Hugh grunted once. “Not even a little. So you sang for company. Why should that offend? Are you that horrid?”
Scowling, Michael glanced over his shoulder. “No. But only Charlotte had heard me sing before… What is the point in explaining it?” He shook his head and returned his attention forward. “Nobody else will understand.”
“Ah, so that’s the issue. It’s something special between you.”
If hearts could shrink, Michael’s did then for a moment or two. “Yes,” he muttered. “It is. Or was.”
“And Miss Palmer?”
His heart expanded, warming just a little. “Diana is the sweetest girl I’ve ever met. She’d never heard me sing, and I thought… I thought…” He exhaled slowly. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. I shouldn’t hurt one while pleasing the other, should I?”
“You cannot balance the feelings of both in your hands your whole life, either.”
That, at least, was unfortunately true.
“Is that what I’m doing?” Michael murmured to himself, not expecting an answer from Hugh or anyone else.
Probably, his saner side replied. After all, mere hours after deciding he could let Charlotte go forever by singing for company, he was desperate to repent of the deed and to make amends.
But should he?
“I should have gone back to the church,” he hissed to himself.
“Pardon?” Hugh queried from behind him.
“Yes, I need one.” Michael shook his head and sighed, pausing as he looked out at the dance. “Do you see Diana?”
Hugh came up beside him and began scanning the guests. “No, but you’ve already had one dance with her tonight, so unless you want more rumors…”
“I can dance with her once more, and after that, I will need to propose, I am well aware.” He pursed his lips, eyeing the rather full ballroom. “I’m not necessarily looking to dance, Sterling. I only need her location.”
“Simple enough. She’s dancing with Demaris.”
Michael looked at the dancers, and, sure enough, the fair-haired woman he was pursuing was there, a lovely paradox of her present partner, dark and brooding as he was. They attracted the admiration and attention of several onlookers, and, quite frankly, it was right they should have. They danced marvelously well together, and no other couple in the dance could compare.
Even Michael was momentarily captivated watching them.
“You aren’t jealous, are you?”
Michael smiled to himself and shook his head. “No, not at all. Should I be?”
“Honestly, yes.”
The answer made Michael frown, and he looked at Hugh in confusion. “Why’s that?”
Hugh seemed more bemused by the question than anything else. “The woman you are courting is dancing, delighted, and distracting at the present, in the company of a man who is not you.”
That did not make anything clearer.
“And…?” Michael prodded, drawing the word out. “I have no fear of her affections straying to Demaris, and it is only a courtship, not an engagement. If she should find she prefers another, why should that upset me?”
Hugh blinked at Michael’s statement, his smile wavering. “Sandford, you are supposed to be possessive and uncomfortable if any person of the male sex should come within three feet of her, whether you know him or not.”
“I don’t see why.” Michael looked out at Diana again, smiling as he saw her laugh during the jig. “Her happiness prompts my own. I feel proud when I see her, not possessive. I know that I am courting her, and that she has agreed to my suit. We are becoming better acquainted, and I’d say it is going well. But I have no claim on her. By all rights, she is free.”
There was no immediate response, and, when it lingered, Michael thought it best to check that his friend still stood beside him.
Hugh stared out at the guests in the ballroom, but he seemed not to see any of them, his head shaking back and forth without any haste or energy.
“What?” Michael groaned, feeling he had failed to come up to snuff somehow.
His friend’s jaw tightened for a moment. “How would you describe your feelings for Miss Palmer, Michael?”
He did the lady the justice of collecting his thoughts before replying. “Admiration. Great esteem. Respect. Affection. What description are you looking for?”
Hugh raised a brow. “Something that does not also apply to your mother.”
Michael scowled at him. “I don’t mean affection in that sense.”
“Yet it was the word you chose. Not attraction, not passion, infatuation, or devotion. Certainly not love.” Hugh shrugged and smirked as he continued to watch the dancing.
“You cannot judge all relationships by the same standard,” Michael insisted. “I’ve never been in a courtship before, so perhaps this is how I feel as it proceeds.”
His words had Hugh nodding slowly. “But you have been in love before, Sandford. You cannot claim ignorance to the emotions and sensations involved there.”
Michael ground his teeth so tightly his jaw ached.
Not this again.
“That is behind me, Sterling,” Michael insisted. “And before you can suggest it, my desire to find Charlotte now is purely to ensure that my actions have not given her undue pain. It has nothing to do with how I may or may not have felt.”
“Fair enough.” Hugh turned to stare rather frankly at him. “But if you think the polite feelings you described for Miss Palmer will ever amount to the same as you felt for Charlotte, you do all three of you a disservice. Charlotte is by the terrace door, by the by.” He dipped his chin in a nod, then strode by Michael in search of some better company.
It was worth a moment’s pause to consider Hugh’s words, even if Michael did not necessarily agree with them.
After all, what had his feelings for Charlotte ever done for him?
He was far more inclined to trust the more sedate feelings he was growing for Diana, and the deep, abiding course they could run, than any passionate outburst for Charlotte he could not control.
A nagging inkling began to prick at his mind, and Michael was quick to shove that aside before it could formulate. He
