CHAPTER TWO #2
The music did not stop yet something stilled in Amelia as she looked at him, even as Lady Victoria went to embrace and greet him, along with two other women at each side of him.
Amelia knew that Elizabeth would know but she herself did not.
Yet she could not help herself looking at him—at his dark hair that hung in soft waves around his face, and eyes that were of the deepest coffee brown.
He looked intensely out at the sea of faces that looked at him.
“I do believe he looked right at me,” Cassandra boasted to Beatrice.
She looked around, as if waiting for somebody else to notice the attention.
Her gaze caught on Amelia, who flushed at being caught looking at the duke.
Cassandra huffed a laugh, flicking her hair over her shoulder, before looking back to the duke.
Amelia could not help but notice how stiff the duke looked as he spoke with his aunt.
A sense of fear washed over Amelia, unable to sense what captivated her about him.
Perhaps it was how dismissive he was of his surroundings, or how imposing he was with his broad shoulders and tall height.
Those eyes were filled with displeasure, as if he disliked being at the ball and was not afraid to show it.
Yet curiosity also gripped her for all those very same reasons.
“It is a shame he is tainted by that ghastly scar,” Cassandra whispered behind her fan, and Amelia looked over, surprised. Indeed, there, she beheld it shimmering in the light. “It has been, I daresay, five years since the fateful duel in which he was embroiled. A most lamentable affair.”
“I am surprised he even shows his face in society,” Beatrice scoffed. “Everybody knows the truth. Surely he knows that. It is precisely why I warn you away from him.”
“Wealth is wealth,” Cassandra snapped.
Amelia averted her staring from the duke, wondering if there was more to him, to that night of the duel she recalled him being involved in, than society knew.
“Lady Eleanor,” a voice spoke up, and both she and Amelia turned, curious. A young lord looked at her with hopeful eyes. “I am no Duke of Blackthorn but I am the heir to some very extensive, impressive land in the eastern countryside. May I take your hand for the next dance?”
Eleanor glanced, unsure, at Amelia, but she only nodded. Simply because she was the wallflower nobody noticed did not mean Eleanor should spend the balls in misery. Eleanor left with the lord, and Amelia was left, unsure, alone.
Her mother’s gaze fixed on her from across the room, a silent warning of trying to apply herself to tonight’s potential matching. Secure a dance, she could almost hear the beg. Secure anything. A mere conversation. Something to be recalled by tomorrow when suitors make their visits.
But even if Amelia hovered, looking at young lords with shy hopefulness, they never looked her way.
She was ignored, pushed further into the background.
The only person to break her silent reverie was a servant, offering her a glass of lemonade.
She accepted, sipping to busy herself, but the lemonade did little to settle her nerves.
A sea of dancers painted grace before her, yet Amelia was a floating, lone island in the sky, having no place in a vast ocean.
***
Graham abhorred ballrooms.
They were too big, too tall, too crowded. He could barely see sharply for the blur that became the skirts of women, all sporting different springtime shades. He felt almost dizzy with how constantly the crowd moved. He was the highest rank of them all yet he had never felt so out of place.
“Your Grace, you must attend Rowden House!” one lady gushed, all but shoving her daughter at him. “Georgina often tends to the most lovely rosebushes. Heavens knows, I advise her to leave it to the gardeners but she simply has the best creative eye. She is ever so talented.”
He looked over them, took in the mother’s desperately hopeful look, and the daughter’s embarrassed wince. “I do not like roses. Excuse me.”
He pushed past them, hearing Owen laugh behind him.
“You do know how to reject them, do you not? It is actually rather impressive. If I could see the visual manifestation of their hearts, the poor organs would be scattered all over this floor. Broken, red glass.”
“Stop it,” he muttered. “I am not breaking hearts. I am removing myself from the picture before hearts are even stirred.”
“Oh, I am sure you are stirring several things tonight.” He winked and clasped Graham on the back.
Graham stiffened as Owen steered him deeper into the ballroom.
He had escaped his mother for now, at least. Still, the stares followed him until he felt as though he did not walk through people but merely a wall full of large, ogling eyes.
