“Miss Greene,” he said grandly. “May I have this dance?”
Thalia bit back a laugh. There was nothing her father could do or say about this, although there was bound to be a way in which it was her fault. Her fault, no doubt, for not being compelling enough that Mr. Bletchley wanted to dance with her.
Miss Parsons turned to Thalia with a mischievous smile. “You’re welcome. You looked as though you were in need of some rescuing.”
Thalia laughed and allowed the younger girl to link her arm. “He compared my eyes to stars. Has some poet done that recently? It’s all any gentleman can think to say to me, as though I have no other features available.” She grinned at Miss Parsons’s laugh. “I have ears and a nose and hands, yet they are not of adequate interest.”
“What would you say if a gentleman were to compliment your ears?”
“I would be surprised, I’m sure, but at least it shows a little more imagination. A man should at least be inventive if he cannot be sincere.” She glanced down at Miss Parsons’s blonde head. “How did you know he would be so taken with Miss Greene?”
“Oh, she has been talking about him for ages.” Miss Parsons rolled her eyes. “They already know each other, you see, and I believe there was some attachment until her father stepped in and ended their understanding. She has been pining after him this whole time, and I suspected he felt the same way.”
“He must have done so if he neglected to get his mother’s approval for the dance,” Thalia said. “Thank you. I thought I would be obliged to endure his company for another half hour, which would have been insupportable. But where are your suitors? Every time I have seen you, you have been surrounded by them.”
“Oh, that.” Miss Parsons sighed. “My—That is, His Grace is being very diligent in ensuring I am not taken advantage of.”
“I see. He’s chasing away your suitors, is he? That isn’t very helpful of him.”
“He’s a lot better than he was,” Miss Parsons said hurriedly, as though saying anything against the Duke were punishable by death. “It’s just that he takes his duty toward me very seriously.”
Thalia peered at the younger girl. She did seemveryyoung, but she was obviously of an age to marry, or she would not be venturing into London’s marriage mart.
“If you are friends,” Thalia said slowly, carefully, unsure if she was treading on dangerous ground, “could it be he’s jealous of the young men looking to court you?”
“Jealous?” Lydia burst into a peal of startled laughter. “Oh heavens, no. If anything, he needs encouraging to think of me as old enough for marriage at all. He thinks I ought to retire to the schoolroom.” She leaned closer. “He is like an uncle to me,” she confided. “And I assure you there has never been anything ofthatnature between us.”
Thalia’s shoulders slumped with relief. It wouldn’t be unheard of for men in their thirties to be suddenly taken with a girl of Lydia’s age, and indeed for guardians to wait for their wards to be of age so they were eligible for marriage, but she had not wanted to think it of the Duke.
“His problem is he thinks me a fool,” Miss Parsons said. “Unable to differentiate a fortune hunter from an earnest gentleman.”
“Sometimes, if a gentleman is flirtatious,” Thalia warned, “it can be difficult to tell a difference between the two.”
“If ever I struggle, I will ask for advice,” Miss Parsons said simply. “I just need to ask him to give me the opportunity to speak with them in peace. And then not to demand I tell him everything after.”
Thalia suppressed a laugh. “How autocratic.”
“Yes, and I can just tell he wants to warn me against every gentleman I meet.” Miss Parsons looked up into Thalia’s face, her expression trusting. “I wondered if you might speak with him. You may have some sway with him; you know what it is to be a young lady in London looking for a husband. And you were engaged to him, after all.”
Thalia’s stomach dropped, flipped, and lodged in her throat. “I have no influence on him at all if that’s what you were hoping. Our engagement was dissolved some time ago, and we barely know one another now.”
“Please, my lady? I’d be ever so grateful!”
Thalia hesitated, but she knew all too well what it was like to have someone breathing down her neck about her marriage prospects—even though her father and the Duke came from very different places.
“I will try,” she said, “but I can promise nothing.”
Miss Parsons beamed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Maxwell had not expected any peace from the evening, and that prediction had come true. Since leaving Lydia and Joyce to their own devices, even more gentlemen had swarmed in. Despite knowing he was keeping an eye on them from a distance, they felt as though they had greater influence.
And Lydia was becoming increasingly secretive.
He didn’t want to pry in her life more than was absolutely necessary, but he would not risk her making an unfortunate alliance if he could help it.
When he saw Thalia make her way toward him, a determined expression on her face, he knew any chance of relaxation that evening would be stymied.
He turned back to the window, where he stood looking at the small dusting of snow across the lawn.
