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He glanced at Michael irritatedly.

Why is he so fixated on other men dancing with my wife tonight?

“As I told you before, I am the only man who will dance with the Duchess this evening, Grant.”

Michael scoffed. “Worried about Lucas’s reputation, are you, old man? I don’t blame you.”

Lucas rolled his eyes, but Seth felt his anger flare.

What the devil is the matter with him?

Michael’s grip on his glass was white-knuckled, and his eyes were continually darting over Seth’s right shoulder.

Seth turned, as subtly as he could, to see what had his friend so distracted. But all he could see was a woman speaking to a manin a chair at the far end of the room. Her back was to him, a deep blue gown trailing across the floor behind her.

The man in the chair was old, holding a cane in his hand, and it looked as if they were having an argument.

When Seth turned back, Michael was finishing his wine. Isaac offered to refill his glass, and the two of them wandered away.

Lucas already had his eye on a blonde on the other side of the room and excused himself to go after her. And just like that, Seth was left alone.

He stepped back toward the wall, allowing himself to blend into the background. But it was difficult at over six feet tall, particularly with the dark color of his costume—he was attracting several curious looks.

His eyes scanned the room, wishing Alicia would come back. There were already dozens of people milling about the room and yet more arriving through the door. The air was hot and saturated with perfume.

Giving the crowd a final glance, Seth had just decided to go and find Alicia when his heart stuttered in his chest.

The woman in the dark blue gown had turned around, and she was now facing him for the first time.

He would know those wide, worried brown eyes anywhere. She was older, to be sure, but he recognized her as if it were yesterday.

Gordon’s conquest, the ‘Nicole Forsythe’ he had been searching for for so long, was suddenly standing before him.

What had Sheringham said?

“Her father wanted her to marry a man much older than her…”

Seth looked at the gentleman in the chair behind her. He was probably thirty years her senior, with a hunched back and a sour expression.

His gut churned, and bile rose in the back of his throat. Clenching his fists, he forced himself to remain where he was, desperate to go and talk to her.

But they had not been introduced, not formally.

Maybe she will not even recall who I am.

“Port, old chap?” Michael suddenly stepped in front of him, obscuring his view of the woman.

Seth almost snarled in frustration until a chill raced down his spine at the memory of Michael staring at her.

Are they acquainted?

Michael passed him a glass, and Seth took it automatically. His friend began chattering about the heat in the room and how Almack’s hadgone rather downhillunder the new management.

Seth barely heard a word of it. Something about his friend’s demeanor, the way he had been behaving that evening, was odd.

Michael’s shoulders were stiff, his stance odd, as if he had deliberately stopped him from staring at the woman.

Seth leaned around him to look at the other side of the room and held back a curse. The young woman and the man he presumed was her husband were leaving. And they seemed to be in a hurry.