It was in an annoying manner, sure. But he would be lying to himself if he said that he did not felt invested in how her story was going to turn out.
Stephen watched Owen Rondell angle himself into her attention.
Good, he thought, like a tutor watching a student.Keep your gaze. There. One, two. Ask the second question. Yes.
Peter followed his glance.
“Miss Havenford looks very well,” he said. “That blue is restful.”
“Dangerously so,” Stephen murmured. “To men unaccustomed to thinking clearly.”
“Do you include yourself?”
“I include myself especially,” Stephen said. “Has your balcony friend been introduced to you?”
“Owen Rondell,” Peter said. “He believes himself charming and is often correct.”
“Mm.” Stephen watched Owen bend a fraction nearer. “He is the sort who imagines the room a stage.”
“Many are,” Peter said mildly.
“Few should be.”
He could have left them to their exchange. Instead, he heard himself say, “Cover me,” and before Peter’s baffled “with what” could shape itself into air, Stephen had crossed the room.
The pair both looked startled at his sudden appearance.
“Miss Havenford,” Stephen said, “Would you grant me the next?”
Maria did not know how to say no to the duke, it appeared. Even when he was stealing her away mid-conversation.
“Um, well,” she replied. And then watched as he gave her a look.More enthusiasm.
She registered that Owen looked pleased and irritated in equal measure, which should have amused her and did, a little.
“But you have interrupted a conversation,” she said.
“A poor one if it cannot survive a quadrille,” Stephen returned.
“It was not poor,” Owen inserted, smiling. “It was merely interrupted.”
“Then I have done you a favor,” Stephen said perfectly pleasantly. “You may resume it renewed.”
Maria’s cheeks heated; she hated that he could make them do that.
“Your Grace, I…”
“Should dance with me,” he said, “It will serve your suitor admirably.”
“I beg your pardon,” she managed. “My…what?”
“Your suitor,” he repeated, and let his glance flick briefly to Owen as if acknowledging an actor who had remembered his cue.
He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, then.
“He ought to feel that he pursues someone others will happily pursue as well. Scarcity improves the appetite, you see. Being the woman a duke wants is to your advantage, and you must realize that.”
There were so many things wrong with that sentence that she could not choose a place to begin. She stared at him.