Page 34 of The Viscount Needs a Wife (All for Love #2)

She sat with the dowager, as the duchess was flitting round the room as a good hostess should, and watched the young ladies being whisked off to dance.

Which Annis was quite comfortable doing.

As a governess, her lot had always been to sit on the sidelines and watch out for her charges.

Although Emrys had assured her that she could dance if she chose, she didn’t think it would be proper, and in any case, she would much prefer to dance with him.

She had been so surprised to discover what an accomplished dancer he was.

She knew he could sing, but she hadn’t realized his talent for rhythm extended to dancing until he’d whisked her into a waltz.

She was therefore unprepared when Lord Hereward, the duke’s great hulking younger brother, asked her to dance.

He was slightly over six feet tall and very broad through the shoulders and chest, and quite handsome, with curly dark-brown hair and soft dark-brown eyes.

She glanced at the dowager for help when he asked, and she waved her away.

“Go on, child. It will do him good.”

He led her onto the dance floor for the Boulanger and said, “Mama insists we all dance.”

“And you don’t particularly enjoy it?”

He flushed. “I’m not much in the petticoat line, if you take my meaning. I tend to get tongue tied and develop two left feet if I like someone.”

“Hence choosing me, because I’m safe?” suggested Annis understandingly. This young man was like a big, awkward, tree trunk with soft cow eyes.

“Yes,” he admitted in a rush, and then reflecting on how that sounded, he said, “Not that I don’t like you its just—you’re a married lady.”

She smiled and patted his arm. “I understand.”

He relaxed then and said confidingly, “Kenrick’s much better at his sort of thing than I am. He’s my younger brother, but people often think he’s older. He’s a bean pole and charming and quite dissolute. That’s him over there dancing with the chit in yellow.”

“Gosh, she’s quite beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Yes, and she’s an heiress to boot—Miss Cecelia Woodrow. Whoever her chaperone is shouldn’t be letting her dance with Kenrick. Can’t be trusted to keep the line. I believe she’s engaged to Tavistock, but he’s not here tonight. I heard he was ill or something. He’ll be more ill if he hears of this.”

*

Emrys was enjoying the company of his friends, even if they were still teasing him unmercifully.

“Setting up to be an Adonis now, Ashford?” said Pendrell with a nod to his attire.

Emrys pushed the fall of hair off his brow a trifle self-consciously and shrugged. “Just trying not to embarrass Annis.”

“Must admit, took us by surprise a bit, old chap,” said Ravenshaw. “Getting married again so soon. Especially in the circumstances.”

Emrys flushed. “Aye, well, we needed each other, and the children need her, too.”

Ravenshaw glanced at Pendrell and back before leaving that alone. “I will say you’re the best advocate for marriage I’ve come across.”

“Hardly, after what happened with Caro,” he said shortly.

“That wasn’t your fault, though.”

“It was more my fault than you know,” he said quietly.

“How so? You weren’t unfaithful to her, I’d swear to it,” said Pendrell.

“No, I wasn’t.” Emrys looked into the middle distance, his gaze going out of focus. “I just never knew her. I thought I did, but—” He shook his head.

“It will be different with—?”

“Annis? Yes, I think so. We’ve some things to sort out yet, but I believe we’re on the right track.

Marriage is a constant balancing act of compromise and small decisions that you make, mostly unconsciously, day to day.

It pays to pay attention. That’s what I’ve learned.

Don’t take things for granted, and don’t make assumptions. Get clarity. Talk.”

“Don’t look at me, old chap, I’m not planning to get married anytime soon,” said Ravenshaw, holding up his hands.

“What about you, Pendrell?” he asked.

“Chance’d be a fine thing,” rumbled the earl. “I’m looking for a needle in a bloody haystack. The woman I want doesn’t exist; I’m convinced of it. Or if she does, I’ll never meet her,” he said gloomily. “And even if I did, she probably wouldn’t have me.”

“You sound like Troubridge before he met his duchess,” said Ravenshaw. “To quote you back to yourself, you’re a bloody earl. Of course she’ll have you.”

The earl shook his head. “Not the one I want. You see she’ll care a damn sight more about antiquities than she will about my title.”

“Ah, good luck with that my friend,” said Ravenshaw nodding in understanding.

“Advertise,” said Emrys.

“What?” Pendrell squinted at him. Does the man need his spectacles all the time now?

“In one of those damned magazines you read so avidly. If you want a woman who shares your interests, reach out to her through a medium she will be reading.”

Pendrell raised his eyebrows. “You may have got something there. Thank you, I’ll think about it.”

After an hour of playing cards with his friends, Emrys made his way back to the ballroom.

He missed his wife. Being away from her made him anxious.

Is she coping? Does she need me? He hadn’t felt that way about Caro, but then Caro wasn’t new to the ton and afraid people would judge her for her background.

He looked for her where he had left her with the dowager, but she wasn’t there. He scanned the crowded ballroom for a green gauzy dress and found her dancing with Robert. An unaccustomed pang of jealousy shot through his chest.

