She looked astonished to be asked, and he couldn’t help but wonder who had ignored her so often as to make her believe herself invisible. She was a stunning girl, her hair and eyes a study in warm luscious brown, like the dark Swiss chocolate he’d come to enjoy.
“Go on, go on,” Mr. Piper muttered, shooing her off with his hands.
There was Tristan’s answer. Those people—her parents—were the ones who had ignored her. If nothing else, between him and Ophelia, they could make Miss Piper feel important. He held out his hand, waiting for her, hoping she could at least take this dance. It was her due as a young lady at a party.
She composed herself and slid her gloved fingers into his. “Thank you,” she whispered as he led her to the parquet, already swirling with couples. Belled skirts swirled in yellows, lavenders, azures, and emeralds.
He gave her his best rakish smile, as he’d done to win over her father. “I have a feeling that by the end of the night, I’ll be thanking you.”
*
The dance floorwas distracting. How did one remember steps amidst all these swaying multi-colored dresses? But then, how did one remember one was on the dance floor at all, whenTristan Bridewell’s hand was settled heavy on her waist? He was beautiful. And not a gentleman she would ever consider, either.
Not that a gentleman like him would be interested in her. She needed to reject that idea immediately. This was clearly a bid for her father’s money for whatever their Society was about. Even in the retiring room, Ophelia had asked if she was related to Piper Shipping. That was fine. Understandable. They needed to raise money, and Eleanor was the lock holding back her sizeable dowry. This Society needed the correct key. Whether that was friendship or something more, so be it.
But surrounded by Tristan’s very firm arms, the scent of him different than the salty ocean smell of Mr. Smythe, her father’s captain, best friend, and the teacher of all her wonderful knots, Eleanor was hard pressed to remember this was not about her. That Tristan’s clear, exceptionally beautiful blue eyes staring at her as if she were something extraordinary was because of her father’s money.
“Have you been to many balls?” Tristan asked, pulling Eleanor out of her own spiraling thoughts.
She looked up at him, momentarily lost in the absolute charming beauty of his symmetrical face. “No, not many, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, were you in the country? Or traveling?” Tristan asked. A small frown line appeared between his brows, and somehow he became more attractive. How was a man with a lined facemoreattractive? But he was.
“No,” Eleanor said. “I was...” What was she doing? Reading books, tying knots, drawing pictures of dogs and cats that she wished were her pets if her mother wasn’tdeathlyallergic. Emphasis her mother’s, of course.
Tristan’s hand adjusted at her waist, causing the sensation to renew. That was very distracting. “And you?” she asked. “Have you been to many balls?”
His eyes flashed wide open in acknowledgment. “I fear that being the son of a viscount obligated me to attend every ball in a forty-mile radius of London since my fifteenth birthday.”
“What happened on your fifteenth birthday?” Eleanor asked automatically, not thinking that it might be an impertinent probing.
Tristan barked out a laugh. “I grew into my feet.” He leaned down to whisper in her ear, “I was clumsy as a boy.”
Eleanor had to concentrate very hard on listening because his mouth so near her ear was making her feel faint. Maybe she had inherited her mother’s sickly constitution, because dancing with Tristan was inducing all sorts of concerning symptoms. “And now?” She hoped she didn’t sound breathless.
He grinned, which really ought to be a crime, because the pleasure on his face was so handsome, Eleanor was surprised she wasn’t felled right there on the dance floor.
“You tell me,” he said. “Have I stepped on your feet at all?” He spun her around, which did nothing for her dizziness. He let go of her hand and bowed. It was only then that Eleanor realized the music had stopped and the dance was over.
Oh dear, he was a dangerous man. And Eleanor knew from the scandal sheets that he found company amongst the opera singers and the demimonde. He was not a man in search of a wife. If she weren’t careful, he would seduce her out of her petticoats with one alluring smile. No, not her. He was looking for her father’s money. This was about the money, and not about her. She had to remember that in order to keep her head on straight, as her father would say.
They returned to their circle of people, her parents, Miss Ophelia, and Miss Brewer. Then quite unexpectedly, Tristan announced, “It’s settled. Miss Piper has agreed to teach us her knowledge.”
Eleanor shot him a look that could only be construed as surprise, couldn’t it? Not gratitude for including her, not delight that it would compel her to spend more time in his company. But maybe those things too. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she looked to her parents, who both eyed her skeptically.
“Well then,” her mother sniffed. “We shall begin tomorrow, I suppose.”
Chapter Two
Mary Elizabeth Piper,Eleanor’s mother, was what people called a handsome woman. Never beautiful or dainty, as she had the wide, capable hands of a stablemaster, and the shoulders of a coalminer. According to Mr. Smythe, the ship’s captain, who knew her parents when they were courting back in what must have been the Dark Ages, Mary Elizabeth had the mouth of a sailor. But as she became Eleanor’s mother, all that capability and brashness shrunk into propriety.
Mr. Smythe would lean back in his chair, hands folded over his growing belly andtsk. “She were a right powerful woman, your mama. Too bad she changed for the docile.”
It was in the set of her mother’s mouth that Eleanor could see that boldness as they handed off bonnets and gloves and pelisses at the Rascomb townhouse. Mary Elizabeth Piper had set about getting her daughter a fine match, and it dawned on Eleanor then and there that the docility Mr. Smythe complained of was all for Eleanor’s sake. That her mother had given herself over to propriety for twenty-five years for exactly this moment—calling upon the house of a viscount.
Eleanor was determined to be the most gracious, most helpful, most demure daughter that there ever was. If her mother could do this for twenty-five years, Eleanor could manage for a fifteen-minute visit.
They were shown to the drawing room, and Eleanor had not expected the scene before them. Neither the twenty-five yearsof propriety nor her mother’s childhood in Kent would have prepared either of them for what they encountered. Eleanor decided that there was absolutely nothing proper or predictable about the Bridewells.
