Together they looked around the room again and for a moment both were quiet. Then Tyndale glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “Why did you decide to come out tonight?”
Graham shifted. The answer to that was unexpected and complicated. After his impulsive and highly passionate encounter with Lydia Ford at the theatre, life had seemed a little less…grim. And when Tyndale had pushed him to come to the ball, the invitation had seemed less horrifying than it had the first twenty times he’d been asked to return to Society by a well-meaning friend.
“It just felt like time,” he said on a sigh. “I can’t hide forever, can I?”
Tyndale was about to answer, it seemed, when there was a buzz of commotion at the ballroom entrance. Both men turned toward it, and everything in Graham’s world slowed to half-time. A couple had entered the space and the butler was announcing them to the room.
“The Duke and Duchess of Crestwood,” the voice came.
Graham stared as Simon and Meg entered the room. Simon was smiling, that bright, mischievous grin he’d had since the first moment Graham met him. Light to his own darkness when they were boys. His chest hurt as every happy memory they’d shared bombarded him, reminding him of how close they’d been. Making him wish they could be close again, even though Simon’s betrayal still stung.
Meg clung to Simon’s arm, her face lit up with pure happiness. He hadn’t seen his former fiancée since the day they had ended their engagement and he left her brother James’s home for London.
He hadn’t seen Simon since a short time after that, when they’d nearly come to blows at White’s.
“Christ,” Tyndale muttered, interrupting his thoughts. “I’m sorry, Northfield, I had no idea they’d be here tonight.”
Graham swallowed hard past a thick throat. There was a huge part of him that wanted to bolt from the room. But he felt all the eyes of what seemed like the world on him in that moment. The room was watching with more focus and whispering with even more volume than they had when they realized he had come to the party.
If he left…well, that would multiply this scandal that had been caused by Simon and Meg’s imprudence. All of them would suffer for it.
In that moment, Simon looked across the room and met Graham’s eyes. His friend’s face lit with shock, with pain and with regret, and Graham’s stomach turned. He didn’t want to talk to Simon. Not here. Not now. Not yet.
“I have to…I have to move,” Graham muttered, more to himself than to Tyndale. He didn’t wait for his friend’s reply, but took off through the crowd, blindly reaching for escape from the situation and the feelings it evoked in him.
He had to find something to do, something to busy himself so he wouldn’t be bothered, approached, questioned, revealed. And as he edged around the dancefloor, it occurred to him.
He’d dance. He rarely did so, he’d never enjoyed the endeavor, but he was capable of it. And if he were dancing, then he couldn’t be bothered.
But the trick was finding the right partner. He scanned the watching faces around the edge of the ballroom. Most of the women were on the hunt, looking for husbands or a rich mine of gossip. Dancing with one of them would not make the situation better, but worse, for he was certain they would try to comfort him, prod him and lure him.
He didn’t wish to be lured. Just danced with silently.
So he turned his attention to the wallflowers, who were normally in a quiet line along the wall. Tonight, there appeared to be only one lady standing in her spot there, a woman with dark blonde hair pulled back severely in a plain bun. She wore small, dark-rimmed spectacles and a gown with a high neckline and a shapeless quality.
Lady…God, what was her name? His addled mind searched for it, searched for it and finally found it.
Adelaide. He would dance with Lady Adelaide. Certainly no harm could come of that. So he focused his attention and stalked toward her.
Adelaide had been watching the societal drama play out before her with a level of horror and empathy that made her chest hurt. At first when she’d seen Northfield enter the ballroom with the Duke of Tyndale, she had panicked. His return to Society so soon after their encounter at the theatre had felt anything but coincidental, and she’d been terrified he might have realized who she really was and come here looking for her.
Swiftly she’d realized he wasn’t looking for anyone, certainly not her. She’d felt disappointment as well as relief at that realization. But there had also been a small part of her that wasproudof the man.
Returning to the whispers of the crowd couldn’t be easy, but he was facing it. And then the Duke and Duchess of Crestwood had entered the room and everything had come crashing down. People had started talking, staring, and then the two men had looked at each other and…
God, it was just so hard to watch. She’d wanted to rush up to Northfield and comfort him, somehow. To draw him away from the pain this blasted situation was obviously causing him. She hadn’t, of course, for it wasn’t her place. Northfield didn’t want her, he wanted an illusion. He wanted Lydia. And she didn’t want to muddy the lines between herself and the character she’d created.
So when he’d turned to come across the room and suddenly his gaze focused on her, it was like the world had screeched to a halt. His eyes were so bright and he had tamed his long hair back in a queue and trimmed his beard, though not shaved it. He was…glorious. And now he was almost with her and it was becoming less and less likely that she wasn’t his target in the room.
“Oh God,” she murmured as he reached her. “Merde.”
He stopped and smiled down at her, but it wasn’t one of those sensual half-smirks he’d given to Lydia two nights before. No, this was something false and forced, and he didn’t even meet her eyes. But God, how he smelled good. Like leather. He wasn’t even wearing leather.
“Good evening, Lady Adelaide,” he said.
She swallowed at the sound of his deep voice. It reminded her once again of those stolen moments in her dressing room, and all she could think of was his body moving against hers.
“Y-Your Grace,” she managed to squeak out.
