A Rogue Walks into a Ball Page 7

  She turned to him then, and for the first time since he’d known her, she looked unsure. He was intrigued, because he would have laid odds that Miss Porter was never unsure.

  “Your family has been very kind and gracious to both Annabelle and me, and we can only be grateful,” she said, and she sounded grateful.

  “But you wish that didn’t also include being grateful to me,” he finished for her.

  “No,” she said slowly. It wasn’t an answer—he didn’t know whether she meant no, she didn’t wish it, or no, on the contrary, she did. But instead of asking her to clarify, he asked her to dance.

  She looked genuinely surprised.

  “Me? You wish to waltz with me?”

  “Is there anyone else standing here with us?”

  She actually looked around. “But—”

  He could see the moment she caught herself and managed not to ask him why, which would not be a polite response to an invitation. He wouldn’t have told her, anyway, that the reason was curiosity. Also, of course, a perverse wish to tease her, since she seemed opposed to engaging in anything beyond the required civilities with him.

  “But?” he prompted, repressing a smile. She frowned.

  He’d danced with her at the last ball, but that had been a quadrille, which offered little more than time to exchange a few words as one moved through the steps. This was a waltz, and he wanted to know what it would be like to dance it with her, perhaps because she seemed so uninterested in attracting his attention. He wasn’t particularly vain, but he was used to women, even women of his mother’s generation and older, flirting with him.

  Miss Porter didn’t flirt.

  And yet, he’d been hoping he’d see her at the ball that night. He hadn’t forgotten her calm dignity at the theater when those women had insulted her. And he was charmed by the little furrow that formed between her eyes when she was thinking about something.

  Maybe the desire to dance with a woman who didn’t want to dance with him was simply a sign that he was utterly bored of attending balls. Despite his mother’s ideas about such events, he thought a ball might be the worst possible place to meet someone. With the music and the crowds, talking was difficult, never mind claiming a space where one wouldn’t be constantly jostled.

  He held out his hand, not leaving Miss Porter much choice.

  “I... um.”

  He waited. She put her hand in his. His other hand went to her waist, hers to his shoulder, and they were dancing.

  He’d thought of teasing her about being intolerant of poor rakes and rogues, but now he didn’t want to mock her. She was looking straight ahead, at his neck he supposed, but she wasn’t holding herself stiffly, as she’d done the last time. Her hand rested lightly in his, and she moved with graceful economy.

  Glancing down, he noticed that her eyelashes were particularly long. This struck him as endearingly girlish, and he found himself thinking of what she might have been like as a child. Knowing boys as he did, he supposed she’d been teased by them for a nose that had likely seemed much too big for her face when she was younger.

  Which just went to show what fools boys were. Her nose was one of the best things about her face. No one else had a nose like hers.

  “Why are you chaperoning your cousin as though you are no longer entertaining the idea of suitors yourself?” he asked.

  She did not immediately reply. “Because I’m no longer entertaining the idea of suitors,” she finally said to his neck.

  “But why?”

  “I prefer to be independent.”

  She smelled good, a soft scent of roses that drifted faintly in the air as though it was a private scent, something she wore only enough of to please herself.

  He also liked the curve of her slim waist under his hand, but that was a rogue thought. Or rather, he suppressed a grin, she would have said it was what a rogue would think.

  “You prefer to be alone?” he said.

  She looked up at him with that steady gaze that had become familiar to him. She would probably have made a very good governess—she was smart, and she had a strength of character that made it easy to imagine her keeping unruly children in good order with little more than a displeased eyebrow.

  “I didn’t say alone, I said independent.”

  “I see.” He didn’t really see the difference between alone and independent, because eventually, if she was on her own, she would be alone. He could understand that perhaps she found her life confining—his sisters certainly complained at times about all the things that he and Marcus could do that they could not, such as being able to vote or go off to university to study. He and Marcus would then point out all the things the ladies didn’t have to do, such as seeing to the finances. But still, he knew Alice and Kate had a point, even if mostly they didn’t mind.

