Letitia exhaled dramatically through her nose. “Yes.”
“Good. Go.”
They went, Letitia’s slippers scuffing against the floor in deliberate protest, Isadora’s hand finding her sister’s arm at the foot of the staircase in that quiet, steadying way she had.
William watched until they reached the landing and then turned away, rolled his shoulders once beneath his coat, and pushed open the ballroom doors.
The room received him the way rooms always did—a slight shift in attention, a ripple outward from the entrance, the particular awareness that preceded his name.
He smiled before anyone said a word.
“Your Grace.” Lord Ashby materialized at his elbow with a glass already extended. Brandy, as expected. He was a tall, weathered man with the comfortable bearing of someone who had spent thirty years being right about horses and wrong about marriage. “We’d nearly given you up.”
“The evening is young.” William accepted the glass. He took a swallow and let the warmth settle before it reached his face. Then he smiled. “And I’m reliably told that my entrances are more effective when you’ve had time to miss me.”
“Reliably told by whom?”
“Everyone who’s ever thrown a party worth attending.”
Ashby laughed, which set off a small chain of laughter around them, the particular warm sound of people who had been waiting for permission to enjoy themselves.
William moved into it the way he moved into most things—with ease, with attention, with the precise calibration of a man who had learned very early that charm was not a gift but a skill, and like all skills, it required maintenance.
“Your Grace, you must settle something for us.” This from Mrs. Vane, who materialized on his other side with the efficiency of a woman who had been watching the door for twenty minutes. She was handsome and knew it, and deployed the knowledge strategically, which William respected. “Lord Pembury claims the easternmost bathing machines are superior to the western ones on account of the tide. I say the whole enterprise is undignified, regardless of direction.”
“Mrs. Vane,” he said, turning to give her his full attention, which was a thing that had its own effect, “I find the most dignified thing about bathing machines is that no one can see you inside them.”
“And the least dignified?”
“Everything that happens when you come out.”
She laughed, pleased, and looped her arm through his as though she had every right. He let her. It was easier that way.
“Have you met Captain Reeves?” she asked. “He insists Brighton would be a duller place without you.”
William inclined his head toward the captain. “I am relieved to know I contribute something beyond rumor.”
Reeves grinned. “Oh, the rumors are the best part.”
William raised his glass. “Then I drink to being useful.”
Laughter followed. Someone clapped him on the shoulder. The orchestra struck up, and the room shifted, skirts brushing past boots, voices rising as couples arranged themselves for the next dance.
Mrs. Vanelooked up at him expectantly. “You will dance?”
“Of course.” He was already setting aside his glass. “It would be unkind to disappoint the room.”
He took her hand. It was warm, untroubled. The steps were familiar enough that his body required little attention. He spoke easily as they moved.
“You favor Brighton, Your Grace,” she said.
“I favor escape,” William answered. “Brighton merely pretends to be one.”
She laughed again, delighted by the answer, though it cost him nothing to give it.
When the dance ended, another lady was waiting. Then another. He lost track of names somewhere between the third turn around the floor and the fourth compliment on his coat.
“You are wicked,” one woman declared.
