Chapter 13 #2
The Scotch reel was claimed by a cheerful young man with red hair who appeared at her side with the breathless enthusiasm of someone who had been working up his courage for the better part of an hour.
Louisa accepted. They danced. He talked about his sister’s upcoming wedding with such genuine affection that she found herself laughing properly for the first time all evening.
When the reel ended, she returned to her place near the windows. Eleanor had been claimed for the next set, which left Louisa standing alone, her card open in her hand, the final waltz the only empty line.
“Miss Fairchild.”
She looked up. Oliver stood before her. His expression was pleasant, composed, the public face she had learned to distinguish from the real one. His hands were clasped behind his back. His eyes moved to the card in her hand, then back to her face.
“Your Grace.” She curtsied.
“I trust you are enjoying the evening.”
“Very much. Lady Acker’s hospitality is exceptional.”
“It is. Her champagne, I am relieved to report, is considerably better than Lady Tyndale’s.”
The reference to their shared afternoon behind the jasmine trellis sent heat spreading beneath her collarbone. She fought to keep her face neutral.
“I should hope so. France would not survive another assault.”
His mouth curved.
“I notice your card is nearly full.”
“It is.”
“I also notice that I failed to claim a single dance, owing to my unfortunate habit of arriving everywhere too late to be useful.”
“A fault you might consider correcting.”
“I might. If I believed correction were possible.” He glanced at the card again. “Is there anything remaining? Or have I been thoroughly outmaneuvered by every gentleman in the room?”
“The final waltz,” she said. “It is the only line unclaimed.”
His eyes returned to hers. The pleasant expression shifted, fractionally, like light moving behind glass. She saw what lived beneath it: an intensity he was working to contain, a focus that did not belong in polite conversation between a duke and an unmarried woman at a public ball.
“Then I shall claim it,” he said. “If you will have me.”
“I will have you.”
The words came out before she could arrange them into their proper, formal shape. She heard the second meaning she had not intended, felt the flush climb her throat.
“For the waltz,” she added. “I will have you for the waltz.”
“Understood.” His voice was quiet. “For the waltz.”
He bowed. He returned to Sebastian’s side near the fireplace. Louisa pressed the card against her skirt with both hands, the paper warm from her grip.
The intervening dances passed in a blur of movement.
She was aware of the music, of her partners’ hands, of the swirl of gowns across the polished floor.
Frederick watched her from across the room, satisfied, his plans proceeding according to schedule.
Oliver stood with Sebastian, his posture easy, his glass in his hand, his profile sharp against the firelight.
She caught Sebastian glancing between them, poorly concealing his amusement.
The final waltz was announced.
Oliver crossed the room. The crowd parted for him with the unconscious deference that accompanied a title, a fortune, a face the ton had been watching for years. He stopped before her. He offered his hand.
She took it.
They moved onto the floor. His left hand settled at her waist. Her right hand rested on his shoulder. Their free hands met, fingers lacing together with a familiarity that should not have existed between two people performing a public dance in a room full of witnesses.
The music began. A slow, sweeping melody that the string orchestra played with a tenderness that seemed directed at them alone.
“You are quiet tonight,” she said.
“Am I?”
“You have spent the entire evening beside the fireplace. You have not danced with anyone.”
“I had no desire.”
Louisa smiled. He turned her through the first figure. His hand at her waist was steady, warm through the silk.
“You are angry,” she said.
“I am not angry.”
“Oliver.”
He looked at her. The public face was gone.
Beneath it, she saw the crease between his brows, the tension at the corners of his mouth.
He was struggling with an emotion he had not expected to feel, wrestling it into submission the way she had watched him do a dozen times in drawing rooms across London.
“I was not angry,” he said, his voice low enough that only she could hear above the strings. “I was irritated. There is a distinction.”
“Irritated by what?”
He pulled her closer through the turn. His chest brushed hers. The contact lasted a second, perhaps two, but her breath caught against her stays.
“By the fact that every gentleman in London appears to have discovered your existence at precisely the same moment I am no longer permitted to do anything about it.”
Her breath stalled. She felt the truth of it in her fingertips where they rested on his shoulder. She felt it in the warm press of his palm against her waist.
“You are not permitted,” she said carefully, “because our arrangement does not require it.”
“No. It does not.”
They moved through the figures. The other couples on the floor blurred at the edges of her vision. The candles burned overhead. The music swelled.
“Frederick mentioned a house party,” she said. “Lord Ashton’s estate.”
Oliver’s hand tightened at her waist. A fractional increase in pressure, gone almost before she registered it. “Did he?”
“He implied I might receive an invitation.”
“You will. Lord Ashton’s wife told Sebastian last week. She has already written the guest list.”
“You knew?”
“I did.”
“You did not mention it.”
“It did not seem relevant.” His voice was even, though there was an inexplicable storm in his eyes.
The waltz slowed into its final movement. He drew her through the last turn with a control that spoke of years of training, his steps precise, his frame steady. She watched his face. The candlelight softened the angles, warmed the hazel of his eyes to gold.
“You look lovely tonight,” he said. “I should have told you earlier.”
The music faded. The last note hung in the air, resonant, reluctant to end. They stood at the center of the floor. His hand remained at her waist. Her fingers remained on his shoulder. Neither moved.
Around them, the applause was polite, scattered, the customary acknowledgement of a dance concluded. But beneath the applause, she heard it. The whisper. The current of speculation that moved through Lady Ashworth’s ballroom like a tide finding its level.
“They are watching us,” she murmured.
“They have been watching us all evening.”
“Lady Whitmore just leaned toward Mrs. Alderton. She is covering her mouth with her fan.”
“They think we are engaged. Or about to be.”
Oliver’s gaze held hers. His thumb moved against the silk at her waist, a slow, deliberate stroke that sent sparks racing along her ribs. His expression was unreadable.
“Are we going to correct them?” he asked.
The question was quiet. The ballroom pressed around them: the heat of the candles, the murmur of forty guests rearranging themselves for supper, the rustle of silk.
Lady Ashworth was watching from her seat beside the orchestra, her ancient eyes bright with the satisfaction of a hostess whose evening had produced exactly the spectacle she desired.
Louisa should have corrected them. She should have stepped back, offered a curtsey, thanked the duke for the dance, returned to Eleanor with the composure expected of a young woman who was very nearly being courted by another man entirely.
“No,” she said.
Oliver’s breath caught. She heard it, faint, bitten short.
“No,” she said again. “Let them talk.”
His hand fell from her waist. He stepped back. He bowed. The gesture was formal, correct, the bow of a duke to a lady at the conclusion of a waltz. But his eyes, when he straightened, held a warmth that the formality could not contain.
He offered his arm. She took it. They walked together toward the supper room, where Frederick Langley stood beside the door with two glasses of champagne, his smile broad, his gaze fixed on Louisa, certain the evening had gone precisely according to plan.