Chapter 18
“Get me a drink before I do something that ends both of us.”
“Good evening to you, too.” Leo signaled a passing footman without taking his eyes off his friend. “You have been in this house forty seconds. What can possibly have gone wrong in forty seconds?”
Magnus plucked the glass from the tray the instant it arrived, drank it down in one long swallow, and handed it back empty.
“Nothing’s gone wrong.” He said it like a man biting a coin. “I’ve a great deal on me mind, that’s all.”
“You have the face of a man who has just been told his horse is on fire.” Leo’s mouth curved. “Should I be worried, or is this the ordinary Tuesday variety of Scottish gloom?”
Magnus opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Because the Darton party had just come through the doors at the top of the stairs, and at the center of it, on her brother’s arm, was Rosaline.
She was wearing something he had not seen before, a deep wine silk gown that fit her the way water fit a riverbed, and she came down the steps with her chin level and her shoulders squared—a woman who had finally decided to be looked at.
Half the heads near the door turned. Magnus’s did too and stayed turned, and every drop of the drink he had just swallowed did nothing whatsoever to help.
He snatched a second glass off the next passing tray and drank half of it down.
Leo closed his mouth. He followed Magnus’s gaze up the staircase to the wine-colored gown and the dark head held high, and understanding dawned on his face.
“Oh,” he said softly. “Oh, I see. That is your source of frustration.”
“There you are, you beautiful things. I have been searching this whole crush for you.” Abigail arrived in a flurry of primrose muslin and seized Rosaline’s hands. “Lord Darton, good evening.”
“Lady Abigail.” Samuel inclined his head the precise, economical degree he reserved for people whose connections were not quite worth cultivating. “You look well.”
“And you are as admirably thorough in your oversight as ever, My Lord, so all is right with the world.” She said it sweetly enough that Samuel could not be certain he had been insulted, and then she turned to Beatrice and Rosaline before he could decide.
“Now, how has the Season treated you, darling Beatrice? Tell me everything. Spare me nothing.”
“It has been a delight,” Beatrice answered. “If your idea of delight is being marched before a series of gentlemen like a horse at auction while your brother critiques your teeth.”
“Beatrice.” Samuel’s voice dropped. “We do not air the family’s business at a ball. Smile.”
“I am smiling. This is my auction smile. Note the teeth.”
Rosaline said nothing, which was safest, and let Abigail read whatever she liked in her face.
“Lord Darton,” Abigail said, “might I steal Rosaline for a turn about the room? A lady is so much more visible in motion, and you did say you wished her to be seen.”
Samuel considered it, found it served his purpose, and waved a permissive hand. “Both of you. And keep your eyes open. There are three eligible bachelors in this room worth the trouble, and I expect at least one of you to catch the eye of one of them before supper.”
Abigail dropped into a curtsy that was pure mockery from the neck down and drew Rosaline away into the crowd. They had taken perhaps ten steps before she glanced back, confirmed Samuel had already turned to more important people, and let her face fall into a scowl of magnificent proportions.
“That man,” she hissed. “That cold, calculating, ledger-hearted tyrant. Marched before gentlemen like a horse. I could put something in his wine. Make him hug his chamber pot all night long.”
“Abigail.”
“I am not saying I will. I am saying it comforts me to know I could.” She squeezed Rosaline’s arm. “How do you stand him? Truly. How have you endured him this long?”
“I endure him because I will not have to for much longer.” Rosaline heard the words come out steady and certain, and watched them stop her friend in her tracks.
“I mean to marry this Season, Abigail. A sensible match, a good one, and the day I am mistress of my own house is the day Samuel loses his say over me and, in time, over the girls. That is my plan. And I intend to see it done.”
Abigail stared at her. “Who are you, and what have you done with the friend who used to hide behind the potted palms at social events?”
“She grew tired of the palms.”
“Rosaline.” Abigail’s eyes sharpened. “Something has happened. I have known you since we were seven years old, and you have never once in your life sounded like this. What is it? What has changed?”
