“He’s handsome,” she said to her mother, nodding at the young man. “Who is he?”
“Who?” Her mother squinted, then sighed, her lip curling. “Oh, that one. Yes, he may be handsome, but he’s little more than a boy, and his father is one of the most reckless gentlemen you could meet. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were set to inherit very little.” She sent Louisa a stern look. “I would not like you to dance with him, Louisa. Do you understand me?”
Her memory finally slotted into place. The boy from the maze.
Oh, she had every intention of dancing with him.
“You should approach her,” George Comerford said, nodding to the lady Henry had been pointedly trying to ignore all evening. “Ask her to dance.”
Henry sent his friend a scornful look. “As though you would in my position.”
Comerford cleared his throat, tucking his hands behind his back. The primary reason they were friends at Oxford was because they were avid students. Comerford, out of a love for studying, and Henry because he knew it to be his duty. They also shared a degree of distaste for the usual activities young men partook in. Comerford, because it disturbed his studies, and Henry because he had spent his life avoiding vice and he disliked it being thrust before his face.
They were not wholly the same; Comerford had entertained several ladies and had even visited a brothel once or twice. But they had never discussed it, and it was doubtful they ever would.
“You noticed her the moment she walked through the doors,” Comerford said.
“I notice every lady.”
“But you don’t watch their progress around the ballroom like a wolf in search of his next meal.”
Henry shot Comerford an annoyed glance. “I’m doing no such thing.”
“You are.” Comerford leant forwards. “Do you know who she is?”
Henry had not confided in his friend about the lady he’d met in Bath. “I believe we met once,” he said eventually.
“Ah. And you liked her.”
“I did not.”
Comerford raised an entirely deserving sceptical eyebrow, because Henryhadliked her. He hadn’t intended to, hadn’t even thought at the time he had, especially, until he had gone home with thoughts of her dominating his every moment. Her smile, her laughter, the utter shamelessness of her antics. She was lovely and unlike any young lady he’d ever met before.
And now here she was, proving that she did indeed know how to behave like a lady, graceful as a swan. Beautiful in her white gown.
He preferred the way she had been in the maze, flushed and breathless, brimming with mischief.
“Just go and talk to her,” Comerford said.
Henry glared at him. “I should have known coming to London with you was a mistake.”
“You’re the one who wanted to speak to your father,” Comerford said serenely. “You could have returned to the country to be with your sisters.”
Henry hadn’t wanted to do that, either. He was a fish out of water: no longer a child, and unwilling to be treated as one; not yet a man in the eyes of the ton. “Anything would be preferable to this tedium.”
“Try the card tables.”
Henry scowled in their direction. If his father was here, that would be his place of choice. “No thank you.”
“Then I have nothing else to suggest, my friend.”
Henry sighed, scanning the room. He should not have come. They should not have had Almack’s vouchers for the Season at all, especially considering their precarious financial position, but neither of his parents would listen to reason. As far as they were concerned, he was too young, too inexperienced, too incapable of seeing the world for how it truly was.
Frustration burned through him, and for one of the first times in his life, he wished the watery lemonade was something stronger.
“I can see why you like her,” Comerford said, watching the Bath lady’s progress with avid interest. “She’s lovely.”
“I’ve told you, I don’t like her.”
