Page 63 of His Duchess' Mischief

Alicia was swept away by the conversation and the happy prattling of her friends.

She moved about, speaking to all her acquaintances, a lightness in her heart to learn what she had missed in the time she had been away.

As the evening progressed, she was surprised by how many men approached her, too.

Now that she was married, her options for dance partners had narrowed considerably, but several men who had once called themselves her suitors asked her to dance.

Alicia had not been seriously involved with any of them, and all of them seemed jovial and friendly toward her. She conversed easily and happily with them, some standing with their sisters or mothers, whom she was also happy to speak to.

Still, she could not help a pang of sadness as she spoke to them. A sense of loss filled her heart that her choices had been taken from her by her father.

Seth had been a gentleman since their wedding, it was true, but she had notchosenhim. Many of these men were kind andaffable—what could her life have been like if her father had not chosen for her?

Seth, for his part, had only circled back to her once at the start of the ball to give her a glass of punch, and had then disappeared for several minutes.

At present, he was circling the crowd like a hawk, glaring at anyone who had the audacity to look at him.

As she watched him, Lord Bradley invited her to dance. She spun around the dance floor, laughing at something he said, and she realized just how she had missed dancing. She had not enjoyed a ball so much in an age.

But after dancing two sets and speaking to several of the ladies present, she felt rather hot. Seth had disappeared, and she decided that she would get some air before she collapsed from fatigue.

Clutching her glass, she moved through the hall, smiling at anyone who greeted her, and made her way out onto the wide balcony on the edge of the house.

The moon shone brightly on the gardens below, and the scent of the flowers wafted up to her in the quiet.

The music was fainter here, and it was pleasant to simply stand and look up at the stars as she sipped her drink, cooling her parched throat after the rigors of the night.

“Are you finished with your admirers?” came a deep voice behind her, and she turned.

Seth was leaning against the wall of the balcony, watching her, his eyes glittering in the darkness.

The doors behind him were open, but the short corridor from the ballroom to the balcony made her feel as if they were separated from the rest of the room.

Alicia huffed. “I was not with myadmirers. I was with my friends.”

“Lord Bradley is your friend, is he?” he asked darkly.

“Yes, he is married to an old acquaintance of mine.”

“Hm. And you had to dance with him, and not your husband.”

“Ichoseto dance with him, as my husband was elsewhere and had not asked me.”

Seth pushed away from the wall, his big body moving silently toward her, his strides sure and captivating.

He stopped only a foot away, looming above her. He was so handsome, with the light of the moon illuminating his sharp cheekbones and dark, soulful brown eyes, that her breath caught in her throat.

“I am asking now.”

“You are asking me to dance?”

“Not in there. I have no interest in parading your beauty in front of all those people. I want to dance with my wife here, in the quiet, beneath the moon, where no one can watch us.”

Alicia’s chest tightened at the need in his voice. Without a word, she placed her glass on the balustrade and turned to him.

Seth took her hand and led her to the center of the balcony. The slow strains of a waltz began to play, and they swayed together in the darkness.

The stars twinkled overhead, and after a few minutes of awkwardness, Alicia found herself melting against him.