Page 3 of A Chance to Dance with the Duke
No, it wasn’t magic. It was fate. It was the heavens rewarding her bravery. It was…
Well, it was still more than a little fantastical.
This was even better than her most fantastical, romantic daydreams.
To be honest, her daydreams typically did not revolve around her. They were dreams fit for a perfect version of herself who’d never existed in real life. The real Meg Taylor was far too imperfect for such an exciting, heartwarming moment.
Her heart fluttered wildly.
But here she was. On the arm of a duke.
A duke who was walking slowly beside her.
Very slowly, indeed.
Was he attempting to be courteous to her condition?
She risked a glance at the crowd around her, her skin tingling with pleasure at the whispers as they passed.
For the first time in her life, she felt like the brilliant debutante she’d been meant to be. The belle of the ball. A diamond of the first water.
The Duke asked her to dance. Do you see who he chose? Who is she? I cannot believe it, the Duke is finally dancing. But who is that? Why, it cannot be Miss Taylor.
She caught enough whispers to know that everyone was as shocked as she. But the Duke’s slow pace was beginning to be cumbersome. Almost like they were barely moving at all. Her slippered feet shuffled on the wood floor, and if she wasn’t mistaken, the crowd’s mood was shifting as well.
Excited whispers were turning to curious stares. The crowd felt as though it were descending on them rather than parting for them, and the whispers…?
The tone of those whispers seemed to shift all at once like an ocean current.
The Duke stopped before they reached the ballroom’s dance floor, and he turned to her once more.
And that was when she finally braced herself for an onslaught of masculine charm…and looked up. For the first time since she’d accepted his offer of a dance, she lifted her gaze, and…
And she saw it.
Horror.
Discomfort, at the very least, but then again...no. Her breath caught and her belly dropped swiftly, as if the room had just been flipped upside down.
Her first assessment was accurate. The look in his eyes was very clearly horror. Even that charming smile had frozen into a sneer that made her blood run cold.
But it was the whispers that drove away the last wisps of hope, and in its place was a deep and soul-crushing mortification as she caught the snickers and snide tones.
He asked Pegleg Meg. Did you see? She actually thought he chose her, the poor thing. I’d heard he was incorrigible. Isn’t he just awful? What a wicked trick. How sad for her…
The whispers were laced with laughter, and the laughter was filled with malice.
And for the first time in her life, Meg truly wished she was a young lady who swooned.
2
This could not be happening.
Ian Summerlin, The Duke of Carver, stared down at the young lady in horror. She was supposed to sayno.
He watched the joy fade from her pretty eyes and he wanted to shout it at the top of his lungs.You were supposed to say no!
Oh, he’d thought he’d been so clever. With his aunt pestering him mercilessly to dance with a young lady—anyyoung lady—he’d spotted Miss Taylor and had found his loophole.