Not that he was jealous of Robert—the man was devoted to his wife—but he was jealous that other people got to dance with her tonight while he couldn’t because of some stupid rule about mourning for a wife who had so wronged him.

He clenched his teeth, a rumble of annoyance rolling through him.

He really had been more grumpy than normal lately.

His emotions were all over the place. Crying one minute, laughing the next.

He was usually the most calm and easy-going fellow he knew.

Not this irrational idiot who couldn’t control his impulses.

He wandered over to the dowager’s side and greeted her.

“All’s well I hope, ma’am?”

She waved her fan vigorously. “Yes, except for this infernal heat. I’m going to asphyxiate!”

“Would you like a turn in the gardens, ma’am?” he asked politely, really wanting to stay until Annis came off the dance floor.

“I would love to, but I cannot leave my post. I need to keep an eye on the girls. Not that Deborah is a worry—sweet girl and most obedient—but Ava!” The dowager duchess cast up her eyes. “That girl is trouble waiting to happen, I just know it!”

At this point, the music stopped, and the dancers began filing off the floor. “Perhaps Robert can take you for a stroll and you can deputize Annis and me in your stead?” he suggested.

“What a splendid notion, thank you. We won’t be too long, but I simply must get some fresh air.

Robert!” She turned imperiously to her son as he bore down on them with his precious burden.

Annis looked flushed but happy. His heart lifted at the sight.

“Robert, you must take me for a turn in the gardens. I am like to expire in here! The Ashfords are going to keep an eye on the girls for me.”

“Good luck with that!” said Robert sotto voce and bore his mother off.

Emrys took Annis’s hand and smiled. “You’re enjoying yourself.”

She plied her fan, still catching her breath. “Yes, I am. I didn’t expect to, but the duke’s family are so kind. They have been most accepting of my change in status. I quite expected the dowager to arch up, but she never did.”

Emrys knew that Robert had had words with his mother about that very thing.

What exactly he had told her to calm her down, he didn’t know, but she had been very nice to Annis ever since.

He suspected it might have something to do with himself.

The dowager had always had a soft spot for him.

Unlike Ravenshaw, whom she barely tolerated.

Pendrell, she treated like an overgrown schoolboy, which made the big man blush and stammer.

Pendrell may be blunt in speech with his friends, but remarkably tongue-tied and awkward in company. He lacked the social graces.

Deborah appeared at their side, escorted by Hereward. “Would you ladies like a drink?” he asked. Since his own face was quite red, Emrys suspected this was not quite so selfless as it appeared. He must be cooking in that jacket.

“That would be delightful, thank you,” said Annis.

Deborah murmured something similar, and the big man plunged off to find refreshments.

“Are you enjoying your first ball, Miss Watson?” he asked politely.

“It is not quite my first. I was at Sarah’s wedding ball at The Castle, but it is my first London ball,” she said with a smile.

“And yes, I am enjoying it immensely. I just wish my sisters were here to enjoy it with me. Sarah has promised to bring Ruthie out next year, so I should have company then.”

Hereward reappeared with the promised glasses of punch for the ladies, which they drank thirstily while Emrys scanned the room for the missing Lady Ava.

He spotted her just leaving the ballroom for the gardens on the arm of.

.. he thought Lannister. Damn it! If Robert catches her with him, there will be hell to pay!

“Excuse me a moment, I just have to retrieve Ava,” he murmured and plunged off across the ballroom toward the French windows that led onto the garden terrace.

He reached the steps leading down into the gardens, looking around for his quarry and seeing no sign of her.

Damn and blast! Where is the little wretch?

He did not relish getting into fisticuffs with Lannister, either.

It occurred to him that it would have been more proper for Hereward to be doing this—he was her brother, after all.

“Where is she?” asked a low rumbly voice in his ear. He turned and glanced up at the young giant. Speak of the devil!

“I’m not sure. I saw her come out this way with Lannister, but now I can’t see them. Your mother and Robert are out here, too. If he should see her with Lannister, Robert will have an apoplexy!”

“You’re not wrong,” Hereward frowned. “The sooner that girl is married off the better! We can then let her husband worry about her! She is giving Mama more grey hairs daily!”

“Well, yes, but you don’t want her married off to Lannister, do you? He hasn’t a feather to fly with, to say nothing of his dissolute behavior. He makes Kenrick look like a saint!”

“True. We’d best find them. Divide and conquer—you go that way, I’ll go this, and we’ll meet in the middle. Try not to get into a fight with Lannister, and if you see Robert...” He flinched, trailing off.

“Yes, I know—lie through my teeth!” Emrys grinned and plunged off to his right.

By the time he’d done a full circuit and got back to the starting point, he found Hereward coming up the steps with a disgruntled Ava on his arm.

She was a little flushed and a shade disheveled, and he marveled that he was able to detect the difference.

Six months ago, he would never have noticed.

More recent events had sharpened his powers of observation.

Robert and the dowager appeared after that, and the group returned to Annis and Deborah. Disaster averted, Emrys bore his wife off to find the supper table. He was hungry, and there was no law against him eating at a ball at least.