Page 64 of The Duke’s Caught Bride

She was not, in fact, perfectly well. She was highly conscious of the musicians tuning their instruments and of her own feet, which had not been on a dance floor in approximately three years. She had practiced in her room at Bearmoor House in the mornings for the past fortnight, before the household was properly awake, counting the steps of the cotillion and the country dance in her stockinged feet while the fire was still just embers.

She was not going to embarrass herself. She had decided this with the same deliberate certainty with which she had decided to bob for apples at the village fair, which was to say she had decided it while simultaneously being quite uncertain and had simply declined to let the uncertainty govern.

“Alice!”

Lucy appeared at her elbow, flushed from the warmth of the room, her dress a blue shade that made her eyes very bright. She pressed Alice’s hands between her own and pulled her toward the edge of the dance floor.

“You look magnificent,” she said in the emphatic way that suggested she meant it as both a compliment and tactical intelligence. “That color is exceptional, my dear. Did you have it made here or at Bearmoor?”

“London,” Alice said. “The amber was the modiste’s suggestion.”

“Wise woman.” Lucy turned them both toward the far wall, away from the largest cluster of guests, and lowered her voice. “Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Do not be obtuse. Bearmoor! Your husband. The man you described to me at the garden party in terms that left very little ambiguity about your feelings for him.”

Alice felt her cheeks heat up but tried keeping her expression neutral. “He is speaking with Lord Ashton.”

“Mm.” Lucy looked across the room with an expression of elaborate disinterest. “And has anything else occurred since the garden party?”

Alice looked at her fan. “We received a report on Rachel’s whereabouts. A lead near Bath. Nothing definitive, but Carver has men in Wiltshire now.”

“And…?” Lucy prompted.

“My father visited,” Alice added. “You know how he is. But this time, Kenneth defended me rather comprehensively, and my father left without finishing his tea.”

“Finally! I know he’s your father, dear, but he had it coming at some point,” Lucy responded. “Anything else?”

“The invitation to the ball arrived,” Alice said. “And he told me I would dance, first with him.” Her voice remained admirably even, but she felt Lucy’s grip tighten on her arm. “And that is the sum of events since the garden party.”

“That is not quite the sum, is it?” Lucy asked carefully.

Alice looked at the dancers beginning to arrange themselves for the opening set and said nothing at all, which was, she found, a more honest answer than the alternative.

“Alice.”

“I am not going to discuss it at a ball.”

“You never discussed it at a garden party either, and look how that turned out.”

“Lucy.”

“Forgive me.” Lucy’s voice softened. “I simply want to know that you are well. That you are not hiding from it.”

“I am not hiding from anything.” Alice looked at the chandelier, at the light falling warm and indiscriminate across two hundred and fifty people who did not know that she had spent a fortnight counting dance steps in her stockinged feet. “I am standing at a ball in amber silk waiting to dance with my husband. That is the opposite of hiding.”

Lucy smiled. “It is, rather.”

The musicians settled. The first notes of the opening movement reached them, and Alice watched the couples take their positions.

She was aware, somewhere in the middle distance, of the woman near the refreshments table still watching her. She had not moved.

She found Kenneth before he found her, which was unusual.

He was standing near the doorway to the adjoining salon, Jonathan at his side. She saw, before he saw her, the brief and involuntary movement of his gaze across the crowd, searching.

He was looking for her.