Chapter Twenty-Three

Kit

Damn Fitzwilliam. Damn, damn, damn him. But Kit couldn't keep Morvoren to himself. That just wasn't done. All the same, he'd so much rather have returned her to the safety of his mother or Mrs. Fairfield than allowed her to go off and dance with that rake.

Rafe Huxley, his old schoolfriend, materialized at Kit's side as he stood dithering. "Who was that dazzling creature you were just dancing with?" He paused. "Clearly one my mater hasn't spotted yet or she'd have her lined up waiting for me to procure an introduction and a dance."

Kit was watching Morvoren line up for the next dance with Fitzwilliam, a slight look of trepidation on her face. Good. He didn't want her falling for his cousin's dubious charms. What girls saw in him was beyond Kit. "A friend of my sister's whom we have staying at Ormonde at the moment," he said to Rafe, attempting to keep his tone offhand.

"Lucky you." Rafe grinned. "I only wish my sister had such lovely friends. She's such a bluestocking herself, the only girls she ever invites to stay are ones with the same interests as her. I told the pater it was a bad idea sending her away to school, and I was right, but the mater was insistent. She has it in her head that all my sisters should get what she calls a good education, and she has my father wrapped around her little finger. Who she thinks will marry them when all they can talk about is Latin and Greek, I don't know. A chap gets enough of that at Eton and Oxford. He doesn't want his wife spouting it." He rubbed his nose. "I think I might ask her for the next dance. Can't let your cousin keep her to himself, now can we?"

For some reason Rafe's words annoyed Kit immensely. He realized with a jolt that it wasn't only his cousin he didn't want dancing with Morvoren. He didn't want anyone at all dancing with her. Which was ridiculous. He had to keep himself under control or he was going to end up losing his temper and planting someone a facer and that would never do. Not in public, anyway.

Rafe wandered away, and for a full minute Kit stood brooding over the sight of Morvoren and his cousin. At least the lessons had paid off and she was making a creditable attempt at the Cotillion. Although dancing was not her forte. She was a girl more at home on the back of a horse, very much like his own mother.

"She's a lovely girl."

He swung around. Caroline was standing beside him, fanning herself in the heat of the ballroom, her cheeks a pretty shade of pink. She curtsied with an inborn grace and smiled up at him, looking almost beautiful, and for a moment Kit wondered if he'd been wise to spurn his mother's suggestion that she would make him the good and sensible wife she said he needed. One his mother would approve of, at any rate. Not that he wanted a good and sensible wife, or even a wife at all right now. Or did he? Then he remembered Ysella's declaration that Caro was in love with a soldier.

"Is he here?" he asked, following her gaze and staring across the room toward a group of three scarlet-clad officers laughing together.

Caroline gave herself a little shake. "I see Ysella has been giving away my secrets. I shall have to reprimand her."

"You should know better than to confide to her anything you want keeping quiet."

She smiled. "I should. You'd think I'd know her a sight better by now, wouldn't you?"

"I make it a policy never to tell her anything important."

Another smile. "Like the fact that you're in love with Miss Lucas?"

Color rose to Kit's cheeks. "I'm not."

Caroline's smile widened. "You underestimate your sister, my lord. She isn't the empty-headed chit you think her. She already told me this evening that you have fallen head over heels for Miss Lucas and that she has plans for you to be wed." She chuckled. "And now I've seen you both together, I can see it plainly written over both your faces."

"Since when have you stopped calling me Kit?" he blustered, aware of heat suffusing his entire body. If only they weren't standing in such a prominent position. He caught her elbow and steered her toward a more shadowy corner of the room on hurried feet.

She chuckled again as they came to a halt in a curtained alcove beside a bust of Lord Denby himself. "Don't let my mother see you secreting me in here or she'll get her hopes up again." She tapped him on the end of his nose with her folded fan. "I can see from your reaction that both Ysella and I are quite correct in our surmises. When do you plan to propose, Kit? She's uncommonly pretty."

