“I am economical,” he corrected. “I make excellent use of opportunity.”
“Do you ever tire of admiration, Your Grace?” asked a young widow, her gaze lingering.
“Only when it grows dull,” William replied lightly. “So far, it has not.”
They finished the dance, and he returned her to her companion with a bow that made her smile and fan herself vigorously. Then he accepted a glass of brandy from a passing footman and stationed himself near enough to Ashby’s group to be sociable and far enough to breathe.
He told a story then—something outrageous involving a boat, an offended magistrate, and a misunderstanding that grew worse with every retelling. The circle around him expanded. Laughter broke loudly, too loudly, and someone demanded he repeat the ending.
As he spoke, he leaned back against a column, brandy once more in his hand, posture loose, expression careless. It was a role he had perfected long ago.
And yet between one laugh and the next, his gaze lifted.
The doorway remained empty.
He noted it without thinking, a quiet reckoning beneath the noise. Too long since he had sent them away. The hour had advanced. Letitia would be pacing, and Isadora would pretend she was not listening for footsteps in the corridor.
“You have gone silent,” someone remarked.
“Have I?” William smiled easily and turned back to the group. “A dangerous habit. Pray, interrupt me at once.”
They obliged.
The orchestra played a livelier tune. A lady tugged him toward the dance floor again. He went because that was what was expected. Because Brighton wanted him loud and laughing and untroubled.
He delivered all three.
But even as he spun his partner beneath his arm, his attention snagged once more on the entrance. On the knowledge of what lay beyond it. On the responsibility he had deposited there and could not set aside with his coat.
It is a curious thing,how one can be at the center of a room and yet keep part of oneself stationed elsewhere entirely.
It was a good party. The kind that required nothing of him beyond his considerable ability to seem like he was enjoying himself, which tonight required very little effort because he mostly was.
He liked people. He liked rooms full of them, liked the noise and the negotiation of it, the way he could learn everything he needed to know about a person by watching how they moved through a crowd.
When the music ended and applause rose, he bowed, smiling, charming, entirely present.
And then, without knowing why, he reached again for his glass.
It was Ashby who found him an hour later, surrounded by a group of men with brandy in their hands. “You look like you’re enjoying yourself enormously. Your Grace.”
“I know.” William glanced at him sideways. “It’s one of my better skills.”
Ashby smiled and was about to say something else when a footman materialized at William’s elbow—not the bold materialization of someone delivering champagne, but the quieter, deliberate approach of someone with a specific errand.
“Your Grace.” The footman stepped forward and offered a folded note on a small silver tray. It was sealed with plain wax, no crest, nothing but his title written on the outside in an unfamiliar hand. “I was asked to deliver this.”
“By whom?”
“A boy, Your Grace. Outside. He’d gone before I could ask further.”
William took it with a smile already in place.
“Another invitation?” Ashby nosily asked, peering over his shoulder. “You’ll be the ruin of Brighton if this continues.”
William gave a light laugh and broke the seal.
The words were few.
