“I trust you are enjoying yourself…Miss Doyle?” he asked.
“Oh, exceedingly well, thank you, my lord.” Lily remembered her smile and her fan and made use of both.
“And I trust you have been seeing something of London?”
“Not a great deal yet, my lord,” she said. “I have been very busy.”
If Elizabeth only had a knife, Lily thought without a glimmering of amusement, she would surely be able to slice the air between them. Would no one come to the rescue? And then someone did.
“Lady Elizabeth? Would you do me the honor of presenting me—again?” It was a pleasant man’s voice, and Lily turned with a grateful smile toward its owner. But she recognized him. He had been at Newbury Abbey for a few days after her arrival. He was a friend of Baron Galton, Lauren’s grandfather.
“Mr. Dorsey?” Elizabeth said. She turned to Lily. “Lily, do you remember Mr. Dorsey? Miss Doyle, sir.”
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” Lily said, curtsying and hoping fervently that he would stay awhile and make conversation, though she was fully aware that at any moment the next sets would be forming.
“Charmed, Miss Doyle,” he said. “And charming too if I may be allowed to say so. Would you honor me with your hand for the next set?”
“It is promised to his lordship,” Lily said.
“Ah, of course.” He smiled at Neville. “How do you do, Kilbourne. Then perhaps the next?”
“The next is promised to me, Dorsey.”
Lily turned in some surprise to see that the Duke of Portfrey had come up behind her. His words had been clipped and none too politely spoken.
“And every set after that is also promised,” his grace went on to say, quite erroneously. He had not even reserved the next set but one with her.
“Lyndon—” Elizabeth began.
“Good evening, Dorsey,” the duke said in quite decisively dismissive accents.
Mr. Dorsey smiled, bowed to them all, and strolled away without another word.
“Lyndon,” Elizabeth said, “whatever possessed you to be so ill-mannered?”
“Ill-mannered, ma’am?” he said coldly. “To keep rogues away from young innocents? I am amazed that you would deem it unexceptionable to present to Miss Doyle any scoundrel who asks for the favor.”
Elizabeth was tight-lipped and pale. “And I am amazed, your grace,” she said, “that you would presume to instruct me in proper behavior. Mr. Dorsey, I recollect, was your wife’s cousin. If you have a quarrel with him, you can scarce expect that I will make it mine.”
It had been a short, sharp exchange conducted in lowered voices. It shocked and upset Lily, who felt that she had been the cause of the unexpected quarrel. It also helped quench her own indignation over the Duke of Portfrey’s presuming to speak and act on her behalf.
“Lily,” Neville said, extending his arm for hers, “the sets are forming. Shall we join one?”
For a few moments she had forgotten him. But the sets were indeed forming, and she had agreed to spend all of half an hour in his company. It was not an enticing thought. The prospect of half an hour with him when there must be a whole lifetime and a whole eternity beyond it without him was a mortal agony to her.
She raised her hand, hoping it was not trembling quite noticeably, and set it, as she had been taught to do, on the cuff of his black evening coat. She felt his strength and his warmth. She smelled his familiar cologne. And she well-nigh forgot her surroundings and lost her awareness that this was the moment for which the gathered members of thebeau mondemust have waited ever since he entered the ballroom. She wanted to grip his wrist tightly and turn in to his body and burrow safely and warmly there. She wanted to sob out her grief and her loneliness.
A moment later she was horrified both by the wave of forgetfulness and by her own weakness. A month had passed, a month of hard work and fun. A month of living and preparing herself to live an independent and productive life. She had set a whole month between herself and him. A mighty bulwark, she had thought. But one sight of him, one touch, and everything had come crashing down again. The pain, she was sure, was worse than it had ever been.
She took her place in the line of ladies facing the line of gentlemen. She smiled—and he smiled back at her.
Elizabeth was still tight-lipped. She was looking about her for some friend whom she might join. The Duke of Portfrey gazed at her coldly.
“Take my arm,” he commanded. “We will go to the refreshment room.”
“I have just come from there,” she said. “And I do not answer to that tone, your grace.”
He sighed audibly. “Elizabeth,” he said, “will you please accompany me to the refreshment room? It will be quieter there. Experience has taught me that a quarrel that is not resolved in the immediate aftermath of a heated moment is likely never to be resolved.”