At that moment, across the sea of heads, Rosaline’s gaze caught on a tall figure by the far wall, a copper-brown head and a pair of green eyes already fixed on her, and her heart lurched hard against her ribs.
She looked away at once, before Abigail could follow her gaze.
“Nothing has changed,” she said, a tad too quickly.
“Only my mind. It is simply that I ought to secure a match for Beatrice before the end of the Season. If the younger sister is settled before the elder, the ton will decide there is something wrong with me, and they will not be quiet about it. It will follow the girls for years.”
“Mm.” Abigail let herself be diverted, though not entirely. “Well, heaven help the man who takes on Beatrice, in any event. He will need the patience of a saint and the hearing of a post.”
“He will need to enjoy losing arguments.”
“Nightly. For the rest of his life.” Abigail’s scowl broke into a helpless grin.
Rosaline caught it, and the two of them laughed together in the middle of the crowd, and for a moment it was easy.
“Lady Rosaline. Lady Abigail.” A voice at her shoulder, warm and eager.
Lord Bracewell had appeared with Beatrice in tow, having evidently collected her on his way over, and he bowed to them both with great ceremony.
“I had hoped you would both be here. Lady Rosaline, might I have the honor of the next dance? If it is not already taken.”
Abigail beamed at her with frank encouragement.
“You may, My Lord.” Rosaline offered him her dance card, and he wrote his name on it with a small flourish. She let her lashes lower and lift the way she had been taught. “I confess I hoped you would ask.”
Bracewell went pink with pleasure, took her hand, and led her out onto the dance floor as the musicians struck up a tune.
She was good at this now. She held Bracewell’s eyes a beat too long and watched him forget his footing. She asked a question that let him talk and made him feel clever for the answer. She was present in her body the way she had been taught, and Bracewell was helplessly charmed.
It was working, all of it.
And then she felt it, the weight of a particular gaze, and glanced over Bracewell’s shoulder to the edge of the floor. There stood Magnus, watching her turn in another man’s arms.
A shiver ran straight down her spine, settling low. She nearly lost her step.
“Lady Rosaline?” Bracewell frowned.
“Forgive me, My Lord.” She brought her eyes back to his, smiling. “You were saying about your hunters…”
Magnus was going to break the glass in his hand. He could feel the stem beginning to crack.
Across the floor, Bracewell had his hand on Rosaline’s waist, and the look of a man handed the deed to heaven.
Rosaline was smiling up at him and doing everything Magnus had taught her, in a wine-red gown he had all but dared her into.
All for the benefit of a soft, plump viscount who did not deserve to breathe the same air.
“Give me that.” Leo pried the glass out of his grip before it shattered, and set it firmly out of reach. “You are making a face. People are beginning to notice it. Whatever you are about to do, I beg you to reconsider it in the strongest possible—”
The music ended, but Magnus was already moving. He crossed the floor before Bracewell had finished his bow and stopped in front of Rosaline, close enough that the guests at the edge of the room could see him do it.
“Ye’re dancin’ with me next,” he declared.
Rosaline jutted her chin. “Your name is not on my dance card, Your Grace.”
“Then let’s mend that.” He took the little dance card from her gloved fingers before she could stop him, drew the pencil from its ribbon, and wrote his name across the next line in a bold black hand. He gave it back. “There. All in order. Shall we?”
Because the alternative was a scene, and a scene was the one thing she could not afford, Rosaline placed her hand in his and let him lead her back onto the dance floor.
The music began again, slower this time, and he drew her into the frame of it. God help him, she came like she had been made to fit there.
“Is that the sort of man ye ladies like, then?” He kept his voice low, for her ears only, and turned her through the figure. “Soft hands and a fine coat and eight thousand pounds a year? Is that what ye’re hopin’ to turn me into?”
“He’s exactly the sort of man I ought to want, Your Grace,” she whispered, and there was something underneath it she meant for him to catch.
He caught the wrong half of it. He heard want and missed ought entirely. His jaw set.
