Page 30 of A Highly Unlikely Duchess
As she turned, her gaze caught a movement across the crowded ballroom. Julia was standing near the edge of the dance floor, her posture rigid. She was glaring. The look was sharp, possessive, and entirely devoid of the warmth she usually reserved for Emily.
Confused, Emily offered a small, tentative smile of greeting. It was the polite thing to do. But Julia didn't return the gesture. Her eyes remained fixed on Emily, hard and unyielding, as if she were mentally tallying a debt that Emily hadn't even realized she owed.
The glare only broke when a young lady stepped into Julia’s line of sight, catching her elbow to ask for her attention. Emily paused, her gaze lingering on the stranger. She was a blonde, possessed of a delicate, striking beauty that seemed to draw the light of the chandeliers toward her. Her blue eyes were wide, and even from across the room, Emily could see that her posture was a masterpiece of poise.
Emily made a note of her. This was supposed to be an intimate circle with Theodore’s closest friends, their wives, and Emily’s own family. Yet, she had never seen this woman before.
Emily stood still for a moment, her brow furrowing. It was weird, even for Julia, who was known for her intensity. But with her parents charmed and Theodore playing the part of the devoted suitor, she couldn't afford to dwell on a look. Shebrushed it off, making a mental note to seek out her hostess later in the evening to offer a proper greeting.
“Lady Euphemia Vane. Daughter of the late Viscount Vane of Hatherswick.”
Emily looked at the woman who had just introduced herself to her. She had practically blocked her path when she stepped directly into her way, just as Emily had been making her way toward the punch bowl.
The young woman had positioned herself with the deliberateness of someone who had rehearsed that particular moment. Her chin was lifted. Her shoulders were back. She was clearly projecting the image of a woman to be taken seriously, a woman of weight and consequence, yet the effect was betrayed by her eyes.
It was there that the performance fell apart entirely.
Her eyes were the most extraordinary shade of blue, wide and pale and bright as winter sky, and they were doing something her posture was working very hard to contradict. They moved. Just slightly, just enough, a quick dart to the left, back to Emily, then to a point somewhere past Emily's shoulder, then back again. They were the eyes of someone taking in every detail of a room they were not entirely sure they were safe in, wrapped inside a face that was trying very earnestly to look as though it had never been uncertain about anything in its life.
Emily took a small step back, simply to give the girl room to breathe.
“Lady Euphemia?” she asked.
“Yes,” Euphemia answered almost immediately, her chin lifting another fraction.
Emily looked at her for a moment longer. “That is a beautiful name.”
Something eased in Euphemia’s face. It was subtle, the faintest loosening, as though a word she had not expected had arrived and briefly disarmed her. Her composure did not break, but it flickered, the way a candle flickered when a door opened somewhere in the house.
“I...” she began. Then stopped. “Well.” She swallowed once. “Thank you. I.... It was my grandmother's. Her name, I mean. I inherited it from her. My grandmother. My sisters call me Effie.” She blinked again. “So. Yes. Thank you.”
She was stuttering now, the perfect posture sagging just a fraction as she searched Emily’s face. She looked deeply confused, as if she had arrived at Emily’s side with an entirely different script in her head, one where Emily was a villain to be confronted, not a peer offering a kind word.
“I am Lady Emily Pierce,” she said. “Daughter of the Earl of Hatcher. It is a very great pleasure to meet you.”
Emily smiled, a soft and disarming expression that only seemed to deepen the other woman’s bewilderment. As she watched her, a memory clicked into place. This was the woman who had been at Julia’s elbow, the one who had broken that chilling glare.
Emily paused, her gaze narrowing slightly as she studied the delicate features, the golden hair, and that specific, haunting blue in her eyes. Peggy had spoken of a certain lady who was gunning for a spot on Julia’s list. One of the Byron sisters. The description fit with terrifying accuracy.
“Tell me,” Emily said, her voice dropping to a more intimate, inquisitive level. “Are you one of the Byron sisters?”
Euphemia took a small step back.
“That is not...” she said carefully. “Why I came to speak with you.”
Emily blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I did not approach you to discuss my family.” The chin lifted again, that same deliberate angle, the one that Emily was beginning to understand was less arrogance and more armor. “I came to tell you something else entirely.”
Emily studied her. “Then by all means.”
Euphemia smoothed the front of her gown once, a small, quick gesture. Then she looked at Emily directly with thosewide, darting, impossibly blue eyes and said, “Lady Birks has expressed a certain fondness for me. I have made my interest in His Grace known, and I intend to pursue it seriously.” She paused. “I simply thought you should know that I am very much in contention for a place at the top of that list, and I do not intend to be overlooked.”
The ballroom hummed around them. Somewhere behind Emily, a violin climbed a phrase and descended it again.
Emily’s eyebrows involuntarily furrowed. She waited for the words to land the way they were apparently intended to land, as a warning, a declaration, something that ought to produce a reaction... and they did produce something. She felt it, a quick, low heat that moved through her before she had decided to allow it, something that was not quite irritation and not quite anything else she had a proper name for. Something that felt, inconveniently, like the particular warmth of a person who had been told that someone else intends to take something that is theirs.
Which was absurd. Theodore was not hers. Theodore was a plan. A practical arrangement between two people who could not stand each other and had stumbled into a mutual usefulness. He had said so himself. She had said so herself. There was nothing between them that required protecting.
