Nora doubted such an opinion on the matter would be particularly welcome. She also felt a pang of empathy at the possibility that she was right. Mr. Grenville was so cheerful. Sonice. The thought of him losing his happy demeanor because he’d chained himself indoors to mind his account balances…
Well, she supposed she knew a thing or two about doing whatever it took to keep one’s family afloat. That kinship made her like him all the more.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Grenville!” cooed a quartet of waving young ladies as their grand carriage drew close.
Nora’s spine slumped. Liking him did not signify. She would never be one of those girls.
Mr. Grenville greeted the young ladies by name, with a smile and a friendly compliment for each. When they inquired whether he would be present at this ball or that, he vowed his name would not be absent from their dance cards.
What would it be like to be one of them? To hear him say such words to her, and to know that they were true?
If Nora were a debutante and there was the slightest chance Mr. Grenville would stand up with her to dance, she would be first in line at every ball. She’d curl her hair for hours if need be, embroider flowers and beads onto the finest crepe she could afford.
Once she was there amongst the musicians and the chandeliers and the magic, Nora would not hang back with the wallflowers and risk there being no room to add her name to his list. She would be first to smile at him, to speak with him, to inform him he was in luck because there was still a spot for his name on her dance card.
And then, once she was in his arms…
A few of the debutantes shot suspicious glances over Mr. Grenville’s shoulder at Nora, as if desperate to know her identity, but unwilling to break protocol by asking their questions outright. Who was this freckled stranger in a pale pink muslin day dress stealing Mr. Grenville’s precious time away from debutantes who deserved him?
Nora looked away. Their jealousy was misplaced. Yet a small part of her was pleased she had the power to engender it, no matter how briefly.
She straightened her shoulders and did her best to project a confidence she did not feel. They didn’tknowshe was no one. All their worried eyes could observe was handsome Mr. Grenville tarrying at a landau containing a Society matron and an unknown young woman near their age.
Perhaps they were even beginning to wonder whether distressingly red hair had become all the crack overnight, and their perfect blonde ringlets horribly out of fashion.
A giggle escaped Nora’s throat as she imagined painting such a scene. The soft watercolor of the debutantes’ pastel dresses, the strong, red brush strokes of her hair flailing in the wind, the charming prince smitten at first sight.
Mr. Grenville swung a quizzical gaze in her direction. “Have I missed something humorous?”
“I was just imagining red hair as something fashionable,” she stammered.
His eyes heated as he gazed intently at her person.
“Fashions come and go,” he said softly. “But lustrous hair as glorious as yours will be beautiful forever. Why else would great masters such as Titian become obsessed with painting goddesses with flowing locks the same color as yours?”
“I…” Nora’s throat dried as she gazed back at him wordlessly.
She had expected him to laugh off the idea, perhaps tease her good-naturedly about her unfortunate coloring. Instead, Mr. Grenville had compared her to a goddess. Someone important men could become obsessed with. Someone worthy of beingremembered.
Her heart skipped. She had never received a better compliment.
“Don’t start again with your Italian painters,” Lady Roundtree said with a flutter of her gloved fingers. “I swear you’d be just as happy to spend a sunny afternoon cooped up in a museum as out here in Hyde Park.”
“Both are filled with beauty,” Mr. Grenville agreed. But his gaze did not leave Nora.
She tried to tamp down her runaway pulse. It refused to slow.
He was simply being kind, was he not? From the moment they’d first met, she’d quickly deduced that kindness was Mr. Grenville’s signature characteristic. He was kind to ladies young and old, to rakes and dandies, to maids and footmen, to completely out-of-her-element country greenhorns like Nora. He meant nothing flirtatious by it. She should not read more into a simple comment than the politeness he had intended.
And yet, Mr. Grenville had accomplished a seemingly impossible feat.
Hesawher.
Not as an unimportant servant, or a poor relation, or a romantic rival, but as aperson.
A woman with Titian hair.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
