Chapter 20 #2
The gentleman’s lids lowered a fraction, as if he had found a point on the floor to be amused by. “Of course, Your Grace. Far be it from me to forget your consequence.”
“Remember it,” Stephen said. “And remember hers.”
He did not mean the title. The other man took it that way anyway, which was fine; he was not invited to understand anything deeper.
The gentleman bowed, performed an apology shaped like deference, and withdrew at exactly the speed that rescued dignity without admitting fear. The watching edges of the room, disappointed, resumed their prior occupations.
Stephen did not look after him. He looked at Maria, at last and properly. Her eyes were not offended; they were not precisely pleased. She looked—relieved, yes, but also wary on his behalf.
“Stephen,” she said softly. There were a dozen things in the single word.
“I should have asked you earlier,” he said. “Forgive me.”
Charity, who had no intention of being banished from the world because tact demanded it, tipped her head, satisfied and suspicious in equal measure. “Will you scold me if I say that was oddly gratifying?” she asked.
“Not if you refrain from saying it louder,” Stephen replied, not looking away from Maria.
“Consider it whispered,” Charity said, and, correctly interpreting the situation as one in which she could do more good at a slight distance, slipped back a pace.
“Walk with me,” Stephen said to Maria, aware that a walk was safer than a dance, and that he had, in a fit of possessiveness he was not proud of, just laid claim to the dance anyway. “Just to the edge of the floor.”
She nodded. He offered his arm; she took it. The small movement was such a relief that he nearly laughed at himself for being grateful to his own sleeve.
They reached the perimeter where the floor’s wood gave way to carpet.
Peter materialized at Stephen’s other side with the uncanny instinct of a friend who knew when to stay and when to press. “I see you decided to trample something after all,” he murmured, amiable as a garden wall.
“I trampled nothing,” Stephen said. “I had a conversation.”
“A conversation in which you told a man to watch his words when addressing a duke,” Peter observed. “We shall call it a conversational canter.”
Maria turned to Peter with relief. “Will you tell me whether I am wrong to feel odd?”
“Always,” Peter said gravely. “We are all wrong to feel odd. It is a family failing. In this case, however, you may enjoy being wrong. Your husband has been staring at you all evening and then punishing himself for it.”
“Peter,” Stephen said in a tone that meant Stop.
“Have I misspoken, Your Grace?” Peter arranged his face into innocence.
“Yes,” Stephen said. “But it is too late to prevent harm. Try silence as a remedy.”
“Gladly,” Peter said. “Just as soon as I have congratulated the duchess on her dress.”
“The dress is nothing,” Maria said automatically, and then, because honesty was a habit she had begun to practice, added, “The dress is very fine. I am not used to it.”
“Then become used to it at once,” Peter bowed. “The room certainly enjoys it. But more importantly, the man beside you cannot remember the word for ‘wall sconce’ on account of it.”
Maria’s cheeks warmed despite her efforts to keep them still. She looked at Stephen as if to ask whether the accusation could be ignored. Stephen met her eyes and answered the question before she asked it.
“He is correct,” he said. “I cannot.”
The expression that crossed her face was a small victory and a small ache together. “Oh,” she said.
Peter seemed to take his leave at that.
Stephen heard himself say something he should have said at the start.
“You look…” He stopped, chose a word he could bear to say in public. “You look very well.”
She smiled, and it was true that the room changed a little when she did it. “Thank you,” she said. “So do you, if compliments are permitted to travel in both directions.”
“Always,” he said. “Though I had rather earn them.”
“You already have,” she said, surprising him. “Just now.”
He let out a breath he had not intended to hold. “I was jealous,” he said, because if he did not say it, it would rot.
“I noticed,” she said, and there was no malice in it, only a kind of practical curiosity. “Is that… common with you?”
“No,” he said. “It is common with men I do not admire. I am not particularly admired by myself this moment.”
“Then do not make a habit of it,” she said. “But—” She hesitated, then made her mouth say the thing. “I did not hate it.”
He looked at her as if she had put a hand on his shoulder. “No?”
“No,” she said. “So long as you remember I am not a prize.”
“I remember,” he said. “You are a person who has chosen to be here.”
“I am trying,” she said.
“I see you trying,” he said. “And I see you.”
She held his gaze and did not flinch. “Better.”
He nodded once, an admission and a promise both.
From the corner of his eye, Stephen saw the disappointed gentleman—still within the room, pretending delight in another conversation, the way a man pretends a misstep was intended choreography.
Peter, drifting like a benevolent hazard, intercepted the fellow and engaged him at once with a question that required an answer, thereby removing the temptation of further impertinence.
“Peter is useful,” Maria said, following Stephen’s glance.
“He is indispensable,” Stephen agreed.
“Like all good friends,” she said.
“Like all good friends,” he echoed.
The music lifted. Couples took their places. He had told a man to watch his words when addressing a duke. He had nearly made a mess of his own. He had done one thing right, belatedly: he had looked at his wife and said something true.
“Will you…” He began and stopped. “Will you dance with me?”