He bit his lip. "She is indeed. But also uncommonly vexing at times." Telling Caroline about Morvoren would be like confiding in a priest in the confessional. She was not just his sister's oldest friend but also one of his. If just friendship were required to make a marriage, then he could have married Caroline in an instant. He might as well come clean about Morvoren and Ysella's escapade.

He recounted the story of the riding astride and the compromise they'd come to.

Caroline burst out laughing. "Oh Kit. You've been taken in by Ysella once again, I see. Can no one say no to that young lady? But it sounds as though she's found a kindred spirit in her friend." She narrowed her eyes at him. "And perhaps you have too?"

Damn the woman. She was far too perceptive. Another of the reasons he could never have married her—she'd have seen through him every time he tried to dissemble.

She frowned up at him. "Is there some problem? She seems a lovely girl—beautiful, one assumes well-bred, intelligent, and she dances moderately well." Her eyes crinkled as the smile returned. "Ysella tells me you helped teach her to dance and that there's some mystery about her. I'm intrigued."

Now he was in this quiet corner with her, Kit longed to escape. Longed to escape the ball itself, where he was going to have to watch Morvoren dance with gentleman after gentleman, see her escorted into supper by some lucky fellow, and promenade on the arms of men who were not him.

Perhaps honesty was the best policy. Well, some degree of honesty. Caro was a very old friend. "I cannot ask her to marry me," he said, aware of the bitterness in his voice. "I have reasons it would be impossible. And tomorrow," he paused, the idea formulating in his head even as he spoke. "Tomorrow, I have to leave Ormonde and return to Cornwall."

Caroline controlled a smile. "Tell yourself that if you wish, my Kitto, but you're telling yourself a lie. A wife has found you. It's as plain…" And here she reached out and tapped him on the nose again. "As the nose on your face. Mark my words. I'm never wrong."

Kit opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again, unable to think of a reply.

*

Morvoren

Thank goodness Ysellahad made her practice, because dancing with the captain was not nearly so relaxing as dancing with Kit had been. She'd felt at one with Kit, safe in his hands, as though he could anticipate any move she made, but with the captain the sensation was much more dangerous, as though he were waiting for her to make a mistake and looking for the opportunity to exaggerate it.

They came together numerous times during the dance, amongst the twirling and swapping of partners and the "moulinet." However, Morvoren was concentrating so much, she had to pay attention to what was coming next and he seemed content to remain silent, his hot eyes devouring her as they danced.

Not so when the dance finally ended, though. He drew her arm through his, and they promenaded around the edge of the ballroom together. And now he had her full attention, or so he must have thought, although in fact she was searching for Kit amongst the crowd of happy, chattering people, hopeful of rescue. Although probably he'd be off dancing with some other lucky girl.

"Well, Miss Lucas," Captain Carlyon said, steering her toward the refreshment room. "At last, I have you to myself."

There wasn't much she could say to that, so she remained silent, still scanning the throng of strangers for a friendly face.

He either hadn't noticed her reluctance to go with him, or he didn't care. She suspected the latter. "I should like to introduce you to my grandfather, if that would please you."

"Thank you, Captain," she said, awkwardly conscious of her manners. What she really wanted to do was snatch her arm away from him and make off to look for Kit. Or Ysella. Or Lady Ormonde. Or Mrs. Fairfield or even Caroline, whom she thought she'd seen heading into an alcove with Kit. Any one of them would do as a haven of safety. But etiquette, as dictated by Ysella, insisted she should make small talk with the person who had just squired her onto the dance floor.

They approached a small group of elderly gentlemen, all knocking back glasses of golden liquid that might have been whisky. The captain cleared his throat, and the head of the nearest one, a corpulent old man who must have been eighty if he was a day, turned toward them.

"Grandfather," the Captain said. "May I present Miss Lucas, who is like a cousin to me as she is visiting Kit and Ysella at Ormonde. I told you I'd already met her on the coach up from Cornwall, did I not? And how charming she is."

