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“I’m sorry to hear it, my lord,” she said, though her tone hinted at more suspicion than sympathy. “Two weeks to recover. Mercy, it must have been quite a dire illness.”

“A fiendish cold indeed,” he said, matching her tone with a bit of playfulness.

“I see.”

The ballroom’s many lights caught shades of honey in her golden hair, and after looking longer than was polite, Cassian watched as matching flecks in her eyes took on a flash of fire.

“Poor you.” Her voice dipped into a softer tone. “But, of course, I do understand. After all, you’ll recall our discussion about my father.”

“Your father,” Cassian repeated like the fool he was for ever agreeing to this scheme.

“William Bridewell.”

So she was Daphne Bridewell.

“You said your uncle knew him,” she continued. “He was a physician. So I do understand how ailments can keep one down far longer than expected.” She took him in from his brow to the tips of his boots. He stole the moment to note the faintest blush at the edges of her cheeks.

When she caught him studying the shape of her lips again, her gaze narrowed, but not unkindly.

“You seem different somehow,” she murmured, almost as if to herself.

“Do I?”

“Yes.” Miss Bridewell’s voice had gone quiet, slightly breathy. “You’ve changed.”

“For better or for worse?” The question was out before he could temper it, and he was suddenly both wary of and eager for the answer he might receive.

Though he could quickly catalog some of the ways he fell short of Julian’s amiability and charm, it fascinated him that this young lady should note a difference immediately.

Her breath caught. Her pink lips parted slightly, and something flickered across her face. “I wouldn’t presume...” she began, then faltered.

For the first time in years, his desire to taste a woman’s lips nearly overwhelmed him, and his own breath tangled in his lungs.

Miss Bridewell blinked and the color deepened in her cheeks as if she could read this thoughts.

“Perhaps the question was rude.” Good grief, he genuinely didn’t know how to make polite conversation anymore. “Do forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven, my lord.” She said the words a little too quickly. Then she cast a look over her shoulder at the woman he’d been bent on approaching before their collision. “I imagine you’re here to seek her out.”

“That was the plan,” he admitted, though his attention remained stubbornly fixed on the lady in front of him. Her jasmine scent wrapped around him like a tether, and he was intrigued by how she looked at him with all the suspicion of a Scotland Yard detective.

“You should hurry, Lord Windham. Her dance card will soon be filled.” The petite beauty stepped back, clearing his path toward Lady Selina, and he felt the loss of her nearness like a snapped thread.

But the diamond was no longer in the spot where she’d been. Lady Selina had taken to the dance floor with Lord Knowles, one of the lordlings who’d greeted him.

Without thinking, Cassian turned back to his blonde inquisitor.

“Will you add me to your dance card, Miss Bridewell?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, I don’t...” She looked as undone as he’d felt beneath her gaze. “I do not dance.”

“Not ever?”

She gave no reply but dipped her head, as if all the pertness she’d displayed had suddenly been doused.

“That’s a shame,” Cassian said softly, truly meaning it.

He regretted anything he’d done to unsettle her, yet it couldn’t be a blunder to ask a lady to dance at a ball. And oddly, against every impulse he’d brought into this crowded ballroom—to express interest in Lady Selina and then depart as soon as possible—he wanted to dance with Miss Bridewell.

The thought of her hand in his, of her peering up at him with those sea-storm eyes, took hold like a spark in kindling.

“Windham.”

Cassian turned at the sound of his brother’s title.

“Daphne, you’ve found him.” Lady Selina approached, her silk skirts whispering across the floor, eyes bright. “Goodness, I didn’t expect to see you this evening, Lord Windham. Where have you been hiding?”

For the briefest moment, Cassian hesitated, flicking a glance toward Miss Bridewell— Daphne —who stood just to his right. He was intensely aware of her, even as he told himself to show regard to the woman he’d been sent here to falsely woo.

“I was unwell,” he told Lady Selina. “But I’ve recovered, and I find myself ready to dance.”

He offered Lady Selina the smile he imagined Julian might wear, polished and gallant. “If you have a place for me on your card, that is.”

She seemed delighted. “As it so happens, I do. The next dance.”

He offered his arm and Lady Selina took it. But as they moved toward the dance floor, he chanced one last glance back.

Miss Daphne Bridewell hadn’t looked away.

She watched them—composed, unreadable—and something in her gaze stirred a flicker of apprehension in his chest. There was a…knowing in her eyes. As if she saw past the polished smile he wore, as if she sensed that whatever part he was playing tonight wasn’t quite the truth.

He turned to face the lady in his arms.

“You look lovely,” he said, because Julian surely would’ve said so.

“Flatterer,” Selina murmured, her gloved hand resting lightly against his shoulder. “Though you do sound a touch different tonight. Your voice is rougher. Maybe it was the illness.”

Cassian gave a nervous laugh. “Illness will do that to a man.”

“I suppose it might,” she said with a tilt of her head. “Though I admit I rather like it. It’s good that you’re back.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. Because he was not the man she thought she’d pinned her hopes on. Julian would have been thrilled to have Lady Selina in his arms. Yet he was not. It felt odd, awkward. Wrong.

Especially since his gaze kept wandering to the only lady who’d sparked a reaction in Cassian in years. She stood at the edge of the ballroom, wrapped in candlelight and watching silently.

The music began. Cassian tried to focus on the steps. Lady Selina was forgiving when he took a misstep and then corrected on the next turn.

“A bit rusty, it seems,” he murmured with a wry smile.

Lady Selina studied him as if confused by his manner. “Then you must practice more, my lord.”

Despite Julian’s claims of her shyness, she moved with quiet confidence, then she gifted him with a flirtatious smile, and his stomach churned with unease.

Perhaps she had been taken with his brother, but this fakery was treacherous.

“Will you not ask for another dance?” she asked.

“You do me an honor, but I fear I will only tread on your toes again in my present state.”

Amusement sparked in her eyes. “Before your illness, nothing would have stopped you from dancing.”

“Perhaps the illness changed me.” As one far too perceptive lady had pointed out.

When Lady Selina nodded and was swept away by her next dance partner, Cassian immediately scanned the ballroom for Daphne Bridewell.

Their gazes clashed. She was watching him too.

The oddest feelings overtook him—desire shifting something inside him, like the insistent roll of low tide.

It had been so long since any woman had tempted him.

Yet this one, who seemed content in her spot on wallflower row, made his breath hitch almost painfully in his chest.

He hated dancing, yet he still wanted to dance with her.

Lord help him, what was he doing?

He shouldn’t be thinking of her. The last thing he needed was to entangle himself with any lady.

He’d come here for Julian, and he tried to remind himself of that fact.