Chapter Six The Last Ball of Lady Evangeline #4
Marianne inclined her head. “I have always found cautionary tales incomplete unless one knows who wrote them.”
For one moment, she had gone too far.
She saw it in the small lift of Lady Honoria’s chin. Saw the gathering of social force, the intended rebuke that would place Marianne precisely where Lady Honoria believed she belonged: beneath notice and grateful for tolerance.
Then Sebastian was there.
Marianne had not seen him cross the room.
“Lady Honoria,” he said, bowing with perfect courtesy. “Mrs Alderley. Miss Vale.”
The order was impeccable. The inclusion unmistakable.
Lady Honoria turned her social artillery upon him and softened its polish. “Halgrave. We were just speaking of old times.”
“So I heard.”
“Miss Vale has a curious mind.”
“She has an accurate one,” Sebastian said.
The words were calm, and therefore carried.
Marianne felt the nearest conversations shift.
Not openly. Society never liked to appear hungry while feeding.
But attention moved toward them. Lady Honoria’s gaze flickered once from Sebastian to Marianne, reassessing.
Not because Marianne had changed. Because a duke had publicly attached value to her judgement.
It was protection, yes.
But not the sort that moved her out of the room.
It placed her more firmly in it.
Marianne did not know whether to thank him or be furious.
Lady Honoria smiled thinly. “How fortunate for Miss Vale.”
“No,” Sebastian said. “For those of us wise enough to listen.”
Mrs Alderley made a small approving sound.
Marianne’s pulse behaved foolishly.
The moment might yet have soured had the music not changed then, the opening bars of a country dance giving way to a waltz. A murmur passed through the room. The waltz was no longer scandalous in the way it had once been, but it remained intimate enough to make every invitation a statement.
Sebastian looked at Marianne.
She knew, instantly, what he intended.
“No,” she said under her breath.
His brow lifted slightly. “Miss Vale, will you do me the honour?”
“No.”
Lady Honoria heard. Of course she heard. So did both companions and three people pretending to examine a vase.
Sebastian extended his hand.
To refuse publicly would create precisely the scene they wished to avoid. To accept would create another sort of scene entirely.
“You are making me conspicuous,” Marianne said, low enough for him alone.
“You were already conspicuous.”
“Because of you.”
“Because you asked the only honest question in the room.”
It was a clumsy compliment. Too direct. Almost severe. It entered her defence where polished flattery would never have passed.
Marianne placed her gloved hand in his.
The room noticed.
There were women of rank who would have given a great deal for the Duke of Halgrave’s invitation.
There were mothers who had arranged entire evenings in the hope of placing daughters in his path.
There were widows who considered his coldness a challenge, ambitious girls who considered his title destiny, and gentlemen who would spend the next hour wondering whether Miss Vale of Shropshire was more important than she appeared.
Marianne felt every question as she stepped onto the floor with him.
The waltz began.
Sebastian’s hand settled at her waist with exact propriety and impossible effect.
Marianne had danced before, but not often, and not like this.
Not with a man whose attention did not wander, whose height required her to look up, whose restraint made every contact more pronounced.
His hand did not press. His hold was careful, almost formal, and yet the movement drew them together and apart in a rhythm that made speech both possible and dangerous.
“You should not have done this,” she said.
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“I judged the alternative worse.”
“You judged for me.”
“I judged for the situation.”
“That distinction is beloved by tyrants.”
His eyes darkened. “I deserved that less than usual.”
She almost laughed. “Progress, Your Grace. You now distinguish degrees.”
“I am learning a great deal in your company.”
“Against your will.”
“Most useful lessons begin so.”
They turned beneath the chandeliers. Light moved over his face and vanished. Around them, silk whispered, jewels flashed, fans fluttered, and the room continued its elaborate pretence that watching was not happening.
“You have set tongues moving,” Marianne said.
“They were already moving.”
“Now they have direction.”
“Good.”
She looked up sharply. “Good?”
“If anyone wished to dismiss you as Mrs Alderley’s harmless relation, they must now reconsider. If anyone wished to corner you quietly, they must consider whether I am watching. If anyone wonders why I value your opinion, they may grow careless in discovering it.”
“That is almost strategic.”
“Try not to sound so astonished.”
“Then try not to surprise me.”
His gaze held hers a moment too long. “I find I am trying several things where you are concerned.”
The words were not flirtation. Sebastian Rookwood did not seem built for flirtation. They were too honest, too grave, and that made them more unsettling.
Marianne looked away first. “Do not.”
