“Let them dance, Mother,” Rose laughed. “We shall see what comes after that.”
“My beloved wife,” said a familiar voice then, as arms came around Rose’s waist and warm lips planted a kiss on her cheek.
“You’re back!” Rose remarked with pleasure, leaning into Dorian’s embrace and breathing him in.
“Have you managed to marry Magnus off yet?” Dorian asked Eugenia, with an amused smile.
“We’re working hard,” his mother-in-law assured him, with a nod towards the dance floor. “Rose seems to favor Lady Helena but I am not quite sure…”
“It was a false alarm,” Dorian whispered into Rose’s ear while her mother’s attention was distracted in giving her views on Lady Helena. “The midwife will stay with Jane overnight to be sure, but they think it could be another week yet. Maisie is taking good care of Charlotte.”
“Thank God we are near Richmond tonight,” Rose whispered back, quickly brushing some of the dusk of a hurried ride from Dorian’s jacket before her mother might see and comment on it. “You gave both Jane and Charlotte my love, didn’t you?”
“As if I could ever forget your love,” Dorian answered fondly, kissing Rose’s hair. “Or my own for you.”
When the Duchess of Westvale turned, she saw only her daughter nestling happily in her husband’s arms, their good-looking faces both dreamy and content. The Duke and Duchess of Ravenhill were commonly described in society gossip columns as the handsomest couple in London and Rose’s mother took personal pride in this.
Then something caught Eugenia Williams’ eye off to the left and her expression became one of disapproval.
“Dear me, poor Madeline!” she commented and both Rose and Dorian followed her line of sight.
At the doors leading to the conservatory, Lady Madeline Bennet appeared to be taking a firm hold of the arm of her young cousin, Lady Francesca, who had apparently been about to vanish into those rooms on the arm of a young lieutenant in a smart blue jacket.
“Oh dear,” Rose sighed. “Francesca is up to her tricks again.”
“The conservatory is already full of elderly dowagers,” Dorian told them, holding back some of his amusement in deference to his mother-in-law. “I just came in that way. Young Francesca would not have come to very much harm.”
“Still, she ought not to be slipping away anywhere with officers without a chaperone,” tutted the Duchess of Westvale. “Another time, the situation might be very different. One cannot be too careful with young ladies.”
The older woman raised a hand towards Lady Madeline, offering a safe port to steer for in the crowded ballroom.
“A young lady alone might meet a wolf in the gardens,” whispered Rose to Dorian and received a grin in return. “A wolf with sharp teeth.”
“A lucky wolf,” he whispered back to her, squeezing her waist.
They straightened their faces before Madeline and Francesca reached them, Madeline’s expression harassed and Francesca’s petulant.
“There were thousands of old ladies in there and we were only going to look at the palms,” Francesca protested to her cousin. “Lieutenant Stevens knows all about botany.”
“I bet he does,” murmured Dorian to his wife sarcastically and Rose laughed before stepping forward to embrace both Madeline and Francesca.
The Duchess of Westvale did the same but then began to lecture Lady Francesca on the importance of good behavior and obeying her older cousin who was only acting in Francesca’s best interests. The face that Francesca pulled would have brought down the wrath of both ladies had not someone else interrupted the conversation.
Sandy-haired and good-natured, the Duke of Hawcrest greeted the group pleasantly before turning to Madeline with a smile in his blue-green eyes.
“May I have the honor of the next dance, Lady Madeline?”
Madeline blinked in astonishment and Rose recognized that her mind had been far too occupied with supervising Francescato even remember that she too was a single young lady in a ballroom.
“Or a later dance, if you are presently occupied,” Levi Collins suggested politely, realizing that he might have interrupted something.
“Oh, I had not thought…” Madeline began and seemed lost for words.
It was Dorian who stepped in and smoothed the moment over, on easy terms with everyone, including the Duke of Hawcrest. Rose was glad at how quickly and completely that brief enmity had resolved, seeming to vanish into thin air the moment Dorian had bedded her again at Ashbourne Castle.
“I suspect the greatest favor you could presently do for Lady Madeline would be to dance with young Lady Francesca here and give her poor cousin five minutes respite,” the Duke of Ravenhill suggested with twinkling gravity. “I also suspect that Lady Francesca would rather dance with you than be lectured by us.”
“I would rather dance withyou, Your Grace,” Francesca declared boldly to Dorian, drawing shocked gasps from both Madeline and the Duchess of Westvale at the girl’s effrontery.
