He had allowed his attention to drift away from Lady Catherine again, he realized, chagrined. He forced himself to listen as she detailed the arrangements her mother was making for her ball.
“It all sounds lovely,” he said politely. “I can’t wait to see it for myself.”
“I look forward to dancing with you that evening,” Lady Catherine said.
This was bold, indeed, as Hugh hadn’t yet asked Lady Catherine for a dancethisevening. But Hugh was used to boldness. It seemed as though most of the young ladies who attended each Season’s social events had come to the conclusion that Hugh wasn’t going to initiate a courtship, and that they would have to be the ones to make the first moves.
How that information had reached Lady Catherine, he wasn’t sure. The very first thing she’d said to him was that this was her first Season. She shouldn’t have even known who he was, by rights.
Still, he didn’t want to be too rude to her. “I’m sure that will be nice,” he said.
One dance won’t do me any harm.
She waited expectantly.
He knew what she wanted. She was hoping he would ask for a dance right now. Well, he wasn’t about to be manipulated that way. He swallowed the last of his drink and then held up the empty cup. “I think I’ll go and find some more wine,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, My Lady.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble!” Lady Catherine said. “I’d love some wine myself.” And she set off at his heels.
Hugh sighed inwardly. Even though he didn’t like it when strangers approached him at balls, he half wished someone would right now, if only to release him from Lady Catherine’s clutches.
He found a servant with a tray of drinks and took one for himself. Then, determined not to be unchivalrous in spite of her unpleasant behavior, he accepted a second drink and handed it to Lady Catherine.
She flushed delightedly and accepted the drink with as much pleasure as if he had harvested the grapes for her himself. “Thank you, Your Grace,” she said, giggling girlishly.
“It’s no trouble,” Hugh said.
At least with a drink in her hands, she can’t very well expect a dance!
He looked around the room for his friend Charles, Baron of Lockwood. The sight of Charles would have given him the excuse he needed to extricate himself from Lady Catherine, given that Charles was younger than Hugh and this was the first Season he had attended. Hugh felt a responsibility to his friend, a responsibility to look after him.
But Charles was nowhere to be seen.
Lady Catherine, it transpired, was quick to down her glass of wine, and before Hugh knew it, she was passing the empty glass off to a passing servant.
She took Hugh’s arm. “Isn’t the music lovely?” she asked.
“It’s very nice,” Hugh said cautiously.
It wasn’t even that a dance would be particularly unpleasant. It was just that he had learned, through painful experience, what happened when he allowed a young lady to believe he had a romantic interest in her when he didn’t. Over the years, there had been more than one young lady he’d struggled to get rid of. Lady Catherine had evidently decided to spend tonight trying to get his attention, and the last thing he wanted was to give her the impression that she had succeeded and spend the rest of the Season dodging her advances.
“I think I’ll go for a walk in the garden,” he said.
Lady Catherine frowned. “But it’s cold outside.”
“It isn’t too cold,” Hugh said. It was, in fact, a very pleasant evening. “But if you’d prefer to stay indoors, I completely understand,” he added hopefully.
“Oh, no, I’ll come out,” Lady Catherine decided. “I have heard good things about the garden at Bolton Manor. Perhaps I ought to take the opportunity to see it for myself.”
As they walked through the double doors and out onto the garden path, Lady Catherine made a production of shivering rather violently. Hugh wondered whether she was hoping he would put an arm around her and pull her close to keep her warm.
She’ll be disappointed if so, unfortunately.
Not only would such a thing give Lady Catherine the wrong impression about the nature of his feelings for her, it would also communicate something that wasn’t true to anyone else who might see them.
And I’d have to spend the rest of the Season listening to rumors that the Duke has finally found a young lady he deems worthy of his vast wealth and social standing.
If only he could believe that any of the young ladies he met were interested inhim. If only he could look at Lady Catherine and convince himself that she didn’t care that he was a Duke, that she would be just as interested if he was a Baron, like Charles—perhaps then he actually would want to dance with her. Perhaps then everything would be different.
