Norman lunged after her, his expression thunderous.
Arabella’s hand tightened in Eleanor’s.
Eleanor stood very still, heart pounding not from pity for Charlotte, but from shock.
James had done that.
For the ball. For the theme. For her.
Eleanor looked up at him, searching his face.
James’s gaze remained fixed in the direction Charlotte had fled, his expression hard as stone.
Then his eyes returned to Eleanor.
“Are you well, Your Grace?” he asked, voice low.
Eleanor’s breath caught.
Because the question was real.
And because the room suddenly empty around them.
“Yes,” she breathed quietly. “Thank you.”
She felt a firm hand rest gently on the small of her back, rubbing in a small circle for only a moment before it disappeared, and the next guest arrived to be received.
CHAPTER 21
James stood in the receiving line with the practiced stillness of a man meant to be watched.
It was an odd thing, to be the center of a room and yet feel as though he were standing outside it. Thetonspilled through Blackmere’s doors in waves of scent and silk and expectation, each arrival announced with ritual precision. Faces he knew well enough to name and others he recognized only as titles. All of them ready to measure his marriage by the angle of his head and the placement of his hand.
Eleanor stood at his side like a controlled flame. Sea-glass blue, cool and luminous under the candles, her posture calm as if she had been born to host them all.
James found himself watching the way her smile held. Not too warm. Not too cold. Perfect.
Too perfect.
He was still thinking of Charlotte’s humiliation when Graham’s voice rose again.
“The Duke of Wycliffe, Your Grace.”
James’s attention sharpened.
Roderick entered as if he had always belonged in that doorway. Coat immaculate, expression bright with the kind of charm that made men forgive him and made women either laugh or bristle.
His gaze found James at once and widened theatrically.
“Langford,” Roderick said, pitching his voice for just the right amount of attention. “You have made an effort. How alarming.”
James’s mouth tightened. “Try not to ruin anything within the first five minutes.”
Roderick placed a hand over his heart. “Within five minutes, I will have charmed three dowagers and offended at least one duke. That is my natural order.”
James inclined his head toward Eleanor. “Roderick, this is the Duchess of Langford.”
Roderick turned to Eleanor and his expression softened into something almost sincere.
