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Two. The crowd seemed to believe them if their charmed expressions and animated whispers were anything to go by. Out of a spout of random good luck and Thomas’s reflexes, they might actually walk out of there with everyone thinking they loved each other.

But worst of all was the third one. For a good second there, while she was in his arms and he had asked if she was so desperate for his touch, she had felt her traitorous heart flutter. And shehatedthe betrayal with all her might.

It was the shock of the fall, nothing more.

She breathed fast and heavy, hand over her heart.

Outrage, not a fluttering. Yes, that is right. How… how dare he touch me like that? He should have… let me fall.

“Lady Sophia.” His voice brought her back to reality. “Are you well?”

He sounded… genuinely concerned?

Of course, he does. He would do and say anything to keep up appearances.

“Sophia?” he repeated, shocking her for the second time with the lack of honorifics.

Had her name always sounded like that on his lips—not sour but sweet? She pressed the heel of her hand harder against her chest as if to beat away such ridiculous thoughts. Evidently, something had happened to her head when he stopped her fall, mimicking a hefty smack to her skull.

There was nothing sweet about him. To believe otherwise was to be utterly idiotic.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I am… quite all right,” she replied sharply, batting him away as discreetly as she could. “Just feeling a bit faint. I think you pulled me up too fast with your… beastly arms, which I have no doubt was deliberate.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Ideliberatelyjostled you after deigning to catch you, when you slipped on your clumsy oaf feet without a warning? Yes, clearly I planned it all.” He rolled his eyes. “Goodness, you really are the most ungrateful?—”

“Careful,” she hissed. “People are watching, remember?”

He grabbed her hand and put it on his. “Well then, we had best get you seated before you keel over. I would not want anyone thinking Ihadpoisoned you the night before our wedding.”

“Chance would be a fine thing,” she muttered, allowing herself to be led away from the dance floor.

Under the pretense of fetching his ‘beloved’ some refreshments after her ungainly tumble, assuring those who pestered him on his way out of the ballroom that she was quite well, Thomas had retreated to the terrace. The cool evening air had never felt so wonderful, soothing away the stress and the improper thoughts that had warmed his flesh.

That waist.

He closed his eyes, his arms remembering.

As narrow as an hourglass. The feel of her body against mine…

“Pratt!”

Thomas’s eyes flew open, his head whipping around as if he had been caught with a mouthful of cake intended for one of his mother’s tea parties.

The familiar voice belonged to Robert Skinner, the Viscount Redcliffe and Thomas’s best friend and confidant. Thomas hadn’t expected anyone to bother him on the terrace, but Robert had an unnatural ability to know where to find him.

“Didn’t expect to see you here. Thought you—” Thomas’s strained words were interrupted by a hug from his dearest friend “Thought you were still busy with all that business in Birmingham.”

“Nonsense. When I heard the news, I left at once,” Robert said with a wide smile. “I wasn’t going to miss the happiest day of my best friend’s life.”

“Right. Of course not.” Thomas had the barest inkling of a smile, turning his gaze to the shadowed shrubs in the near distance.

Robert looked worried. “Trouble in marital paradise already?”

“That… is a long conversation, friend.”

“We have time and a tipple,” he said, whipping out a hip flask that was sure to contain the finest brandy. Robert also had an uncanny ability to find the best liquor.

“Then I suppose you ought to brace yourself.”