Chapter 9
“That is a rather elaborate choice of waistcoat for a man who does not like attention.”
Oliver glanced down at himself. The waistcoat was blue silk, embroidered with silver thread at the edges. Perkins had selected it while still grieving the coat Oliver had surrendered at the Bancroft ball.
“I wore it because my valet laid it out,” Oliver said. “There are far grander things to care about than what I wear.”
Sebastian leaned against the marble pillar at the edge of Lord Thornbury’s ballroom, champagne in hand. The room was a crush. Four hundred guests packed beneath a ceiling of painted cherubs that looked vaguely alarmed by the crowd below. Candle smoke drifted above the assembly in thin blue ribbons.
“The waistcoat reminds me rather of the color of Miss Fairchild’s eyes,” Sebastian observed.
“An absurd notion.”
Sebastian laughed. “I am simply noting the coincidence.”
“You are noting nothing. You are inventing significance where none exists.” Oliver accepted a glass of champagne from a passing footman.
The crystal was warm already from the heat of so many bodies.
“I have danced with Miss Fairchild precisely four times across three events. It is a performance, Sebastian. We discussed this.”
“You discussed it. I listened with polite skepticism while watching my closest friend walk headfirst into a wall.” Sebastian took a slow sip. “She arrives, by the way.”
Oliver did not turn.
He told himself he did not turn because turning would draw attention, because the entire purpose of the arrangement depended on appearing natural rather than eager, because a duke did not crane his neck across a ballroom like a schoolboy at his first assembly. These were all excellent reasons.
At last, he turned.
Louisa stood near the entrance beside Eleanor Whitmore, her gloved hands clasped in front of her.
Her gown was ivory, trimmed with lace at the sleeves.
Her hair was gathered up, a few loose curls resting against the curve of her neck.
She wore no jewelry except a small pearl on a chain, and the simplicity of it caught the candlelight differently from the diamonds blazing on every other woman in the room.
Eleanor whispered to her. Louisa’s lips moved in reply. Then she looked up, scanning the crowd, and found him.
Her expression shifted into a small smile. She had been looking for him, he realized. She had walked into a ballroom of four hundred people, and her first instinct had been to locate the one face she trusted.
The thought sat beneath his ribs with a warmth he did not examine.
“I shall claim my first dance before the card fills,” he said to Sebastian.
“By all means. I shall remain here and observe the performance with great admiration.”
Oliver set down his champagne and crossed the ballroom. The crowd parted for him the way it always did, bodies shifting with barely conscious deference. Eleanor saw him first as he reached the pair, and she flashed him a knowing smile.
“Your Grace,” Eleanor said. “How delightful.”
“Miss Whitmore. You look well.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” Eleanor’s gaze flickered between them. “I shall go find Mrs. Lennox before she corners Lady Fitzwilliam about the seating arrangements again.”
She vanished into the crowd before either of them could respond, the tactical retreat perfected to an art.
Louisa watched her go. “She is not subtle.”
“I believe that she simply chooses not to be.” Oliver offered his arm. “May I have the honor of the first dance, Miss Fairchild?”
Louisa placed her gloved hand on his sleeve. The weight was light, barely there, but he felt it settle against his forearm with a clarity that had no business existing through two layers of fabric.
“You may,” she said. “Though I must admit, I have been lying to Mr. Cavendish about having hurt my ankle.”
He lifted a brow. “You have?”
She blushed. “He… might not be the best dancer in the world,” she sighed. “I often step on his foot, and I must admit that I feel rather guilty for it.”
“Evidently, he does not mind. Though I do not think he has much feeling left in those feet.”
Her eyes widened. “Your Grace!”
“The man is seventy-three,” he insisted. “I am surprised that he can still walk, much less dance.”
She shook her head, though she could not suppress a smile. “That is quite unkind,” she accused.
“It is accurate. The man has had gout for at least a decade.” He led her toward the floor as the orchestra struck the opening bars of a cotillion. “You were brilliant last night, by the way.”
The color rose in her cheeks. She kept her eyes forward. “It was hardly Waterloo.”
“Most people find speaking with strangers more terrifying than a French cavalry charge. You managed it without reinforcements.” They took their positions in the set, facing each other across the narrow space between couples.