  He suspected that Miss Porter did mind. It was that intelligent look in her eyes. They were a speckled hazel that made him think of the lights of a distant fire glittering on a winter midnight. Mysterious and lovely eyes, with those long lashes. Perhaps people didn’t often notice her lashes. Perhaps they never spared a second glance after taking in her nose. He felt a little smug that he’d noticed them.

  He forced his thoughts to return to their conversation. “What about when your cousin marries?” he asked.

  She gave him a look. “I’m not a ninny, you know. I have plans.”

  “Such as?” he prompted.

  “Travel. I’ve always wanted to visit Greece and Italy. And I want to see Constantinople.”

  Constantinople? Jack had traveled a fair amount, but he hadn’t been there, and he felt a little envious. “With whom will you travel?”

  “I hadn’t thought to travel with anyone,” she said airily.

  “What? Surely you’re not thinking to travel alone.”

  Sarah was not really thinking of traveling alone to Constantinople, or anywhere else, for safety reasons of course, but also because nice things were better shared. Though it was true that she didn’t know who might travel with her.

  But Lord Jack’s scornful tone was making her want to say that, in fact, she had already booked a solo passage to the Arctic. His tone was the sort she imagined an older brother might use with a younger sister. Though, on second thought, brotherly didn’t seem right—domineering was more the word. She bristled.

  “What if I am?”

  He made a scoffing sound. “You can’t travel alone.”

  She lifted her chin. “Who says?”

  “I do, if there’s no one else to speak sense to you. A young woman doesn’t go traveling around by herself, and certainly not in a foreign country. You know that. It’s completely unsafe.”

  He was scowling down at her, his blue eyes darker than usual. She tried not to notice his eyes, because the plain truth was she liked looking at them. They were very nice eyes. Of course they were—his gorgeous eyes were part of what made him so handsome. It was disgusting, really, for him to be so handsome, to have thick, gold-touched brown hair that waved just so above his well-shaped Hallaway eyebrows. To have a jaw chiseled in such clean, masculine lines. She wasn’t even going to think about his perfectly proportioned nose.

  And the male beauty didn’t stop at his face, oh no. It extended to shoulders she was now in a position to know were leanly muscled and a seemingly endless plain of chest nearly in front of her nose. Top it all off with the athletic grace that was currently twirling her effortlessly around the Winstonhursts’ ballroom, and you had one of the most maddeningly attractive gentlemen in the ton.

  And here she was dancing with him, through no wish of her own.

  But it wasn’t really true that she didn’t want to dance with him. She had wanted to, but she was accustomed, after all those years of being a wallflower, to ignoring such thoughts, and she hadn’t intended to accept his unexpected invitation to dance. She knew he’d asked her only out of good manners, that Lady Fiona Boxhaven’s sons knew about doing their duty in the ballroom. Sarah had only to look
at the marquess, gamely squiring the mute Annabelle across the room, to know that.

  But she didn’t know why Lord Jack felt it necessary now to quiz her. Probably he was bored. Weren’t rakes always bored and looking for entertainment?

  “Don’t you think you’re being a trifle overbearing?” she said. “You don’t even know me.”

  “I know you enough to point out that your idea of traveling abroad alone is folly.”

  “But it’s my folly.”

  He grunted. “Why don’t you just hire a companion like all the other ladies who wish to travel?”

  She’d thought of that, of course. It was likely what she’d end up doing. “I’ll consider it,” she said vaguely.

  “Good,” he said, as though she’d agreed with him. “I’m sure my mother can recommend someone.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” she ground out. But he just smiled.

  The dance came to an end, and he led her toward the spot where she’d been standing with Annabelle earlier. Sarah arrived there in time to hear the marquess thanking Annabelle for the pleasure of dancing with her.

  “Thank you, my lord,” Annabelle whispered, and Sarah wanted to cheer.

  But when Lord Jack asked Annabelle if she’d like a lemonade, she froze and started blinking. Oh, heaven help them, the blinking. Sarah repressed a dismayed sigh. She urgently needed to find a way to undo some of the damage she’d done to her cousin’s confidence.

