Miss Knightley’s eyebrows rose fractionally. “Mr. St. Just?”
Adam wrenched his attention back to the waltz. When his steps were once more in time, he said, “I wish to thank you, Miss Knightley.”
Her expression became slightly wary, as if she suspected him of mocking her. “For what?”
“For your kindness to Grace. For your advice to her.” Advice that had been given with no motive other than a desire to help. His guilt intensified. “Because of you, Grace found the courage to remain in London.”
Miss Knightley blinked. He saw her astonishment. After a moment she said, “There’s no need to thank me, Mr. St. Just. I didn’t do it for you.”
Adam felt himself flush. “I am aware of that,” he said stiffly, and looked away from her.
They danced in an awkward silence for several minutes. Words of apology gathered on Adam’s tongue. He stole a glance at her. Miss Knightley was gazing past his shoulder. If she found their silence awkward, she gave no sign of it. She seemed perfectly at ease. A slight smile sat on her mouth, as if she observed—and was amused by—the other dancers.
She hadn’t always possessed such poise, such confidence. The first time he’d danced with her, seven years ago, there’d been shyness in her eyes, not amusement. She’d been as vulnerable as Grace. And I harmed her.
“I apologize, Miss Knightley,” he blurted.
Her attention shifted to him. He watched her eyebrows rise. “For dancing with me?”
“No, for . . . for what I said about you seven years ago.”
Her face stiffened. She looked away.
“You must believe that it wasn’t deliberate,” Adam said. “I was in my cups and . . . and I never—not for one second!—thought my words would be repeated.”
Miss Knightley’s gaze returned to his face. “It was seven years ago, Mr. St. Just.” Her voice matched her eyes: cool and distant. “Consider it forgotten.”
The reply should have assuaged his guilt. It didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” Adam said quietly, holding her gaze. “It was never my intention to cause you distress.”
This time Arabella Knightley seemed to hear his sincerity. Her expression became less stiff. She observed him for several seconds in silence. “You surprise me, Mr. St. Just,” she said finally. “I never thought to hear you refer to this subject.”
“When I returned to London and discovered that everyone—” He flushed, feeling his shame anew. “So many months had passed that it seemed . . . wisest to ignore it. I thought—I hoped—that if I pretended I’d forgotten, London would forget, too.”
Miss Knightley’s lips twisted wryly. “London has a long memory.”
“Yes,” he said. “Unfortunately.”
The waltz reached its conclusion. Adam released her hand reluctantly. They had been on the brink of something—accord, an understanding—but now the moment was lost.
He glanced at the matrons and dowagers clustering the edges of the dance floor. “Where’s your grandmother?”
“In the card room.”
He frowned. “She takes her chaperoning duties far too lightly.”
His censure appeared to amuse Miss Knightley. “I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.”
“And what of Lord Emsley?”
Miss Knightley looked away. “My grandmother would be delighted to see me waltz with Lord Emsley—and even more delighted to see me marry him.” Her voice was light, but beneath the lightness was a faint undertone that Adam recognized: contempt.
Adam’s frown deepened. “She’s not encouraging Emsley to—”
“No, she knows my views on that subject.” Miss Knightley looked at him, and once again he saw her amusement. It hovered at the edges of her mouth and gleamed in the darkness of her eyes. “I don’t need rescuing, Mr. St. Just. I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.”
Adam disagreed, but he didn’t say so aloud. Instead he escorted her from the dance floor, conscious of the interest they were attracting.
It was easy to imagine his father’s outrage if he could see them now, his icy fury. The old man’s words still rang in his ears after all these years, burned into his memory: A slut from the stews? If your taste runs to the gutters, find yourself a lightskirt, not a trollop you’ll have to marry.
His father had been wrong. Arabella Knightley was neither a trollop nor a slut; there was nothing flirtatious about her manner. But the old man had been right about one thing: such a marriage was doomed to failure.
However much he was attracted to Miss Knightley, however much he admired her aplomb, her poise, her kindness to Grace, she was not a woman he could ever marry.
Adam escorted her to a seat alongside his aunt. “May I bring you something to drink? Champagne? Punch?”
“Lemonade, please.”
The refreshment room was almost as crowded as the ballroom. A queue had formed of gentlemen with wilting collar-points.
Adam glanced down at the signet ring on his finger as he waited. The gold gleamed in the candlelight. He could see the ridges of the St. Just crest, the words inscribed beneath the lion rampant: Nobilis Superbia. Noble Pride.
As a St. Just, pride was his birthright. A St. Just knows his worth, his father had been used to say. Pride had been bred into him. It was in his blood, in his bones.
The shadow of Miss Knightley’s mother hovered over her. Even if he’d never uttered those drunken, angry words seven years ago, the whispers and the sidelong glances would still have followed her. Through no fault of her own, Arabella Knightley’s reputation was tarnished. It would always be tarnished.
If I married Arabella Knightley I would be ashamed of her—and ashamed of myself for being ashamed of her.
ARABELLA’S SECOND WALTZ with Adam St. Just came after supper, which she ate with her grandmother. Lady Westwick talked of her success at the card table while devouring buttered lobster, asparagus spears, and a serving of syllabub in a fluted glass bowl. Arabella picked at her food while her grandmother’s words flowed over her. Her thoughts were in a tumult. She couldn’t believe—simply could not believe—that Adam St. Just had apologized to her.
She speared a piece of lobster on her fork and chewed without tasting. What on earth had possessed him to
