Page 17 of Earl for the Summer
Suddenly, beside her, one of the wallflowers, Miss Truscott, burst into tears. Daphne and the girl opposite her bent closer.
“What is it?” the debutante’s friend asked.
“I thought Lord Strathmere might ask me to dance. Foolish of me, I know.” Miss Truscott offered each of them a somber look, her chin wobbling. “All these balls and no one has asked me to dance.”
As couples continued waltzing, Daphne looked up to see Lord Windham making his way toward her.
“Lord Windham,” she said, far too breathlessly.
“Miss Bridewell. I wondered if perhaps you’d changed your mind about dancing.”
Daphne turned to him, keeping her back to Miss Truscott. “I haven’t changed my mind, my lord,” she whispered, “but the brunette over my shoulder has not been invited to dance this whole Season.”
She didn’t know why she was asking him. He’d never shown any particular benevolence toward wallflowers in the past, but he was different now in so many ways. Perceptive, taking everything in, as if he no longer felt the need to be the most jovial or amuse those around him.
With a stealth she admired, he lifted his gaze over her shoulder very briefly. “Tell me her name.”
“Miss Emily Truscott.”
He nodded, gave Daphne a look that made warmth curl low in her middle, then strode past her.
“Miss Truscott.” At the sound of his deep voice, all the wallflowers nearby snapped their gazes his way. “Would you do me the honor of adding me to your dance card?”
“Oh, I… Yes, of course.”
Soon, the waltz ended. The next dance would begin imminently. Lord Windham led Miss Truscott onto the floor, and the girl turned a beaming smile Daphne’s way.
Windham caught her eye on the next turn, and Daphne drew in a sharp breath. When he looked at her like that—as if he couldn’t tear his gaze away—everything else faded. She felt drawn to him, but she told herself she had to stop this.
She would not betray her friend.
Yet the feelings he stoked in her were maddeningly potent. Far more so than her ridiculous infatuation with Moreland. That had been like candy fluff. As insubstantial as air. This was something else. Something that seemed to slip past her defenses, pressing against places inside her that she’d vowed to protect against fancies and fairy tale notions of love.
She’d only begun putting the pieces of her heart together, and this ridiculous yearning threatened to scatter them again.
And it was not right. Selina favored him, so it was improper to harbor a moment’s longing for the man.
Daphne couldn’t keep still. She walked past the other wallflowers, seeking the ballroom’s threshold, seeking escape. She didn’t know the Bancrofts’ home at all, but there had to be a door that led to the garden or perhaps a quiet room, where she could catch her breath and find the inner calm she’d never in her life had to struggle so hard to find.
Moreland hadn’t unsettled her like this. That had come on gradually, smile by smile, his easy charm pulling her in. Windham consumed her thoughts without effort, and despite Ivy’s reassurances, it was wrong to feel the heat that lit inside her when he looked her way.
Other guests mingled in the hall, and the retiring room and games salon were buzzing with activity, but Daphne kept striding past them all.
She found the library and let out a little scoffing sound at the irony of finding respite in the place she’d so eagerly rushed to over a month ago—like a lamb bounding toward its demise.
Pushing the door open, she examined the interior to ensure she wasn’t disturbing some rendezvousing couple or another forlorn debutante in search of solitude. But the room was empty, so she slipped inside.
The soothing scent of old books settled her nerves, and she trailed her finger along the spines on the nearest shelf. It made her long for the library back at Rosemere, her brother-in-law’s ducal estate, where she and all her sisters had spent many happy hours.
She took down a copy of Mr. Dickens’sOur Mutual Friend, which she’d begun reading and abandoned in the whirl of preparing for her first Season.
Now, she thought perhaps she should have abandoned the Season altogether after the incident with Moreland. It all felt false now, and she didn’t want to pretend for another month. She’d told herself she stayed for Selina, but now, with her own fascination with Windham, she felt as if she was failing her friend.
“Miss Bridewell.”
Daphne dropped the book and spun to face Sebastian Moreland.
He stood in the doorway, arms folded, leaning against the frame as if he’d stood watching her for a while.
