“But please do have a care about wandering off alone. Not every man is as harmless as I am.”
She studied him in silence for a moment.
“Harmless,” she repeated thoughtfully, and so quietly it was nearly a caress. “Ha.”
It was also almost a question.
He offered her a patient, enigmatic smile and did not reply.
A little silence stretched.
She cleared her throat. “Will... will you be dancing tonight?” she asked, somewhat shyly.
“Good God, no, Keating. In my view, dancing is for the spouse seekers, the inebriated, the terminally cheerful, and the very young. And I am none of those things. I never dance at balls.”
Her smile gradually grew wider as his list went on. “Surely you’re not very old.”
“I’m thirty-five.”
“Oh. Well. I stand corrected, then.”
He smiled, and shook his head slowly.
“But... then... whydoyou go to balls?” Her brow furrowed. “If I may be so bold?”
“To make friends,” he said.
She laughed. Which delighted him.
“Ah, but you wound me, Keating. In truth, men will often let down their guards when surrounded by pretty women and loud music and free liquor. Alliances are born, confessions are made, and all sorts ofuseful knowledge can be gathered. It’s as valuable as a night at White’s. Sometimes more so. Relationships of all sorts are the most important part of my job.”
She listened to this solemnly. “Is that why you didn’t duck in time when Lord Farquar swung for you? Because your guard was down?”
Her sky blue eyes were wide with faux innocence.
“If blue was not so decidedly your color, Keating, I would call you out for such insolence.”
She merely smiled happily, basking in his feigned outrage. “Duels. Just one of the many, many things that only men are allowed to do.”
He snorted. “Yes, it’s desperately unfair that young women can’t go about challenging each other to duels. Think of the carnage over sleeves.”
“I imagine you’re right. But poisonous subtlety as a weapon has its limits. And I’ve no practice at that, either. So far, I’m a failure as a crocodile.”
“The possibility of a duel is admittedly a useful sort of option for a man to carry about in his masculine quiver, so to speak.”
“The threat of sudden death?” she said lightly. “I imagine it would be.”
“Mainly because Farquar knows that I would shoot him if I called him out for hitting me. And now he’s on his back foot, which is precisely where I like my political opponents. Uncertain and beholden to me.”
He supposed he’d said it in order to make certain she did not take to viewing him as anything like cuddly or benevolent or benign. He also—and this surprised him—was trying once again to impress her, as he had last night, because she was clever, and he realized with some surprise that he considered her worth impressing.
She took this in, her face ever so faintly troubled and thoroughly fascinated. He was accustomed to seeing this expression on women.
“Would you, indeed? Shoot him, that is?”
“Well, yes. If I’d agreed to duel him, certainly. The alternative is that he would shoot me, and we can’t have that.”
“Have you shot anyone before?”
