“Don’t,” he warned her.
She complied, but barely, so he turned to Lady Elizabeth and asked, “Shall I fetch her?”
She stared at him mutely.
“Your sister,” he clarified.
Still nothing. Good Lord, were they even educating females these days?
“The Lady Amelia,” he said, with extra enunciation.
“My affianced bride. The one who just gave me the cut direct.”
“I wouldn’t call it direct,” Elizabeth finally choked out.
He stared at her for a moment longer than was comfortable (for her; he was perfectly at ease with it), then
turned to Grace, who was, he had long since realized, one of the only people in the world upon whom he might rely for complete honesty.
“Shall I fetch her?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, her eyes shining with mischief.
“Do.”
His brows rose a fraction of an inch as he pondered where the dratted female might have gone off to. She couldn’t actually leave the assembly; the front doors spilled right onto the main street in Stamford—
certainly not an appropriate spot for an unescorted female. In the back there was a small garden. Thomas had never had occasion to inspect it personally, but he was told that many a marriage had been proposed in its leafy confines.
Proposed being something of a euphemism. Most proposals occurred in a rather more complete state of attire than those that came about in the back garden of the Lincolnshire Dance and Assembly Hall.
But Thomas didn’t much worry about being caught alone with Lady Amelia Willoughby. He was already shackled to the chit, wasn’t he? And he could not put off the wedding very much longer. He had informed her parents that they would wait until she was one-and-twenty, and surely she had to reach that age soon.
If she hadn’t already.
“My options appear to be thus,” he murmured. “I could fetch my lovely betrothed, drag her back for a dance, and demonstrate to the assembled multitudes that I have her clearly under my thumb.”
Grace stared at him with amusement. Elizabeth looked somewhat green.
“But then it would look as if I cared,” he continued.
“Don’t you?” Grace asked.
He thought about this. His pride was pricked, that was true, but more than anything he was amused. “Not so very much,” he answered, and then, because Elizabeth was her sister, he added, “Pardon.”
She nodded weakly.
“On the other hand,” he said, “I could simply remain here. Refuse to make a scene.”
“Oh, I think the scene was already made,” Grace murmured, giving him an arch look.
Which he returned in kind. “You’re lucky that you’re the only thing that makes my grandmother tolerable.”
Grace turned to Elizabeth. “I am apparently unsack-able.”
“Much as I’ve been tempted,” Thomas added.
Which they both knew was untrue. Thomas would have laid himself prostrate at her feet if necessary, just to get her to remain in his grandmother’s employ.
Luckily for him, Grace showed no inclination to leave.
Still, he would have done it. And tripled her salary at the same time. Every minute Grace spent in his grandmother’s company was a minute he didn’t have to, and truly, one could not put a price on something such as that.
But that was not the matter at hand. His grandmother was safely ensconced in the next room with her band of
cronies, and he had every intention of being in and out of the assembly without their having to share a single word of conversation.
His fiancée, however, was another story entirely.
“I do believe I shall allow her her moment of tri-umph,” he said, coming to this decision as the words crossed his lips. He felt no need to demonstrate his authority—really, could there be any question of it?—
and he did not particularly relish the idea that the good people of Lincolnshire might imagine he was besotted with his fiancée.
Thomas did not do infatuation.
“That’s very generous of you, I must say,” Grace remarked, her smile most irritating.
He shrugged. Barely. “I’m a generous sort of man.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and he thought he heard her breathe, but other than that, she remained mute.
A wordless female. Maybe he should marry that one.
“Do you depart, then?” Grace asked.
“Are you trying to be rid of me?”
“Not at all. You know I always delight in your presence.”
He would have returned her sarcasm in kind, but before he could do so, he spied a head—or rather, a part of a head—peeking out from behind the curtain that separated the assembly hall and the side corridor.
Lady Amelia. She had not gone so far afield after all.
“I came to dance,” he announced.
“You loathe dancing,” Grace said.
“Not true. I loathe being required to dance. It is a very different endeavor.”
“I can find my sister,” Elizabeth said quickly.
“Don’t be silly. She obviously loathes being required to dance, too. Grace shall be my partner.”
“Me?” Grace looked surprised.
Thomas signaled to the small band of musicians at the front of the room. They immediately lifted their instruments.
“You,” he said. “You don’t imagine I would dance with anyone else here?”
“There is Elizabeth,” she said as he led her to the center of the floor.
“Surely you jest,” he murmured. Lady Elizabeth Willoughby’s skin had not recovered any of the color that had drained from it when her sister turned her back and left the room. The exertions from dancing would probably lead her to swoon.