by Brianna York
His eyes leapt to her face. “Thank you, Miss Dartmoor,” he told her with a smile that was very appealing.
“I meant what I said,” she informed him, her face grave but her eyes alight. “The Duke should not be allowed to make you feel less than you are.”
Rob shook his head at that. “He does not make me feel less, Miss. It is a simple fact that Matthew has more to offer than I do. I do not resent him for it, and I do not wish to be him.”
“That is a very wise attitude.” Tess wondered at the sincerity that she heard in the Earl’s voice. Most members of fashionable society spent their days and nights trying to best those of their acquaintance in every way possible. She had never heard anyone who traveled in the upper circles of society say that they were who they were and that they were happy with that. She found herself liking the Earl in spite of her promise to herself to remain aloof and detached.
“It is the truth, wise or no,” the Earl replied, smiling gently. “The four of us have been good friends for a very long while, and Matthew was ever the leader because he deserved to be. One cannot help being first and best. So long as one does not impose first and best on other people unfairly, first and best is a necessary position to be filled. Matthew has always been worthy of it.”
“The four of you?” she inquired discreetly. She did not want to seem overeager.
Rob nodded, leaning forward in his chair and turning the ornate signet ring on his right hand around his finger as he spoke. “Matthew, myself, the Earl of Wythinghall, and Baron Tyndale.”
“You all met at school?”
Rob shook his head at that. “Forrest, Matthew and I did, but Marcus practically grew up with Matthew. Their families are distantly related.”
“I am not sure if I am getting a bit old for tall this excitement or if I am just not used to dancing so often this early in the night,” a female voice said. Rob laughed as Alex joined them on Forrest’s arm. “I was wondering where you had gone off too,” she said to Rob. “I should have known that you would spirit away the most enchanting female present tonight. You really must be more careful, Miss Dartmoor. Rob here can be quite selfish.”
Tess laughed. “I do not know the Earl well,” she replied, “But I am very certain that he is not capable of any sort of loathsome behavior.”
Alex winked at Rob conspiratorially. “I see that you have fooled her, my good man,” she said in a soft undertone that was intended to be overheard and Tess laughed again.
Rob found that Miss Dartmoor’s laughter had the same effect on him as it had had on Matthew. One wanted her always to be laughing just so that one might hear the unrestrained joy in the sound.
The first chords of another waltz sounded, and Forrest bowed lithely. “Might I ask the favor of your company on the dance floor?” he asked Matthew’s sister. He had not quite yet admitted to himself that he was smitten with Alex, but everyone else besides Forrest suspected the truth.
Alex curtsied in reply. “I should love to,” she returned. She glanced at Tess over her shoulder. “Baron Tyndale rarely forays onto the dance floor. I assure you that this is quite an honor.” She glanced up at Forrest, her eyes sparkling with merriment.
“Is the Baron courting Lady Alexandra?” Tess asked of Rob as they watched the pair took their place on the floor. She thought that they were a good match, Forrest a rapier’s edge, and Alex like the glint of light running along the sharp edge of that blade.
Rob smiled ruefully. “Forrest may not know it yet, but yes, he is.”
Tess removed her eyes from the couple and giggled at the expression on Robert’s handsome face. “I see.”
“I don’t suppose that you would be so kind as to dance with me?” Rob asked, rising and offering his hand. “That is, if no one has claimed you for this dance?”
“I would be honored to dance with you, Earl Coulthurst,” she replied, rising gracefully and taking his arm.
“Rob,” he instructed her, smiling winningly.
She had to smile back. “Then I am Tess to you,” she agreed. “Just don’t tell my brother that I gave you permission to be so forward with me.” She winked saucily at him and laughed her charming laugh again.
Alex followed Forrest onto the floor which was quickly filling with couples. As she slipped her hand into Forrest’s and followed him across the floor, she found herself at a loss for words. She had known Forrest for many years, but lately, she had sensed a subtle shift in the nature of their relationship. Although not as classically good-looking as Earl Coulthurst or Matthew, Forrest owned a cool aplomb that made him enigmatic and intriguing. He was a master of himself in every way, the iron control of his will apparent in his every movement, gesture and expression, but there was a quicksilver elemental core beneath the iron control. He was terribly forbidding, and yet he always made her want to challenge his aloofness.
