“Right.”
Beresford seemed to be on a roll. “Oh, I’ve just recalled the last time we saw each other.” He glanced at Louisa and winked. Winked! “The house party in Kent in ’14. Was it at Lord Roscoe’s estate?”
“It was,” Daniel ground out through his teeth.
“That whole party was a scandal. Too much for this delicate lady’s ears.”
Lark stared at Beresford. “Do I want to know?”
“I assure you, you do not.”
“A folly of my misspent youth,” Daniel said to Louisa. “You do not want to know, either.”
Of course, that only piqued Louisa’s curiosity.
“My dear Lady Louisa,” Beresford said. “Please save me a dance. I’d like the full experience of attending a ball and have not danced with anyone since my late wife.”
“Oh. Of course, my lord.”
Beresford claimed a dance on Louisa’s dance card. Lark did, too, although she suspected he just did because he didn’t know what else to do. Daniel grunted and escorted her away.
“You are much in demand.”
“You’d be smart to claim the dance you want now, then.” She held up her card.
Daniel claimed a waltz.
Louisa spent the next half hour dancing, mostly with Daniel, but also with Lark and with Hugh, and at last with Beresford, who took the opportunity to tell her, “I don’t mean to create trouble between you and your fiancé.”
“Somehow, I do not believe you.”
“If perhaps I choose to highlight a few unsavory bits of Rotherfeld’s past, it is only because Fletcher wants to antagonize him, and I am fond of Fletcher.”
“I am fond of Fletcher, too.”
“Perhaps not in the same way.”
“No,” she conceded. “Fletcher aside, I am confused, because either your implication about what happened in Kent is not what I think it is, or Rotherfeld lied to me.”
“I will concede that the adventures at Lord Roscoe’s party were perhaps not what you’re thinking or anything you could conceive of, so it is perhaps not the sort of trouble you might have asked him about in the past. And truly, I exaggerated, it is not so bad. Mostly too much drink and young men behaving egregiously, as young men are wont to do.”
“I cannot parse ‘behaving egregiously.’”
“Perhaps Rotherfeld will share the details with you some day, but honestly, they are not important. And, anyway, I’ve always found Rotherfeld rather prudish, so it is possibleImisbehaved and he was just…also there.”
“That I believe.”
“Ha.” Beresford winked again.
As they walked off the floor, Louisa said, “I am deeply sorry for your loss. It must have been terrible.”
“It was, it was. And I miss her dearly. But my baby son has been a bright light. Lark—that is, Lord Waring—has agreed to be his godfather. I can send you the details about the christening if you like, although you might be on your honeymoon by then.”
“We are not leaving London until the end of the Season.”
“Splendid. And you can leave Rotherfeld at home if he’d prefer not to attend a christening, although I should disclose that Young Master Henry is extremely adorable and he will make you want to have a brood of your own children as soon as possible.”
Louisa laughed. “I look forward to seeing him, then.”
