“I beg your pardon?”
“Northcliffe has just walked in.”
Mercy turned and saw Northcliffe moving through the crowd. Her heart gave a strange flutter, before she scowled. How indifferent he was to her. They were to marry in a matter of weeks. Her days had been filled with dressmaking appointments and shopping for her trousseau. He wished for their engagement to be a brief one. But clearly not because he couldn’t wait to make her his. One might think he would employ the time left to them before they became man and wife to spend in her company. But he felt no such compulsion. Had he and Lady Alethea been together during the week? The lady seemed so certain of his affections.
Tall and darkly handsome, he stood at the edge of the dance floor, his brooding gaze on them as they performed the final steps. When the music ended, Mercy refused to look at him. She laughed and tucked her hand into the crook of Lord Bellamy’s arm as he led her from the floor. Bellamy lowered his head and murmured a droll comment about her fiancé’s thunderous expression. An apt description!
She giggled nervously. “You are quite outrageous, sir.”
On reaching Northcliffe, she removed her hand from Bellamy’s arm.
Bellamy bowed. “Northcliffe.” He turned to Mercy. “Thank you for your delightful company. I do hope we may dance again.”
“I shall look forward to it, Lord Bellamy.”
“One can’t have you sitting out dance after dance,” Bellamy continued. “Pretty women look so charming performing the steps. Do you not agree, Northcliffe?”
Northcliffe bowed his head, dismissively, his gold-flecked gaze on Mercy.
Bellamy, with an amused glance at her, left them.
Northcliffe raised his brows. “You seem to have little trouble filling in the time during my absence.”
Her chest swelled with indignation. “What would you have me do? Sit at home and embroider, night after night? Oh,” she tapped her chin with her fan. “Isn’t that what you do have in mind for me, whilst locked away in the country, my lord?”
He took her arm and they crossed the floor toward where her mother sat with his Aunt Jane. “Perhaps you prefer Lord Bellamy’s company. I should not like to keep you from him.”
Mercy shot him a withering glance. “Lord Bellamy is a friend of long standing. Am I not permitted to dance with him?”
“Of course, but I dislike my fiancée flirting openly while I’m away. Such behavior draws attention.”
Mercy flushed. She tugged her hand from his arm. “You are most ungenerous.”
Northcliffe frowned. “Mercy, I…”
She thought he looked weary before she turned away. She pushed her way through the crush, confident he would not follow. Not with a hundred interested gazes on them. And heaven knew they’d already caused enough scandal. She firmed her lips afraid she would cry.
She found Arabella in the ladies’ withdrawing room.
“Goodness, what has occurred? You look fit to explode,” Arabella said.
“Your brother is not in good humor.” Mercy gazed into the mirror and dismayed, took out her handkerchief to stem the flow of tears.
“My dear! What has Grant done? I didn’t even know he was here tonight.”
“He arrived a short time ago. And was not entirely happy to see me.”
“Surely he wasn’t rude. That is so unlike him. Shall I speak to him?”
Mercy took a deep breath, and sniffed, remorseful that she’d mentioned it. “Please don’t. Merely a slight disagreement. It will blow over.”
Arabella smiled but her expression was clouded with doubt. “Pre-wedding nerves, I imagine.”
“Yes, of course.” Mercy’s gaze blurred in the mirror.
Chapter Eleven
GRANT WAS NOT ordinarily so easily provoked. What was wrong with him? Ladies liked to flirt. Something that had never bothered him before. But he’d never been engaged before. A muscle jumped in his jaw.
