mine...
Gertie hadn’t got a single word in edgewise.
Afterward, she rarely spoke at all. Not to her father. She poured her frustrations into the keys and disappeared into her music.
I’ll turn that deuced contraption into kindling, said the earl. If you haven’t a suitor by the end of the year, I’ll find one for you!
Four days remained, and already the earl had made good on his promise. An oily lech who thought nothing of trading a choice piece of land for a bride forty years his junior.
Unless Cynthia worked a Christmas miracle before the end of the party.
“Promise me,” she told Gertie. “You’ll dance with a different man every set until you’ve met them all. And you’ll consider them. You’ll try to talk and be yourself and see if you might suit. After we find your match, I’ll break the news of your betrothal to your father.”
Gertie’s face was white, but she nodded jerkily. “I’ll dance.”
“You have no choice,” Cynthia said softly. “Not if you want any hope to control your future. Meanwhile—”
Meanwhile, the Duke of Nottingvale had just stepped into view.
Her breath caught.
Cynthia supposed she was meant to be awestruck by the whiteness of his cravat and the exquisite tailoring of his coal black breeches and tailcoat, but when she looked at him all she could think of was how it felt not to see him.
When she’d been lying on the dais with her eyes shut tight. Waiting for him to come to her. Wondering if he would kiss her. Cracking open one eye and discovering him...
There.
“I don’t suppose you can summon a pianist,” he said gruffly.
“Er,” Cynthia said.
Gertie did a horrendous job of looking away from the pianoforte.
“I’ll do it,” Cynthia said before her cousin’s resolve weakened.
Nottingvale looked startled. “You can play the pianoforte?”
“I can climb a tree and shoot a pistol.”
“What has that to do with the pianoforte?”
Fair enough.
“I know a few tunes,” she assured him. “And I’m all you’ve got.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the encroaching army of debutantes eager for a dance, then swung his resigned gaze back to Cynthia. “All right, go. Play a melody we can dance to. Thank you.”
And with that, he disappeared into the sea of adoring young ladies.
“You know what to do,” said Gertie.
“You know what to do,” countered Cynthia. “Find someone your father would deem at least somewhat acceptable. No falling in love with a footman.”
Gertie brightened. “Like Horace and Morris?”
“Especially not a matched pair of strapping country footmen. Your father would expire on the spot.”
“And then I could marry the footmen and be a professional pianist,” Gertie said dreamily. “All at the same time.”
Cynthia turned her cousin’s shoulders around to point her toward a shamefully overlooked group of ton bucks and dandies. Gertie had met them all during her come-out. “Fish in that pond first.”
Gertie took a deep breath and set off to stroll within eyesight of beau monde approved rakes and bucks.
Cynthia hurried to the pianoforte and placed her fingers above the keys.
She did know what to do.
Give Nottingvale something to dance to.
The rousing, bawdy opening bars to A Soldier Goes A-Wenching burst from the pianoforte as Cynthia’s fingers flew merrily over the keys.
Rather, A Spinster Goes A-Wenching.
Nottingvale shot her a wide-eyed glance of abject horror.
She puckered her lips in the form of a kiss without breaking the flow of music and transitioned seamlessly into a traditional country dance.
Only Nottingvale and the naughtier of the gentlemen had recognized the ribald tune before the familiar melody of Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot filled the ballroom.
Pairs were made and patterns formed as the company squared off into the dance.
Luckily for Nottingvale, Cynthia knew more than enough reels and quadrilles to keep the party dancing from now until Twelfth Night.
Unluckily for Cynthia, the raised dais was a perfect vantage point from which to watch Nottingvale dance with pretty young lady after pretty young lady after pretty young lady.
The debutantes were right.
This was a terrible view.
She tried to concentrate on the keys, rather than the duke whirling other women about the dance floor.
Cynthia didn’t want or need to know what it might feel like to dance in the duke’s arms in front of all and sundry. Proximity to Nottingvale addled her brain. Their hands had touched on no less than three separate occasions, and the memory still caused palpitations.
A proper dance would kill her.
And a kiss...
She did want one, damn him.
Even though he wasn’t courting her, a kiss would allow her to live the fantasy, just for a moment.
And only a moment.
If the