“He jilted you?”
“He died.”
Malcolm let go of her hand. Suddenly and sharply, as though her fingers had grown hot as coals. His eyes broke from hers and he rubbed the hand with the other, idly, his mind on something else.
“I am sorry,” he said, his voice quiet and rough. “That was not for me to ask.”
“I chose to answer.” Selina took up her reticule and began searching inside it. “I owe you a token.”
“I asked more than my share of questions.” He pushed out from the table and made to stand.
“You beat me fairly.” Her fingers closed around the object she had been searching for. “It’s not quite the Twynham by-election, but…”
She held it towards him. A soft square of fabric, with a blue-winged swallow embroidered upon it.
Malcolm took it hesitantly, holding it up carefully to inspect the tiny bird in silk thread.
“Did you make this?”
“You sound surprised.”
His mouth twisted wryly. He weighed the square of fabric in his hand as though it were something very precious. “Lady Selina Balfour, doyenne of the London political scene, partaking in such a domestic activity as embroidery? I am astonished.” He tried to pass it back to her. “I cannot take this. Really. It’s too lovely. You must have intended it for something.”
“For my new niece or nephew. But I can easily make another.” She busied herself with fastening up her reticule, refusing to take it back. “Keep it. Else you might forget you’ve beaten me.”
Malcolm folded the square with reverence and tucked it into his pocket. “I shall never forget that. Believe me.”
“Selina?” Anthea appeared at her side. Selina had not noticed her approach. She started, as though she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t, and pressed a hand anxiously to her carefully pinned hair as she turned away from Malcolm.
“Aunt Ursula is tired,” said Anthea. “She was asking whether you are ready to go home.”
The card party was breaking up around them. Selina looked at the clock and felt a pang of guilt over the lateness of the hour. Aunt Ursula was too elderly to be kept up so late.
“Of course I’m ready.” She turned to say goodbye to Malcolm, but he was already gone, walking towards Lord Louis who was wrapping up his game of whist on the other side of the room. One of Malcolm’s hands was pressed stiffly against his right jacket pocket, where the embroidered swallow was hidden.
Selina found Aunt Ursula and joined the other guests who were busy bidding their hosts and each other goodnight, pulling on thick gloves for the cold journey home, waiting for the footmen to fetch their coats. At last, after kissing Anthea fondly and shaking George’s hand, Selina emerged from the house into a cloudy night. The sky was dark, devoid of stars, and there was a mist in the air that thickened to rain as they waited for their carriage.
In the confusion of feet and horse hooves and carriage wheels, a small black-spotted shape ran low about the heedless ankles of the departing guests. Selina barely registered the dog until it let out a loud, pitiful howl. A circle opened around the sound, people hastening to move away from the wounded animal.
The dog had caught an accidental kick and been sent under the wheels of a rolling carriage. Selina caught sight of it by rising on tiptoe to peer over Lord Louis’s greatcoated shoulders. It was a sweet little thing, half-grown, a coach dog judging by its white coat and black spots. It lay on the cobbles beside the carriage wheel and whined in distress.
The rain began to splatter down in earnest.
“Drat,” said the elderly lord whose carriage had run over the dog. “That’s one of mine. Has anybody got a pistol? Put the poor thing out of its misery. Best way.”
“Wait!”
Malcolm’s open umbrella bulled through the crowd before him like a battering ram. He cast it aside as he reached the open space around the dog and knelt down beside it, his knee dropping carelessly into a puddle. He bent over the dog, protecting it from the gawping onlookers, and pulled off his glove with his teeth to run his hands over the leg.
“Careful, Caversham!” called Lord Louis. “It’ll bite you!”
But the dog seemed to sense that Malcolm was a friend. It made no move to bite him, and its whining quieted save for a high-pitched yelp when Malcolm touched the leg that had been caught under the wheel.
“A broken leg, I think,” said Malcolm. The rain was bouncing from the brim of his hat. He glanced upwards, gave a slight shudder, and returned his attention to the dog.
Selina pushed past Lord Louis and took up the umbrella Malcolm had cast aside. He did not notice, at first, that the rain had stopped falling on him. He was entirely focused on taking off his greatcoat to wrap around the dog. When he rose to his feet, the dog clasped safely in his arms, he nearly stepped on Selina’s foot. She stumbled backwards, the umbrella tipping sideways, and Malcolm looked upwards, as surprised as though the sky had turned to oilcloth.
When he saw who was holding the umbrella, he gave a puzzled frown that was somehow warmer than all his knowing smiles.
“There’s no future for a coach dog with a broken leg, Caversham,” said Louis. Someone had found a pistol, and it was passed through the crowd to Louis. He hefted it with a regretful sigh. “Let’s do it around the corner so we don’t upset the ladies.”
“Nobody is going to shoot this dog.”
It was easy to forget, while he was flirting with her and riling her, that Malcolm was still a duke. A duke, with all the power and authority the title implied. Selina fancied she saw the crowd step back in unison to escape the whip in his words.
“My lady, if you would.” He nodded at the umbrella. “My carriage is this way.”
Selina followed him,
