The Marquess Who Loved Me - By Sara Ramsey Page 0,81
can’t afford it.”
Nick smiled. “I will buy you as much sackcloth as you want. But it’s uncomfortable stuff. You might prefer to take it off once you’ve dressed in it.”
She thought she heard someone giggle behind her, but when she turned, whoever it was had already skated away. She lowered her voice. “If you won’t skate, stop watching me. You are causing people to talk.”
“People are going to talk about you no matter what I do. You are the most beautiful woman they’ve seen, and you don’t care what their opinions are. Even if you were a nun, they would find that combination irresistible.”
She didn’t acknowledge the compliment — but she saved it, burying it in her heart so she might pull it out again later and cherish it. “Regardless, you aren’t helping. Come skate with me. You might find the people on the ice more approachable if you deign to welcome their presence.”
“You think I am the one who is unapproachable?”
She mimicked his cross-armed pose. “Who would approach one of the richest, most well-titled bachelors in the land when he won’t even acknowledge their presence? I vow, you’re stuffier than any prince I’ve met — and with the diplomats streaming through London, I’ve met dozens.”
“I’m not stuffy,” he protested.
“It is quite all right, Lord Folkestone,” she said. “I like stuffy men. Take Norbury, as an example.”
His mouth turned dangerous. “What about Norbury do you wish to discuss?”
She was warming to the task of teasing him, and it felt good — the way it had always felt, back when he had been a sober young man on the verge of losing his mother and she had been so thrilled just to have someone to talk to. It felt like she could charm anything out of him, and that he could be dazzled by her…
Her repartee came to a sudden halt. “Never mind,” she said. “I shouldn’t have teased you. Forgive me?”
He stepped toward her, to the very edge of the bank, until they were only inches apart. “You seem to think that I’m standing over here by myself because I am afraid of playing with the ton. You seem to think me pitiable. But I don’t give a damn about any of them.”
His eyes dropped to her lips, and she thought he might kiss her. But he looked up again, and his eyes were fierce with the beast he kept leashed within. “I’m watching you because I enjoy watching you skate. Not because I don’t know the others.”
Then he grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips. “Enjoy the ice, Lady Folkestone,” he murmured.
Ellie was dismissed. There was no use standing there any longer. If people hadn’t noticed him staring at her, they certainly would notice how close they stood together, how long they talked when Nick never seemed eager to talk to anyone.
So she skated away, letting her muscles take over and supply the necessary grace that her nerves currently lacked. Her skating was smooth, but her heartbeat wasn’t.
She had only been away for a minute — barely time to take a lap around the ice, let alone catch her breath — when Norbury caught up to her. “Do you have a moment, Lady Folkestone?” he asked.
She didn’t want to talk, but Norbury had been her friend for half a decade — she couldn’t snub him. “I always have a moment for you, Lord Norbury,” she said, extending her hand. “Would you care to take a turn around the ice with me?”
She slowed her pace to match his. He was an athletic man, but he had grown up with a large family — it was unlikely he had spent as much time as she had skating fast, lonely circles as a youth. Being head of such a large family usually made him direct and impatient with rambling, but the Norbury on the ice was not the Norbury she had entertained so many times in the past. He asked about her health, the weather, the entertainments for the evening, and half a dozen other meaningless questions, until she was nearly mad with annoyance.
“Are you feeling well, my lord?” she asked obliquely, when he made an observation about the weather for a second time. “I rarely see you this preoccupied.”
He sucked in a breath, then let it out in a gust before looking over to her. “This is lamentably forward of me — but is Folkestone a good man?”
She slowed her skating, so much that he was ten feet ahead