Page 9 of Marrying a Reluctant Lady
Ophelia accepted her drink but didn’t sip it. She stood there for what felt like an age while her parents talked to the lord and lady they had just spotted. Lord Epdale changed the topic, mercifully, from hunting to gardening, and then he was talkingabout the renovations to the Epdale estate at length. Ophelia loved gardens, and the topic was at least interesting, but she ached to slip off, her feet feeling as though they were going to catch alight with impatience if she stood still a second more.
“Lady Walden? Lord Walden?” a voice interrupted the talk.
Ophelia looked over, recognizing it distantly. It was Lady Haredale, and she was coming to join them, which meant that she must have already greeted all the guests, Ophelia realized with some surprise. She’d been so distracted with all the talk that she hadn’t noticed time passing. The musicians were tuning up in the corner, which meant the dancing was soon to start. They must have been standing there for half an hour.
“Lady Haredale?” Father greeted her guardedly as if he, too, were surprised by her sudden appearance.
“Lord Walden,” Lady Haredale repeated firmly. “Might I interrupt you a moment? I have someone I want you to meet. Would you follow me? And bring Miss Worthington, too, of course. That’s very important.”
Ophelia felt a tingle spread across her skin, and her stomach twisted queasily. She wanted to meet someone new—and moving away from Lord Epdale would be most comfortable—but she suspected this was some plot her parents had concocted to introduce a new suitor, except that they looked as confused as she felt. That gave her a flutter of concern.
Who are we going to meet?She asked herself, her palms tingling.
They all walked through the crowded room with Lady Haredale. Ophelia’s feet were silent on the marble tiles, the ceiling soaring high overhead with its molded cornices and white paint. They stopped at the refreshments table, near a man. His back was to them, and he was tall, with broad shoulders, and was wearing a black jacket and black trousers, which in itself was strange, given that the other men in the room weremostly in brighter colors and favored knee-breeches. Ophelia felt inquisitive in spite of her fear.
“Nephew?” Lady Haredale called softly. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Yes, Aunt?” the man replied, and turned around. Ophelia stopped breathing.
It was him. The man she had met in the library.
Chapter 4
Owen stared at the woman standing before him. Even before he had been standing close enough to recognize her as the woman from the library, he had noticed her across the ballroom. He’d been standing with Leonard, and he’d noticed his aunt drift across the room to greet a couple and a woman with long blonde hair arranged artfully around her face. He would have let his gaze drift across the room—he had seen so many parties like this and met so many people—but the way the woman was standing intrigued him.
While others in the room were talking and laughing, making emphatic gestures, or nodding and smiling, this woman was standing absolutely still, her gaze downcast, her shoulders drooping as though she was utterly unhappy, tense, or both. In a roomful of people laughing and seemingly trying to outdo each other in wit and good humor, that one figure stood out and drew his eye.
She was like a spring flower drooping miserably in a patch of dark shade. She looked as out of place as he was.
He had felt a flash of interest and had walked a little closer, feeling a need to meet her. As he did, his aunt gestured to him.
“Nephew?” she addressed him formally. Her gaze at him was intense. “There is someone I want you to meet.”
He had stopped abruptly. His gaze widened, and he gasped as he recognized her.
The woman from the library.
He cleared his throat loudly. It was too tight to talk. His body flushed with heat as her gaze met his, though why he couldn’t say. Maybe embarrassment. After all, the last time they had talked hadn’t exactly been a comfortable one.
He looked down at her and she gazed up at him, lifting her head for what seemed like the first time that evening. Her blue eyes were exactly the color of the sky, and she looked as though she’d been crying. Her eyes, round and sorrowful, gazed into his and he stopped breathing.
“Nephew,” his aunt was continuing, and he made himself turn and look at her, though it was hard to tear his gaze from the young lady. “Please meet Baron and Baroness Walden, and their lovely daughter, the Honorable Miss Worthington.”
“Good evening,” Owen managed.
Miss Worthington. That’s her name.
He had wondered more than once, in the hours since he’d seen her, what her name might be. He had wished that he’d had the brazenness to ask when first he’d seen her, but he had felt so uncomfortable and awkward he could never have asked.
He inclined his head politely to the baron and baroness, and then let his gaze move to the Honorable Miss Worthington. What was her first name, he wondered. His lips moved up in a grin and he tried to suppress it, willing himself calm.
“Good evening, miss,” he replied. He wanted to say, “madam,” just to see what she’d do, if she’d look as angry as she’d looked when he called her that in the library earlier. He saw her gaze widen and he made himself look away. He didn’t want to embarrass her.
“Good evening.” She dipped low, a formal curtsey that was easily the most gracious he’d ever seen gracing the space of his aunt’s ballroom. He blinked in surprise.
She’s more well-tutored in that sort of thing than I am, and she’s the daughter of a baron.
He looked at his aunt, wishing he could ask her a hundred things—how well she knew them, why she had chosen to introduce them—but his aunt was staring back at him, and he felt his cheeks flush.