Would he ever feel free of this?
“They judge me,” he muttered, “and I despise being here.”
“You need a glass of wine, my friend.”
Owen remarked as he hastily withdrew, making his way toward the refreshments table.
While he was gone, Graham took a moment to linger in an emptier space of the ballroom.
He noticed how two girls watched him with wide, curious eyes.
Yet there was a determined set to one lady’s face.
He knew that look—the ambitious look of a girl who thought she was already worthy of his attention.
There was something smug about her that he did not like.
Next to her, the other lady looked at Owen as he retreated, and Owen felt somewhat ensnared, part of a concocted plan, cunning ladies wanting to be the next Duchess of Blackthorn.
He turned away from them. They whispered behind their fans, and he tuned them out in time for Owen to return, pressing a glass into his hand.
It cooled the heat spreading beneath his shirt collar, the warmth making him somewhat disorientated.
“Your Grace,” another voice called. He only shot them a dark look before walking away, outright ignoring the next countess or baroness wanting to throw her daughter at him.
“Graham!” Owen called, laughing.
“Do not follow me,” he muttered. After a moment, he added, “please, Owen.”
It was the addition that had his friend dropping the humor and merely nodding.
As he walked through the ballroom, he was accosted by debutantes, all flashing their smiles, snapping their fans.
Their mothers hovered, throwing facts at him—how many instruments they played, their proficiency with foreign languages, the dances they could perform.
He ignored every single one, pushing through the crowd.
His nerves were frayed, and each new voice grated on them even further.
“Beastly, indeed,” he heard, as the next whispers picked up. He tensed, thoughts darkening. How the same society could, in one moment, push their daughters in his path, and in the next tear him down verbally, both loving his status yet disliking him, was something he could not endure.
He was tired of the ton’s behavior, their gossip and way of watching like he was a caged animal.
His knuckles were white around his wine glass, and his eyes scanned over the top of heads.
There. He noticed the open doors that led out to the terrace.
For a moment, surely he could find some fresh air in which to breathe.
To reapply his armor, thoroughly pierced by the women in attendance.
“Duke of Blackthorn!” One man called. “I must introduce you to my—”
“No,” he snapped. “You must leave me be! All of you—you must leave me be.”
His growl of frustration was uncontrolled but he didn’t linger to see the reactions. He merely strode to the garden, beset by a desperate unease that clawed at his very composure. Heavens, he thought. I need to get out of here.
Everybody scattered out of the way.
It was only his own need to escape that stopped him from seeing the young woman who scurried through the crowd.
***
“Cassandra, no,” Beatrice whispered as Amelia lingered near the girls, their faces flush from dancing. “Do not approach His Grace! Why, look at the expression on his face. Lady Harold just said what a foul mood he is in. He all but pushed her daughter out of the way!”
“I do not care,” Cassandra said, shaking off Beatrice’s warning hand.
“This is the perfect time. He deserves a lady here who will not have a mama throwing herself at him. My mother trusts me to handle my own affairs tonight. She knows I will speak well with the suitors. I shall do my utmost to uplift His Grace’s spirits. ”
Determined, Cassandra walked away from Beatrice, weaving through the crowd. Amelia withdrew from it all. Lords, dukes, ladies—it was all nonsensical, and her head grew light from the heat of the ballroom. The lemonade sat heavily in her stomach, her glass long handed off to a servant.
There was the terrace only a short distance away.
It would provide with some sort of relative calm, and Amelia knew it was where she needed to be.
Her eyes downcast, she hurriedly set off in that direction.
Yet she did not see the figure approaching her until it was too late—until he was upon her.
Her balance left her entirely as she flailed back, her ankle giving way beneath her.
But before she could fall to the floor, a strong arm reached out to catch her.
Then her gaze lifted to that of the man who caught her. Eyes that were of the darkest brown—eyes that looked pinched in curiosity, as the Duke of Blackthorn gazed right back at her.
All thoughts fled her mind, proper etiquette fleeing her, and the music and those around her faded away into nothing.