Page 58 of Courting Elizabeth

“May I accept?”

I had no reason to refuse. Richard was my cousin, her friend, one of the men I trusted most.

“Naturally.”

They took their places.

I discovered that trust did not prevent jealousy.

My cousin knew how to smile. He spoke with ease, leaned in to hear Elizabeth's replies, and possessed that social grace I had never sought to acquire. She laughed. Her eyes sparkled. When they met at the center of the figure, their hands joined with the familiar precision of good dancers.

“You're going to break your glass,” Georgiana observed.

My fingers were indeed gripping the wine glass tightly.

“I'm holding it perfectly well.”

Yet the wine trembled in the glass. I set it down and slipped my hand into my waistcoat pocket, where a small hairpin had rested since London—its owner having ordered me to keep it.

“Richard is not trying to steal your wife.”

“I know.”

“Nor does she seem to wish to be stolen.”

“Georgiana.”

My sister smiled with an audacity entirely due to Elizabeth's influence.

“I'm going to play the next dance. You should ask her before someone else does.”

I set down the glass.

The dance ended. Richard brought Elizabeth back to me, a provocative gleam in his eyes.

“Your wife dances marvelously.”

“I know.”

“She also maintains that an intelligent officer is sometimes worth more than a taciturn landowner.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows.

“I never said intelligent.”

“You implied it.”

“Colonel,” I intervened, “Lady Matlock is looking for you.”

“My mother is twenty miles from here.”

“Then you should leave immediately to meet her.”

He burst out laughing and walked away.

Elizabeth looked at me.

“Were you jealous?”