“It is not.”
They were in the middle of a turn, so she glanced over her shoulder, checking in one of Lady Ashburton’s huge gilded mirrors to see if there was something wrong with the back of her gown. “You are gammoning me.”
“I never gammon.”
“Ha! There’s a tale. Where is this honesty you prize so highly? Nothing is wrong with my gown.”
“A very clever construction, I’ll grant you that. But I’ve figured it out, and it is unseemly. You made it look as if the real dress is falling away and you are left in nothing but your wispy underclothes.”
She gasped and pulled her hand from his shoulder to cover her breast. “How can you say such a thing?”
“Honesty.” He grinned. “And yes, it’s too low there, too.”
How had he deduced the precise mechanism of her design so easily? Confusing man. What was he? Like his hair, which was gold one minute and strawberry the next. He was a frilled fop with a physique any Corinthian would envy. All she could do for a moment was breathe and let him whirl her around the room. He looked so smug, so sure of himself, so irritatingly in control. Well, no more.
Elizabeth returned her hand to his shoulder and relaxed in his arms. On the next turn, she pretended to have difficulty maneuvering and allowed herself to float just a trifle too close to him. There it was. That flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. She smiled softly and turned her head, as if completely disinterested. His arms stiffened, and she felt a delicious sense of triumph. When she brushed ever so slightly against the inside of his muscular thigh, he nearly stumbled. Balance had been restored to her side of the universe. Just in the nick of time too, for the ending strains of the waltz sounded.
She took particular delight in the confused expression on Lord St. Evert’s face as he led her off the floor and over to her brother and Miss Dunworthy. Elizabeth decided to needle him. “Are you ill, my lord? You look a bit unsettled. A gastric disturbance, perhaps?”
It startled her when one of his dimples made an unexpected appearance. She’d thought she’d imprisoned them for the rest of the evening. But no, there it was, quirking evilly up on one side.
“This is far from over, Izzie,” he whispered, bowing over her hand.
Instead of letting go, he pressed his lips against her lace-gloved fingers. No quick kiss. St. Evert pressed on her a scandalous, overly warm thing that sent outlandish sensations up her arm and made her cheeks hot.
Elizabeth may have been the only one who gasped, but she felt as if everyone in the room must be holding their breaths, everyone must be watching him linger over her hand too long, everyone observing the evocative lift of his brow. She stood there like a fish knocked on the head, utterly stunned. He laughed. Or was that Miss Dunworthy chuckling?
St. Evert turned away and left her standing there like a marooned mackerel as he escorted Miss I-Despise-Her-Dunworthy out onto the ballroom floor. Elizabeth could still feel his lips on her hand. She gently twitched the fingers as her arm hung limp at her side. The sensation remained. Drat him.
10
Green Sleeves
“I hate men. They are all wretches!”
Late that night, long after Lord Horton discovered he did, indeed, have a gift for subtle erotic verse, and after the interminable carriage ride home, wherein Elizabeth was subjected to her brother rhapsodizing over the unparalleled beauty and exquisite charm of Miss Dunworthy, Lady Elizabeth sat brooding on her bed.
“I hate them all.” It was true, too. Honestly. Even her father. He should never have abandoned them for his stupid investments in America. She hated him for it. Thoughtless. Typical man. Couldn’t be depended upon. How could he leave them? He’d been her rudder. Her anchor. And now, now she was adrift in an ocean of confusion. Their entire family was in danger of sinking. How was she supposed to manage it all without him?
Perhaps she didn’t hate Robert, not altogether. How could she? But sometimes it seemed as if he had nothing but pigweed for brains. And Lord Horton appeared to be little more than a spineless twit. Unreliable. Why couldn’t he be intelligent, capable, and manly? But no, he wasn’t. She hated them. Most of all, she hated Lord St. Evert. Truly.
He made her feel petty and feeble. He questioned the purity of her motives. Called her dishonest. He even accused her of machinating. Except those weren’t the real reasons she hated him. No. The real reason eluded her, slipped around, sliding at the edge of her mind, just beyond her grasp.
She flopped back against the pillows, too tired to sort it out tonight. The oil lamp flickered and she ought to turn it out. She slid off the bed. As she did, she heard scratching at the door.
She carried the lamp with her and whispered, “Who is it?”
“Lord St. Evert’s servant, mum.”
“Not you again,” she muttered. “Go away.”
“I come bearing gifts.”
She unlocked the door, having prudently taken that precaution in light of St. Evert’s vulgar comments at the ball, and peeped out. “What is it?”
“A package, miss. His lordship says I’m required to deliver it with a poem, seeing as how the lady is fond of poetry.”
St. Evert’s manservant, the same unkempt fellow who looked better suited to a post as a prison guard than servant, stood in the hallway holding a package wrapped in brown paper and string. One of his stockings hung at his ankle. He was too plump for his jacket, and one of the buttons was missing. “You need a new livery.”
“Just what I mentioned to His Grace. But he says, ‘fine feathers do not a cockerel make’.”
“He’s not a duke.”
“No, miss.”
“Then you ought not refer to him as ‘His Grace.’”
“Begging yer pardon, miss. An’ so I says to His Highness, not much of a cock without
