
“About what?”
“About whether you would accept.”
“And if I had refused?”
“Then I would have learned something about you. As it is, I have learned something else.” He turned her through the corner of the pattern, and she followed without hesitation. “You are not afraid of your mother’s disapproval. Or mine. Or anyone’s, I suspect.”
“You suspect a great deal on very little evidence.”
“I am an excellent guesser.”
“Are you? Or do you simply make pronouncements and wait for people to confirm or deny them?”
He laughed. The sound surprised him. He could not remember the last time he had laughed during a dance. “Both. It is a versatile strategy. You might try it.”
“I prefer to gather evidence before drawing conclusions.”
“How tedious.”
“How thorough.”
They turned again. The music swelled, and for a moment they were silent, moving together through the steps with a precision that felt less like cooperation and more like a contest neither was willing to lose.
Her hand was warm through the fabric of his coat.
She smelled of something green and sharp, rosemary perhaps, or the salt air of the cliffs.
“Your family does not approve of this,” she said. “Any of it. The introduction, the dance, the conversation.”
“No.”
“And yet you proceeded.”
“I am not my family.”
She considered this. “That is either a very principled statement or a very convenient one. I have not yet decided which.”
“Take your time. We have another two minutes of music.”
Her mouth twitched. It was not quite a smile, but it was close, and Alistair felt an absurd sense of victory. “You are not what I expected,” she said.
“What did you expect?”
“A rake. A cynic. A man who treats women as diversions and society as a game he has already won.”
“And what have you found instead?”
“A rake and a cynic who is self-aware enough to know it. That is marginally more interesting.”
“Marginally. I am devastated.”
“You are nothing of the kind. You are enjoying this.”
He was. He had not expected to enjoy anything this evening, and the discovery unsettled him. “You are not what I expected either,” he said.
“What did you expect?”
“A debutante. Anxious, eager to please, carefully trained to say nothing of substance.”
“And what have you found?”
“Someone who has been carefully trained to say a great deal of substance while appearing to say nothing at all. It is a different skill entirely.”
This time she did smile, a real one, quick and sharp. “You noticed that.”
“I notice everything. It is my only virtue.”
“I doubt that.”
“You should not. I have very few.”
The music was building toward its conclusion. He could feel the dance drawing to a close, the pattern tightening, the other couples beginning the final turn. He did not want it to end, which was a thought he had not had in years.
“Tell me something,” he said. “Do you believe in the feud?”
She missed a step. It was barely perceptible, a hesitation so brief that anyone watching would have attributed it to the music, but he felt it. “That is a very direct question.”
“I am a very direct person when I am interested.”
“And are you interested?”
“I asked the question.”
She was quiet for a moment. The dance carried them through the final measures, and he felt her hand tighten slightly on his shoulder.
“I believe,” she said slowly, “that feuds are convenient. They provide a structure. A script. One does not have to think about whether one likes or dislikes a person if one’s family has already decided the matter. It saves a great deal of effort.”
“And you dislike being told what to think.”
“I dislike being told anything.”
The music stopped. They stood facing each other, his hand still at her waist, hers still on his shoulder, and for a moment neither of them moved.
The room around them was a blur of colour and noise, but Alistair was aware only of the grey of her eyes and the slight flush on her cheeks and the fact that he had just met the first person in years who had managed to surprise him.
“Thank you for the dance, Miss Ainsworth.”
“Thank you for the interrogation, my lord.”
He released her. She stepped back, and the distance between them reasserted itself with an almost physical force. He bowed. She curtsied. The ritual was perfect, and perfectly empty.
“I hope,” he said, “that you will not find the rest of the evening too tedious by comparison.”
“I am sure I will manage.” She held his gaze for a moment longer. “Good evening, Lord Alistair.”
She turned and walked back toward her mother, who was watching with an expression that suggested Alistair had just committed an act of war. He watched her go, the dark hair, the straight shoulders, the careful composure that he now understood was a form of armour.
“Well,” Blackwood said, appearing at his elbow. “That was either the beginning of a beautiful friendship or a declaration of hostilities. I genuinely cannot tell which.”
“Neither can I.”
“Are you going to tell me what you talked about?”
“No.”
Alistair retrieved another glass of champagne and found a position near the wall where he could observe without being observed.
Across the room, Miss Sophia Ainsworth was being claimed by another partner, a baronet’s son with more teeth than sense.
She smiled at him, and the smile was perfectly pleasant and perfectly empty, and Alistair understood that he had been given something different.
Something sharper, less comfortable, more real.
He watched her dance with the baronet’s son. He watched her laugh at something he said. He watched her perform the role of delighted debutante with a skill that was almost invisible, and he wondered how many people in this room would recognise the performance for what it was.
Then, in a pause between dances, her gaze found his across the room. She did not smile. She did not nod. She simply looked at him for a long moment, and in that look he read something that might have been a question or might have been a challenge or might have been something else entirely.
He raised his glass to her, the same small gesture he had made to her mother.
This time, the corner of her mouth lifted.
Barely. Then she turned away, and the moment passed, and Alistair was left standing against the wall with a glass of warm champagne and the unfamiliar sensation of having encountered someone who might, possibly, be worth the trouble.
The music began again. He did not dance. He stayed where he was, watching the room arrange itself into its familiar patterns, and he thought about grey eyes and rosemary and the particular quality of a silence that was not empty but full of things unsaid.