“My cousin Anthony, who is much more socially astute than I am, says I must accept all of the invitations now that I’m done with mourning, and leave the tedious business of the marquessate to him as my second-in-command. I suspect him of something less than selfless devotion in his advice.”

“Let’s head for the card room then. In my company, fewer of the sweet young things are likely to approach you directly.”

A generous offer, except in the card room one gambled—an undertaking best reserved for those with ample disposable income.

“I’ll bide here among the potted palms.” Deene paused for a fortifying sip of his wine. “The mamas patrol out here in the ballroom, but the aunts and grandmamas are in the card room, and those dragons I am not yet drunk enough to deal with.”

Kesmore did shoot him a look of pity, or perhaps simple commiseration, since the earl was himself newly married. “I’m off then, and I’ll leave you to your fate. You could always say your old war injury is acting up and the dancing is beyond you.”

As Kesmore stalked away, Deene lifted his flute to salute that helpful notion, and went back to leaning on a shadowed pillar as unobtrusively as he could. Given that he was several inches over six feet, his hair was golden blond perfectly hued to gleam by candlelight, and his title the highest available on the marriage mart in three years, he suspected his evening—and likely he, himself—were doomed.

Two hours later the suspicion was a patented, sealed conclusion.

“My lord, you really must lead my darling Mildred out.” Lady Staines affected a simper that came off more like a glower. “She’s ever so shy, and yet quite the most graceful thing on two feet.”

The ever-so-shy Miss Mildred Staines was the selfsame young lady who’d not fifteen minutes ago tried to accost Deene on his way to the men’s retiring room. She had claws where her fingernails should be, and if Kesmore hadn’t come along at an opportune moment—

“Oh, Deene! There you are!” Eve Windham swanned up to him, a blond, green-eyed confection in a pale blue ball gown that showed only a hint of cleavage. Though why would he allow himself to remark such a thing when he was about to be dragged by the hair into holy matrimony by Lady Staines and her familiar?

“Lady Eve.” He bowed over her hand, which bore a slight, pleasing scent of mock orange.

Eve greeted the ladies with voluble good cheer then beamed a smile up at Deene. “Come along, my lord. The sets are forming.”

For just one moment, just the merest blink-and-he’d-miss-it instant, Eve looked him directly in the eye. She was trying to tell him…

Bless the woman. And it was the supper waltz, too.

“My apologies, Lady Eve. I was distracted by the charm of my companions. Lady Staines, Miss Staines, if you’ll excuse me?”

He led Eve to the dance floor and bowed as protocol required. “You have my thanks.”

She curtsied gracefully. “Repaying a favor owed.” She came up smiling, a different smile from that brilliant, cheerful—and, he suspected, false—smile she’d dispensed before the Staines women.

The introduction sounded, and he took her in his arms to the extent called for by the dance. “Have we waltzed before, my lady?”

“You have not had that pleasure since I put my hair up. The last time was at a Christmas gathering at Morelands. You were on leave with Bart and Devlin.”

The music began, and as they moved off, Deene cast his memory back. He’d danced with several of the Windham sisters, even Maggie, who had been accounted the family recluse until she’d married Hazelton.

He had danced with Eve on the last leave Lord Bart had taken before his death. When Deene glanced down at his partner, he saw a shadow of that recollection in her eyes, which would not do. He pulled her a trifle closer on the next turn.

“Deene.” She made his title, just five letters, sound like an entire sermon on impropriety.

“If you’re going to rescue me, you have to do a proper job of it.” He aimed a smile at her, pleased to see the shadows had fled from her eyes. “If I’m not seen to flirt with you, the Lady Staineses of the world will think I am still quite at large, maritally speaking.”

“You are at large, maritally speaking. Just because I appropriated your company for one dance doesn’t mean I’ll be your decoy indefinitely.”

“Decoy.” He considered the notion. “The idea has a great deal of merit. And you’re bound to me for supper as well, you know.”

He saw by her slight grimace that she hadn’t intended this result. Her generosity had been spontaneous, then, which meant she hadn’t watched him being hounded and chased and harried the livelong evening.

