Well good for them. He was decidedly not pleased at all.
“You’re finally here.” Eleanor smirked.
“Who chose that damned dress for her?” Though he didn’t mention her name, it was obvious from the way his eyes never left Elise who he was talking about. “How could you let her leave the house in that?” he accused Cross. “She’s on display for the world to see.”
“It’s a beautiful dress,” Eleanor defended. “Madam Marie assured us it was the height of fashion these days.”
“Every man in here is staring at her assets, and I don’t mean her dowry,” he snarled. The music’s tempo began to decrease and the dancers started slowing their steps as the minuet came to a stop. Wisely had barely let go of Elise when he saw three more men approaching them, probably to claim her for a dance. Well, he was not going to let that happen.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Eleanor asked as he took a step toward the dance floor. Her hand on his arm made him halt.
“I’m going to save her from those foolish fops.” He gnashed his teeth as he recognized Sir Richard Gardner—a man twice her age and a known lech—got ahead of the other two men advancing toward Elise.
“You will not go near her.”
His grandmother’s words stunned him. “Excuse me?”
The dowager duchess’s eyes narrowed at him and her nostrils flared. “If you approach her now and ask her to dance—your first dance not only for this ball, but in God knows how long—you’ll be sending every single gossipmonger and flibbertigibbet’s tongue wagging. With your reputation, who knows what they’ll say? You’ll ruin all mine and Eleanor’s hard work for the past week with one single impulsive move.”
Goddammit all to hell! His grandmother was right. Sure, he didn’t care a whit for his own reputation, but Elise—who was not only untitled, but a foreigner—would suffer most. Sometimes, I really hate this society.
Jeremy caught his gaze and gave him a knowing smile. His brother-in-law’s words from earlier in the evening at White’s. You’d have to dance with every respectable matron in the ballroom.
“Bloody hell.”
And so, he did.
He danced his first dance with their hostess, which was at least the easiest hurdle of them all seeing as she was an old friend of the family’s. Lady Finnerly liked to remind him of all his childhood escapades, but that was perhaps the least embarrassing part of his evening.
The ton’s most upright and virtuous women were also the most ancient. He smiled through the many times Lady Abernathy smashed his toes, and didn’t bother correcting Lady Manderlay when she kept calling him “Wilbert” for some reason.
Reed estimated he danced with a dozen partners, and he would have bloody well danced with the housekeeper and the Devil himself if that’s what it took so he could finally ask Elise. She could very well turn him down, which would probably happen considering his luck tonight.
After he downed a glass of champagne he grabbed from the tray of a passing waiter, the orchestra began to strike up a waltz. He dropped the glass onto the nearest flat surface and made his way to Elise who was chatting with his grandmother and their host and hostess. The sea of people parted as his determined strides brought him to her.
The marquess was in the middle of telling a funny joke Reed had heard about a million times when Elise’s gaze landed on him. Her body went rigid as her laughter died before the marquess said the punchline.
“May I have this dance, Miss Henney?”
Her jaw dropped when he held out a hand to her. “I’m not sure—”
He lowered his voice so only she could hear him. “I’ve danced with every respectable woman over the age of sixty here so I could ask you. So please, dance with me before my reputation suffers any further.”
The tension in her body broke and her shoulders relaxed. Her hand went to her mouth, but she nodded and offered her other hand. The breath he’d been holding slowly escaped his lungs. He led her to the dance floor and settled her into his arms for the dance.
He twirled her around in perfect rhythm with the music. Finally, he had her close, in a place where, ironically, men and women could have a real conversation. However, he found himself thoroughly annoyed because of the lack of privacy, and she was once again looking up at him without really looking at him, alternating looking at his forehead and over his shoulder.
“Didn’t I tell you not to turn away from me?”
Her eyes blazed like blue fire. “Giving me orders again, Your Grace?”
“Like back in the statuary?”
She faltered in her step at the reminder, but he held her firm and perhaps just an inch or two closer than propriety deemed acceptable.
“Are you angry with me? For staying away from you?”
That question seemed to have caught her off guard, and she finally looked him in the eye. “So, you were doing it deliberately?”
“I—I was busy with preparations for the ascension. You know that.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
The chilly, respectful tone made him want to scream. He wanted to see her passion and fury again. To defy him. To defend him the way she did against the mage. She was magnificent, never more so than now, in her lightning ballgown. Her skin glowed under the thousand candles overhead, and that sensuous scent of hers was like a siren song, calling to his senses and making his wolf crazy.
“You look beautiful tonight, Elise.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said without missing a beat.
“Don’t do that,” he rasped.
Her head jerked back so she could look at him again. “Do you have any other orders, Your Grace?”
Frustration made him want to shake her. “Elise, just … please. Don’t act this way.”
“Then what do you want with me?”
The dance
