Or not so small.

Gossip had not lied. The man was muscular in the extreme, and this close, he was also of sufficient height to uphold the fiction that he’d protect Esther from any brigands or wolves wandering about Lady Morrisette’s parlor.

“Does your family hail from Kent, Miss Himmelfarb? I know most of the local families and cannot recall Himmelfarbs among them.”

The question was perfectly pleasant, and so too was his lordship’s scent. Not the scent of exertion or the standard rose-scented rice powder—he wasn’t wearing a wig—but something elusive…

“You’re twitching your nose like a thoughtful bunny, Miss Himmelfarb. Are you in anticipation of something particularly succulent among the supper offerings?”

He smiled down at her as he spoke, and for moment, Esther could not fashion a reply. Of all the times for Charlotte Pankhurst to be right about a man’s blue, blue eyes… “I’m trying to fathom the fragrance you’re wearing, my lord. It’s pleasant.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think from your expression that you do not approve of men wearing pleasant scents.” His tone, amused, teasing, suggested that sometimes, all he wore was a pleasant scent—and that just-for-you smile.

They came to a halt in the buffet line, which meant… Esther was doomed to sharing a meal with the man.

Lord Percival leaned nearer, as if confiding something amid the noise and bustle of the first night of a lively, extended social gathering. “Bay rum lacks imagination, don’t you think? I shall wear it when I’m a settled fellow with children in my nursery. There’s cedar in the scent I wear, reminds me of Canada. You’re partial to spicy scents yourself.”

He was inviting a reciprocal confidence from her with that observation. The notion of trading secrets with Percival Windham made something beneath Esther’s heart twang—disagreeably, of course. “Lavender with a touch of a few other things.”

While Esther stood beside Lord Percival, he leaned even closer and subtly inhaled through his patrician nose. Horses did that, gathered each other’s scent upon acquaintance. And like a filly, Esther held still for his lordship’s olfactory inspection and resisted the urge—the unladylike, disconcerting, thoroughly inappropriate urge—to treat him to a similar examination.

“My dear”—his lordship had straightened only a bit—“why is My Lady Hair Bows staring daggers in this direction?”

My lady…? Then… my dear?!

He was a very presuming fellow, even for a duke’s spare, and yet Esther felt the urge to smile back at him. “I’m not sure what you mean, my lord.”

“You know exactly what I mean, Miss Himmelfarb.” He picked up a plate, though they were still some distance from any sustenance. “Now the Needy girl is at her elbow, pouring brandy on the flames of gossip. You and I will be engaged by this time tomorrow, I don’t doubt.”

Did one correct a duke’s spare when he made light of marriage to a woman within staring distance of professional spinsterhood?

Yes, one did.

“Her name is Needham, my lord. And I should think an engagement unlikely when you have yet to ask for my hand and I have given no indication I would accept your suit.”

The light in his eyes changed, going from friendly—yes, that was the word—to something more intent. “You are an impertinent woman.” This did not, unfortunately, sound as if it put him off.

“As compared to you, my lord, who are somehow a pertinent man? Or perhaps pertinacious might apply?”

That was rude, intended to put the perishing idiot in his place, but it only added approval to the warmth in his gaze. His eyes crinkled at the corners, his lips curved up to reveal perfect, straight white teeth in a dazzling, alarmingly intimate smile.

“We’re going to get on famously, Miss Himmelfarb. I adore impertinent women.”

Esther knew not what to say to that. The line shuffled forward while Charlotte, Herodia, and Zephora glared a firing squad of daggers, and Esther tried to ignore the scent of cedar and spices.

* * *

“You most assuredly do not look like you’re enjoying yourself.”

Esther glanced around the ballroom, where guests were milling before the dancing resumed, then cast a brief, exasperated look at her cousin, the Honorable Michael Adelman.

“Could you enjoy yourself while the tops of your breasts were engaged in conversation by one man after another, and half those men married to wives busily ogling some other fellow’s falls?”

Michael’s lids drooped in a manner he likely did not intend to be seductive, though it made his good looks even more alluring. “I think the Needham girl might accept my suit. She’s said to be well dowered. The party lasts only three weeks, Esther.”

