Page 5 of Five Ways to Bed a Duke

Catherine looked around to see that other couples were stepping onto the dance floor for the second dance of the night.

“Of course, My Lord,” she replied with a smile of her own, accepting his proffered hand.

He led her to the dance floor.

They faced each other, and then she curtseyed while he executed a deep bow. She placed her fingers lightly on his shoulder, his hand settled on her waist, and then he led her into the first steps of the dance.

Lord Livingston was a graceful dancer, and following his lead, they simply glided across the dance floor. It seemed that the man did everything in his life with a single-minded devotion that was almost scary.

As the dance progressed, Catherine’s mind drifted back to the dilemma of refining Emmy’s manners and teaching her decorum in preparation for the marriage mart. Emmy was truly sweet anddeserved to secure a good match. If only Catherine could get her to agree without?—

“Something on your mind?” her dance partner murmured against her ear.

“What?” she blurted out, startled.

“You are in my arms, but you might as well be a million miles away, with how far your mind has wandered,” Lord Livingston said in an amused tone.

“I am sorry, My Lord,” she offered.

“Might I ask what was on your mind?”

“It is nothing, My Lord,” she answered.

There was an awkward pause, and she could feel that she had just shut down a window of conversation that might have helped them form a deeper bond, but she didn’t know how to fix it.

“Have I told you that you look absolutely ravishing this evening?” he asked in an attempt to fill the awkward silence, but the glint in his eyes indicated that he meant his words.

Catherine waited for the warm pleasure that usually followed compliments, but it didn’t come.

“I am flattered, My Lord,” she said flatly.

It was obvious that Lord Livingston picked up on it because, after a pause, he said, “You outshine every lady in this room. I am happy to be granted the privilege of dancing with such a goddess.”

“You flatter me, My Lord,” she answered in that deadpan tone that she could not get rid of.

Apparently deciding that making conversation with her was a lost cause, Lord Livingston remained silent throughout the remainder of the dance.

When the last strains of the music died down, they bowed and curtseyed to each other. She wanted to escape from the suffocating silence between them.

“Miss Burlow, might I get you some lemonade or some sherry, perhaps?”

“My apologies, My Lord, but might I be excused? I need to get some fresh air.”

With that, she turned on her heel and hurried out of the ballroom as fast as she could without running.

The air in the ballroom was stifling, but she fled mostly to save herself from further embarrassment. She had always known she was terrible in social settings, and she was an evenworse conversationalist. But the recent conversation with Lord Livingston surely took the prize.

For as long as she could remember, she had always been terrible at making small talk, but any mention of her books and she became animated and talkative. She was a bluestocking through and through, and sometimes it got exhausting trying to pretend otherwise.

Once she was on the balcony, she gripped the rails firmly, breathing deeply to calm herself and silently urging herself to endure the rest of the night.

“You really do know how to get a man’s blood singing, don’t you, darling?” Richard asked, smiling knowingly at his companion.

With the way her eyes darkened and the way she kept looking at his lips, he could bet his entire estate that he was a few seconds away from experiencing a very satisfying tryst.

But then trysts in dark corners had to be the best way to pass time at these tiresome affairs. He should know, he had attended dozens of them over the years, so he believed he deserved a distraction if he was not to die of boredom.

So when the recently widowed Lady Tremaine, who had been shooting him seductive glances all night from beneath her long dark lashes, had whispered in his ear during their dance that heshould meet her at the balcony in a few minutes, he had waited for the required ten minutes before following her. Who was he to turn down such a delectable offer? Only a fool would do that, and he most certainly was not a fool.

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