“A waltz and supper.” She paused while they twirled through another turn, and this time Deene pulled her a shade closer still then let her ease away. “Lucas Denning, behave, or I shall put it about you have a fondness for leeks.”

He danced her down the room—she was very light on her feet—realizing that his taunt had backfired. In that one moment when she’d been against his body, he’d felt an unmistakable flare of arousal.

“Just for show, my dear. You must tell me how you’ve managed all these years to avoid wedded bliss. I will pay you handsomely for such a secret.”

Her gaze flicked up from where she’d been staring determinedly at his shoulder. “You need a wife, Deene. You’ve only the one cousin to manage the succession, and he’s not married. Besides, I’m not avoiding anything. I simply haven’t taken.”

“Haven’t taken?” He’d heard her brothers grumbling about having to beat Evie’s swains away with muttered threats and thunderous scowls.

“I’m short. A proper English beauty is willowy, like Jenny.” She gave him the false smile again.

“You fit me well enough.” The words were out, grumbled but honest, and Eve went back to staring at his shoulder.

And they had yet to get through supper. He cast around for a harmless topic.

“What do you hear from St. Just?” As conversational gambits went, that one was creditable. Eve’s oldest brother had served with Deene, then two years after Waterloo, been awarded a Yorkshire earldom.

“He’s thriving up in the West Riding. We saw him at Christmas, and I think the dales agree with him—or marriage and fatherhood does.”

Did she sound wistful, or was she merely missing her brother?

“Perhaps I should pay him a visit.” Though it was probably still winter on the dales.

Eve was silent a minute, then she cast her gaze over him again in that assessing, female way. “Lucas, they’re just girls. They’ve been brought up to want nothing more than a man who can provide for them and give them babies. Your title, your fabulous good looks, your estates, they are so much gilt on the lily. Find a woman with whom you can be affectionate friends and propose to her.”

Affectionate friends. She described a sophisticated, practical version of marriage, such as the beau monde expected, and such as Eve likely expected, but to Deene it loomed like an extra-chilly circle of hell crafted just for titled English lords.

Though many more evenings like this one, and the choice was going to be taken from him.

* * *

By the time the music came to a close and Eve’s partner had led her off the dance floor, she was regretting the impulse that made her pluck the man from the jaws of Lady Staines’s ambitions. He was a former cavalry officer, titled, and blessedly good-looking. Surely the prospect of a few tittering ninnies wasn’t putting that haunted look in his sky-blue eyes?

“Shall I fix you a plate, my lady?”

He was smiling down at her, his expression genial.

She’d forgotten this about him—he was a gentleman. A significant contretemps involving Maggie’s past had been resolved directly before her marriage, but only with Deene’s willing, adroit, and very discreet assistance. A damsel in distress, or a damsel in need of sustenance, would both loom as an inescapable duty to him.

“Please, but avoid the aged cheeses and anything bearing a resemblance to red wine.” She moved along the buffet line with him while he piled a single plate high with various delicacies.

“Let’s find a quiet corner, shall we?” Her escort leaned down to nearly whisper in her ear. “The less conspicuous I am, the less I’m likely to attract a wife.”

She did not snort, but the man could hardly help but attract notice. Were she anything less than the daughter of a duke—the theoretically eligible daughter of a duke—he would be swarmed even in the buffet line.

“Perhaps in the gallery?” Eve suggested. She led him across the hall to the long, high-ceilinged space that opened onto the terraces. A few of the doors were propped open, making the place both quieter and cooler.

“Down there.” Deene gestured with the hand holding the plate. His other arm had been offered to Eve for escort, as if by her very presence she could ward off encroaching mamas.

Which, if it came to that, she could.

They found a small table beneath an arch, a blessed oasis of privacy in an otherwise dauntingly public evening.

“I believe I owe you an apology,” Eve said when they were seated.

He lounged back in his chair, a delicate little wrought iron piece that barely looked capable of holding his weight. “For?”

“Perhaps not an apology.” Eve picked up a forced strawberry and considered it. “I love strawberries, but I have this notion they taste better when they’re allowed to develop according to their own natures.” She popped it in her mouth and watched while Deene did likewise with a smaller berry.

He had a lovely mouth. She hadn’t forgotten that for a moment, blast the man.