Why had she needed to overcompensate the lie?
“I—I mean, it was at Hyde Park, andthenat the ball,” Elinor said, laughing nervously.
Dominic smirked at them, bemused. He leaned against the railing of the staircase’s small platform. “If I am correct, you were not at Lady Morrow’s ball.”
“Oh!” Elinor looked pleadingly at Lucien, and he knew that this was her panic about not being a very good actress. “Oh, that is right. Silly me, how could I forget? It—it was at Hyde Park, then.”
“For a fiancé you claim to be so entranced by, you have forgotten where you first met? Dominic’s mouth curved with amusement, and his eyes stayed sharp. “And the rumors of you two at Hyde Park only began after the Morrows’ ball. So how exactly did this courtship start?”
“Exactly,” Lucien cut in smoothly, tightening his arm against Elinor’s grip, a silentlet me handle this.“We met at the park as, I will remind you I already told you, and Lady Elinor is confusing the Morrows’ ball with the Hales’ one. You know how these things are, Silverford. One ball blurs into the next.”
Dominic still looked unconvinced, his eyes lingering on Elinor. “How interesting for you to confuse a ball you attended with one you did not. Not to mention the ball at which you got engaged. Most intriguing.”
He chuckled under his breath.
“I-interesting indeed,” Elinor stammered, her cheeks flushing as she ducked her head. “Either way, His Grace swept me away quite thoroughly, like a leaf in a stream.”
“Lady Elinor, you way with words is charming,” Lucien praised falsely, fighting back his laughter. Even she herself looked as though she were embarrassed at her clumsy comparison. She giggled falsely. “But you know what is even more charming?”
“Oh, this will be humorous,” Dominic muttered.
“Yes?” Elinor asked, her eyes turning wide and doe-like.
It was rather hilarious for Lucien to witness how much more she was stepping into her role, especially when her stepfamily was not present.
“You in your entirety,” Lucien told her.
Behind him, Dominic groaned, laughing as he shook his head. “Come on, Fairmont, stop flirting with the poor lady. She looks ready to erupt into the biggest blush I ever have seen.”
“I shall not stop.” Lucien gave Elinor a wink. “I fear she has not been complimented enough.”
The line, although spoken in an affected voice to ramp up the drama of their flirting, was true in itself. Elinor really hadn’t been praised enough, not for any part of her, when she ought to have been lavished with compliments.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Elinor said sweetly, ducking her head, acting the perfectly demure lady.
It was strange to use titles again when all Lucien wished to do was drop the act and be back at Fielding House with her, their masks stripped away, leaving them with honesty.
Even as a man who had worn his own mask long before Elinor, a part of him felt more himself with her in those private moments than he had in years. She made him feel like Lucien Stanton, simply a man, not the rake he presented to the ton.
“Come.” He began guiding her down the stairs. “We can have that dance you promised me.”
“I do not recall agreeing,” Elinor replied.
“Well, I would like you to, anyway.”
She laughed softly, and he thought he would prefer to drink in that sound all night than any glass of wine.
I am merely attracted to her, he thought,that is why I am thinking these things. She is pretty and interesting, but there is nothing more here.
As they descended the stairs and walked into the thick of the crowd, he felt her tense up.
“Everybody is staring at me,” she whispered. “Perhaps it is the dress?”
“They are staring, Elinor,” he said quietly, “because you are worth staring at.”
For a moment, he let his mask drop, offering her that piece of assurance when he could see the rising panic on her face of being thrust into the spotlight.
She had gone from lingering on the edges of ballrooms to being on his arm, and Lucien did not know how jarring that must be.