“Is something amiss, Forrest?” she asked.
The gray-blue eyes met hers, and she sensed his awareness. “I was not aware that there was.”
She rolled her eyes. “You seem a bit put out about something, is all,” she said next.
He was silent for so long that she was afraid that he was not going to answer her. “I suppose that I have never understood why one should throw a party when one does not have anything to celebrate.” His eyes found hers again, cool and impersonal on the surface, but curious and eager for her reply beneath.
“That makes good sense,” she replied. “A thought like that rather shatters the sense of grandeur attached to all things social.”
“Does that offend you?” he asked her, his gaze moving away as he guided her deftly out of the way of another couple.
“Not, not at all. I find it rather comforting, actually,” she replied, a gentle smile softening her mouth.
He laughed at that. “I did not intend my observation to be comforting.”
“It was nonetheless,” she assured him.
He smiled at her. “Do you ever feel as if, ourselves, Matthew and Rob are the only people in the world that see through all the frippery, all the grandiose posturing, all the false arrogance of all this?” He used the quick sweeping glance of his eyes around the room to indicate what he was talking about.
Alex looked around the room. The guttering candles were dropping wax on gowns and carefully-coiffed hair, there was too much perfume in the air, everyone appeared to be laughing all the time even though she knew that they were likely discussing politics or the weather, and the throng clustered around the most elite peers in the room, fawning over them in largely false adoration. “It’s like pretty wrapping paper over a box that is dreadfully empty,” she said softly.
“Empty but for us,” Forrest reminded her, and she smiled at him.
Matthew had been discussing a horse that he had for sale with Duke Norwood and Dartmoor when the lively intro notes of a waltz, one of his favorites actually, echoed in the hall as the musicians struck up. He watched Rob lead Miss Dartmoor onto the floor and frowned slightly. He had not expected to feel possessive of the girl, but he did. As he watched, Rob said something to her and she laughed aloud. He caught the bright, tinkly sound of her laugh all the way across the room and felt something very serene and yet very poignant thrum through him.
He turned away from this distraction and attempted to focus on the question that Dartmoor had just asked him. “I am sorry, I believe that you asked me a question about the stallions that I have in town?”
Dartmoor’s face revealed an expression that Matthew could not quite put his finger on. He thought it looked vaguely smug but the look was gone so quickly that he was not sure that he had seen it at all. “Yes, Your Grace. I was hoping I might look at the two stallions that you have in town with you. I have a mare that I would like to breed.”
Matthew nodded, his attention still divided between Tess’s laughter and her unpleasantly unfriendly brother. “I will be riding both of them in the morning tomorrow in the park near Grosvenor. Will that be acceptable?”
&
nbsp; “Very. Thank you,” Dartmoor conceded, that same knowing look passing over his face for another brief moment. Matthew tried to steady the frisson of premonition that walked down his spine.
“Matthew, dear.” It was Mary Fenton, Duchess Norwood’s simpering voice. He turned around in some relief. “I was hoping that you might dance with my little Rosy tonight,” the Duchess went on. Rosy stood beside her mother, looking terribly nervous and a little bit put out. “Since you seem unclaimed for this particular dance, I thought that you would be able to partner her.”
Matthew knew that Rosalind did not at all like to dance but he refrained from comment on that subject and swept Rosalind a graceful bow. "May I have the honor of this dance?" he asked.
"Of course Your Grace," Rosy returned a little nervously, her voice wavering as he raised his eyes to meet hers. This was her very first ball where she was allowed to waltz and she was more nervous than she wanted to admit. Matthew, whom she loved in the most secretive part of her young soul, always made her trip over her tongue. She glanced furtively at his profile as he led her to the floor and guided her into the first steps of the waltz, suddenly shy in the face of this new experience.