  And she had a sinking feeling this effort was going to have to involve the man she’d made into a villain, who was currently smiling winningly by her side.

  Chapter 8

  Mother Superior: It’s best not to make important choices out of a desire for escape.

  Breaking the Habit, Act 1, Scene 3

  Lady Alice invited Annabelle and Sarah to tea the day after the Winstonhurst ball. Annabelle wanted to decline.

  “Not go?” Sarah said. “But the two of you get on so well.”

  “Lord Jack will likely be there, and I will just blink and stare, you know I will,” Annabelle said gloomily as they sat in Sarah’s chamber at Aunt Louise’s house that morning with breakfast trays containing cups of chocolate and warm rolls. Annabelle’s tone tore at Sarah, but she knew that far from surrendering, they must enter into battle—the battle to make Annabelle at ease with gentlemen.

  Annabelle’s dance with the Marquess of Boxhaven had, as Lady Alice had predicted, caused the number of gentlemen seeking to dance with Annabelle to increase a great deal. But she’d been no more able to speak to them than she had been to Lord Jack.

  “I’m a hopeless case,” Annabelle said with a sigh and sipped her chocolate.

  “If you say that again,” Sarah said, picking up a roll, “I shall throw this at you.”

  Annabelle’s eyes grew a little wider, but then, Sarah had never threatened violence before, if violence was the right word for assault by bread.

  Sarah then announced that they must certainly accept Lady Alice’s invitation to tea, and she proposed several strategies. Perhaps if Annabelle looked away from Lord Jack when he spoke to her, she might be able to reply.

  “And try not to blink,” Sarah counseled.

  “Blink?” Annabelle said.

  “You tend to blink a lot when you’re nervous.”

  “Oh God,” Annabelle said, coloring. “I must look like a fool.”

  “Never mind,” Sarah said briskly. “Now that you know you do it sometimes, you can be aware and not do it.”

  “I’ll try,” Annabelle said in tones that did not exactly project confidence and enthusiasm.

  “We’re doing this for a good cause,” Sarah reminded her. What Annabelle needed was experience, and since Lady Alice had an eligible unmarried brother (and Lord Jack seemed to be the gentleman who caused the most blinking, doubtless thanks to Sarah’s terming him the worst rake in the ton), they must take every opportunity of practicing.

  And that was all, as regarded Lord Jack, Sarah told herself firmly. She certainly was not—not—going to review all the things they’d said to each other the night before, or think about how, when they waltzed, it had felt as though they were breathing the same air.

  When Sarah and Annabelle arrived at Lady Fiona Boxhaven’s town house, a butler showed them to a drawing room that, though handsomely decorated with beautiful fabrics and gleaming furnishings, had a few surprisingly informal and cozy elements. Sarah noticed a small dog curled up on a faded blue brocade chair that looked as though it had been somebody’s favorite sitting spot for decades. Near the hearth, a shelf held a motley assortment of objects, including some watercolor renderings of horses that had clearly been done by young children. Several regal vases held artful arrangements of wildflowers, instead of the expensive garden blooms so often on display in ton homes.

  As soon as the butler had announced them, Lady Alice, who’d been kneeling in front of the little dog, squealed and came running over to embrace Annabelle, as though it had been months since the young ladies had seen each other, instead of hours.

  “Oh, Alice,” their mother said in affectionately despairing tones as she rose to greet her guests, “must you squeal? It’s a wonder Miss Smith wishes to further her acquaintance with you, lest her ears be constantly ringing.”

  “Oh, Mama,” Alice said with affectionate mockery, “we young ladies love to squeal. You just didn’t know that until I grew up, because Kate isn’t a squealer. Miss Smith probably isn’t either, but I don’t mind. I can squeal for both of us.”

  Lady Kate, who was curled up on a chaise under a tall window with her nose in a book, looked up and arched a meaningful brow at her sister as Annabelle said with a shy smile, “Thank you, I think.”