The old gentleman, who had a head of bushy white hair, eyebrows to match and the ruddy-faced look of a heavy drinker about his portly self, furrowed his brows and leaned forward as if his sight were poor. "Miss Lucas, you say?" He made a smart, if stiff, bow. "A pleasure."

"Miss Lucas," the captain said. "May I present my grandfather, the Duke of Denby. Your host." He spoke with a mixture of pride and something else Morvoren didn't quite understand, that might have been bitterness, but by then she was too busy trying to make a perfect curtsey to the old man.

The duke held out his arm. "Come, walk with me a step and leave my grandson to find some other chit to dance with. Humor an old man who likes to be seen with a pretty girl on his arm."

Well, this was better than having to remain with the captain, so, with as sweet and innocent a smile as she could muster, she let go of the captain's arm and took the duke's. They set off around the edge of the dance floor at little more than a shuffle, hampered by the fact he had a decidedly stiff right leg.

"Tell me, Miss Lucas," he said as they walked. "Where do you come from?"

Morvoren wasn't about to fall into the trap of telling him she came from Reading again, so she opted for where she'd spent her childhood. Much better. "Oxfordshire. I'm a country girl at heart."

He harumphed a bit. "I'd like to introduce you to my son, if I may. Just came down from London in time for the ball, and I know he'd like to meet such a pretty and healthy-looking girl as you."

Healthy-looking? What was he talking about? Her warning antennae began to twitch.

They found his son in the card room, standing watching a game Morvoren didn't recognize. She had the briefest of moments to observe him as they approached. Easy to see he was his father's offspring. This silver fox of a man was burly rather than fat, with the look of a well-fed Hereford bull about him. A short neck sat on square shoulders and his thinning hair had been combed cleverly upwards into a peak on top of his head to hide his encroaching baldness.

He looked up as his father approached, and a broad smile lit his face, dropping the years away. The duke would himself have been a handsome man thirty years ago, just as this silver fox of a man was now.

"Jasper," the duke said, slapping his son on the back. "I'd like you to meet Miss Lucas, of the Oxfordshire Lucases. Miss Lucas, this is my son, the Marquess of Flint."

Morvoren made her curtsey and the marquess made his bow, his grey eyes appraising her and shining in what appeared to be appreciation. Not that she wanted that sort of appreciation from a man who must at best be in his early fifties. Where was Kit? She more and more needed rescuing, and although all the men were being polite, she couldn't get over the feeling that most of them were assessing her like a prize heifer. There was an obvious downside to a Regency ball.

"My," the marquess said, unable to tear his eyes away from Morvoren's decolletage, which she was now wishing wasn't so low. "You are a pretty girl. How have I not met you in London?"

Oh no. This was running into the sort of conversation she didn't want to be having, and that not even Ysella could have prepared her for. She glanced around the room, feeling hemmed in and hunted. If only Kit would appear and whisk her away to safety.

The next best thing happened. One of the young men who'd earlier pressed her to write their names on her dance card arrived, standing politely back and coughing into his hand, no doubt very much aware that he was facing his illustrious hosts. But thank goodness for his persistence.

Morvoren took out her dance card and pretended to study it. "Why Mr. Brunton, I'd quite forgotten I'd promised this next dance to you." She smiled up at the handsome letch who was still staring south of her face with a hungry look. "I'm so sorry, Lord Flint, but I'm afraid I must leave you."

"Before you go," the marquess said, the light of acquisition now shining in his eyes. "Perhaps I can have the pleasure of a later dance with you?"

How she wished she hadn't flashed her dance card about for him to see the gaps in it. The chance to tell him she was all booked up had vanished. With great reluctance she wrote his name down for a later dance, all the time vowing to hide herself away when it began. If she could.

More bows and curtseys all round, and she left on young Mr. Brunton's arm, the glow of success in combat emanating from him in tangible waves.

Goodness, dancing at a ball was more of a minefield than she'd expected it to be.