“And what of the marriage mart?” he asked, indicating the crowd around them. “Is a husband not part of that future life?”
“Of course,” she said a little irritably. “Neither my younger sister nor I will be able to avoid marriage. But I will choose—and not a man like Bardham.”
“No,” he agreed firmly.
“I’ve earned that much,” she said, feeling righteous and a little belligerent. “And my brother will not sway me. I’ll make my own choice, and when I find the right man I will move heaven and earth to get him.”
Quite unexpectedly, he stepped closer. He stared down at her with those bright blue eyes and it happened again. The air between them fairly danced, it was so charged. “I believe you will,” he rasped.
“Lady Hope? Ahem.” Someone cleared a throat.
She started. It was their turn. They’d reached their hosts in the line. Lord and Lady Westmore welcomed her warmly, and though they appeared a little surprised to find Tensford with her, they welcomed him, as well.
They moved quickly through the rest of the family and emerged at the end of the line to find Miss Nichols and her mama waiting. Tensford stood, looking about at the parlors set with dining tables on either side of the passage and the doors ahead of them, standing open to the ballroom.
“What do you think of the Westmore’s home?” he asked her.
Surprised at the question, she looked around. “It looks very fine tonight.” She frowned at the ice blue wallpaper featured in both parlors and the many glass and china accents. “I wonder if it might not feel . . . cold, perhaps, when it is not filled with guests.”
“I wondered the same thing.”
“Come along, you two!” Mrs. Nichols called. “Reserve a dance with the ladies while you may, Lord Tensford,” she ordered. “I predict these two will be kept very busy tonight.”
“Of course.” He received the promise of a quadrille with Miss Nichols and then turned to Hope.
“I’ll be so bold as to grant you the supper dance, my lord,” she said, sparkling up at him. “I confess, I’ll be very curious to hear all of your . . . observations of the evening.”
“It will be a pleasure.” Making his bow, he shot her a grin and moved off into the crowd.
She watched him go, the tiger once more, lithe and fluid, searching amongst the wildebeests for his prey.
“Shoulders back, girls.” Mrs. Nichols snapped open her fan. “The gentlemen approach.”
* * *
It was true, Tensford had wished nothing more than to strangle a couple of the lordlings who had so mocked him, but he knew the manly importance of being able to take a joke. His forbearance had done him good, it seemed. A few of his contemporaries had approached him to commiserate.
“Young idiots,” Lord Montbarrow said with a roll of his eyes. “They’ll find some other poor sod to torture, in good time.”
It sounded similar to what Lady Hope had said of Bardham. He could see her from their corner of the ballroom. She looked flushed and lovely as she went through the rigorous steps of a country-dance.
“Eh, Tensford?”
He started. “I’m sorry?”
The viscount pursed his lips as he looked Tensford over. “I don’t suppose it’s true that you locked your aunt away in the attics on bread and water?”
“Worse,” Tensford replied, deadpan. “I put an end to her outrageous household expenses.” He looked to the heavens. “She was buying new livery to suit every season and when I refused to build her a conservatory, she hired an army of gardeners to keep fires going in the orchard, in an attempt to grow palm trees larger than the ones in her neighbor’s hothouse.”
“What puts these maggots in their heads?” one of the other gentlemen asked. “My mother keeps ten dogs and two small pageboys to follow the lot of them around all day. The boys carry bones and biscuits for the dogs and extra shawls and quills and gloves for my mother, so that she never has to run and fetch the smallest thing.” He shook his head. “I wish I could cut her expenses.”
“Oh, I did worse,” Tensford confessed. “I closed up the estate house where my aunt was living to save the expense, and forced her to move into the dower house with my mother.”
Someone sucked in a breath. “You might as well have stuck her in the attics.”
They all laughed.
“Yes. The damned house has twenty rooms, but apparently that’s not close to enough for the two of them.”
“It wouldn’t be enough for me either, had I to live with my mother,” Montbarrow said with a shiver.
They compared familial horror stories for a while, then moved on to discuss the latest crop of debutantes.
“A smallish group this year.”
“Yes, and more than one who is a bit . . . rambunctious,” Montbarrow remarked. “There are a couple who should take care before they end up on the wrong side of Lady X’s pen, like poor Tensford, here.”
“Yes,” someone said, low and snide. “And none more than the youngest of our host.”
“Not the young Lady Margaret?” Tensford strove to sound surprised.
“Yes, her. She looks coltish and innocent, but I hear she has a temper—and a defiant streak.”
“Lady X may write what she wants of the girl, but it will never get published. Not even if it has more substance than Tensford’s supposed sins,” Mr. Neville, a younger son of the Baron Longley, said
