The words, not to mention their snide tone, made Clio turn. A tall woman whose red hair added more than a few inches, given how towering she’d made her coiffure, sniffed down at Clio.
“I beg your pardon,” Clio said in that flat tone that turned the polite phrase into a covertgo to hell.
The woman—Clio didn’t even recognize her, which somehow felt all the more insulting—did not go anywhere, let alone a cursed dimension.
“You aren’t his wife,” she snipped. “You aren’t his betrothed. He ruins you and then still doesn’t want you? Pathetic.”
Clio reared back. “And you feel that accosting a woman you don’t even knowisn’tpathetic?”
“I don’t need to know you,” the woman retorted. “I know yourilk.You are here as what? A mistress? WhenImarry the duke, he won’t continue to consort with the likes of you. Honestly. How low can you get?”
Clio was prepared to retort when a hand landed on her shoulder.
“Even if I knew who ye were,” Hector said, his voice a low, warning grumble, “I would never marry a viper with a tongue like that. Apologize at once.”
The woman’s complexion went so frighteningly pale that Clio wondered if she was going to faint dead away.
“Your Grace,” she said, all traces of her previous snobbish tone evaporated. “I just meant … You deserve only the best …”
“Funny,” Hector said, sounding as though he found it anything but. “That’s not what an apology sounds like where I come from.”
And then he flat-out turned his back on the other woman, until he was facing only Clio. It was so rude that she almost couldn’t believe he was doing it … except, of course, she could. This was Hector.
For the first time, his blatant disregard for propriety made her want to laugh aloud.
“Dance with me, Clio,” he said, completely ignoring the other woman’s gasp of alarm at the use of her given name.
It was an order, not a request. Which was rude, yes, but this time itdidmake Clio laugh aloud.
“Oh, fine then,” she said, and the woman gasped again, but Hector smiled, which Clio found was the only part she cared about.
He led her onto the floor, and a hush fell across the ballroom; nobody bothered to hide their speculative glances as the recently-ruined miss partnered with the blacksmith duke.
“Ignore them,” Hector commanded, his voice as hard as the iron he’d bent at his forge. “They don’t matter.”
Clio began to protest this, out of habit if nothing else, but the music began, and they spun into the first steps of a dance.
“You’re really rather good at this, considering,” she said after a moment, before cringing at how rude this sounded. But, as ever, Hector seemed best pleased when she was ignoring every rule she’d ever learned.
“Ah, I’m passable,” he said. “I’ve had my butler bothering me all week to learn. Said it was important for a gentleman.”
He sounded almost fond beneath the grumbling, and Clio found herself irrepressibly charmed that this curmudgeon of a duke could be bullied by his butler.
“He isn’t wrong,” she reminded him.
“Well,” Hector allowed, “he reminded me that I only have to lead—to stop us from crashing into walls and whatnot. You’re theone who has to make us look graceful and beautiful.” He paused, and the way he looked at Clio made her fight a blush. “With you, that’s easy.”
She found the words far less pleasing than the glance.
“Is that all I am to you, then?” she demanded. “A pretty face?”
He shrugged one shoulder, and Clio couldn’t deny that it hurt.
“Your beauty is hard to overlook. I cannot be the first to note it.”
She wished she could look away from him, but the sea of hostile faces provided little reassurance.
“That is what I am to you, then,” she said. “Simple. Predictable.”
