“A wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Grace added. “You had it all wrong, Pru.”
In the next moment, the approaching storm had reached them. Both the lords in question—the Earl of Hertford and Viscount Aylesford—were strikingly handsome. They were near enough now, Eugie could see all the details escaping her from across the chamber.
The Earl of Hertford was the man with the jaw and the light-brown hair and the mouth, Lord in heaventhe mouth, and the disapproving hazel stare that raked over Eugie in far too familiar a fashion.
Stopping upon her bosom.
It was not the first such look she had received, and nor would it be the last, she knew. She frowned at him as her heart thumped with a steadily increasing rhythm.Stupid heart.It had proven itself untrustworthy.
Dev was saying something, and since he was her brother, Eugie had ignored most of it. Only the last few words reached her ears.
“…delighted.”
Very well, only the last word, quite specifically. Which did her not one whit of good.
Because everyone was staring at her expectantly.
She blinked. That hazel gaze was upon her with the weight of an anvil.
“The next dance,” Lord Hertford was saying.
To her.
Eugie blinked. Oh dear, what else had she missed? And had Dev truly just promised she would dance with the Earl of Hertford? She had been so caught up in her thoughts, she had not heard the majority of the discourse happening around her.
Grace was accepting Lord Aylesford’s arm.
Eugie frowned at her, sending her a look that saidwhat are you doing?
Grace shrugged, returning an expression that saidI have no idea, but I am bored.
Drat Grace. And drat Dev for introducing them to these detestable lords, for harboring this nonsensical idea he could give their family name some respectability if they all wedded a lord just as he had married a lady.
The earl offered her his arm.
She glanced to Christabella, who was notoriously abysmal at hiding her emotions, and whose expression was a mask of pity. Instantly, she looked to her brother’s wife, Lady Emilia, who rolled her lips inward, her brows furrowing as she met Eugie’s gaze with a beseeching look of her own.
Forgive me, it said.
“The dance is beginning,” Dev prodded her. “You will not wish to miss it.”
“Miss Winter,” the earl said formally, his tone cool. Cold, even.
He, too, was privy to the rumors. She knew it in her gut the way she knew winter was descending upon them, the way she knew Christmas was a few weeks hence.
Of course, he was aware of the vile lies being spread about her. Was not everyone in all London? She knew, instinctively, that Dev had somehow cleverly maneuvered the earl into offering to dance with her.
And also that the earl was decidedly not so inclined.
But he had accepted, in spite of himself.
“Eugie,” her brother prodded then, “the dance will begin at any second. You do not wish to tarry, do you?”
Eugie’s lips compressed, and she did not miss the look her sister-in-law sent in her brother’s direction. But she would save him, just as she would save them all.
She placed her gloved hand on Lord Hertford’s proffered arm, and she allowed him to lead her away from her siblings. The heat of him seeped through her gloves, irking her, as did the remarkably firm sensation of his well-muscled arm beneath hers.
Perhaps he was a gentleman who had taken to boxing, or some other means of physical toil, for Lord Cunningham had certainly never been so firm. Never so strong. Nor had he been so handsome, and while Lord Hertford smelled deliciously of shaving soap, man, and leather, Cunningham had smelled of pipe smoke and hair wax.
