Chapter 9 #2
“Precisely. Do we not want people to make this assumption?”
She studied him. He watched the debate play out across her features, caution wrestling with a want she had not anticipated. Her fingers tightened around his, a tiny involuntary squeeze, and he felt the warmth of it travel up his arm into his shoulder.
“Very well,” she said, and he smiled in victory.
They joined the new set. The country dance was livelier than the cotillion, the figures bringing them together and apart with a speed that left little room for self-consciousness.
Louisa moved through the steps with the unselfconscious ease he had glimpsed earlier, her body responding to the music rather than fighting against it.
She laughed when she turned too quickly and nearly collided with the lady beside her.
She caught Oliver’s eye across the set and pulled a face of exaggerated horror that made him grin so broadly the elderly gentleman opposite him raised an eyebrow.
His hand caught hers.
“Have you noticed the ceiling?” she asked.
“The cherubs? They look as though they were painted from memory by a man who actively dislikes children.”
The set pulled them apart. She moved through the line, took the next gentleman’s hand, turned, came back.
“The one above the chandelier is the worst,” she said, slightly breathless. “He has the face of a disgruntled landlord.”
“He has the face of my valet when I come home with a missing button.” Oliver guided her through the turn. “Perkins would consider that cherub a kindred spirit.”
“They separated again. When they returned, Louisa was biting her lip against a grin.
“Lord Thornbury’s refreshment table has four varieties of cake,” she said.
“I saw.”
“Only cake. No sandwiches. No cold supper. Just cake, arranged in descending order of height.”
“A bold position for a host to take.”
“A reckless one.”
Again, they spun apart. Louisa took the hand of the next gentleman, offered him a polite smile, turned back to Oliver as though the interruption were an inconvenience rather than a step.
“Do you think a host who serves only cake can be considered hospitable?” she asked.
“I think a host who serves only cake is either a visionary or a man whose cook has resigned. There is no middle ground.”
The laughter came easily. It rose between them in the spaces between figures, punctuating the conversation with a rhythm all its own.
Louisa was quick. He had always known that.
But tonight her wit had an edge that surprised him, sharper than her usual dry observations, brighter, as though the gallery’s success had loosened a knot inside her and the real Louisa was spilling out through the gaps.
He did not want to look away from her. The thought arrived quietly, without drama, settling into place beside all his other carefully ignored observations about Louisa Fairchild.
Her eyes when she laughed. The way her fingers pressed against his palm during the turns.
The flush creeping up her neck that had nothing to do with the heat of the room.
The music ended.
They stood facing each other in the sudden quiet between songs, breathing slightly too fast. Around them, the ballroom hummed with conversation, fans snapping open, the clink of glasses as footmen circulated with trays.
Louisa’s hand was still in his.
Her eyes dropped to their joined fingers. Then rose to meet his gaze. The flush had reached her cheeks now, a deep, spreading warmth that she could not have hidden if she tried.
Oliver became aware of his own pulse. It beat steadily against his collar, against the inside of his wrists, in the hollow of his throat.
He should release her hand. He should step back, bow, offer his compliments on a pleasant dance, retreat to Sebastian’s pillar to drink champagne and pretend that the last half hour had been a performance.
His thumb moved. A slow stroke across the ridge of her knuckles, light enough to be accidental, deliberate enough that they both knew it was not.
Louisa’s lips parted. No sound came out.
Across the ballroom, Lady Carpenter leaned toward Mrs. Ashcroft and spoke behind her fan.
Two matrons near the refreshment table exchanged a glance loaded with speculation.
Frederick Langley, standing by the orchestra, watched the pair of them with an expression that had shifted from curiosity into recognition.
Oliver released her hand.
The absence of her warmth hit his palm like cold water. He stepped back, bowed with smooth, practiced precision. Every inch the duke London expected him to be.
“Thank you for the dance, Miss Fairchild.”
Louisa curtsied. Her voice was steady, but her fingers trembled against her skirts. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
He walked away.
He crossed the ballroom without looking back, collected his champagne from the pillar where Sebastian waited, and drank half of it in a single swallow. The bubbles burned against his throat.
“That,” Sebastian said quietly, “did not look like a performance.”
Oliver finished his champagne. Set the glass on the nearest tray. Straightened his cuffs.
“It was,” he said.
Across the room, Louisa stood where he had left her, one hand pressed against the pearl at her throat, her gaze fixed on the floor.
Eleanor appeared at her side. Louisa looked up, said a few words, shook her head.
Then she turned toward the refreshment table, and as she moved, her fingers drifted to her right hand.
She touched the knuckle where his thumb had been.
Frederick Langley chose that moment to cross the floor toward her. He looked away.