“I heard Latimer had been considering making another play for her,” Uncle Nigel said idly. “He’s danced with her once this evening already. A marquess ought to be well beyond her reach, as common as she is, but they were nearly engaged once before.”
Latimer.That rage that had simmered beneath his skin all evening bubbled over at last. Not for Uncle Nigel, who had stolen what ought to have been his birthright. Not because he had lost any hope of reclaiming it. Not even because Uncle Nigel had decided to taunt him with it.
But because his gaze had landed upon Latimer, there on the opposite side of the room, and the wretched son of a bitch was watching Grace with a sort of avarice that offended Henry to the pit of his miserable fucking soul.
He heard, distantly, Uncle Nigel’s satisfied snicker as he set off across the ballroom, heard the startled sounds made by those he shoved past to reach the other side. They didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this.
Latimer hadn’t noticed him yet. “Might ask for a second dance,” Latimer confided to the gentleman beside him as hewatched Grace float across the floor. “Last I saw, Miss Seymour’s card wasn’t yet entirely full.”
“A second dance. You intend to marry the chit, then?” his companion mused.
Latimer gave a shrug. “I would have before, if she hadn’t taken such offense to a simple suggestion. And a man’s got to be married at some point, besides.”
Thatsimple suggestionbeing that Grace ought to alter herself to suit Latimer’s taste. That she was something lessthan perfect, exactly as she was. Henry’s hands clenched into fists as his fury ratcheted higher still.
“Think she’ll have you this time?”
Latimer shrugged. “At Miss Seymour’s age, she can’t afford to be quite so choosy. She is getting a bit long in the tooth, no? And her origins being what they are, she’s hardly likely to do better.”
“She is well-connected, at least.”
“That and the dowry will soften the blow of the rest, naturally,” Latimer said, with a smug grin.
Which Henry promptly punched right off of his arrogant face.
∞∞∞
A shrill scream broke over the last warbling note of the violin as the set concluded, and Grace’s fingers clenched instinctively upon those of her dance partner, who valiantly suppressed a wince. A disturbance of some sort had broken out at the side of the ballroom floor, a swarm of bodies moving in odd patterns around it—those who struggled to get away wrestling againstthose who strove for a closer look.
A piercing screech burned through the air. “You’ve broken my nose!”
Grace’s brows lifted in surprise. Had that been Lord Latimer’s voice, so very high and tinged with panic? On impulse she let her partner’s hand fall from hers, turned to investigate. Through the teeming crowd, she caught only fragments, glimpses of the commotion.
Two bodies upon the floor, one crouched above another which lay supine. A sickening thud as flesh connected. A seething roar crested over the din, interspersed with bone-rattling strikes. “You”—thud—“don’t speak”—pound—“her name!”
Henry? It couldn’t be.
And yet it was. Latimer whimpered as blood poured from his nose, and Henry struck him again, wrenching yet another mewling, pathetic sound from the man sprawled across the floor. Henry snarled into the wide, terrified eyes of his prey, “You don’tlookat her.” Another devastating blow. “You don’tspeakto her.” A wicked, unexpected assault on Lord Latimer’s midsection, which drew the man’s hands away from his wounded face.
“I won’t!” Latimer whined. “I won’t; I’m sorry! Miss Seymour—”
“On second thought,” Henry growled, pulling back his fist once again, “don’t speak of her at all.”
He’d been brawling onheraccount? Grace’s hands fisted in the smooth satin of her skirts, palms abruptly gone clammy beneath the thin cloth of her evening gloves. What in the world had come over him? Had he taken leave of his senses? Abandoned all concern for his reputation?
He would be lucky to find himself invited anywhere at all after making such a spectacle of himself.
Her heart skipped into a frenzied rhythm as she turned, weaving nimbly through the press of bodies to the circle of her family at the side of the room. “Uncle Chris,” she called breathlessly as she drew near enough at last to tug upon his arm. “A little help, if you please?”
Uncle Chris, who had been peering through the crowd to glimpse the spectacle from a safe distance, drew his attention away from it only long enough to ask, “What for? ‘E seems to be doing well enough on ‘is own. Got to say, Gracie, I never would ‘ave thought ‘is lordship ‘ad it in ‘im.”
“They’ll kill each other!”
“Each other?” Uncle Chris echoed incredulously. “Latimer ain’t even puttin’ up a fight, Gracie.” He blew out a breath. “Looks worse than it is, anyway. Noses bleed like mad. Got to commend Lockhart for it, though. ‘E knows how to throw a punch. And besides, Latimer well deserves it.” Not to his credit, he sounded very nearly proud. Surprised, even, as if Henry had revealed some facet of character that Uncle Chris had thought he’d lacked.
For brawling in the middle of a crowded ballroom! Unbelievable. Men were the most obnoxious and irrational of creatures.
“Uncle Chris,” Grace hissed insistently.
