Katherine took her hands and glanced down at her. “Don’t let the bastards win.”
Lizzie couldn’t contain her shocked laughter at that statement. “I thought you were going to tell me to make the best of it and smile.”
Katherine waved a hand of dismissal. “Bugger that. I suppose, yes, smiling and making the best of it is part of not letting them win. But what I mean is that you have this beautiful, powerful light inside of you, Lizzie. Anyone who gets to know you can see it, is warmed by it. And it was muted by what happened to you. But it wasn’t extinguished. I’d hate to see you put it out yourself from some fear or worry or anything else that keeps you up at night. You deserve so much better.”
Lizzie glanced toward the ballroom again. She’d hidden from such places for a long time, even when she was in them. But in that moment she felt a stir of stubborn rebellion. One she hadn’t allowed herself more than a handful of times in her life.
“I will try,” she said.
Katherine smiled and then caught her arm again, and they moved toward the ballroom together. “Very good. Now let’s dazzle them, shall we?”
Morgan couldn’t help but watch Elizabeth as she glided across the ballroom floor in the arms of her brother. She looked glorious, in the blue gown that made her eyes pop like sapphires. A gown fit for a queen, and she wore it well as it skimmed across her curves, accentuating everything graceful in the way she moved and talked and existed in the world. She smiled at something Brighthollow said and the candles that lit the dozens of chandeliers in the big room were dim in comparison.
She was impossiblenotto stare at, and he knew he wasn’t the only man in that room doing so. A fact that both pleased him and tweaked him even though he hadn’t earned his jealousy. She wasn’t his. They’d made that fact perfectly clear hours before in her study when she’d stepped away from him.
Her words had been ringing in his ears ever since and distracting him from his duties. How many times had he read the same line in those ledgers today? It felt like a hundred, and he still couldn’t have told someone the total amount Brighthollow took in from his tenants’ wheat crops versus years when barley was planted.
But could he say how many sparkling diamonds and sapphires were scattered throughout Elizabeth’s golden hair? Probably down to a one. It was not a good thing, but there it was.
The music ended, and Elizabeth smiled as she took her brother’s hand and they left the dance floor. Brighthollow spoke to her, then moved off. The moment he did, her eyes darted across the crowd and settled on Morgan.
This was the problem about tonight. She kept watching him, despite her words that they should end their flirtation. She watched him, and he saw on her face that she still wanted all the same things he did. Circumstance and position separated them from that, but it remained, no matter what she said or did to the contrary.
It made him long for so much more. To kiss her again. Or at least to touch her. And that siren’s song in her gaze was too much to resist. He found himself moving toward her around the perimeter of the ballroom floor. The next dance had begun, a waltz, and it would be too late to join it. But after they could certainly take a turn in a quadrille. Not too intimate. A dance that could be taken up as friends, couldn’t it?
At least that was what he said to himself as he got closer and closer to her. Her eyes widened at his approach, dilated with a welcome he longed for, despite the complications of it. But before he could reach her, before he could speak to her for the first time that night, his approach was interrupted by a young lady who stepped in front of him and into Elizabeth’s space.
“Lizzie!” the young lady gasped as she caught Lizzie’s hands in hers.
Morgan turned away slightly, as if he were not approaching, and waited for their interaction to be finished. Perhaps this was a good thing. If Elizabeth was not interested in speaking to him, if she was stronger than he was, she could use this interloper as a means of escape. Then he would know where he truly stood, at any rate.
“Lady Jocelyn,” Elizabeth said, and there was a tension to her tone that he didn’t know whether to attribute to him or to the young lady she was addressing. “I have not seen you in so long.”
“An age!” Lady Jocelyn said. “Everyonetalks about how you have not been out much in Society. And how you left London in the middle of the Season. Idohope there’s not anything amiss.”
Elizabeth swallowed and her gaze swiftly turned toward him, then darted away. He saw the depth of her pain in it, though. “I have a project here that takes my time,” she said, her voice faltering. “I am surprised to seeyouout of Town. I know you adore the pleasures of the Season.”
Lady Jocelyn waved a hand. “My grandmother has taken ill, so my father demanded we come to the shire to call on her. I don’t know why I couldn’t have stayed behind with my aunt as chaperone. After all, what can I do for my grandmother?”
Elizabeth’s eyes were wide now and she cleared her throat. “Offer the comfort of your company?”
The other woman looked confused by the suggestion. “What good will that do? At any rate, I have insisted we not stay long. The other Diamonds of the First Water will not be stopped in their search for a husband. I cannot fall behind or I shall end up like—”
She stopped, and Morgan straightened. He saw the cruel little smirk on her face and how Elizabeth’s gaze dropped even further. And it was enough.
“I do beg your pardon, ladies,” Morgan said as he stepped up the rest of the way.
The two women turned toward him, and Lady Jocelyn glanced up and down his body. He saw her interest but also her dismissal. He wasn’t important enough for her, it seemed. Elizabeth, on the other hand, looked both joyful at his interruption…and utterly humiliated.
“Mr. Banfield,” she said softly. “Lady Jocelyn, may I present my brother’s man of affairs, Mr. Morgan Banfield.”
“How do you do?” the other woman said with a sniff. “I am surprised to see the duke’s man at a ball. What an odd thing country manners are.”
Elizabeth’s brow arched and some of her humiliation faded. “Mr. Banfield is the brother of the Duke of Roseford, Jocelyn,” she said, her tone tart and pointed. “We are lucky to have such an esteemed gentleman as he to take a position in my brother’s household.”
Morgan smiled at her quick defense of him, earned or no. It made him all the more desirous of saving her from this nasty creature. “Well, I have come on the duke’s behest. Your assistance is required. Will you come with me? I do apologize, Lady Jocelyn.”
The other woman glared at him. “It is no trouble. I do hope I’ll get a chance to see you again before my return to London, Lizzie. I’ll be sure to call and catch you up on all the gossip you miss by hiding out here in the country.”
