Page 30 of Provoked
Would Balfour turn up? Surely he would. He had intimated as much to Elizabeth Chalmers over dinner after all. But perhaps he was just being polite? Perhaps even now he was in bed with some pretty, willing boy? That thought made David feel oddly hollow, and he found himself wondering how it might have been if he’d accepted Balfour’s invitation the other night. If he’d walked up those stairs with him and gone into his house, into his bedchamber. Stripped for him and dropped to his knees again.
Realising he was growing hard, David thrust his thoughts away and drained his cup of punch, wishing it was whisky. He returned his attention determinedly to the entrance.
It was almost a full hour before they saw anyone David knew, and it wasn’t Balfour. It was Elizabeth Chalmers with her mother and next oldest sister, whose name David had already forgotten.
When Elizabeth spied David, her ordinary face lit up with a bright smile, and she raised a gloved hand at him in a tiny wave. Mrs. Chalmers noticed Elizabeth’s distraction, and her gaze followed her daughter’s, a frown drawing her eyebrows together when she saw that David was the object of the younger woman’s attention.
He bowed at the three ladies, eliciting bobbing curtseys from Elizabeth and her sister and a cold nod from their mother before she brusquely moved the girls along without detouring to allow them to speak to David. Elizabeth sent him a regretful glance as she trailed her mother.
“Who’s that girl?” Euan asked, staring after them with an arrested expression.
“Which one?”
“The one who smiled at you. With the sparkling eyes.”
David smothered a smile, amused that even single-minded Euan could be distracted by a pair of sparkling eyes. “She’s the girl who’s friends with Isabella Galbraith—Elizabeth Chalmers. The other girl is her sister, and the older woman is their mother.”
Euan considered for a moment. “We’d better keep an eye on them, then.”
“We’ll do better than that,” David replied. “We’ll ask them to dance. This is an assembly, you know.”
Euan looked horrified, hunted. “I don’t know how to dance,” he said under his breath.
“Surely you know some country dances?”
“I know lots of them but not any of the ones that are being done here! None of this looks like dancing I’ve seen. Don’t these people know how to enjoy themselves?”
David smiled. He knew what Euan meant. This was nothing like the village dances he’d attended in Midlauder when he was a boy. They’d been both tamer and wilder. No question of an unmarried young man directly asking a single girl to dance with him, though it might be arranged with her parents’ agreement. But when the women danced without the men, they lifted their skirts to their knees and laughed and sang, and when the men danced without the women, there was yelling and whooping and such a carry on. More sport than grace in it. David smiled to remember those days. William had loved showing off at such affairs, undertaking absurd feats, like the time he balanced on top of a pyramid of men, swaying at the top so much it made David’s gut clench with fear, even as he laughed. He used to grin at David as they danced with the other men, white teeth flashing, all cocky and handsome. William’s father would’ve been mortified if he’d known his son was fraternising with the tenants and labourers. And worse.
This assembly was very different from those long-ago Midlauder dances. The small twelve-piece orchestra was well dressed and played the music at a stately pace. The dancing was elegantly restrained. And yet the purpose of the evening—to snare a marital prospect—was, if anything, more obvious. Almost offensively so. Something businesslike about the way the dances were transacted, the young ladies’ time doled out in small measures. As though they were goods in a grocer’s shop to be sampled. Two ounces here and four ounces there.
David’s attention began to drift, his gaze traversing the crowd for what felt like the hundredth time, when his attention snagged on a dark, familiar head.
Balfour was half turned from him, deep in conversation with an older lady. His profile was strong, unmistakable. The straight blade of his nose and that firm, determined jaw. The sweep of black hair across his brow. When he smiled at his companion, it seemed to David that the room brightened, as though a sudden breeze had caused the candles to all glow just a little bit more. Balfour’s evening clothes seemed twice as elegant as anyone else’s in some unidentifiable way. He seemed more assured, more powerful. Taller, broader, more arresting. Even his smile was more engaging. He was simply…more.
Just as David came to that conclusion, Balfour turned his head, and their gazes met.
For an instant, Balfour’s expression showed genuine surprise—dark brows elevating, eyes widening—and David felt a surge of satisfaction to have caused that small reaction. But just as quickly, Balfour had himself under control, regaining his customary expression of lazy amusement and raising his cup of punch in a mocking toast.
“Jesus Christ!”
Euan’s soft exhalation in David’s ear distracted his attention. He turned to the younger man, who was staring across the ballroom at Balfour. Balfour himself had turned back to his own companion. Had he seen Euan? Recognised him?
“Is it him?” David asked, his mouth suddenly dry, a gnawing fear growing in his belly. In his absorption, he had almost forgotten why they were here.
“Yes, I—I think—God, I don’tknow.” Euan frowned, uncertain. “If it’s not him, it looks damned like him. I need to get a closer look.”
David felt suddenly shaky, and his heart was racing. He realised with some dismay that he’d desperately wanted Euan to say no, Balfour wasn’t Lees. How absurd. Why should he care one way or the other?
“Did he see you?” he asked Euan calmly, somehow managing to disguise his reaction. “Recognise you?”
“He didn’t seem to, but then he was looking at you,” Euan replied distractedly, his gaze still on the back of Balfour’s head. “I don’t think he even glanced my way.”
“If he’d known you, surely he’d have shown some reaction? You’re standing right beside me, after all.”
Euan sent him a curious look, as if wondering why David was being so vehement.
“Why don’t you try to get closer to him,” David added. “It might be easier to tell. I’ll go and look for the Chalmers girls and see if I can find out if Isabella Galbraith has turned up yet.”