“Lucy,” he said, once he was next to her, forgetting that they were surrounded by strangers, and worse, friends, and he should not presume to use her given name.
But nothing else felt right on his lips.
“Mr. Bridgerton,” she said, but her eyes said,
And he knew.
He loved her.
It was the strangest, most wonderful sensation. It was exhilarating. It was as if the world had suddenly become open to him. Clear. He understood. He understood everything he needed to know, and it was all right there in her eyes.
“Lady Lucinda,” he said, bowing deeply over her hand. “May I have this dance?”
Seventeen
Forget angels, forget St. Peter and glittering harpsichords. Heaven was a dance in the arms of one’s true love. And when the one in question had a mere week before marrying someone else entirely, aforementioned one had to grab heaven tightly, with both hands.
Metaphorically speaking.
Lucy grinned as she bobbed and twirled. Now there was an image. What would people say if she charged forward and grabbed him with both hands?
And never let go.
Most would say she was mad. A few that she was in love. The shrewd would say both.
“What are you thinking about?” Gregory asked. He was looking at her…differently.
She turned away, turned back. She felt daring, almost magical. “Wouldn’t you care to know?”
He stepped around the lady to his left and returned to his place. “I would,” he answered, smiling wolfishly at her.
But she just smiled and shook her head. Right now she wanted to pretend she was someone else. Someone a little less conventional. Someone a great deal more impulsive.
She did not want to be the same old Lucy. Not tonight. She was sick of planning, sick of placating, sick of never doing anything without first thinking through every possibility and consequence.
It was enough to make a girl dizzy. It was enough to make her feel paralyzed, unable to take the reins of her own life.
But not tonight. Tonight, somehow, through some amazing miracle named the Duchess of Hastings-or perhaps the dowager Lady Bridgerton, Lucy was not quite certain-she was wearing a gown of the most exquisite green silk, attending the most glittering ball she could ever have imagined.
And she was dancing with the man she was quite certain she would love until the end of time.
“You look different,” he said.
“I feel different.” She touched his hand as they stepped past each other. His fingers gripped hers when they should have just brushed by. She looked up and saw that he was gazing at her. His eyes were warm and intense and he was watching her the same way-
Dear God, he was watching her the way he’d watched Hermione.
Her body began to tingle. She felt it in the tips of her toes, in places she did not dare to contemplate.
They stepped past each other again, but this time he leaned in, perhaps a bit more than he ought, and said, “I feel different as well.”
Her head snapped around, but he had already turned so that his back was to her. How was he different? Why? What did he
She circled around the gentleman to her left, then moved past Gregory.
“Are you glad you attended this evening?” he murmured.
She nodded, since she had moved too far away to answer without speaking too loudly.
But then they were together again, and he whispered, “So am I.”
They moved back to their original places and held still as a different couple began to process. Lucy looked up. At him. At his eyes.
They never moved from her face.
And even in the flickering light of the night-the hundreds of candles and torches that lit the glittering ballroom- she could see the gleam there. The way he was looking at her-it was hot and possessive and proud.
It made her shiver.
It made her doubt her ability to stand.
And then the music was done, and Lucy realized that some things must truly be ingrained because she was curtsying and smiling and nodding at the woman next to her as if her entire life had not been altered in the course of the previous dance.
Gregory took her hand and led her to the side of the ballroom, back to where the chaperones milled about, watching their charges over the rims of their glasses of lemonade. But before they reached their destination, he leaned down and whispered in her ear.
Her eyes flew to his.
“Privately,” he added.
She felt him slow their pace, presumably to allow them more time to speak before she was returned to Aunt Harriet. “What is it?” she asked. “Is something amiss?”
He shook his head. “Not any longer.”
And she let herself hope. Just a little, because she could not bear to ponder the heartbreak if she was wrong, but maybe…Maybe he loved her. Maybe he wished to marry her. Her wedding was less than a week away, but she had not said her vows.
Maybe there was a chance. Maybe there was a way.
She searched Gregory’s face for clues, for answers. But when she pressed him for more information, he just shook his head and whispered, “The library. It is two doors down from the ladies’ retiring room. Meet me there in thirty minutes.”
“Are you mad?”
He smiled. “Just a little.”
“Gregory, I-”
He gazed into her eyes, and it silenced her. The way he was looking at her-
It took her breath away.
“I cannot,” she whispered, because no matter what they might feel for each other, she was still engaged to another man. And even if she were not, such behavior could only lead to scandal. “I can’t be alone with you. You know that.”
“You must.”
She tried to shake her head, but she could not make herself move.
“Lucy,” he said, “you must.”
She nodded. It was probably the biggest mistake she would ever make, but she could not say no.
“Mrs. Abernathy,” Gregory said, his voice sounding overly loud as he greeted her aunt Harriet. “I return Lady Lucinda to your care.”
Aunt Harriet nodded, even though Lucy suspected she had no idea what Gregory had said to her, and then she turned to Lucy and yelled, “I’m sitting down!”
