“There sits my sullen niece in the supper room, with nary a rake in sight.”
“Well, there’s certainly one in my line of view,” Harriet said frankly. “And now that the reel is over and we are standing alone on the dance floor, would you mind if I went to check on Miss Edlyn for myself?”
“Yes. In fact, I would.”
“I’m sorry,” she said slowly. “I don’t think I understand.”
That made two of them. He searched his mind for a plausible explanation. “You’ll never plow through the crowd at the buffet table without my help.”
She glanced around him. “That’s what you-”
He claimed her hand before she could finish and pushed a path rather imperiously through the throng of astonished guests, leaving her with little choice but to follow. He’d have the devil’s time finding another reason to enjoy her company. After all, a man could rely on his aunt to provide excuses only to a certain point.
“There are side passages in this supper room,” she said breathlessly.
“How do you know?” he asked without turning around.
There were some secrets that a woman took to the grave. If discretion were the better part of valor, Harriet decided that she would not satisfy him with an answer. In fact, for a man she had begun to think of as shy, he was causing a scandal with his ungracious entrance into the supper room, shouldering aside bewildered guests and hauling about an academy’s instructress in the bargain. She glanced up into the astonished stare of the usually unflappable senior footman to the marquess, Weed. His shrewd gaze cut sharply to the duke. Without blinking an eye, he snapped his fingers, and three other footmen appeared as if they existed for no other purpose than to await the duke’s every desire.
Not that the duke needed anyone’s help to command an antechamber. He had the attention of the entire assembly. Even the small glasses of syllabub trembled as he strode past the table.
Upon recognizing his ducal personage, the guests who had gathered in the room parted to allow his progress. A few called his name in the hope of being acknowledged. Several of them stared enviously at Harriet for having captured his attention. She would have stared back, except she was more intent on keeping her eye on Miss Edlyn in the corner. The girl seemed to be watching a matronly woman in a green muslin gown escape into one of the private corridors, which Weed and the other footmen would be guarding had they not been chasing the duke around the room.
The duke sighed. “All is well. Neither of us shall be scolded by my aunt. By the way, she goes into a panic at least once a week. It’s nothing you should take personally.”
Harriet frowned as Miss Edlyn rose suddenly from her chair, ducking away from the guests who clamored to coax a look from her. The girl had apparently never bothered to put her Boscastle charms to the test. Her young uncle had probably been exercising his since the day he was born.
“You may let go of my hand now, your grace,” she said, when it became clear he would not do so by himself.
He turned, a thin smile playing on his lips. “But I have a reputation to uphold.”
She shook her head at him in reproach. “Mine will not be helped if I’m reported to be remiss in my duties or to be so smitten by-”
Oh. Hung by her tongue again.
“By?” he inquired, widening his heavily lashed eyes as if he didn’t have a clue.
“I shall be tarnished,” she explained in an undertone. “You will shine like a black diamond.”
He paused briefly as Edlyn walked past him without a word. “It isn’t fair, is it?”
Harriet sighed. “Not at all. But there’s nothing to be done for it.” She lowered her voice. “Please, your grace. People are staring. We must separate before they draw certain undesirable conclusions.”
He glanced around in resentment. “What are they waiting for, anyway?”
She bit her lip, her gaze following Edlyn’s progress back into the ballroom. “An introduction to you.”
“All of them?”
She smiled. “So it appears.”
“Where does that side passage lead to?” he asked her suddenly.
She laughed, pulling her hand from his possessive grasp. “If you want to get in trouble, I shall not be the one held responsible.”
“I saved you from the inferno, remember?”
“I remember,” Harriet said, as if that were an experience she would ever forget. She backed away before he could stop her. “Now, if it’s all the same to you, I believe I have to save myself.”
Chapter Eight
Lost Angel of a ruin’d Paradise! She knew not ’twas her own; as with no stain She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Edlyn was sitting at the window again when Harriet entered the room with a bedtime offering of hot chocolate and warm currant buns. She set down her tray on the circular rosewood table. The girl had at least traded her dreary gray dress for an embroidered white nightrail, but somehow the change only made her seem thinner and more ethereal.
“I love hot chocolate on a rainy night,” Harriet said cheerfully, if only as an antidote against the somber atmosphere in the room. “Which, living in London, means I drink it all the time.”
Edlyn sat in utter silence.
“And Cook makes the most scrumptious currant buns you’ve ever tasted. I ate five in a row when I first came to the academy. I almost blew up like a balloon. It’s embarrassing to think of it.”
Nothing. She might have been talking to the bedpost. Charlotte had urged her to persist. “You aren’t unwell, are you?” she asked. “Perhaps we should-” She broke off. Harriet had never possessed much patience. “What
“You talk too much,” Edlyn said unexpectedly.
“That wouldn’t be because I have to talk for two, would it?”
She waited. Then, more curious than offended, she went to the other end of the window and peered down into the street. It was empty. Edlyn turned her head and subjected her to a wrathful scowl. Having received and given worse in her tender years, Harriet disregarded this affront. She thought she heard the echo of hoofbeats from the corner. She might even have perceived the rear end of a hackney coach. But there was nothing unusual about that. It was almost as if the girl could see ghosts. Harriet shivered pleasantly at the thought.
“Have some hot chocolate,” she insisted, returning to the table. “This room is colder than I can ever remember. Perhaps we’re going to have another storm.”
Edlyn finally deigned to speak. “It stormed the entire way from home to London.”
“Did it? Mind you don’t burn yourself. The drink is piping hot.” She carefully handed her the bone-china cup.
Edlyn took a reluctant swallow. “This is good,” she said grudgingly. “Bitter and dark, the way it’s supposed to be. And it always storms when one of us is in a mood. My great-aunts think Uncle Griffin attracts thunder and lightning.”
“Nonsense,” Harriet said, her scalp prickling. “Nobody has that sort of power, except in stories. What you probably mean to say is that he-I don’t know-that he stirs up his surroundings.”
“Does he stir you?”
Harriet blinked. “A woman in my position does not allow herself to be stirred.”
“Would you admit it if you were?”
