“I think we’re done talking,” she said, and left him there in the middle of the dancers.
But the music had stopped, and as Vanessa passed him, he pulled her away from the fellow escorting her back to her mother. She gave him an inscrutable look, but he didn’t have time to wonder why when the orchestra started playing and he began to dance with her.
“Again you don’t ask?” she said curtly.
“Again I don’t want to cry if you rebuff me.”
That should have gotten a smile from her, but her expression didn’t change. She was definitely annoyed about something.
“I was wondering if you would come tonight, Montgomery Townsend.”
And there it was. If she’d heard his real name here, he didn’t doubt she’d heard a great deal more.
Which she confirmed when she nodded toward Lady Halstead. “Really? Her? She’s old enough to be—”
“Yes, yes, so people keep telling me,” he cut in, then added drolly, “I must not have noticed.”
“Too foxed at the time?”
“Or it was too dark.” He didn’t want her to think badly of him, so he leaned closer to whisper, “Some things are not what they seem.”
She gave him a skeptical look before glancing away. He was struck with an odd frustration because she was displeased with him and he couldn’t say anything that would get him back in her good graces. But he couldn’t believe that she was jealous over rumors about affairs that had supposedly occurred before they’d even met. Was she just very disappointed in his choice of paramours?
And then he noticed who Vanessa was suddenly glaring at and laughed. “My sister Claire is here. She’s going to wonder why you’re casting daggers at her.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
VANESSA ROLLED HER EYES.She didnotjust get jealous over his sister. Embarrassed that he knew she’d done exactly that, she started to leave the dance floor. But Monty—Montgomery—followed her. “Don’t blush, it clashes with your glorious hair. Would you like to meet Claire?”
“No.” She said it too soon, when she realized she would like to. So she stopped so he could come abreast of her.
“Dare I guess you won’t be glaring at her anymore?” he asked.
“You have another life. I’ve known that from the beginning.” And then she grinned. “I’ll keep my daggers sheaved. It won’t happen again.”
“Well that’s a shame. Other than being briefly confused by your jealousy, now that I’m not, I—”
“Talk too much.”
“—find it a delightful surprise,” he finished.
“Reallytalk too much,” she repeated. “And that’s enough amusement for you tonight. Besides, I’ve changed my mind. I’d like to meet your sister.”
“By all means,” he said, and walked her over to Claire to make the introductions.
Same hair, same eyes, why couldn’t she just have noticed the resemblance immediately? She couldn’t believe she’d gotten jealous, and over nothing. That silly rumor about him and older women she hadn’t credited in the least and would have only teased him about it. But a woman as lovely as Claire was another matter.
And she was charming—and a teaser like her brother. “A pleasure, Vanessa, and you’re so young!”
Vanessa laughed. Monty was the one glaring daggers now, because that was a direct hit about the rumors about him that were circulating through theton, and she wasn’t clueless, having just heard them tonight herself.
But Claire didn’t overdo the dig, she politely went neutral in asking, “Where did you two meet?”
Vanessa wasn’t about to answer that, pistols and rebels and—no, not a word. But Monty apparently didn’t want any of that known, either, because he went for an even bigger whopper. “At the Rathban ball the other night.”
“Is it true the parents are determined to get their errant son leg-shackled this Season?”
“Was their throwing a ball for him that obvious?”
