Page 83 of His Duchess of Scandal
“Heavens bless the man who dares approach the ice queen.” Sibyl giggled. “I fear some suitors I like will not approach me because of her.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Isabella muttered. “I just do not wish to give myself away to any attention, even if I like it.”
“Then enjoy it,” Hermia encouraged, aware that Josephine was eyeing her narrowly, as if she saw the hypocrisy. “Hold out for the man who makes your heart pound so hard that you fear you will get ill.”
Isabella’s mouth curled, while Sibyl looked ever so pleased.
“Does His Grace make your heart do that?”
Hermia was saved from answering Sibyl’s question by Lord Grenford.
Charles’s warning from the dinner party rang in her mind.
“All I ask is that you stay away from him.”
But as open as he had been about his first marriage, he still had not told her anything beyond not being on good terms.
She slowly turned her back to Charles as she greeted the Viscount.
“Your Grace,” Lord Grenford greeted, his eyes flicking over the other three ladies. “Lady Redham. And Lady Isabella and Lady Sibyl, of course.” He inclined his head to each of them. “I hope you do not mind my interruption.”
“Of course not,” Hermia said quickly. “Ladies, this is Lord Grenford, an—an acquaintance of the Duke of Branmere’s.”
The Viscount’s lips twisted as if he disagreed with that statement, but Hermia did not know how else to explain the connection, and he said nothing else.
“Lady Isabella, you outshine every candle illuminating the room,” Lord Grenford complimented, taking her hand to kiss her knuckles. “The sun must permanently shine in Wickleby Hall when you are present.”
Despite her iciness, Isabella smiled, but Hermia saw that it was a practiced, polite smile.
“Or perhaps the moon,” the Viscount continued. “Maybe that is Lady Sibyl; the two of you balance one another. One so bright she might burn a man, and the other mysterious and glowing.”
Hermia chanced a glance at her husband and found him looking tense. Even from this distance, she could see it, for she had learned how he looked when he held too much back.
Lord Grenford’s words faded away the moment she looked at Charles.
“I fear you will burn holes in your wife if you stare at her for much longer without asking her to dance,” Levi said to Charles as he gazed at Hermia from across the ballroom.
Dressed in a regal, navy gown, she looked capable of stealing the heart of every man in the room. Possessiveness surged through Charles, hot and sharp.
She is my wife, yet she is watched with so much hunger.
It pricked something rotten inside him that he gritted his teeth against.
“Here. You need it.”
A cold glass was pressed into his hand, and he realized he had outright ignored his friend.
Once again, his silence had not been intentional, as seemed to be the case when it came to matters regarding his wife.
“Thank you,” he heard himself say, and he downed the bitter brandy in two gulps right as the first notes of a waltz picked up.
However, he did not expect to be pushed lightly by his friend.
“Dance with her and save me the humiliation of being ignored over and over,” Levi complained. “For Heaven’s sake, resolve this tension between you two. I cannot watch how you look at one another for much longer.Go to her, Charles.”
With those words, Charles let himself be pushed again, following only his desire instead of his anger at seeing Grenford daring to get so close tohis wife.
As soon as he drew close enough, immediately losing himself in her unguarded gaze, he held out his hand.
