“Not from where I stand. Now, if you will excuse me? Or do you intend to hound me like a gullgroper?” Gullgropers were money lenders of the worst sort.
Erzy didn’t like the term. His lip curled, but he stepped aside.
Roman cast one longing look at the hallway where he’d planned his escape and instead headed for the door leading to the ballroom. This had been the devil’s own night. He’d been slapped, mocked, and dunned—and he’d be damned if he would put up with more of it. He intended to claim his dance with Leonie Charnock and she’d best behave because he wasn’t in the mood for any more nonsense.
Out in the ballroom, the crowd seemed to have doubled in size. Roman worked his way through the milling mass of overdressed, overperfumed, and overdrunken guests, searching for Leonie.
He didn’t have to look far. She was on the dance floor, and her partner was no one less than the penniless Duke of Camberly. The man everyone talked about this evening. The man who needed a wealthy duchess.
Camberly was not paying attention to his steps. Instead, he was using his height to look down Leonie’s bodice. He practically licked his lips as if she was a lamb chop for his taking.
Roman had forgotten the power of jealousy. He remembered it now as it ripped through him, releasing a molten stream of seething discontent.
No, he did not have a reason for this reaction. Leonie was not his.
Yet.
He started for the dance floor.
Leonie knew how to master a dramatic exit. Women had few resources available to them to rebel.
Well, daughters had few resources. Her mother made cuckolding her father an art. She did it every chance she could—although he didn’t seem to care.
And Leonie knew her father would not be moved by her stiff back and head held high to show her displeasure as she left to do his bidding, but Gilchrist would.
Let him trail in her wake. At the first opportunity, she planned to launch into him. She’d make him regret ever approaching her or daring to ask for a dance. She’d lash him with her tongue so hard he would go running back to wherever he’d been all these years.
However, first she would have to dance with him.
The next set was forming on the dance floor. Couples were taking their places. Usually, the gentleman led the way.
Leonie turned to haughtily inform Gilchri—Rochdale, he now had a title. Earl of Rochdale. Huzzah.
“My lord,” she started, ice around each word, “you should be—”
Her hauteur broke off.
He wasn’t there.
Gilchris—no, Rochdale—had not followed her. He’d asked her to dance, made an issue of it with her father, andhe hadn’t followed?
For a dangerous moment, Leonie thought her eyes would pop out of her head with her very self-righteous and completely justified anger.
She took a step back toward the card room, her hands curling into fists as she thought to find him and drag him to the dance floor. But then she stopped.Shecould not go after him. Not even if he’d lost his way.
It washisresponsibility to escort her, notherjob to shepherd him. She should never have been left alone. Weren’t unmarried women considered delicate flowers to be chaperoned and watched closely?
Of course, her mother and father had their own pursuits, but a gentleman like the newly minted Earl of Rochdale should have been right on her heels from the moment she had agreed, albeit unkindly, to dance with him.
And she wouldnothunt him down and lecture him on the responsibilities of a gentleman because she’d rather pick up one of the papier-mâché pots around the room and crash it on his head.
The image of Rochdale bashed in by glue and paper gave Leonie great pleasure, but it didn’t conjure his presence from the card room.
No one had ever just left her on the ballroom floor before.
Well, save for her parents. They ignored her all the time. They had expectations of her but they didn’t trouble themselves overmuch with her welfare.
Then there was the last time she had been with Gilchrist. He’d left her then as well, hadn’t he? Delivered her home and walked off—