  “One often doesn’t know whether to thank Alice for her kindnesses,” Lord Jack said from where he stood by a French door open to a garden, one shoulder propped against the door frame, “or to run for cover.”

  Lady Alice’s face shifted into a marvelously long-suffering look. Were it not an ungenteel pursuit, Sarah supposed Lady Alice Hallaway would have made a wonderful actress. “Are you cursed with brothers, Miss Smith?” she said in a stage whisper as she led Annabelle toward a corner of the room, followed by the little dog.

  “What an adorable creature,” Annabelle said, dropping to her knees to pet him.

  “Isn’t he?” said Lady Alice, joining her on the floor. “Socrates belongs to Marcus, but he likes to visit with us when Marcus and Rosamund go out during the day.” Annabelle murmured a reply that was impossible to hear as the two young ladies leaned close and lavished attention on the delighted dog.

  Lady Boxhaven watched the two girls with a warm, maternal gaze. What an extremely nice woman she seemed to be, and no fool, which Sarah respected in a person almost more than anything. “I rather think Miss Smith will be a good influence on Alice,” Lady Boxhaven said.

  Sarah smiled. “It was kind of you to invite us to tea.”

  She waved away Sarah’s thanks. “Kate, do put down that book,” she said to her daughter.

  Like her brother, Lady Kate had gold-touched brown hair, but unlike Lord Jack, she had a restful air. Perhaps it was the careless way she was sitting, with her legs curled under her and her apple-green dress falling in a jumble that made her look legless, or the slightly distracted light in her eyes, as if she was thinking about something too interesting to abandon, but Sarah liked Lady Kate.

  “I was just thinking of how the roses must smell heavenly just now, since the heat of the day has warmed them,” Lady Kate said. “Care to join me for a turn about the garden, Miss Porter?”

  “An excellent idea,” Lord Jack said. “What do you say, Alice, Miss Smith? Shall we all go out to the garden? Perhaps Miss Smith would like to see our grotto. I’d be happy to show it to her.”

  “Why don’t we have tea outside?” Lady Boxhaven said, and she directed the servants to bring the tea things to the terrace as the others made their way out. Before Sarah quite realized what was happening, Lord Jack ha
d linked his arm through Annabelle’s and was guiding her toward the grotto, a stone alcove at the back of the garden.

  Though Sarah intended to use Lord Jack to help Annabelle become more relaxed around gentlemen, what Annabelle needed was to take some baby steps, such as managing to say a word to him, or tolerating being addressed by him without blinking rapidly. Standing alone with him in a grotto at this stage was likely to reduce Annabelle to a quivering puddle.

  “Wait for me,” Sarah called out, nearly running after them. “I am partial to grottoes.”

  Jack had stopped outside the opening to the grotto with the ever-silent Miss Smith when Miss Porter nearly crashed into him in her haste to join their party, clearly unwilling to leave the two of them alone. He didn’t have any nefarious plans for Miss Smith, as he’d already indicated to her cousin, but he sensed the young lady was afraid of him, which was puzzling, as he hadn’t done anything to her.

  It couldn’t be that she was afraid of men, because she had danced with his brother the night before and even spoken her thanks to him. But the only response Miss Smith had made so far to Jack was to blink repeatedly at him as though she expected him to do something bad to her. Since she was Alice’s friend, he thought it would be a good thing if she could understand that he was harmless.

  “Well,” Miss Porter said, “this grotto looks rather like a small cave.”

  Miss Smith, turning to her rescuer with evident relief, said, “Isn’t it amazing? There must be hundreds and hundreds of shells on the walls.”

  Jack had not failed to notice that Miss Smith had never once directly spoken to him. If asked a question, she would turn to Miss Porter to answer it. He supposed Miss Porter’s purpose in following them to the grotto might be less a desire to make sure he didn’t do anything rakelike and more a need to help her cousin communicate. A suspicion began to form.

  “Exactly one thousand shells were used, I believe,” he said. “Or at least, that is the family legend. Shall we go inside?”