Anthony saw the worry that darkened Rachel’s expression. His hands remained fisted.
“Both were so smug, but do you think Lord Ward might have been the one who tried to kill us with the flowerpot? Do you think he killed your lab assistant?” she asked.
“I have the same concerns. Lord Ward has the money, the influence, and the motive. He is a strong opponent to my father’s policy in the House of Lords to end the costly war in the Colonies.”
Rachel sighed. “I’ve made a mess of things tonight. I fell for Sir Bonneville’s ruse to lure me to the library, and then I was far too outspoken with Lady Ward.”
With an I-told-you-so look about the loathsomeness of balls, Anthony parroted her earlier remark. “To be nourished with new actions, new aspirations, new events will lend us new visions, won’t it, Miss Thorne?” His broadside earned a pained expression from her.
Humphrey snorted. “Don’t mind Lady Ward. She has nothing to offer the world except a headache, existing to parade her own equation between status and human worth.”
“If anything, the evening is entertaining. Say whatever you like, Miss Thorne, I’ll back you up completely,” said the Duke of Banfield.
Rachel laid a hand on her heart. “I had no idea that there could be a creature as condescending as Lady Ward.”
Difficult to tamp down the devil in him, Anthony said, “Lady Ward is not at fault.”
Rachel groaned. “Which makes my comment all the worse.”
Anthony observed the pasted tower of Lady Ward’s hair bobbing and weaving through the crowd, a cat whiskers-width away from a candelabra. How many minutes for the confection to blaze from the start of ignition to her scalp? “As a cure-all, Lord Ward shocked her. A curiosity she’s not a smoking crater on the carpet.”
Rachel smiled and her happiness caused an unfamiliar lightness in him.Risky.Dangerous to fall under Rachel’s spell. He began to move away, but she tugged his arm and raised her feathered brow in an aren’t-you-going-to-ask-me-to-dance question.
“I don’t know how to dance.”
“I doubt that. Sir Jameson was ready to ask me again, and he can sneeze with enough force to put the planets out of alignment.”
“He asked you to dance. Twice.”
“Does that bother you?”
He pulled her onto the dance floor. “How diverting, the odds of being struck by lightning opposed to the odds of being killed by lightning.”
Rachel pealed with hilarity, her laughter was like the first ray of light of God’s creation. “For someone who cannot dance, you surprise me, Lord Anthony, with your fluidity.”
“You do not think a duke’s son would have refinements?”
She lifted her eyelashes. “Admit it, you are having fun, and if you wish to have more enjoyment, I can explain the science of what people are now thinking.”
“Go ahead and divine your prophetic wanderings of the human mind. There’s Lady Ward, tell me what she is thinking.”
“That’s easy. She is ready to roast me on spit.”
“Wrong. She doesn’t think. There is nothing there to think with.”
Rachel giggled. “Her hair, to think it would make a perfect target for an archer’s arrow.”
“Don’t tell me archery is another of your talents?”
“Living with savages and wigwams, one must be prepared. My brother, Ethan, taught me.” She gave Anthony a shy smile, and then angled her head to the sidelines.
“Look at that man in the orange frockcoat. He’s staring off in the distance, dreaming of a long lost lover.”
“He’s dreaming how he can escape his nagging wife and go fishing.”
“That is unfair. You have a history of people that I don’t have.”
Her radiant smile made the millwheel spin. The evening had not been a waste of time and Anthony pondered that notion, for everything he did in life was arranged to eradicate randomness and remove chance. Control was his expertise—anticipating every possibility, foreseeing every response, and molding reality toward the desired outcome. With Miss Thorne, his world was turned upside down and dropped on its head.
