view, the edge of her skirts disappeared, blocked by a new group of revelers, eager for entry. He hated that he couldn’t see her, even though her withdrawal from view made it easier for him to go after her. To straighten his shoulders and smooth his sleeves, and say, “Revenge.”
He had nearly made it to the street when Devil called out to him, soft from the darkness. “Whit.”
Whit stopped but did not turn back.
Not even when the Garden slipped into Devil’s voice. “You forget, bruv . . . I, too, have stood in the darkness, watching the light.”
Chapter Twelve
“Tell me again why we are here?”
Hattie spoke over the crush of people clamoring to access the entrance to the Warnick House ballroom. She and Nora had lost the Earl of Cheadle in the wild mess of people, and were now caught like fish in a current, swept up the steps to the main floor of the house.
“Balls are a diversion,” Nora said, tossing a smile to someone in the distance. “And I like the Duchess of Warnick more than I like most people.”
“I didn’t know you knew the Duchess of Warnick.”
“There are many things you don’t know about me,” Nora said with affected mystery.
Hattie laughed. “There is nothing I don’t know about you.”
“I’m thinking of finding a thing or two, honestly,” came the reply as Nora passed her shawl to a waiting footman. “I don’t like that you’re keeping secrets about your new paramour.” She mouthed the word in an exaggerated fashion that would have allowed anyone looking to know precisely what she’d said.
Hattie didn’t blink. There was absolutely no one looking. No one looked at twenty-nine-year-old spinsters, one of whom lacked beauty and the other of whom lacked tact. “He’s not that.”
Nora smirked. “Oh, no. Of course not. He just . . .”—her eyes went wide and she lowered her voice—“in a tavern.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Hattie looked up at the ceiling and lowered her own voice. “Might we speak about this somewhere else?”
“Certainly,” Nora replied as though they were discussing the weather. “But no one is listening. I merely think you should consider the fact that finding a man who cares for your bits before his own is rare indeed. Or so I am told.”
“Nora!” Hattie’s cheeks had gone crimson, and the high-pitched cry did summon shocked and disapproving glances from those around them.
“At any rate, I know the duchess because the duke likes to race carriages and, as it happens, so do I.” Nora accepted two dance cards from a nearby footman with a delighted laugh. “Look at how clever these are. Little paint palettes. I assume we’re to write the name of our dance partner in the paint wells.”
She extended one to Hattie, who shook her head. “I don’t require one.”
Nora sighed. “Take it.”
Hattie did, even as she said, “I don’t dance. I haven’t danced in years.” Certainly not with anyone who hadn’t been forced into the situation with some kind of pity. “I don’t even like to dance,” she said to Nora’s back as the other woman waved a hand and pushed through the door to the ballroom beyond.
The ballroom was degrees warmer than the hallway, a wall of doors opened wide to the night on one side of the room unable to combat the crush of bodies within. The chandeliers high above bathed the revelers in warm, wonderful light that flickered with the breeze from outside, strong enough to send drops of hot wax to the floor below. Not that anyone would notice. The orchestra was loud and the refreshments bountiful, and the massive duke and the stunning duchess—already in each other’s arms on the dance floor and far too close for propriety—were very much in love, which would draw attention from anything else.
Hattie watched them for a moment, the way the duke, a Scotsman who had to duck through doorways and towered above the rest of the room, held his wife in his arms, tucking her close, as though she might need protection. The duchess, flame-haired and beautiful—once named the most beautiful woman in all London—lifted her gaze and met her husband’s eyes with a bright, loving smile, and the man’s stern face went soft and loving. The expression did damage for its honesty.
Hattie wondered what it might feel to receive such a look.
To be held so well.
To be loved so much.
She swallowed around the knot in her throat, raising a hand to her chest when they reached the top of the half-dozen steps