Page 16 of Tamed By a Duke
He tried to discern if Miss Drew felt similarly, but every time that he tried to catch her green eyes, they were determinedly trained in the opposite direction. Avoiding looking at one's partner could, of course, only lead to one thing, and just as they had finished the last set, Miss Drew tripped over Hugh's feet and would have landed squarely on her face had he not caught her in his arms.
"Oh," she said, with a slight breathlessness to her voice, "I did not see you."
"Yes—when you're avoiding looking at someone, you generally don't see them," Hugh replied, amazed that he sounded so suave, for the feel of her in his arms was quite dizzying.
They stood, for a moment, staring at each other stupidly, until the orchestra finished playing and Hugh noted the whispers which were now audible given the absence of music. An elusive duke holding a lady for far longer than was proper in the middle of a ballroom floor would give rise to weeks of gossip.
"Up you go," he said, taking a hasty step back and speaking in the voice he usually used when speaking to his hunting dogs, "No harm done."
"Only to my pride, but that regularly takes a bashing," Miss Drew replied with a slight smile, as she gathered her wits and straightened her skirts.
It was hard not to admire a lady who shrugged off public embarrassment with a quick quip, though Hugh tried to quash the grudging respect he felt toward Miss Drew. She was still the same impertinent bluestocking, he reminded himself sternly, as he escorted her from the floor.
Orsino and Miss Havisham were close behind, and once the two couples had cleared the throng of people on the periphery of the dancefloor, the two ladies were at pains to take their leave.
"Well," Miss Drew said with a forced smile, "Thank you for the dance, your Grace. I am sure that there are a dozen other girls waiting in the wings to take my place."
"Yes, thank you," Miss Havisham echoed, her eyes—which Hugh could now see were dark enough to be violet—wide with terror as she glanced at her partner. Relief was clearly etched across her face that her ordeal was now at an end, and for a minute Hugh felt a little guilty for dragging her into this mess; his friend could be ruddy intimidating at times.
Before Hugh could object and try to draw them into further conversation, Miss Drew grabbed Miss Havisham's hand and bid them a cheery goodbye.
"For a filly in need of a duke, she didn't seem overly keen on you," Orsino observed, as both men watched their partners gallop away from them.
"Yes, well, perhaps she was playing hard to get," Hugh grumbled in reply, his friend's observation rankling his pride, "You know how women are."
"Perhaps she has another duke lined up already?"
Orsino's words were, Hugh knew, just a theory, but still he could not help but feel slightly startled by them. Was it possible that Miss Drew had already secured the attentions of another duke? She was certainly beautiful enough to draw the eye, though her deportment and sharp tongue were in need of much improvement.
"What duke could she possibly have waiting in the wings?" Hugh queried, sounding far more obstreperous than he had intended. "We are the only single dukes in all of London—unless you count Caplan, but he's pushing ninety. No, Miss Drew knows that the most tempting armful strives to make herself appear unobtainable. Men do love the hunt, after all."
"If you say so," Orsino replied mildly, with a secretive smile, which Hugh found highly irritating, upon his face.
Dragging his gaze away from his friend, Hugh scanned the room until he found where Miss Drew and Miss Havisham had disappeared to. They were back on their seats beneath the balcony and had been joined by the lovely Lady Julia. All three were deep in conversation, with their backs turned to the room; a most determined bunch of wallflowers, Hugh noted wryly.
He had expected that after their dance, Miss Drew might try to draw him into some light flirtation, but here she was happily ignoring him.
As he surreptitiously watched her, Miss Drew threw back her head and laughed at something Miss Havisham had said, her smile broad and infectious. Beneath the tapers of the chandelier her auburn hair burned bright and her rust coloured dress was almost alive.
Hugh had believed that Miss Drew would do as he expected, but as desire coursed through him, he reluctantly conceded that this was a young woman who would never conform to anyone's expectations.
Chapter Five
Even though last night they had discussed the Duke of Penrith, ad nauseam, Julia and Violet called on Charlotte the next morning, to continue the conversation afresh.
"Isn't it wonderful that he walked right up to you and asked you to dance," Julia said, for the fifth time, her blue eyes wide with astonishment.
Charlotte could think of a number of other adjectives that she would use in place of 'wonderful', but she refrained. Her stomach clenched with guilt, for she still had not told her two friends why it was that Penrith had taken such a quick interest in her. Both Juliet and Violet seemed to believe that she had made efforts to project an aura of allure to attract the duke, when really he had simply wanted to let her know that he had won.
His cock-sure assertion that he had "found" Charlotte had irritated her so much that she had forgotten her promise to Bianca and had unleashed the sharpness of her tongue. Charlotte had caught her duke and lost him, all in the space of five minutes, thanks to her sass. And, not to mention, that she had sealed his contempt of her by tripping over his ruddy-big foot. All was not as wonderful as she had led her friends to believe.
"It's almost a miracle," Julia was still speaking, "A divine intervention, of sorts."
"There was nothing divine about it," Charlotte replied with a sigh, placing her tea-cup down upon the table and staring forlornly at her friends, "I could not tell you last night, as Lady Havisham might have overheard, but I had already met Penrith before..."
In a whisper, Charlotte explained about her trip to St Bartholomew's Church, for what she had thought would be a meeting of the Hampden Club, and the fracas that had thus ensued.
"Lud," Julia rubbed her temples, as Charlotte finished speaking, "Charlotte, imagine the scandal if you had been accused of sedition."