“I am sorry that my mother forced you to dance with me,” she said quietly, trying to make certain that she did not trip up the steps of the dance.
Matthew smiled fondly at the young woman. “She did not force me. I happen to know that you do not much like dancing. If that were not the case, I would have claimed your first dance.”
“Miss Dartmoor managed to do so before you had the chance anyhow,” Rosy said probingly, curious about this mystery woman her connection with Matthew.
“She did indeed, “he replied, swinging her in faster circles and holding her farther away than was customary. He was staring off over the crowd, never missing a step for all that his mind was completely occupied. Rosy thought that he danced divinely anyway.
"Have you courted her before?" she asked, watching him very closely. She privately thought that the mystery woman and Matthew made a lovely couple and seemed to know one another very well indeed.
Matthew’s gaze flicked in her direction for a moment before he was forced to look away in order to guide them safely by another couple. “I have never seen her before tonight,” he answered her.
“She wants to marry you,” Rosy informed him with a sunny smile.
Matthew’s brown eyes dipped down to Rosalind’s for a moment, his brows drawn a bit over them. “What makes you say that, Rosy?”
She tilted her head to one side. “Everyone wants to marry you, Matthew,” she said confidently. “And she matches you well. I think that she may possibly be as beautiful as Lady Alex. What do you think?” As Alex was Rosy’s female idol, this was quite a compliment.
Matthew smiled at her then and shook his head. “I am not often very lucky in love, Rosy.”
She rolled her eyes slightly and changed the subject. “Will you and Lady Alexandra be able to ride with me more often now that you have given me a horse?”
“Of course,” he replied with a grin. “We shall have to teach you how she has been trained.”
Rosy smiled back eagerly. “It will be so lovely to have a horse that can actually keep up with everyone now. I really cannot thank you enough.” She blushed slightly and dipped her eyes downwards.
“It was my pleasure,” he said warmly, sweeping her into faster circles until she laughed aloud.
“You shall not distract me,” she giggled, her cheeks flushed with exertion.
“From what?” Matthew asked idly.
Are you going to marry Miss Dartmoor?” She asked and Matthew groaned inwardly.
“I’m not going to answer that.”
She glared at him in mock annoyance. “That’s not very sporting of you.”
He laughed lightly. “You’re right, I suppose. I promise that you’ll understand someday.”
“Why can’t I understand today?” she demanded.
“Because today is not someday,” was all he would tell her.
The dance ended and Matthew bowed to Rosy and allowed her to curtsy politely. He offered her his arm and they made their way back to her parents.
“Well?” the Duchess asked eagerly. “What did you think of her waltz? I taught her just last week.”
Matthew tried to ignore the piercing quality of the Duchess’s voice by smiling down briefly at Rosy. “The waltz was quite good,” he praised.
Rosy’s mother smiled coyly at Matthew and winked at her daughter. “I told her that she was a natural.”
Rosy blushed brightly and ducked her head. “It was very nice of you to take pity on me and dance with me for my first waltz.”
Matthew chucked her lightly under the chin. “That’s nonsense. I enjoyed dancing with you very much.”
There was no way to describe the look she gave him then other than that she positively glowed. “Really?”
He nodded. “Really.”
“If Matthew can praise your dancing in such a fashion,” Rob said as he joined them, “I shall have to claim Lady Rosalind’s next dance. I would hate to miss dancing with the most sought-out girl at the ball.”
Rosy blushed again, but she managed to hand him her dance card. Rob made his initials on it with a flourish. “Thank you,” she said in a breathy voice, then curtsied prettily. “I really must go and sit down to catch my breath.”
