Michelle Reid Collection. Michelle Reid

In fact, if he could just get her to relax a little, they might both actually start to enjoy the evening.

      Well, okay, so true enjoyment might be a stretch, but at least he’d have a better time if she wasn’t so quietly miserable. He’d never spent this much concentrated effort on a date before and would have been angry about her lack of response if it hadn’t been Thea. It wasn’t that he felt sorry for her—something about her didn’t allow for pity. It was more that he wanted to put her at ease, wanted her to have a good time, wanted this night to be a pleasant evening for her to remember.

      Before at other social functions, he’d danced with her because common courtesy demanded it. He’d tried to be charming because he thought her life was a tad lacking in the charm department. But now that he’d been inside Grace Place and felt Davinia Carey’s suffocating disapproval firsthand, he wanted to go beyond courtesy and easy charm to show Thea a good time. That seemed important now that he knew he would soon have to take her back to a dark, dreary place where she was told to stand up straight and reminded at every turn to act like a lady. A place where smiles and laughter were probably scarce, and bestowed even less often than any genuine approval.

      So if she didn’t find talking to him an easy thing to do, he had to consider that a personal challenge, not as some great flaw in her. And as long as they were dancing, the lack of conversation didn’t feel so cumbersome. It was obvious she was nervous. And shy. And trying to juggle who knew how many edicts from her grandmother about how she should behave. It wouldn’t surprise him in the least if Davinia had spies posted around the country club even now, watching Thea, waiting to report any untoward act or unladylike behavior. No one deserved to be treated that way and he really would have liked to ask Thea why she put up with the old tyrant.

      But that would only put her in an even more awkward position and probably put the kiss of death on any further conversation for the night.

      As if that would be so different from now.

      The best he could do was allow her her silence. So he merely pulled her a little closer and marveled at how well she danced. She always seemed so uncomfortable in social settings, so ill at ease with herself and others, but on the dance floor, she moved almost…well, gracefully. Sometimes, like now, when she forgot for a minute to be self-conscious, she floated in his arms like a feather. “We dance very well together, Thea,” he said, surprised to realize it was true.

      She missed a step and looked up at him, clearly startled and blushing at the compliment, which brought a pleasing hint of color to the smooth ivory skin beneath the oversized glasses. “Oh,” she said. “Then I must be doing it wrong.”

      “No, you must be doing it right.”

      She shook her head, still looking up at him, and he noticed, maybe for the first time, that her eyes were a warm, rich coffee-brown, fringed with a smudge of dark lashes. “If I’m doing it correctly, no one’s supposed to notice.” She bit her lip, as if so many words in one sentence were a faux pas. “According to Miss Blythe.”

      Peter drew back slightly to look at her. “You took dancing from Miss Blythe, too?”

      She made a face and ducked her head as she nodded. Her voice, when it came, was quieter even than before, shyer and softer. “I was in your class once.”

      He wanted to remember, to call up some long forgotten memory of Thea at what age? Seven? Eight? He hadn’t been more than ten or eleven when his grandmother had enrolled him at Miss Blythe’s. Just for the fundamentals, Grandmother Jane had said and, true to her word, she hadn’t pushed him beyond the essentials of learning the basic steps. He could conjure up a mental picture of Miranda Danville, her blond braids dangling across her shoulders, as she told him to count his steps! He could recall Angela Merchant, her blond curls bouncing down her back, insisting he’d stepped on her toes on purpose! He could remember a whole chorus of pretty little girls, who knew, even then, who they were and who weren’t at all sure this rough and tumble boy belonged in their social strata—even if his newly acquired name was Braddock. They’d changed their minds and found him immensely acceptable by the time adolescence rounded their bodies and added an alluring charm to their flirtation skills.

      But he didn’t remember Thea.

      “I didn’t take classes with Miss Blythe for very long,” he said, as if that excused it. “I wasn’t exactly star pupil material at that time in my life.”

      “You were a natural, even then,” Thea stated. “Even Miss Blythe thought so.”

      He laughed. “I’m afraid not. She told me flat out to concentrate on developing some charm because I certainly wasn’t going to get anywhere with my dancing.”

      “Did your grandmother know she said that?”

      Jane Braddock would have taken the shine right off of Miss Blythe’s fancy dancing shoes if she’d known. “No,” he said with a self-effacing smile. “I didn’t want to take dance lessons in the first place. If Miss Blythe hadn’t said that to me, I might never have decided to prove her wrong. Then where would I be right now?” He pulled her closer. “I’d be sitting on the sidelines, watching you dance with some other man and wishing it were me.”

      She stumbled and he caught her, setting her back into the shared rhythm of the dance as easily as if she hadn’t missed a step. “Don’t please,” she said so softly he had to bend his head to catch the words. “You don’t have to charm me. Couldn’t we just…dance?”

      A stab of remorse whispered through him like a shameful secret. Thea knew his words were false, recognized his charm for the polished insincerity it was, and was offended by it. As she had every right to be. This date hadn’t been his idea, true. But he didn’t for a minute believe it had been high on her wish list, either. She didn’t want him to pretend. She simply wanted the evening to proceed to its natural end with some little bit of dignity.

      “That would be my pleasure,” he said because, whether she believed him or not, that much was true.

      “YOU WON’T REGRET THIS, Mrs. Fairchild.” Ainsley Danville hugged Ilsa with one hundred percent pure enthusiasm. “I’m very good with people and I have a real knack for matchmaking. Even if I do say so myself.” She drew back, her pretty face flushed with excitement, her blue eyes sparkling with anticipation. “Who do you think should be my first client?”

      Ilsa tried not to sigh. “You’ll start in the office and learn about all the paperwork that goes along with this kind of work. And Ainsley, you must keep in mind that discretion is essential. I’d prefer you tell anyone who asks that you’re an associate with IF Enterprises, not a matchmaker. For the record, I seldom, if ever, refer to my business as ‘matchmaking.”’

      “I understand completely, Mrs. Fairchild. I am the very soul of discretion.” Her smile bloomed again and Ilsa thought it more than likely the news that she’d hired an assistant would be all over Rhode Island before sundown tomorrow. Perhaps all over New England, as well. But it was done. She’d wrestled with this decision for weeks. Ainsley had been campaigning for the job for nearly a year. Ilsa could only hope having an apprentice would turn out to be a lucky decision, even if it didn’t feel at all like a wise one at the moment.

      Ainsley leaned closer. “Tell me, please, Mrs. Fairchild, are you responsible for today’s wedding, too?”

      They were both in attendance at the wedding reception for Angela Merchant and Park Overton—now Mr. and Mrs. Park Overton—and Ilsa actually had made an introduction of possibilities for the couple not quite a year ago. But responsible for the wedding? No, she wouldn’t say that at all. “I don’t take credit for weddings, Ainsley. Only for helping someone see possibilities that already existed in the first place. I do hope you’ll keep in mind that no matter how well you do your homework or how sure you are the match you’ve put together is the right one, the whole thing can, and often does, fall apart. Park and Angela are two of the lucky ones. Much of what happens is luck, Ainsley. Once we’ve introduced the possibility of a match, the rest is out of our sphere of influence entirely. So while I don’t believe in taking credit for someone else’s happily ever after,