“No. I do not mind.”
“Most of them are Tories, and they’ve come all this way from London just to attend. I know they are most impatient to meet you.” She was whisked away on her father’s arm, introduced to gentleman after gentleman after gentleman, then finally urged into joining the set with one of their sons.
The dance passed in a blur. Too many steps she couldn’t remember. Too many times she did the wrong thing, making her partner clear his throat and blush in humiliation. What was she doing here? Why had she ever agreed to such a thing?
By the time the dance was finished, more and more ladies stared at her behind ivory fans. Even her partner, who had been charming and eager at first, made only a short response and quickly left her side. She was alone in a sea of madness. Where was Lord Gillingham?
She spotted him on the opposite side of the room, still talking back and forth with the gentlemen he’d introduced her to. She couldn’t go back there. She didn’t want to. She wanted to pull the pins from her hair and tear out the jeweled bandeau. She wanted to rid her skin from the haunting touch of her mother’s dress and yank off the tight slippers suffocating her feet and—
There.
Everything stopped, all the insane thoughts, as her gaze latched onto the man striding into the ballroom. Felton Northwood. Dressed in black tailcoat, tan pantaloons, and knotted cravat. How quickly his eyes found hers and stayed, as he weaved around couples and pushed his way through clusters.
Then he stood next to her, eyes smiling, and made all the chaos settle down with his confidence. “Excuse me, miss, but I am looking for a young girl named Eliza Gillingham.”
Her heart warmed with the humor. “I hardly know where she is gone myself.”
“I think I see her still.” Why did it seem when he looked at her that he saw deeper than anyone else could? She couldn’t look away and she didn’t want to. Such haven was here, a safety in the orbs of his eyes—but it was more than that.
She just didn’t know what.
His hand took hers and squeezed. “Have you danced?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Take me away from here. Please, I cannot bear a moment more—”
“We are just in time to join the next set. Come.”
“No, Mr. Northwood, I—”
“You have had your lessons. There is no reason you cannot dance.” He pulled her with him, until they took their places four and a half feet apart, just as he had taught her in the library. They bowed. The dance began, just as the other had, and she pushed through the motions with tears.
Only every time her hand landed in his, something stirred. She made mistakes just as before. She was uncertain just as before.
But he never looked away, or frowned, or blushed, or cleared his throat in aggravation. He only smiled. How wonderfully it sent a shiver through her being, in a way that dancing with a tree never had in her life.
Perhaps a ball was not so terrible after all.
She had eyes like none he’d seen before.
Throughout the dance, then afterward as Felton stood beside her along the back wall, he kept being drawn there. Into her bashful glances. The sweet, doe-like shape of them. The fascination and the innocent fear that was all starting to seem so dangerous and addicting.
He couldn’t breathe without taking in rose water. How insufferably irritating. Was it the dress—seeing her this way, looking the lady, beautiful enough to make any other woman lacking? Or was it the fact that as she stood here, she kept her hand in the crook of his elbow and smiled up at him every minute or two?
He almost pulled away, wandered outside, and took his air from the earth and not from her. The music was making him no better than the half-sprung fools who were drooling over their ladyloves throughout the room.
Amusing, that. Him calling the rest of them fools when he was the greatest one himself. What did he think it would do to his reputation to court a child like Eliza Gillingham?
She was tormented. Stubborn. Unlearned and unrefined and incapable of everything he wanted in a wife. He had no intention of settling for such a fate. Enough was against him already. If he ever espoused himself to anyone, it would be a well-bred, well-respected woman like—
Miss Haverfield.He pulled his arm away from Eliza so fast he almost apologized. But he didn’t. Just kept his eyes pinned on the golden-curled woman who sashayed toward them, dangling her wrap from a dainty wrist and already casting a smile his way.
“Well.” The blue eyes glittered. “How lovely to see you again so soon, Mr. Northwood.”
He bowed.