“Do not what?”
“Make this personal.”
His hand at her waist remained steady. “Is it not already?”
The answer should have been no. It would have been safer. It would have been tidy. They were investigating his sister’s ruin, exposing a forged settlement, pursuing men who used women’s reputations as currency. Nothing personal existed outside that.
But Evangeline’s letter was personal. The child’s note in the hidden desk was personal.
The way Sebastian had looked when he admitted disbelief could be a weapon was personal.
The handkerchief, ink-stained and still in Marianne’s possession because Mrs Finch had not yet laundered it, was personal in a manner too small to defend against.
“The investigation is personal,” she said.
“And the rest?”
“There is no rest.”
His mouth moved faintly. “That was unconvincing.”
“Fortunately, the dance is almost over.”
“Unfortunately,” he said, and then the final turn carried them apart.
When the music ended, Sebastian bowed. Marianne curtsied. The room breathed in gossip.
He escorted her back to Mrs Alderley, who looked as pleased as if she had personally arranged a treaty.
“You dance well, Miss Vale,” he said, formally enough for others to hear.
“I remain surprised whenever my feet cooperate with society.”
“Society should be grateful.”
Again, too grave for banter. Again, too public to ignore.
Lady Honoria watched from across the room.
Ashmont watched too.
Marianne saw him speak to a gentleman near the card room door, an older man with thinning hair and heavy lids. Their conversation appeared casual, but Ashmont’s hand moved briefly. Something passed from his palm to the other man’s. Not paper. Too small. Dark. Glossy.
A token carved from jet.
Not a rook exactly. A chess piece, perhaps a bishop or knight. It vanished into the older man’s waistcoat before Marianne could be certain.
She turned to Mrs Alderley. “My reticule.”
Mrs Alderley handed it over without asking. “Left or right?”
“Card room door.”
“I saw. Horrid waistcoat. Man cannot be trusted.”
Marianne withdrew a small pencil and pretended to adjust her glove while writing the older man’s description on the inside of an old dance card Helena had given her for that purpose.
Ashmont moved away.
A moment later, two elderly gentlemen took up position near the palms behind Mrs Alderley’s chair, evidently believing themselves beyond female attention. Marianne turned slightly, head lowered, appearing to study the dance card.
“Halgrave is stirring the old pot,” one said.
“Should have left it buried,” the other replied. “Nothing good comes from sniffing where one’s father had the sense not to look.”
Marianne’s pencil stilled.
“Mordaunt’s duplicate book, that is what they whisper,” the first murmured. “If it exists.”
“If it exists, it is gone. Men like Mordaunt do not misplace their own necks.”
“Cale would know.”
“Hush. Not here.”
The gentlemen moved away.
Marianne wrote three words only: duplicate book. Cale.
Her heart beat faster.
Sebastian’s father had the sense not to look.
Or had the old Duke known precisely where not to look because looking would have required him to act?
Before Marianne could find Sebastian, another gentleman appeared before her with the loose-limbed confidence of a younger son who had mistaken insolence for charm.
He was perhaps eight-and-twenty, fair, handsome in a damp-eyed way, and already carrying more wine than wisdom.
Marianne recognised him vaguely from Lady Honoria’s circle: Lord Fenwick, a man whose debts were discussed as often as his waistcoats and forgiven more often than they deserved.
“Miss Vale, is it?” he said, bowing too low.
Marianne inclined her head. “My lord.”
“You must forgive me. I could not help observing your conquest.”
“My conquest?”
“Halgrave, of course. Half the room has spent years attempting to thaw him. You appear to have taken a hammer to the ice.”
Mrs Alderley’s head turned slightly.
Marianne smiled with mild politeness. “How unfortunate for the ice.”
Fenwick laughed. “Sharp too. No wonder he is entertained. Tell me, Miss Vale, are you truly from Shropshire, or is that merely where mysterious ladies are kept before dukes discover them?”
The insult was prettily wrapped, but not well enough.
Marianne looked at him with interest. “I am uncertain, my lord. Are you truly speaking from curiosity, or is that merely where impertinence hides before wine discovers it?”
Mrs Alderley made a sound that might have been a cough.
Fenwick blinked, then laughed again, less comfortably. “Very good. Very good indeed.”
“So kind of you to approve.”
“I had not thought Halgrave liked wit.”
“Perhaps he hears little of it.”
The smile on Fenwick’s face strained. “Careful, Miss Vale. A duke’s notice is a dangerous thing for a lady without name enough to survive it.”