Regency Society Collection Part 2. Ann Lethbridge

hard mouth twitched at the corner, as if he guessed she spoke of her body’s reaction, not his request to dance.

      ‘I need to ask you something,’ he said.

      A twinge of disappointment pierced her heart. Had she expected he would seek her out for herself? If not expected, then hoped, perhaps? Against all reason. ‘Then ask it and be done.’

      A woman gliding by in emerald and gold turned her head to look at them. She must have heard the sharpness in Eleanor’s tone.

      Chagrined, Eleanor pinned a smile to her lips. He whirled her around the end of the floor, tucking her against his side, his strong arm at her waist in an almost lover-like embrace, then he turned her under his arm.

      ‘Not here,’ he murmured into her ear, his warm breath sending a shiver down her spine.

      Breathless, she glanced up. ‘I beg your pardon.’

      ‘We can’t talk here. Drive with me tomorrow afternoon.’

      Not a request, a command. She stiffened. William would be furious if he knew she had danced with him. What would he say to her driving out? And yet she was tempted. Her heart was galloping like an out-of-control colt, all fits and starts and wobbly. ‘And if I say no?’

      The warm light in his gaze fled. ‘Then I must seek my answer elsewhere.’

      An undercurrent of something dark coloured his voice. Not a threat exactly, but then she saw he was looking at Sissy.

      The dance drew to a close and he escorted her back to her chair. Mrs Bixby had departed, no doubt eager to regale her cronies with Beauworth’s foray into the realms of respectable women. The news would cause a bit of a stir and some beating of matchmaking breasts, and Eleanor couldn’t help feeling the tiniest bit triumphant.

      ‘I’ll call for you at four,’ he said.

      Blast. She’d hesitated too long. And besides, he knew very well she wasn’t going to let him anywhere near her sister. ‘I will be ready.’

      With a bow to her aunt, he departed.

      ‘Ready for what, dear?’ Aunt Marjory asked.

      Watching him make his way through the crowded room without effort, almost as if those before him cleared a path for a dangerous creature, she answered absently, ‘He wants to take me driving tomorrow.’

      ‘Oh, my dear. Such a handsome man. What will you wear?’

      The Marquess disappeared from the room. Had he come tonight for the purpose of seeking her out? She felt breathless at the idea. And then horrified. Nonsense. He’d probably headed for the card room like most of the other gentlemen not on the marriage mart.

      She turned to her aunt. ‘I’m sorry, I missed what you said?’

      ‘I think you should wear the celestial-blue morning gown you had made at the beginning of the Season.’ Her aunt nodded as if the matter was settled.

      It was a ridiculous gown. Not the sort of thing a woman past her prime should wear. The reason she had never taken it out of the press since it arrived. ‘I’ll think about it.’ When she could think, when her heart settled into its normal comfortable rhythm and her gaze stopped searching the crowd for a tall dark figure. ‘Aunt Marjory, where is Sissy?’

      Her aunt pointed her fan. ‘Dancing with Felton. The poor boy is quite besotted.’

      Lord Felton was an honourable young gentleman who would not take advantage of Sissy’s high spirits. Eleanor breathed a sigh of relief. The slightest hint of a scandal would bring William back to town in an instant. He’d been so distraught by what had happened four years ago he’d turned into a mother hen where his sisters were concerned, no matter how often she promised she’d sown all her wild oats.

      Pulling his greatcoat close against the cool breeze, Garrick set out on foot from his house in St James’s. At this late hour, there were few people on the street. A dank mist stinking of muddy river obscured all but the closest objects. He hunched deeper into his coat. If he hadn’t promised Dan, he’d have preferred to down a bottle of brandy in his chamber and drown the memory of a pair of cool dove-grey eyes.

      When he arrived, Dan grinned from ear to ear at the door of his small bachelor rooms off Piccadilly. ‘I’d almost given you up, Major.’ There was little of the old cockney left in Dan’s speech.

      ‘You’ll get used to calling me Garrick one of these days, Dan.’

      ‘No, my lord, it wouldn’t be right.’ Dan never made any pretence of being other than a man up from the gutter, no matter how high he rose or how highly his regiment sang his praises. It was all a source of wonder to the modest Lieutenant Dan Smith. ‘Come in. Take your ease.’

      Undernourished and small as a child, he now topped five foot eight inches. His shoulders were broad and his expression open beneath his cropped blond hair. With his handsome face and bright blue eyes, he was as sought after by the ladies as Garrick himself. Too bad Dan was far too shy to take advantage of their lures.

      Garrick settled into one of two armchairs by the fire and Dan poured a glass of whisky for him and a gin for himself.

      ‘Did you see her?’ Dan asked.

      ‘I did.’

      Dan looked ridiculously hopeful. ‘And…’

      ‘And…nothing. We met. We spoke. We danced and I left. I felt nothing, nor did she.’

      ‘You danced?’

      ‘Yes.’ He did his best to sound bored, despite the jolt low in his gut.

      ‘How did Lady Eleanor look?’

      Garrick thought hard. She had looked…beautiful, womanly. Paler than he remembered, almost drab in the muted grey of her gown. She seemed restrained, as if she held her emotions in check, the lively spirit he’d admired replaced by severe English spinsterhood. And yet something had sparked between them when they had danced. Or had he imagined it, because he’d hoped to feel something? He closed his eyes briefly at the pang of something sharp in a place where he didn’t have feelings at all. ‘She looked well enough. A little older, I suppose.’ He sipped at the fiery liquid. ‘I had forgotten how stuffy these London parties are. What news do you hear?’

      Always sympathetic to his moods, Dan let the subject go and grimaced. ‘We expect to receive orders to leave at any moment. London will awake one morning and we will be gone.’

      ‘I agree. The Duke will move swiftly once Cabinet makes up its mind. But their shilly-shallying will cost our men dearly.’ The War Cabinet had bungled too many times to do any better now. Only Wellington’s instincts had saved their bacon time and again in Spain.

      ‘What about you?’ Dan asked.

      Only Dan would ask. No one else knew of his work for the Allies. Many suspected his loyalty even though they were careful not to show it, not when Prinny had admitted him to his closest circle. But the scavengers were circling. If one more person sighted him in France, things were going to get very difficult. But he trusted Dan with his life as he trusted no one else. ‘I’m to go at the end of the week.’

      Dan whistled through his teeth. ‘That soon. You will take care.’

      The only person who cared enough to worry. ‘I will.’

      ‘And after? When Bonaparte is back under lock and key?’

      He never thought about after. He had never expected to live this long. He wouldn’t come back to England. There was nothing for him here. ‘Find another war? Hire myself out as a mercenary.’

      Dan looked far from happy. ‘And the other matter?’

      ‘I asked her to drive out with me tomorrow.’

      ‘And she agreed?’ Hopeful had returned.

      ‘She did.’ He’d thought she would refuse. He shouldn’t