Bess, on his arm, was the opposite of relaxed. She began to tow him in the direction of her wayward charge, cutting a swath through the other partygoers.
Bemused, Nathaniel followed without protest until they were close enough to overhear one particularly tall, sharp-featured young lady give a tittering laugh and say, “Oh, Lucy, how droll you are!”
“Am I?” Lucy appeared calm, but Nathaniel was surprised to realize he knew her facial expressions well enough to be able to read the frustration in the tightness of her jaw. “I didn’t intend to be amusing. I only inquired whether any of you had received my letters.”
A chorus of uncomfortable giggles erupted from the other three girls, who had not yet noticed they had an audience.
“Who has time to write letters, when there is so much to do in Town,” cried the tallest girl, fluttering her fan madly.
“I thought my friends might,” Lucy replied, her face still and remote. “But clearly I was mistaken.”
There was a beat of awkward silence.
“Well, if you’re going to be an utter bore about it,” one of the other girls said, tipping up her soft chin and linking arms with the other debutantes. “Come along, Emilia. Prudence. I believe I see our dance partners waiting by the refreshment table for the quadrille to start. Lucy, we must find a time to catch up! I long to hear all about your life in…where was it? Little Pissington?”
The impertinent chits tittered again and gave Lucy perfunctory curtsies before sweeping off. Lucy clenched her fists at her sides, lips tight, and for a moment Nathaniel half-feared she might go after them. But then her shoulders slumped and she turned away with a sigh, only to catch sight of Nathaniel and Mrs. Pickford.
“Oh, Lucy,” Mrs. Pickford said in sympathetic tones. Nathaniel could tell she wanted to sweep Lucy up in a comforting embrace, but he clamped his hand over her fingers on his arm and held her still. She looked up at him in irritated confusion.
“Please may we go back to Ashbourn House,” Lucy said, her voice strained. Tears stood in the corners of her blue eyes, but Nathaniel saw, with a surge of pride, that she would not let them fall.
“Of course,” Mrs. Pickford rushed to say, but Nathaniel shook his head. Running away was the last thing Lucy should do at this moment.
“Dance with me,” he commanded, finally letting go of Mrs. Pickford with a pang of loss he ignored. “And if you still want to leave at the end of one dance, we shall.”
Lucy bit her lip. Nathaniel experienced an unwanted, unexpected stab of empathy. “Come, Lucy. You’re an Ashbourn. Never let them see you defeated.”
He wondered if she’d crumple, but she lifted her head and set her shoulders back. Her eyes glittered in a heart-shaped face that reminded him suddenly, strangely, of their shared father.
For all that she had her mother’s coloring, Lucy had the look of the Ashbourns about her, he realized distantly. The high forehead and the straight, dark slashes of her brows. The set of her chin.
And when she gathered her skirts in one hand and placed the gloved fingers of her other hand in his, allowing him to lead her out on the floor, Nathaniel recognized a bit of himself in her, as well.
He felt a swell of something warm and fierce in his chest, and it discomfited him. Glancing over Lucy’s shoulder, his gaze tangled with Mrs. Pickford’s as she watched them go. The way she looked at him, as though she’d never seen him before…Nathaniel swallowed thickly and turned away.
The orchestra struck up their tune, and Nathaniel watched with quiet approval as Lucy gracefully took up her place opposite him. They began the complicated steps of the set, coming together and turning away again, until the promenade up the rows of other dancers afforded them a moment to speak.
Unwilling to let it lie, Nathaniel clipped out, “Is that how you’ve been treated by everyone this evening?”
“Most people have been polite enough.” Lucy shrugged, but when she looked up, her eyes snapped fire. “But I don’t see why you bothered with all the business of forcing me to come live with you and buying me all these dresses if you planned to abandon me at my very first ball.”
That lick of shame again. The knowledge that he had done wrong, hadn’t lived up to his own standards.
It occurred to Nathaniel that he might have been hasty when took on the role of head of this family. There was more to it than he’d originally thought.
“You are right,” he said plainly. “I should have been here. You should have made your debut on the arm of your brother. I apologize.”
The pattern of the dance pulled them apart once more, but not before Nathaniel noted the surprised widening of her eyes.
When they faced each other again, Lucy replied, “I…appreciate your apology. But I’m not sure it would have made a difference, anyway. My so-called friends couldn’t wait to make sure I knew how far I’d fallen. All with a smile, of course.”
“Appearing on your own, without the full force of the dukedom behind you, made it worse.”
They wouldn’t dare to look down on Lucy when she was on his arm. He’d make sure of that.
“Ugh, all of this, all of these people,” Lucy burst out. “How can you stand it? It’s all so…false.”
He didn’t tell her he coped by occasionally beating the stuffing out of another man in an illegal, illicit bareknuckle boxing ring.
