“May I suggest you each go to your respective retiring room and rectify any issues with your appearance?”
The couple glanced at one another before the man nodded curtly, and they separated. Sighing at their carelessness, Jasper wondered how anyone had an assignation these days without getting caught and forced into marriage at the first kiss.
Which brought his thoughts back to Miss Sudbury. They’d shared an excellent first kiss, one he wished to repeat despite her having an acerbic saucebox. Again, he glanced up the stairs. If she were to dally with anyone that night, he hoped it would be him.
“There you are,” came a voice at his elbow.
Turning, he faced Louisa Tufton, looking to be in extremely high dander!
***
IT HAD TAKEN JULIAa little longer than she would have liked, but she found herself in Lady Pritchard’s dressing room after only one wrong turn. Naturally, there’d been nothing in the woman’s bedchamber. This lady had to house not only her clothing but her extensive jewelry collection in its own separate room.
Julia considered her options as quickly as possible. It was tempting to take more than she usually did because it seemed impossible her ladyship could miss even half of what she’d carelessly tossed in small velvet boxes and larger satin boxes and silver boxes and even bejeweled wooden boxes, all of which held baubles and dazzlers.
Feeling a little ill at the wealth before her while others shared a loaf of bread over an entire week, Julia nevertheless moved swiftly, picking over the choices. She’d learned her lesson about taking only one of a set. While it made the owner less likely to think the mate had been stolen, it also lessened the value considerably at the pawnbroker.
Thus, after slipping three pairs of earrings into her reticule, she turned to leave. One more set wouldn’t hurt and would do so much good in London’s poor neighborhoods. In the space of a heartbeat, she snatched another pair that looked to be black pearls surrounded by diamonds. And then, she slipped from the room as silently as she’d entered.
Taking the servants’ stairs, she met no one. When she returned to the ballroom, the dance had ended, a quadrille was about to begin, and her partner was doing his diligence by the fireplace.
“Jolly good,” Mr. Boreman said. “We won’t miss even a step if we start the next one. You did say you have it free.”
And before she knew it, she was whirling around the parquet.
“I suggest you leave your reticule with your chaperone next time,” the young man said, as her bag swung around and clobbered him repeatedly.
Since most women carried only a handkerchief and some visiting cards, of which she had none since there was no one who could possibly expect or want a visit from her, she supposed he found her weighted bag to be irksome.
Nevertheless, she wouldn’t risk leaving her bag where someone might discover its contents. Since he smelled good, though, and was affable, she smiled up at him.
“It was remiss of me, but I didn’t want to go back to the table and miss the chance to dance with you.”
That made him stand up even straighter and thrust out his chest. Apparently, he believed he’d made a conquest.
“Would you care to take a walk in the garden to cool off afterward?” he asked quietly.
He definitely believed he’d made a conquest. She tried to keep a serious expression when she wanted to smile.
“My chaperone would not allow such a breach, I’m sorry to say.” She wasn’t sorry at all, but the man looked instantly crestfallen.
“Perhaps we could dine together,” she offered, thinking he wouldn’t be the worst dining partner with whom she could be saddled.
“Sadly, I am dancing with another before the break.”
She nodded. It was understood one escorted to dinner the partner with whom one was dancing directly prior. If Julia didn’t have a partner for that dance, she would be assigned an escort.
For a moment, she had a delectable hope the Earl of Marshfield would be her dinner partner. But then thought better of it. She ought to stay away from him when there was the chance for a prolonged conversation in case he brought up his bedroom again.
***
“THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE,” Louisa Tufton stated, emphasizing her words with a wallop of her fan against her skirts. “You cannot just decide to end it.”
“End what precisely?” Jasper asked her.
She paled. “How can you be so cruel?”
He expelled a breath of exasperation. “You are not thinking clearly. Breaking off our brief association is not cruel. It is the height of kindness. The best I can do for you, in fact.”