“Come dear,” Duchess Norwood commanded. The two ladies moved off, and Matthew watched them go with a sigh of relief. Rosy was not an intimidating girl, nor was she as annoying as he sometimes accused her of being. Actually, she was a very sweet, good-hearted girl that meant no harm to anybody. Matthew could not explain what it was about her that set him slightly on edge. Perhaps it was the fact that she so obviously adored him, or it might also have been the fact that Duchess Norwood was very much on the hunt for a man of suitable rank to marry her daughter to. Matthew personally suspected that he was most put off by her sheer innocence. He always felt guilty when he was in her presence and had to try to avoid talking over her head, or making her feel silly. It had been far too long since he had been eighteen, he decided. He had lost all perspective on the insecurities of youth. The only remaining pain of his youth that still could touch him was the memory of white roses and echoing stone corridors. Frowning to himself, he tried to shake off the old memories of injury to his soul.
“You look a bit queasy, Matthew,”Rob observed. “Surely Rosalind alone couldn’t have put that look on your face.”
Matthew chuckled. “Rosalind herself is not to be blamed, as well you know. Rather, her age seems to catch me unawares at times.”
Rob smiled. “She at least has more than a few good thoughts to rub together, unlike most of her compatriots,” he observed. He flipped open his pocket watch and glanced at it, then glanced up at Matthew. “I’m off to play a few hands. Care to join me?”
Matthew, who detested games of chance, just shook his head. “Good luck with the cards,” he said to Rob. “I have one more dance with the lovely Miss Dartmoor to collect.”
Four
T
ess knew that she was laughing too loudly and smiling too brightly. She didn’t care in the slightest. All she knew at the moment was that dancing with the Duke had to be one of the most exhilarating experiences of her life. The music ended all too soon and Tess attempted to catch her breath while dropping a tidy curtsy to the handsome man still holding onto one of her hands.
“Thank you for another dance, Miss Dartmoor,” Matthew told her, a grin on his face.
“It is I who is grateful, Your Grace,” Tess replied.
Matthew hesitated a moment, then damned the consequences and said, “I should be honored to pay a call on you in the near future, Miss Dartmoor.”
Tess did not like the way her stomach flip-flopped at the mention of him calling on her, but she smiled steadily at him. “I am sure that will be amenable to my brother. We would be honored to have you pay a call on us.”<
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“Capital!” he said. “If you might give me your direction?” She obliged him and having obtained the information that he required, Matthew bid Tess goodnight once again, this time capturing her hand and pressing a kiss to it. Although the kiss was chaste and proper, Tess felt suddenly as if she were naked. She knew that she was breathing a bit too quickly as Matthew raised his golden eyes to her face. His fingers were still twined around hers and his eyes were very gold. She realized that he had experienced the same thrill of heightened awareness. His fingers tightened around hers and she felt his signet ring biting into her hand. She tried to still her breathing as the moment when he ought to have released her hand came and went.
Across the room, Alex and Forrest and Rob exchanged a meaningful look. They had never seen Matthew look at a human being in such a fashion. Alex thought that the nearest approximation to the rapture she read in his face was the look that he often wore when he saw a beautiful horse.
Matthew’s friends were not the only ones who noticed the sudden awareness crackling between them however. “I think it is more than time that we took our leave,” an icy voice said. Matthew turned toward the voice first, followed by Tess, who gasped audibly as she broke her eyes away from Matthew’s.
“Oh! Of course!” she exclaimed. She felt a bit faint as she tugged her hand free very gently and the smile that she gave him was more a flutter of the corners of her full lips. “Adieu,” she whispered throatily, practically running to take her brother’s arm.
When they were gone, Matthew realized that he was still bent forward with his hand held out before him, and he straightened with a snap. He was frowning as he crossed the room, his boots echoing on the wooden floor with each steady, firm step. Had she really said adieu to him? But surely she had not meant goodbye for good?
Alex caught her brother’s arm again as he stepped toward the door, knowing that in his current state that he might forget to do the proper thing by her as her official escort. The host and hostess were dutifully waiting by the door, all smiles and gratitude. Matthew nodded to Duke Norwood and shook his hand with the ease of one well-acquainted with the giver of the party. He turned then to the Duchess. “Thank you for another excellent evening, Duchess,” he said to her, catching her hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it. He grinned at her in a manner that would have seriously provoked any but the most trusting of husbands. “There is not a better hostess in the entire city.”