Page 16 of Enticed By an Earl
“I have learned a great deal this evening,” Kitty said, stepping away from Georgiana, “and I should like to make some adjustments before I appear in public as Miss Kitty Dryden again. For one, I need a clearer story of my origin.”
“We can help with that,” Alice said, her eyes alight.
“We can,” Lady Everly confirmed. “But do as you must tonight.”
They exchanged a few more words as Kitty said her goodbye. She would have hugged them all and wept over their kindness, but even a lady could not get away with such behavior at a ball.
She left her friends reluctantly and started across the ballroom, hoping that her valise was still where she’d left it. More than a few gentlemen and ladies watched her or smiled and nodded at her as she passed through, but thankfully, no one attempted to speak to her.
Until she reached the edge of the ballroom.
“Miss Dryden, are you leaving so soon?” Lord Deveraux asked, jogging after her.
“I—” Kitty pressed a hand to her stomach and turned to see whether anyone might be watching them. Quite a few of the ladies observed their interaction with curiosity or jealousy. “It is late for me. I must return home.”
“You will not dance with me again?” Lord Deveraux asked, seeming genuinely disappointed.
Kitty’s heart all but melted. Lord Deveraux wanted her. The look in his eyes was clear enough.
But no, Lord Deveraux wanted Miss Kitty Dryden. He did not know the conflicted identity of the person she was. If he knew, it could change everything, and Kitty was not yet ready to have that much change.
“Perhaps we shall dance again at another ball,” she said with a warm smile.
Lord Deveraux’s shoulders relaxed, and he smiled back. “I should like that.”
“Goodbye, my lord,” Kitty said, managing a clumsy curtsy. That was something else she needed to work on.
“Goodbye, Miss Dryden,” Lord Deveraux said. “Until we meet again.”
Kitty sent him a smile so full of joy and affection that it made her dizzy. She then turned and sped out of the room as quickly as she could get away with. She felt every bit like a fresh debutante who had made her first conquest of the season. And even though she would have to go back to being Kit as soon as she left the ball, with any luck, she would be able to continue her ruse and deepen her attachment with Lord Deveraux to the point where she could tell the man the truth.
Six
For the second time in as many weeks, Dev could not stop thinking about someone he’d had a passing encounter with. He’d danced with over a dozen eager young ladies, half of them at his mother’s insistence, at the ball, but not one of them had left as much of a lasting impression on him as Miss Kitty Dryden.
“Was it her conversation that captivated you?” James asked as the two of them strolled together through Hyde Park two days after the ball.
“Not particularly,” Dev confessed. “She was shy, almost as if she was afraid to say too much, lest I judge her in some manner.”
“Not her conversation, then,” James said, sending him a sideways smirk. “Was she an accomplished dancer?”
“Not at all,” Dev laughed. “She knew the steps of the dance well enough, but she led with the wrong foot more often than not and continually attempted to turn in the opposite direction.”
“Green, then,” James said as they dodged around a pair ofnannies pushing their charges in prams. “Unused to public dances.”
Dev shrugged and winced. “Perhaps. She did say that she was not as experienced with dancing as she should have been, which surprised me.”
“How so?” James asked.
“She did not appear to be freshly out in society,” Dev explained the theories he’d been ruminating about since the night before last. “If I had to guess her age, I would place it at around five-and-twenty.”
“So you deduce she should have been out in society for long enough to learn the steps of common dances?”
“Precisely,” Dev said. He frowned and rubbed his chin as they walked on. “I did not find her silly or vacant, like some of the other women Mother forced me to stand up with. Miss Dryden had a look of intelligence in her eyes.”
James laughed. “I remember those days all too well,” he said. “Why our mother would think that any of us would want to marry a woman without any natural intelligence always escaped me.”
Dev laughed ironically. “Too many acquaintances of my experience wish for their ladies to be empty-headed, but I never understood why.”
