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His weight suddenly disappeared as someone hauled him upright. “Belper, you dunderhead,” a deep voice said. “Are you in the whiskey again?”

Stella took a desperate gulp of air and realized that her vision was blurry. “Does anyone see my spectacles?” She should sit up and look for them, but her head was spinning.

“Drink had nothing to do with it,” Lord Belper said, sounding sulky. “She tripped me!”

“Lady Stella, are you injured?” She knew that voice, she thought fuzzily. Deep, low, confident . . . Without her spectacles all she could see was a circle of blurry heads standing out against a bright haze of chandeliers.

“Can’t see where she goes . . .”

“Blind,” someone else remarked.

And then, worst of all: “Bounced on her like a featherbed.” With a laugh.

Just to top off the disaster, a drop of hot wax fell from a candle far above and landed with an audible plop on her cleavage.

Stella squeaked and slapped a hand over her bosom just as a man bent closer. She instantly realized who had spoken earlier. This particular duke smelled like late autumn: apples, spice, a touch of starch, a hint of snow in the air.

Altogether delectable.

Her head cleared abruptly. She was lying on the floor, and her rumpled gown was pulled above her ankles. Her aunt would have hysterics.

“My spectacles?” she asked again, rolling to the side and yanking down her skirts before she came to her knees, peering between the feet that surrounded her.

The Duke of Huntington crouched down beside her. “I have them, Lady Stella. They are undamaged.”

His Grace had astonishingly beautiful eyes: as gray as a winter day to go along with that . . . that autumnal odor of his. Stella blinked up at him before she snatched her spectacles and put them back on her nose, threading the sides around her ears.

He put a strong hand under her elbow. “Are you uninjured?” Silvester asked, once she was on her feet. She thought of him as Silvester because the name suited him. It was a fancy, elegant name for a fancy, elegant man.

“I’m fine,” she mumbled.

Stella thought of her body as capable of walking and dancing, most of the time. Luckily she was sturdily constructed, since her bones never broke, no matter how often she tumbled to the ground.

But around Silvester? With his broad shoulders, the handsome curve of his jaw, the easy swing of his muscled body, his gray eyes, even his commanding nose . . .

His smile.

Around him, her body became her enemy, serving up shaking knees and quickened breath. Desire that flared straight down her back after a glance at his lower lip. Or the touch of his hand on her arm.

He went to Stella’s head like potent wine.

The very sad, very secret, truth was that she was captivated by a frivolous aristocrat.

“Stella!” Her aunt pushed through the crowd. “What happened?” Her eyes were wide with alarm.

Mrs. Thyme’s eyes were often wide with alarm, since Stella didn’t seem to be able to maintain the refined tone on which her aunt depended. On which civilization depended, if Mrs. Thyme was to be believed.

Stella often said the wrong thing. She argued with gentlemen. She regularly dropped things to the floor, including, at times, herself.

She was unrefined, to say the least.

“We fell,” Lord Belper said, displaying a remarkable ability to synthesize facts.

Silvester nodded at Stella and melted into the crowd.

“I’m glad neither of you were injured,” said a cheerful voice as an arm wound around Stella’s waist. “By next Season, we’ll all be far more proficient at the quadrille. For now, we shall retire, dear.”

Their hostess, the Duchess of Trent, was one of the few women in London whom Stella thought of as a friend. Perhaps because Merry was an American, she was happy to talk about subjects considered inappropriate for a lady.