‘You don’t. You’re stunning.’ And Phoebe was. She had blond ringlet hair, bright blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. She embodied English beauty as if she were painted on canvas by a royal artist.
Lucy, on the other hand, had straight black hair, dark brown eyes, and slightly flattened features. Her skin didn’t blotch, thank Heaven, but that was her only nod to classic English beauty. Fortunately, such things weren’t required when one was an heiress. And so she pulled her unblotchy face into a smile as her next partner arrived.
She greeted him warmly. Perhaps he would finally coax her heart out from behind its wall. And as soon as Phoebe’s partner arrived, the four of them took their places for the dance.
They were only halfway through the reel when the commotion began. Lucy had been calculating the prices of various gowns—at least the raw materials—as a way to keep herself entertained. Her partner was not a scintillating conversationalist. She’d been thinking about the price of carved ivory buttons when something strange caught her attention, but she didn’t know what. A moment later, she noticed the murmurs.
The music had come to a stop, and she was curtsying to her partner only to realise that he wasn’t looking at her. His attention—as well as most everyone else’s—was aimed over her shoulder to some place behind her.
She turned, feeling a step behind everyone else, only to blink repeatedly as she tried to fix her vision. Something must be wrong with her sight. Because there, standing on the edge of the dance floor as if awaiting her hand, was none other than the perfidious, missing-and-feared-dead, Cedric, Lord Domac.
He was dressed in finery that was ill-fitting thanks to new muscles that pulled the fabric tight in places and hung slack where he had no fat. Indeed, his bones were prominent in hard juts that gave him a chiseled look. Compared to the soft fops in the room, he stood out like a Greek god.
But he didn’t seem healthy. The man she remembered had always been animated. Now he appeared statue still as if holding himself together by sheer force of will.
She searched his eyes, looking for his telltale twinkle. She’d always loved his eyes, but tonight they seemed bright with fever rather than joy. Everything in her urged her to go to him. Something was clearly very wrong. But she could not force her feet to do so.
‘Miss Richards,’ he intoned without moving closer. ‘May I have the honour of this dance?’
And her damned heart began to flutter.