“Aye, no doubt.” He turned her and leaned in as the figure brought them close, his voice dropping further. “I’ll wager ye one thing, though, lass. Nae one of those safe, steady men ye ought to want has ever once made a woman moan.”
The color crawled up her throat and into her face, furious and immediate.
“That is… very improper, Your Grace.” Her voice shook. “And you had no right to ask me to dance. How exactly is this meant to help me? Half the room is watching a Scottish duke monopolize the lady he should be nowhere near.”
“On the contrary, ye should thank yer teacher.” He nodded his head toward the far side of the floor. “Look.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Bracewell had swept another lady onto the dance floor, a pretty girl in green, and was going through the motions of the dance with perfect courtesy. But his eyes were not on his partner at all. They were on Rosaline, following her helplessly across the room.
“Ye’ve enchanted the man half out of his senses,” Magnus murmured. “He’ll ask for ye again within the hour. That’s the lesson workin’, Rosaline. Congratulate yerself. Or better, congratulate me.”
She looked back at him, something in her going very warm and unsteady. He felt it beneath the hand on her waist, felt her come alive under his palm in a way she never had for Bracewell.
He drew her the smallest degree closer than the dance allowed.
“Ye’re nae stiff at all now, lass,” he said quietly, watching her face. “Nae a scrap of the fence post left in ye. So tell me, did ye do what I told ye? Did ye go home and explore yerself?”
Her breath caught. “I only tried being present,” she managed, barely audible. “As you said. That is all.”
“Aye.” Magnus did not believe a word of it, and could not have said which answer undid him more.
The dance ended, and she had barely stepped off the dance floor before Samuel grabbed her by the arm.
“You will never,” he said, smiling for the room, his fingers hard through her glove, “dance with that man again.”
“It was one dance, Samuel. Refusing a duke outright would have stirred far more talk than accepting.”
“Then you will find an excuse next time. A twisted ankle. A previous engagement. Anything.” His voice dropped beneath the music, cold and precise.
“The Duke of Greythorne is a scandal on two legs, and he arrived in this country under a shadow that has not lifted. If you tie our name to his, you will not only ruin yourself, but you will also bury Beatrice and Ivy with you. Do you understand me? He will destroy this family’s good name simply by standing too close to it. ”
“Greythorne. There you are. Come, there is someone who wants a proper quarter of an hour with you.”
Ulverton had him by the elbow before Magnus had gotten his temper back under control, steering him across the room with the proprietary warmth of a man showing off a promising acquisition.
Magnus followed him, because this was why he was here, and let himself be delivered before the Earl of Oldbrook, unhurried, standing exactly as he had stood at the Pemberton musicale, as though he had not troubled to move in the weeks between.
“You two have met, I think. The Pemberton musicale, was it not? Badly done, though, in a crush and with the harpist still going. Oldbrook, I promised you the man himself. Lately come south, and rather better company than the rumors would have you believe.”
This time, Oldbrook did not merely acknowledge him.
He looked, and for the briefest instant, he went perfectly still.
Something flashed in his pale eyes, but it was gone before Magnus could put a word to it, smoothed over into the untroubled courtesy of a man who had never been surprised by anything in his life.
“Your Grace.” Oldbrook inclined his head. “You are finding London kinder than the Pemberton, I hope.”
“Not as loud, Me Lord. And full of surprises.” Magnus bowed at the correct depth.
Then he went on to say the correct things, and all the while, a small cold instinct prickled at the back of his neck.
It was the one that had kept him alive in harder rooms than this, whispered that something about the man was not right, that the stillness had meant something, that he ought to pay attention.
But across the ballroom, a lady in a wine-red gown was moving through the crowd on her brother’s arm, her head bowed under whatever poison the man was pouring in her ear.
Magnus found that the greater part of him was already there, only a fraction left to spend on the pale-eyed earl in front of him.
He would remember later that he had felt that wary prickling, that his own body had tried to tell him, and that he had not listened because he had been watching Rosaline.