She was correct, but he didn’t want to admit it. What could she be hiding?
“Ah, there you are, Brother. Where did you disappear to?”
Ben downed the wine in his cup and stood up again as his sister approached. When Fable turned to see her, Prudence paused her steps. Her face flushed. Her jaw clenched. Ben flashed her a warning glare before she opened her mouth.
“I didn’t know your guest was attending,” she said, pretending to reign in her anger. “Does this mean Miss Ramsey’s name will be added to your list of candidates for a wife?”
“No–”
“Good because–”
– “because there are no candidates.”
– “I would never allow a marriage between you.”
He scowled, caught between astonished disbelief and anger. “You would never allow it? What ever led you to believe you had that kind of power over me?”
She stared up at him with her hand at her chest, and stepped back from the detached soldier she’d been living with for the past three years, and many years before that.
“Do you realize how much I put into this ball…for you?” she accused quietly.
“What does who I wed have to do with you?” he demanded just as quietly. Still his tone drew others’ attention.
“When you wed so beneath you that it awakens father asleep in Sheol and he turns over in his grave from the shame of his son.”
Nothing seemed to have changed in the ballroom. The musicians still played, people still danced and laughed, but something was different. It was as if the familial veil was lifted from Ben’s eyes and he looked a haughty, heartless woman in the face, disgusted at what he saw.
“Ben…” she tried, somehow knowing she’d stepped over a line carved in ice. “I didn’t mean–”
He held up his palm to stop her and looked at Miss Ramsey. This time she wasn’t smiling. “Come.” He held his elbow out to her. “The tables have been moved. No one can dance until I do. Let’s dance and then leave.”
He knew Prudence was biting her tongue to stay quiet. He was choosing Miss Ramsey as his first–and only dance.
Miss Ramsey fit her hand into the crook of his arm and kept her head down as he led her past his sister and to the center of the ballroom.
When he slipped his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her head, he saw tears spilling down her alabaster skin.
“Shall we go?” he asked in a quiet voice and pulled her closer.
“Of course not.” She smiled lightly and swiped her fingers across her cheeks. “I didn’t suffer with bones jabbing me everywhere from my clothes for not even one dance with you.”
He should feel pity for her–and he did–but he smiled, then laughed softly. He held her while the music played and she learned the steps to an English country-dance calledThe Romance.
“Sir,” she told him when he twirled her out and then pulled her back. “I think I should go back to my room.”
“Why?” He stopped immediately and bent to pick her off her feet. She swatted his hand away.
“I’m tired. Really. That’s all. There’s no need for you to escort me there.”
First he looked at her as if she’d gone mad, and then he asked her if she had.
“Ben,” she leaned in closer so only he could hear her. “Send someone else to bring me back. I insist. Do what you promised your sister you would do. Get to know these ladies a little. Emphasis on a little, okay?”
“Fable, I know you jest because I have no intention of getting to know anyone.”
“But how will you know if you’ve really found her if you haven’t met everyone?”
He dipped his brows and feigned a glare, but it didn’t last long before it disintegrated into something much warmer.
