Doctor Alcott? Nora wondered. Were they still in touch after—?
“Have you now, with those big words and everything?” Titus’s eyes crinkled at the edges in a most alluring way when he smiled. “Clever girl, you are. I think Alcott has one on alchemical preservation I could bring you. It is all about mummies.”
“I love mummies.” Felicity blushed to the roots of her blond hair, and Nora realized that whenever the word clever was used regarding Felicity in their household, it wasn’t complimentary. One would be pressed to find a volume that wasn’t religious or political in nature. The Goode girls were not allowed vulgar modern literature. In fact, she should hide her novel before she went inside.
At the thought of returning home, another long-held anxiety floated to the surface like a poorly weighted drowning victim. Per her father’s insistence, her ball gown wasn’t cut to style. High necks were for everyday gowns, and evening wear went so far as to slide below the shoulders.
And yet hers was buttoned to the chin.
Everyone was going to laugh.
Suddenly a memory blew across her mind like an autumnal gust.
Titus. His hands at her neck, doing or… undoing buttons. Her buttons… brushing soft, cool cloths over her neck and chest.
She swallowed, her fingers lifting to tug at her lace collar.
Mercy released her waist only to seize hold of her hand. “Papa sent us to fetch you, Nora. After you meet with him, you must come and have tea with us in the nursery. I’ve written a play and Pru said she’ll be the boy but only today as you’ll be too busy with your blasted ball after that.”
“Don’t let nanny hear you say blast,” Nora warned, too charmed to truly scold her beloved sister.
“There’s kissing in the play,” Felicity said with a scandalized look up at Titus. “But we put our hands over our mouths.”
“Come on.” Mercy tugged. “Do hurry!”
“Good afternoon, Titus,” Felicity said with a prim curtsy.
He nodded his head at them each in turn. “And a good afternoon to you, Miss Felicity, Miss Mercy.” He bowed to them both with all the starched sobriety of a general before turning to her and inclining his head. “Miss Goode.”
As Nora allowed herself to be towed to the house by two cherubic ten-year-old tugboats, she couldn’t help but notice he’d called her Miss Goode. As he should have…and yet…
He’d enjoyed a bit of familiarity with the girls. Why not her? Could she insist he call her Nora? What would the word sound like now that his voice had altered so profoundly?
It was all she could think about for the rest of the day.
The Ball
Nora hated every moment she shared with Michael Leventhorpe, the heir to the Marquess of Blandbury. He was not only a fool, but a bully and a rake.
She didn’t like him.
She didn’t want him.
And she was left with no choice but to marry him.
Which was why he’d been allowed to conduct her away from the stifling ball, out onto the balcony. He swept her to the darkest corner, where the stone columns of the banister overlooked the garden. The pathway was dimly lit for the occasion by decorative antique braziers that brought to mind Shakespeare’s London.
Though most of the girls considered Blandbury handsome, nay, the catch of the season, Nora categorically disagreed. He was a big buffoon of a man, sporting and solid with pale hair and skin so white she could see some of the blue veins beneath the skin of his eyes. For some reason, she could stare at little else, all the while berating herself for being too critical of appearance.
She would never have given Blandbury a second glance if it hadn’t been for her father’s welcome home three days prior, delivered with a stern edict that’d stolen any light from her heart.
Clarence Goode, Baron Cresthaven, had always cowed her. But never so much as when she was made to stand before the desk he’d mounted on a massive dais in his study, simply so he could look down at people as if from behind the Queen’s Bench in court. He was a veritable force of nature, tall and broad, but not in the way that Titus had become. Not with that lean strength and effortless grace. Her father was a rotund man with the dimensions of a whiskey barrel and the hands of a cooper, rather than a nobleman.
He had stared down at her with a disapproval she hadn’t yet earned,