“He’ll dance with you,” Nick said. “If I have to beggar myself commissioning damned string quartets from him, he’ll dance with you.”
By design, Della had arrived too late for the opening promenade. Lord Valentine led her out for the world’s longest minuet. Nick stood up with her for a gavotte. All the while, gossip, talk, and tittering whispers followed her around on the dance floor.
Della was about to excuse herself to run the gauntlet of the ladies’ retiring room—the sooner that was dealt with, the better—when Mr. Travis Dunwald approached.
“Lady Della, might I have the honor of leading you out for the quadrille?”
Dunwald’s tone was cool. He looked down a patrician nose at Della, as if she were something malodorous stuck to his riding boot. This overture had all the earmarks of a drunken dare made late at night in one of the less reputable gentlemen’s clubs.
“She would be honored,” Nick said far too heartily. “Wouldn’t you, my lady?”
Della saw nothing but disdain in Dunwald’s eyes. If she declined, the gossip traveling around the ballroom with the speed of a brushfire would turn into an inferno, and there was all six and a half feet of Nick, trying hard to look cheerful—and harmless.
“I would be honored,” Della said, placing her hand on Dunwald’s arm.
The quadrille was a long, complicated dance, and in its course, Della came face-to-face with every smirking, leering, cold expression a man’s features might wear. She had expected the antipathy of the women. A lady who fell from grace was like a house of contagion, to be avoided by all decent women lest the taint of dishonor spread by association.
But Della had not anticipated the particularly virulent contempt aimed at her by the gentlemen. Their hands grazed the sides of her breasts, their eyes frankly stripped her naked. Her partner for the allemande pretended to stumble such that he happened to get in a bruising squeeze to her derriere.
She did not dance every dance—far from it—but when James Neely-Goodman approached her before the supper waltz, Della had had enough.
She liked James. He was of only average height, and they often danced together because he partnered her well. His father was a baronet, and the family’s wealth was vast and respectably ancient.
Even James, though, regarded her as if she’d betrayed him personally.
I can’t do this. The thought landed in her mind with the solid substance of irrefutable truth. I cannot be handled and disrespected and all but spit upon by men who lined up to partner me at cards last week.
“Lady Della.” James bowed shallowly and he did not take her hand. “I beg leave to pay you the honor of asking for your supper waltz.”
Pay you the honor. The words were wrong, the tone was wrong. Utterly indifferent, not even contemptuous.
“Alas,” said a smooth male voice to Della’s right, “you are too late, Neely-Goodman. Her ladyship’s supper waltz is spoken for.”
Della would know that voice in Stygian darkness. “Mr. Dorning, good evening.”
Ash Dorning, tall, dark-haired, and lean, made an impressive figure in evening attire. The jewel in his cravat pin exactly matched the striking periwinkle hue of his eyes, and his smile was neither forced nor improper. He and James held some sort of silent male conversation. Ash smiled steadily, James looked askance, raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.
“Enjoy your dance, my lady.” He drifted away without bowing.
Della gathered up the tattered remains of her dignity and gazed out across the ballroom. Many people had seen this exchange, and every one of them would wonder what on earth had just transpired.
Della herself had no idea. “You need not spare me a pity waltz, Mr. Dorning. You’ve avoided me for months, and I am actually a bit fatigued.”
On close inspection, Ash looked tired too. His eyes were shadowed, his mouth bore a slight tension. When he’d first distanced himself from her, Della had suspected him of suffering some physical ailment. The Dornings were notoriously robust, though, and months of listening for any scrap of gossip associated with Ash or his club had yielded no support for Della’s theory.
He simply did not like her as much as she liked him—as she had liked him.
“I saw what happened with Fletcher,” Ash said, referring to Della’s partner for the allemande. “I saw your quadrille. You will please dance the supper waltz and share the buffet with me. We have a family connection, and you are entitled to my loyalty. Nobody will remark my partnering you.”
Couples were moving onto the floor, and the waltz was Della’s favorite dance. “I do not want your loyalty, Mr. Dorning. I would rather have your friendship.”
His smile remained in place, and yet, his expression grew subtly pained. “You have both, do you but know it. Shall we dance?”
Della had longed desperately for just that invitation from him. A year ago, even a month ago, she would have been delighted to turn down the room in his arms.
“I do not want your pity, Mr. Dorning.”
“I do not pity you.” He held out his gloved hand.
Nicholas approached, holding two glasses of punch, his expression wary and hopeful. “Dorning, a pleasure.”
“Bellefonte, good evening. I aspire to dance the supper waltz with her ladyship.”
Nicholas would not plead with Della in public, but he was the head of the family and concerned not only for her but for all the cousins, in-laws, sisters, daughters, and aunties.
“Very well.” Della put her hand in Mr. Dorning’s. “The honor is mine, Mr. Dorning.”
“Try not to look as if you’re being led to the gallows,” Ash murmured. “We are putting on a spectacle. I apologize for Fletcher’s unseemly clumsiness.”
The introduction began as they reached the dance floor. Della sank into a curtsey, then assumed waltz position. Ash kept a scrupulously correct distance between them, and yet, she was in his arms, gazing up at him with curiosity rather than ire.
That was progress. Toward what, he did not know.
“I suspect Mr. Fletcher was put up to partnering me as part of some drunken wager,” Della said.
He owed her honesty, in this at least. “I put him up to it.”
Ash moved off with her and was reminded that Della Haddonfield was a superb dancer. Some ladies followed a lead well and were easy to guide. Della needed no guidance. By instinct alone, she matched a man’s steps, such that he could think a direction, and she was there with him.
“You need not put anybody up to anything for my sake, Mr. Dorning. Was Dunwald your idea too?”
He nodded. “And Neely-Goodman.” He braced himself for anger, but Della merely shifted her hand higher on his shoulder, taking a slightly firmer hold of him.
“Are there others?”
“I thought three sufficient to quell the worst of the gossip.” He twirled her under his arm on a corner and broke a little piece of his heart as she smoothly came back into his embrace. How long had he dreamed of turning down the room with the lovely Lady Della? How long had he watched as one lucky man after another bowed over her hand and led her out?
Della matched his steps through an intricate pirouette. “I am beyond salvation, Mr. Dorning, though I do appreciate the effort you’ve made on my behalf. I wonder why you made it.”