“I’ll do my best to attend, if work permits.”
Eleanor cocked her head. “Does work require your presence every evening?”
Currently? Yes. His duty did. Winnie needed chaperoning and marriage was high on the list of things a duke was expected to do. Prior to this season? There had always been a reason not to accompany his sisters to Vauxhall. Either he’d been deep in his ledgers or not even in London. “I am here, am I not?”
As he raised an arm and guided her beneath it, she dipped naturally, and when she reappeared, her smile was rueful. “We both have positions keeping us from the revelry, it seems. Perhaps you will have an evening when you are not encumbered.”
He imagined how his sisters would react if he skipped a night of courting. Not well. Perhaps if he brought them with him, they wouldn’t complain. “I will do my best to get there.” With one trip, he could please both Eleanor and Booklover. Efficient. Efficient enough to make it worth doing.
The Marquess of Longsborough and his partner veered close. Too close. Definitely-not-an-accident kind of close. Aquick survey of the room revealed far more eyes on him than he liked. If Eleanor noticed, her second left foot might reappear.
“Tell me,” he said as a distraction, “have you managed to lure our friend the wombat out into the open?”
She snorted and he couldn’t help but chuckle. Most ladies had that habit trained out of them. “Between attending Lady Wharton in the evening and working during the day, I have had very little free time. The wombats will have to wait.” She tilted her head and pursed her lips, and he was hit by a sudden, unexplainable urge to kiss her.
He pressed his own lips together but couldn’t keep his fingers from tightening around her waist. When she flushed and stumbled, his stomach twisted. “What else is on your list of things to do when your time is your own again?” he asked before she could pull away.
“I… uh…” She shook her head and squared her shoulders. Her eyes cleared. “I’m quite fond of the Natural History Museum. The Portrait Gallery, too. The works themselves are fascinating, but I’m particularly fond of the descriptions beside each piece.”
“You like to learn.” That was an attractive trait in a woman. An incredibly attractive trait, one that made his cock stiffen and the muscles in his chest tighten.
A crease formed between her brows. “I suppose so. There’s nothing I don’t want to know. No discipline that I don’t want to study.”
He couldn’t help himself. “Why does Australia not fall off the Earth?”
The creases deepened. “Well,” she said, looking at him as though he had three heads. “There’s this phenomenon calledgravity that was discovered by a man called Isaac Newton approximately two hundred years ago. Surely you know that.”
Heat crept up his neck. “Yes, of course.” Damn it, now he was the one who looked like an idiot. “I asked metaphorically. Never mind.”
She looked at him askance. “Did you know that gravity is the weakest of the natural forces?”
Dancing with her was proof of that. The pull between them was far stronger than that which kept him from drifting off the floor. “Human attraction is the strongest, don’t you think? Wars have been fought because a man and a woman couldn’t keep apart.” As soon as he said the words, he regretted them. They conjured images of him and Eleanor in an alcove pressed together.
Her cheeks reddened. As if to prove his point, the tension sharpened. His hands burned so hot there was no way she couldn’t feel it. Hell, the six inches between them was a furnace, but he would not draw her closer. He would not lean forward to breathe her in, even though his lungs were scorched and that damn flush on her cheeks starved him of air.
She swallowed. “Did you know that the eruption of Mount Vesuvius is not even close to the most destructive volcanic eruption of all time?”
The flame between them guttered. Mass destruction tended to have that effect.
He cleared his throat. “I believe it was Mount Tambora in 1815, was it not? More than ten thousand perished from the explosion itself and one hundred thousand from its impact on the weather.”
Over Eleanor’s shoulder, he saw Lady Barkely raise aneyebrow, and he adjusted his step so that he and Eleanor drifted in the opposite direction.
Eleanor was nodding with alarming enthusiasm. “What most people don’t realize is that in addition to food shortages, the sudden cooling of the planet led to a new strain of cholera. Thus, the pandemic of 1817. Technically, Tambora is responsible for millions of deaths.” She blushed, perhaps recognizing the peculiarity of such a conversation in such an environment. “I typeset lettersKthroughTof an encyclopedia a few years back.”
It was almost laughable. After weeks of conversation about the weather, the races, current fashions, and why each woman he spoke to would make an excellent duchess, he was finally talking to a woman who would speak her mind—such an interesting mind—yet she wasn’t a woman he could pursue. He had a day, at best, before she discovered he was the duke she despised.
“Do you think you would still do it? Your work, that is, if an alternative came along.” If her life changed, or when her industry did. “Your fingers must ache by the evening.”
Her fingers flexed and then pressed into his shoulder. “They do, but I don’t mind. The pain is a reminder of a day’s work done well. I find it calming.”
He knew that feeling. Any day that a black pen had been all that he’d needed, and the ledger was neatly printed proof that he was succeeding at his task, a sense of peace enveloped him. Much as it did now, oddly.
Then the last strains of the waltz died, and his stomach dived, taking the peace with it. With no music to disguise it, the racket of the ball sounded like the chaos of a hunt. His reprieve was over. The room was closing in on him. By dancing withLady Wharton’s companion, he’d roused the room’s curiosity. Damn. He hadn’t thought that through.
Meg and Winnie stared at him ravenously. He could run. He could escort Eleanor to the side and keep going until his feet touched cobblestone, but it would only delay their interrogation.
He took one more look at the only comforting person in the room and inclined his head. “Thank you for the dance, Eleanor. It meant more than you realize.”
