Arch stood up, unable to remain seated under the weight of possibility. “I should call upon her.”
“Not without cause. Not without a reason that does not sound like surveillance. We must tread carefully,” Renforth warned.
Arch fought the irritation that rose inside. “I have cause.”
“Maybe so, but cause can be a liability if it makes you clumsy,” Renforth replied evenly.
“When have you known me to be clumsy?” he asked, a dash too defensively.
Fielding watched Arch with an expression that was too perceptive for Arch’s comfort. “The Colonel is right,” Fielding said.
Arch forced himself to breathe. “Then I will pay a visit as a matter of duty.”
“Personally, I would wait until the ball tonight. Ask her to dance and then exchange information, if you will,” Stuart suggested.
Renforth nodded once. “You will ask whether she has received the ledgers. If she has, you will request that she allow you to compare them against the dates and sums Baines will find.”
Arch disliked being ordered like a lieutenant, but he understood the necessity. “Understood, sir.”
The invitation to Lady Stratton’s ball had been accepted. Miss Vale would attend; his mother had sent her own note to inform him that his escort was expected.
The ballroom, that evening, glittered with orchestrated extravagance. Chandeliers cast honeyed light over polished floors; silk and satin shimmered with calculated effect; and violins threaded the air with music that invited timed elegance. Arch entered, accustomed to such spectacle, and immediately scanned the room with more intent than he would care to admit. He saw her before he saw anyone else.
Miss Vale stood near the far edge of the room, beneath a cascade of candlelight that seemed designed for her alone. Her gown was of a deep emerald silk, cut with an architectural precision that flattered without exhibition. The colour intensified the green of her eyes, which caught and held light as through a jewel. Her auburn hair had been deliberately ordered, though a single curl escaped near her temple in defiance of restraint. The jewellery she wore was not excessive, being simplya slender gold chain with a tear-dropshaped emerald that drew attention to the graceful line of her neck.
She did not smile easily at the gentlemen who circled her. Arch felt something in his chest tighten in a manner entirely separate from strategy. One of those gentlemen was known to Arch—tall, polished, and possessed of the sort of handsome composure that appeared to have been bred into him for politics. He did not lean too close, did not press too hard; he merely spoke and listened as though Miss Vale’s mind were the very thing that had drawn him across the room.
Then, Miss Vale’s expression altered—only slightly, but enough for Arch to observe it: not softness, precisely, but recognition. The gentleman had said something she agreed with.
A moment later, Lady Stratton’s voice, bright with triumph, carried across the cluster of guests: “Mr. Harcourt, you must allow me to claim you for my cousin. Miss Vale, Mr. Harcourt has the most enlightened notions of propriety and reform, but he is a delightful dancer.”
Harcourt’s smile was perfect. “I would be honoured, Lady Stratton. Miss Vale,” he said, turning again to Francesca with a bow that managed to be respectful without being submissive, “I hope you will not refuse me later.”
“Refuse you?” Francesca replied, dryly amused. “That depends entirely upon what you mean to do with my agreement once you have it.”
Harcourt laughed quietly, as if she had pleased him. “I mean to treat it as evidence that sense may exist in the same room as beauty without causing a riot.”
Several women nearby smiled as though they were witnessing a charming little play. Arch did not smile at all.
Then, with a subtle shift that disturbed Arch far more than Harcourt’s elegant attention, a second gentleman stepped in—older, richer by the look of him, and possessed of the unhurriedconfidence of a man who believed the world had been arranged for his convenience. His title preceded him the way scent preceded a dowager.
“Ashbourne,” Arch heard someone murmur with approving awe, as if rank were a virtue.
Lord Ashbourne’s bow was exquisitely correct; his gaze, however, had the assessing calm of a gentleman looking over an estate’s acreage.“Miss Vale,” he said, “you are precisely as I was told—quite the most admirable combination ofbeauty and…determination.”
Arch wondered what he really wanted to say.
“What a curious choice of description, to be sure, but not erroneous. How obliging of the person who described me thus,” Francesca replied.
Ashbourne smiled as though her tartness were a charming pet he intended to tame. “Determination is most valuable in a wife—provided it is properly guided.”
Francesca’s expression did not change, but Arch saw her fingers grip her fan so hard he was waiting for it to snap.
Harcourt’s brows lifted as though he had discovered, at last, something with which he might disagree. “Guidance is not usually offered as a compliment,” he observed mildly.
Ashbourne turned to him with amused contempt. “Neither is idealism practical as policy, Mr. Harcourt.”
The laughter of the circle of people about them was polite and hungry. Arch felt, with sudden clarity, that Miss Vale’s future was being debated like a bill before the House.
