Page 5 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

Louisa laughed. “It seemed effortless from where I stood.”

“Then the deception was successful.” He leaned closer, conspiratorial. “I have been told that performing music is half technique and half the ability to pretend you are not terrified.”

“I imagine that applies to most activities during the Season.”

He laughed at that, a bright, surprised sound that drew the attention of two nearby matrons, and Louisa felt warmth bloom through her ribs. This was working. She was speaking in full sentences. He was smiling. The conversation was going well.

“Do you play yourself, Miss Fairchild?”

“A little. Poorly.” She hesitated. “My younger cousin once told me that my playing reminded her of a carriage going over cobblestones.”

Frederick laughed again. His hand came up to touch the lapel of his coat, a habitual gesture she had catalogued from a thousand watchful evenings. “Children are ruthless critics.”

“The most honest critics.” Louisa felt the smile settling into her face. “She also told me that my singing sounded like a cat trapped in a wardrobe, so I have placed considerable trust in her judgment.”

He was grinning at her, his champagne forgotten in his hand, his attention fixed entirely on her face. Two years of watching this man from the edges of ballrooms, and here she stood, holding his focus as easily as breathing.

Then Lady Thornton passed behind them, trailing a cloud of jasmine perfume so thick it caught in Louisa’s throat, and she coughed.

“Forgive me,” she managed, pressing her gloved knuckles to her mouth. “The air is rather warm this evening.”

“It is, yes.” He straightened. The slight distance returned, so subtle she might have imagined it. “The Bancrofts do tend to overcrowd their events.”

“They do.” Say more. Say anything. “Although the flowers are lovely.”

“Indeed. Very fine flowers.”

Silence.

The orchestra shifted into a quadrille. Louisa’s mind went blank in the way a pond freezes, swift and total. She could feel the conversation thinning beneath her feet.

“I have always thought roses were rather…” She groped for the word. “Determined.”

Frederick tilted his head. “Determined?”

“To bloom. Despite everything. Despite the heat.” She heard herself speaking and could not stop. “They simply carry on. Wilting, occasionally. But carrying on.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose that is true.”

Another silence. Longer this time. Louisa’s stomach contracted.

“Well,” Frederick said, and the word had the unmistakable shape of an ending. “It was a pleasure speaking with you, Miss Fairchild. I do hope you enjoy the rest of the evening.”

He bowed. She curtsied. He turned toward Lord Williston, who had reappeared near the orchestra with a fresh glass of port, and within three steps the conversation might never have happened at all.

Louisa stood beside the marble pillar, her gloves damp with perspiration, her face burning. Determined roses. Had she gone entirely mad? It was the only explanation.

She needed to leave. She needed to find Eleanor and walk out of this ballroom before the humiliation settled any deeper beneath her skin.

She turned toward the doors.

The collision came from her left. A blur of primrose silk, a startled gasp, a glass tilting in a pale hand. The lemonade struck her bodice at once, soaking through the muslin in a wide, dark stain that spread from her collarbone to her waist.

“Oh! Oh, I am so terribly sorry!” The girl in primrose silk clutched the empty glass to her chest, her face white as a sheet. “I did not see you standing there; I was looking for my mother, and my foot caught on...”

Louisa did not hear the rest.

She felt the wetness seeping through her stays, the cold spreading against her skin. Every pair of eyes in the ballroom was turning to find the source of the commotion. She could feel it, that prickling awareness along the back of her neck that arrived whenever attention found her.