Page 86 of How to Fall for a Scoundrel
And then Ellie couldn’t breathe, because Harry was there, in front of her.
She hadn’t seen him in person for over two weeks, and when she finally managed to suck in her breath, her pulse stuttered at the familiar scent of his cologne.
“Good evening to my three favorite ladies.”
Tess and Daisy both swept him extravagant, mocking bows.
“Good evening, Mr. King,” they echoed, in perfect unison.
“Sorry, force of habit,” Daisy added loudly with a grin, fully aware that they could be overheard by those closest to them. “Although I suppose now the cat’s out of the bag.”
Ellie barely dipped a curtsey. Her legs were suddenly like jelly.
Harry turned to her and held out his hand. “May I have the honor of this dance, Miss Law?”
Heat rose in her cheeks. “Oh, no, really, I don’t—”
“She does!” Daisy said, pushing her forward with a hand on the small of her back.
“She definitely does,” Tess echoed with a glittering smile.
Ellie sent each of them a glare that promised retribution.
Harry leaned in. “You can’t wear a dress like that and expect to stand at the side of the room like a wallflower. There’s not an unmarried man here who hasn’t been trying to pluck up the courage to ask you to dance.”
Ellie had to smile at his hyperbole. “Am I so fierce, then? Or is it just that you’re bolder than most?”
His dimples flashed as he smiled that irresistible smile. “Oh, I amdefinitelybolder than most. Faint heart never won fair lady.”
She sighed, and her desire to be held in his arms overrode her reluctance to be the center of attention. “Oh, very well.”
The whispers increased as Harry’s choice of companion was noted, but he merely turned her in his arms as the first swirling strains of the orchestra filled the air. Ellie tried to relax as his hand settled on the small of her back, and his other hand held hers at precisely the correct angle near her shoulder. She’d never felt so self-conscious in her life.
“Do you remember our first dance, at Willingham’s?” he murmured.
“Yes.” Her throat was inexplicably dry. There was so much she wanted to say to him, but now that she hadthe opportunity, her mind was an unhelpful blank. At least this close, she could see the fascinating colors of his eyes. They were wonderfully distracting.
“In the carriage, on the way to the Tower, I told you how important it was for me to prove my real name.”
“I remember.”
“It’s because I realized, several years ago now, that I couldn’t ever marry without it.”
Ellie’s spirits plummeted. Had he considered marrying someone in the past? Or had it just been a general, theoretical observation? A thought that he might want to marry,eventually.
She was too afraid to ask. “People sign fake names on the marriage register all the time. My father prosecuted a man only last month who’d married two different women under two different names.”
“Those marriages weren’t legal, though, were they?”
“Well. No.”
He looked down at her. “If I loved a woman enough to want to marry her, then I couldn’t trick her into a sham marriage and risk disgracing her. That wouldn’t be love at all. Love is caring for the other person so much that you’d do anything to avoid hurting them.”
Ellie’s heart was hammering in her throat at his closeness. The room was unseasonably warm. She moistened her lips, and his gaze dropped to her mouth before flashing back to hers.
“But now you have your real name, beyond all reasonable doubt. You can marry whoever you like with a clean conscience,” she said.
He’d probably already made a short list of candidates from the women he’d met this evening. She could think of half a dozen ladies who’d be perfect as his countess, all of them beautiful and accomplished in their own ways.