Remorse had Esther patting Michael’s sleeve. “Three weeks is nothing. We shall contrive. Compliment her coiffure lavishly.” That was the purpose of the outing, in fact—to secure an advantageous match for Michael, and as expeditiously as possible. Michael shuddered beside Esther on a gilded green-velvet sofa set into an alcove off the ballroom’s dance floor.

“How does one consummate a union with a wife who must sleep with a wooden pillow, lest she disturb the architecture of her hairstyle? I lie awake at night and fret over this, you know.”

He was her cousin, and Esther loved him, but he was only a man and therefore not much afflicted with insight.

“You capture her heart so completely that for you she’ll give up hours of torment having her hair dressed and content herself with elaborate wigs, while leaving her crowning glory in the state intended by the Almighty. We’d best mingle. Lady Morrisette has twice smiled this way.”

Michael rose and assisted Esther to her feet. “God help me,” he murmured. “Our hostess is reported to hold these gatherings mostly as a means of seeing to her own entertainment.” He bowed over Esther’s hand. “Say nice things about me to the Needmore girl.”

“Needham.”

And of course Esther would, for despite his dark good looks, height, and charm, without a decent match, Michael’s future held little worth looking forward to.

“Miss Himmelfarb.”

With effort, Esther did not grimace, for it appeared the tops of her breasts were again to engage in conversation. “Sir Jasper.” She gave him her hand, and because he was standing so close, when he bowed over it, his nose nearly touched her décolletage.

“The sets are forming, Miss Himmelfarb, and I would happily partner you.”

Something in his tone implied that his partnering was available in locations other than the dance floor, and on short notice. Sir Jasper Layton was not yet thirty, had all his teeth, and was as handsome as a bad bout with smallpox could leave a man. Three beauty patches and a heavy hand with the face powder did more to call attention to his scars than hide them, though.

Esther manufactured a smile. “Thank you, sir, and tell me how your sisters go on.”

He appeared surprised to recall he had sisters, though both attended the same court functions as Esther and many of the ladies present at the house party. Soon enough the steps of the dance saw him partnering other women, and Esther could breathe a sigh of relief.

“Are you concentrating on the steps, or have you taken me into dislike?” Percival Windham bowed to her jauntily, took both of her hands, and as the dance called for, moved closer. “Or is Sir Jasper overstepping?”

Esther dropped his hands, turned her back, smiled over her shoulder—who had chosen this particular dance?—and turned back to take Lord Percival’s hands. “I’m concentrating on the steps.”

They promenaded down the line, hands joined before them. “You’d rather be in the library, curled up with a book by the fire, reading French poems, or possibly German. Tell me, Miss Himmelfarb, do Germans write poetry?”

He was teasing, but also studying her as he smiled that particular, personal smile.

Esther dropped his hands and turned a full circle. “I’d be reading Shakespeare sonnets up in my room. Anybody can come upon a lady in the library.”

Though her room would be stuffy and dank because Esther lacked sufficient strength to pry open its single window.

“There’s a full moon tonight, Miss Himmelfarb. Why not walk with me in the garden instead?”

He turned to his corner and whisked her down the line, leaving Esther to wonder if twenty more days—and nights—of this nonsense was worth the effort of seeing her cousin suitably matched.

As she slipped up to her room an hour later on aching feet, she also spared a thought to wonder whom Percival Windham would have enticed into the garden, and if he’d truly limit his activities there to walking.

* * *

“The trouble is, we ain’t got a proper dam.”

Dear Tony was sliding past pleasantly foxed and barreling on to true inebriation, so Percival waved away the footman plying the card room’s decanter.

“You’re insulting the Duchess of Moreland, Tony, if you’re saying our mother is anything less than proper. One does this at considerable peril to his well-being.”

Tony continued to stare morosely at his brandy. “That’s what I’m saying. She’s all duchess and no mama. Not mama, not dame, not mother. We’d be back in Canada if His Grace had a notion how to foil her queer starts.”

“Do you honestly expect me to believe you’re missing Canada?”

“Not missing it, exactly, but there ain’t any debutantes in Canada, no levees, no duchesses.”

In vino, veritas. “There are bears and wolves, or had you forgotten?”

Tony offered his brother a rueful grin. “Wolves don’t sing any worse than those sopranos at the opera.”