“How very…strenuous,” a lady whispered, loud enough for Cassandra to hear. “Look at her posture. It’s entirely masculine. Quite desperate, isn’t it?”
A wave of cruel laughter rippled through the ballroom. Cassandra tried to push through it, but the mocking heat was more stifling than the candles. It wasn’t just that they hated the music; they were laughing ather. They saw her as a joke.
Her cousins’ notes soured as they began to cry, and that was the breaking point. The tightness in Cassandra’s throat became a physical ache.
“Excuse me,” she said suddenly, leaving the ballroom and stepping out into the comfort of the library.
The books soothed her in an instant. It was some welcome respite from the night that she had had, and though she was aware that she would eventually have to return to the ballroom, she did not want to. She was alone, away from all of the people that would delight in seeing her fail, and it was bliss.
As expected, it did not last.
George didn’t know why he was following her. He told himself it was because she had made a spectacle of herself and, as a duke, it was his duty to ensure no further scandal occurred under his nose. But the truth was simpler: the sight of her chin trembling as she fled the room had hit him harder than he had expected.
He reached the library just as a shadow moved in the darkness.
“Why did you walk away from me?” Lashton’s voice was a low crawl.
“Leave me be, my lord. I do not want what you are offering, and it is best that we are not seen here. Otherwise, we shall be compromised and have to marry and both be entirely miserable.”
“And who could be miserable waking up to you every morning?”
George didn’t hesitate. He stepped into the room, his boots thundering on the hardwood. He didn’t just intervene; he shoved. He placed himself between the rake and the lady, his chest heaving with a sudden, sharp anger.
“Take your hands off her,” George commanded.
Lashton stumbled back, straightening his waistcoat with an oily, unfazed smirk. “Nothing to see here, Your Grace. Just a private conversation.”
“The private conversation ends now,” George snapped. “Leave. Now. Unless you wish to discuss your conduct with the committee at White’s tomorrow morning.”
Lashton’s smirk vanished at the mention of his club. He mumbled a hurried apology and vanished into the hall.
George turned to the woman. She was leaning against the books, her breath coming in jagged gasps. Up close, her “wildness” was even more captivating.
“Are you all right?” George asked.
“So you are a duke,” she said, her voice tight and defensive. She didn’t look impressed; if anything, she looked more annoyed. “I am perfectly fine, Your Grace. Thank you for intervening, but I need to leave now.”
“I would not recommend you go back inside immediately. You don’t look well.” George stepped further into the room, his shadow looming over her. He could see the pulse thrumming in her neck, a frantic rhythm that made his own pulse quicken. “Are you sure you feel all right? And what is your name?”
She snapped her head up, her eyes flashing in the gloom. “I am alone in the dark with a man I do not know, after being accosted by another. Do I seemall rightto you?”
George went rigid. He had expected a soft word of gratitude, perhaps even a bit of awe, but this woman was lecturing him. “A strange way of thanking the man who just preserved what remains of your reputation.”
“Yes, thank you! And I am Lady Cassandra, the spinster, the awful violin player with the joke of a band,” she cried, throwing her hands up in a gesture of pure, unfiltered frustration. “But if this—thisspotlight—is what I must endure to find a husband, I would rather remain a spinster in a secluded cottage for the restof my life. I want no part of any of you! Now, I need to forget about the violin disaster, and return to my family.”
“Violin disaster?” George repeated, the phrase catching him off guard. He thought of her on the dais—the brave, foolish way she had stood up to a room of vipers.
“Are you here to mock me too?” she asked, her voice hovering on the edge of a break.
That gave him pause. George looked at her steadily, allowing the “Duke” to fall away for a fleeting second. He saw the sincerity in her, the raw honesty he so rarely encountered in London. “I would not do that. Not when I could see that you were acting sincerely. Not only that, but you were not bad at all. You were actually rather good.”
“So youdowish to mock me,” she sighed, her shoulders slumping as she looked away. “I was terrible.”
George felt his own frustrations boil over. He thought of Buxton, the crushing debt, and the ruin he was fighting to keep from his own sister’s doorstep. He had no patience for the dramatic woes of a ballroom.
“You are magnifying your problems,” George said, his voice dropping into a cold, high-handed clip. He put his “Duke” mask back on, harder and more rigid than before. “If you believe a few unwanted words and a clumsy concert are the worst the world has to offer, then you know very little of it, my lady. There arefamilies facing actual destruction while you weep over a violin performance.”
The silence that followed was brittle. Cassandra looked as if he had reached out and slapped her.