The candlelight warmed her skin. “It is working,” he said simply. “Frederick is quite impressed.”
“You are lying,” she said immediately, though the hope was palpable in her voice. He shook his head.
“He has been watching you all night,” he insisted. “His eyes follow you wherever you go. He has most certainly noticed you.”
She hesitated. “Perhaps he is looking at you.”
He laughed softly. “I doubt he finds me pleasant to stare at in that wide-eyed manner.”
“He is not!”
“I promise you,” he gestured with his head to where Frederick stood against the wall, his eyes indeed observing her with interest. “He is. And might I add, you do look rather lovely tonight.”
She smiled.
“Thank you. That is kind of you to say.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “That is the second time you have called me kind.”
For some reason, the word sat in his chest with a warmth he could not define.
“It is because it is true,” she insisted. “You do not see it, perhaps because you do not realize it… but you are kind, Your Grace. Very kind indeed.”
The music swelled. They began to move.
Oliver had danced at a thousand gatherings. The steps lived in his muscles now, reliable as breathing. He could hold a conversation, assess the room, track three separate social dramas at the edges of the ballroom, all while executing a flawless turn.
Tonight his attention refused to wander.
He watched Louisa’s fingers curl around his when the figure brought them together.
He noticed the way she held her chin a fraction higher than she had at the Bancroft ball.
He saw the moment she stopped counting steps and simply moved, her body finding the rhythm with an ease that spoke of natural grace rather than rigorous practice.
“You are a liar, Miss Fairchild.”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You told me you were a poor dancer. You are nothing of the sort.”
“I said I stepped on Mr. Cavendish’s foot.”
“Which I have just established was not a particularly difficult target.” He turned her through the figure. His hand found her waist for the briefest moment. Through the silk of her gown, he felt warmth. “You move well. You simply refuse to trust it.”
She looked at him then. The ballroom spun past in a blur of color and candlelight, but her gaze held steady on his. “That seems to be your answer for everything. That I am already capable and merely need to stop arguing with myself about it.”
“Because it is true. When you argued about art… People listened. They were captivated.” The set brought them apart. He bowed. She curtsied. They came back together. “And you did all of it without any script or rehearsal.”
“I would have rehearsed, had I the time!”
He laughed. It came out before he could govern it, loud enough that the couple beside them glanced over. Louisa’s eyes widened, then crinkled at the corners. Her own laughter followed, quieter but genuine, shaking loose from whatever careful posture she had constructed for the evening.
The music shifted beneath them. A new phrase, slower, drawing the couples closer for the promenade.
Oliver extended his hand. Louisa took it.
Her fingers threaded through his with a naturalness that surprised them both.
He saw it register in her face, a slight widening of her eyes, and he felt it register in himself, a pulse of awareness that ran from his palm up through the tendons of his wrist.
Oliver opened his mouth, an attempt to ask something once again, but the words left him. Louisa looked up at him, her eyes meeting his.
“What is it?”
A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Nothing,” he insisted. “I was just thinking that… It is quite nice to have you as a hedge.”
She laughed again, softly, and the sound rang in his ears with the musicality of a pianoforte.
The cotillion gave way to a country dance. Around them, couples broke apart, reformed, drifted toward the edges of the floor. Oliver should have released her hand. The proper protocol was to bow, return her to her companion, claim his second dance later. He did not release her hand.
“Do you know,” Louisa said, “I believe the music has changed.”
“It has.”
“We are still standing in the middle of the floor.”
“We are.”
She looked at their joined hands. He followed her gaze.
His thumb rested against her knuckles, his fingers curled lightly around hers.
The grip was not a clasp. It was not possessive.
It was simply that neither of them had remembered to let go, the way one forgets to close a book when the chapter is too good to leave.
“We should step aside,” she said.
“We should.”
Neither moved.
The new set was forming around them. A woman in green silk brushed past Louisa’s shoulder. The orchestra’s violins sang the opening notes of the next dance, and still they stood there, fingers laced together, the air between them charged with a question neither had spoken aloud.
“Or,” Oliver said, “we could simply dance again.”
Louisa’s breath caught. He heard it. A small hitch, barely audible above the music, but it ran through her fingers into his like a current.
“That would be three dances,” she said.
“It would.”
“Three dances at a London ball with a duke. People will assume an understanding.”