Oliver smiled at her. “How utterly shallow.”
“Quite. But you know how their minds work.”
“It is in their best interests to find new hobbies,” he snored. “Instead of indulging in such petty tactics.”
“You cannot fault them for the life they have been forced to live,” she pointed out to him. “There are not many ladies who are as fortunate as Lady Suzanna and I.”
He smiled. “Forgive me for having been too busy the past few days to attend to you and your sister.”
“You need not apologize, Your Grace,” she replied. They bowed to each other, signaling the end of the dance. Oliver escorted her back to his sister, who was carrying on a conversation with Lord Draydon.
He smiled at them and moved aside as Claire walked towards Lady Suzanna. There was something about the way he looked at her that made her heart thump a little faster.
Lord Draydon had a rather mysterious aura to him, almost like he felt that all the guests in the ball were beneath him. That smirk of his seemed to hint that he knew some strange secret of yours and found it ridiculously entertaining.
He wasdangerousand Claire found herself being drawn to him like a moth drawn to a flame.
“I have been away for so long, so humor me,” he turned to the ladies. “I know for a fact that my dancing is shabby at best, although Lady Suzanna was kind enough to give me one dance.”
“Lord Draydon is too kind,” she blushed. “If you are looking for a great dance partner, then you may want to ask Claire to dance. She is an even better dancer than I am.”
“Very well, then,” he turned to Claire. “May I have this dance?”
Claire wanted to decline as she had just returned from a dance with Oliver but there was something in his dark blue eyes drawing her in. Without knowing, she had nodded slowly and slipped her hand into his.
They moved into the dance floor in a quadrille, along with six other dancers. They flowed through the motions smoothly, in spite of having only known each other in the space of a few minutes.
“Lady Suzanna was right,” he said. “You do dance well.”
Claire blushed. “You cannot possibly know that when the music has just started.”
“It must be in the way you carry yourself,” he persisted. “You just know.”
They whirled on the cramped dance floor as best as they could, interacting with other dancers as the quadrille required. Claire felt herself being drawn towards him the more they danced.
She could not place a finger on it but she had always felt she could discern the personality of a person from the way he danced with her. There were those who were weak and those who were overbearing.
She would not call him a good dancer but he gave off the air of someone more experienced, someone worldlier.
And besides that one explanation, that he hasn’t been in London for many years, there is not much that I know about him.
A strange and mysterious person like that, particularly when he was as handsome and possessed the same amount of charm as Lord Draydon—Claire knew that it was best to be wary of him.
It was something that piqued her interest and challenged her curiosity to dig and find out more.
But how to do so within the bounds of propriety?
He led her back to where Lady Suzanna sat after the end of their dance, smiling at her as he pulled up a chair for Claire. He stayed an appropriate distance from the ladies, keeping within etiquette, even as he engaged them in a lively conversation of the latest news of the Season.
“I saw Lord Maybury purchase something from a certain renowned jeweler this afternoon,” Lady Suzanna said in a low voice. “It seems that Lady Maybury will be getting what she wants, after all.”
“Lady Maybury is the youngest daughter of Lord Cavendish,” Claire supplied, when she noted the confusion in Lord Draydon. “They were married three Seasons ago and their courtship was one that titillated the gossips. She apparently led him on a merry chase before her family consented to their union.”
“But Maybury is quite wealthy,” he reasoned. “Why would they be against the union?”
“It is all a lot of speculation but we do not know for sure,” Lady Suzanna replied easily, her smile never slipping a notch. “It is quite admirable, though, how Lord and Lady Maybury carry on. It does make one believe that a happy union can come out of the Marriage Mart.”
Lord Draydon nodded, as if pondering the new information. It seemed to Claire that he truly wanted to learn more about the goings on of Society and was probably the only one in the whole ballroom who was as much in the dark as she was, if not more so.
