Page 24 of A Wallflower Takes a Duke
George’s aunt and the viscount had arranged his marriage to the daughter of Sir John Bayless, a baron of the exchequer. Julian wished he had an aunt who would take on the onerous responsibility of finding him a duchess. His mother, Dowager Duchess of Montfort, was good for nothing but draining her monthly allowance and then coming to him to beg for more.
Julian felt off-balance. He didn’t know what to make of the new Mina. She’d gone from complete hoyden and hellion to a stuffy lady of thetonwhilst he’d been away. He hadn’t been awaythatlong, had he? How could she be old enough for a debut into society?
He stopped his forward motion for a moment and literally counted the years on the fingers of his hands. She was sixteen.
He’d ignored the little country mouse for four years. Where had the time gone? And when had she become the perfect lady of thetonas she’d vowed on her way home in disgrace from the boxing match debacle, with him in the Tindall family carriage?
14
Mina moved gracefully through the crowd of Abbey guests, stopping frequently to chat with friends of her papa as well as various members of the local landed gentry from around Rumsford with whom she’d become acquainted over the years.
She’d hoped rather pitifully that Julian would not approach and force her to acknowledge him. She frankly had no idea what she’d say, or worse, how she’d keep herself from asking plaintively about his four years of unexplained absence from her life.
She sometimes felt like a prisoner. In truth, she was a prisoner only of her own fear of rejection. She was free to go where she chose, just as the Rumsford gentry was free to give her the cut direct, as they frequently did.
She’d nearly made her way across the vast Abbey ballroom when the sound of a familiar voice tickled near her ear in a raspy whisper. “Surely you’re not going to join the wallflowers. Not tonight of all nights when you’re the center of your own coming out.”
She whirled to face him. He was as impossibly tall as she remembered, standing uncertainly and shifting from foot to foot, with a ridiculous smile spread from ear to ear.
“And what if I am,Your Grace? What do you care? For all you knew, I could have been lying dead at the bottom of a well all these years.”
The tiniest flicker of guilt flashed in his eyes only to be replaced immediately with the teasing look she’d come to know since she was a child.
“You missed me,” he said, flashing a wolfish grin. “Don’t tell me you’re going to line up with every mama’s daughter on the hunt for a title at all the events I attend now.”
Mina turned her voice into a low growl meant only for his ears. “I would rather be tarred and feathered and sewn up in a pig’s belly.” And then she cooly turned and walked away, but not before he snatched away the dance card dangling from her wrist and scrawled his name with the attached pencil onto one of the many empty spaces.
When she reached the line of young to not-so-young women standing along the rear wall of the ballroom, she smiled, and her outlook perked up. There stood Lucy, beautiful in lavender and beaming like an eternal optimist with not one signature on her card.
Of course, Mina’s card was not much better. Only two signatures graced hers. In addition to Julian, Mr. Lawrence Barclay, son of a squire tenant, had carefully written his name with a wide slash of a flourish beneath it. Aside from a brief introduction earlier by her father’s steward, she barely knew the man.
* * *
Julian madethe rounds of the Tindall family scattered about the ballroom, congratulating George and his bride before moving on to Wills to give him encouragement in his law studies. “I’m proud of you, Wills. My friends who are barristers moan about their days of study. Keep up the good work.”
Wills gave Julian a long look before saying, “I’m grateful, Your Grace, for all the help and guidance you’ve given me over the years.”
“It was nothing. What’s the point of knowing a duke if you can’t count on him when you’re in need?”
“Mina is the one who should be grateful to be able to say a duke attended her coming out.” Wills turned his head to the right and left. “Everyone else is here tonight only because George is the future viscount.”
Julian so yearned to clench his hands into fists and pummel the supercilious look off Wills’s face that they actually burned and itched, but he knew that would make Mina’s lot even worse so he took deep breaths through his nose to calm himself. The silence between them was deafening until Julian spun on his heel and turned his back on Wills without another word.
* * *
Mina had not expectedanyone to request a dance on her card. She’d been a little uneasy about dancing and having supper with the squire’s son. He was a pleasant looking young man with dark hair and eyes, but he also had an overly confident, jaunty attitude that frankly made her skin tingle with unease.
When they’d been introduced, he’d held on to her hand a little too long with a little too much pressure. His palm had been hot and damp. He’d asked for the dance before supper, and she really didn’t care for the idea of sharing a meal with him, but since he was the only one besides Julian to request a dance, she couldn’t in all fairness turn him down either.
Her papa had gone to a great deal of expense to honor her and George with the ball, her first and only ball. How hard could it be to tolerate the man for a dance and supper?
Lucy was another matter altogether. She watched her from the corner of her eye. She alone could see through Lucy’s refusal to admit defeat. She was not fooled by her friend’s plastered-on smile. Lucy’s habit of biting her lower lip when she was nervous gave her away.
Mina leaned close to her friend who was helping her defend the back wall of the ballroom. “It’s all right, Lucy. I don’t have any dances spoken for except with Julian and that other, strange young man.”
At that moment Julian joined them. “Miss Phippen, give me that card.”
“Oh, but…Your Grace…I couldn’t, I mean you shouldn’t.” She stopped then, a hot flush covering her face and spreading like a cloud down her neck.