“Of course I learned to dance.”
“I never did.” Ian braced one hand on the wall as the carriage turned a corner. “I did try, once. Hired a dancing master to teach me.”
Those sharp brows lifted in interest. “Did you, really?”
“I did. Perhaps five or six years ago, when I had finally begun to attain a certain sort of recognition among a particular echelon of society. The bankers, the financiers, other titans of industry, so to speak. I’d begun receiving invitations to all sorts of events. It requires no specific skill to sit in a chair and listen to someone play the pianoforte—except, perhaps, the ability to school one’s features into some sort of neutrality when that performance turns out dreadful. Butdancing.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I suppose I had assumed that I could parlay what pugilistic talents I once possessed into something more genteel.”
“What rubbish. Your partner isn’t an opponent, and a dance isn’t a fight to be won.”
“Do you know, the dancing master said much the same. I thought it best we should part ways before we came to blows over our differences of opinion and I found myself forced to educate him instead.”
And Felicity laughed. Lightly, half-muffled behind the press of her fingers. But shelaughed. “And you never hired another?”
“No. But I’ve managed to avoid dancing thus far.”
“How?” she asked.
“The subtle art of the withering stare. As it happens, if one has mastered that, one has no particular need to master dancing. If someone should muster the audacity to suggest that perhaps I ought to consider asking a lady presently at loose ends to dance, I simply give them a withering stare, and I inevitably find myself exempted from such expectations.”
“Ah, yes.” She pitched a soft sigh, though traces of amusement lingers about the corners of her lips. “Somehow, I had let myself forget that it is incumbent upon a lady never to refuse a request to dance without due cause, but a gentleman may simply sit out the dancing without altogether too much judgment cast upon him.”
“You’d judge me all the more harshly if I had danced. Just consider all the toes I’ve spared over the years. It was more merciful than selfish.” And again, the twitch of her lips, spelling an amusement she could not quite contain.
Something had shifted in her. As if she’d shed a portion of that thick outer layer of frost that had enveloped her. As if she might be in the process of becoming reachable once more. A chance, however slight yet, that she might not rebuff a hand stretched out to her.
Three minutes, perhaps, until they reached their destination, and he hated to ruin the fragile camaraderie of the past few minutes with talk that ranthe risk of recalling to her that terrible anxiety she had too often dwelt within. But he doubted she would be able to turn her thoughts from it for more than a few minutes at a time, anyway.
“You should speak with your sisters,” he said. “It’s likely that whoever our villain is, they have got some familiarity with your family. Someone with a grudge, perhaps, some sort of vendetta to satisfy. If we can discover who might know your history, perhaps we can compile a list of potential suspects.”
“Charity has probably made at least a few enemies,” she said slowly. “There was a time she was much in demand. Some gentlemen were not well-pleased to have been refused, or so I’m given to understand. But still they would have had to learn her history, and to find me, and I—I simply don’t see how it’s possible.” A little crease settled in her brow; something like bewilderment. “I keep recalling the night at the theatre,” she said in a whisper-soft voice. “How I had convinced myself I was safe. That it would be no great risk to walk home.”
The fine hairs at the nape of his neck prickled as chill bumps broke out upon his skin. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I’d felt watched before,” she said, with a tiny lift of her shoulders. “At the school. Even at home, upon occasion. Observed, if you will, as if I was never truly alone. But I had reasoned that it wouldn’t matter even if I had been. There were no other carriages upon the street that evening, no one to give chase. Even if there had been someone watching, they couldn’t have kept pace with the carriage. So it was safe. It had to be safe.”
But it hadn’t been. It hadn’t been safe at all.
Her head lifted at last, green eyes perplexed. “But still he found me,” she said. “Almost as if…as if he knew.”
As if he had known where she was going to be. As if he had placed himself in an advantageous position, ready to intercept her from the theatre if an opportunity had presented itself to do so.Christ.
Felicity took a sharp breath. “When I received the first letter in November—”
November? That couldn’t be right. Could it? “December, you mean,” he said, his brows drawing. Ithadto be December. It could only be December.
But Felicity canted her head, baffled by the correction. “No,” she said, clearly. “November. I remember it only too well.”
Goddamnit all. He’d never asked the question, because he’d assumed he’d known the answer already. The carriage began to slow on the approach to the massive building in which Mrs. Graves kept his office, and Ian foundhis hands clenching already. “Felicity,” he said. “I’m going to ask you to wait outside the room for just a few minutes while I speak to Mr. Graves in private.”
“In private?” A little frown tugged at her lips. “Why?”
“Because I am going to use a great deal of coarse language and might even issue a few threats, and I would prefer to spare you from having to hear such things.” And still she didn’t understand. “Mr. Graves has my calendar,” he said. “He always knows where I am at any given moment. He knew I was to be at the theatre that evening with you—a fact which even Mr. Jennings was unaware of until we arrived. And aside from myself, he wasthe only one who knew I intended to marry you in November.” Even Felicity had not known it when she’d begun receiving the letters, the precursors to the demand which had eventually followed. “There is not much point in extorting a school teacher—unless one knows that school teacher is on the precipice of marrying into a fortune.”
For a moment she sat, still as a statue, frozen to her seat. And then at last, in an aghast squeak: “Mr. Graves has been extorting me?”
“If he has not, then he damned well knows who is,” Ian said as he threw open the door of the carriage just as it came to a stop. “I intend to discover which it is.”
∞∞∞
