had secured her an appointment with Madame Rousseau to have new dresses made.
“You have no reason to be nervous, Fancy,” Jonas drawled.
He had Cecily on one arm, Aunt Esther on the other, and looked quite dashing in his formal evening wear. Fancy had convinced him to trim his hair, and he’d blushed when she told him the ladies would find him even more handsome now that they could see his eyes.
“If you can defend Knighton against an angry weaver,” he added, “then surely you can take on the beau monde.”
Fancy darted a glance at Knight and was relieved to see amusement in his eyes. She’d been worried that she’d overstepped yesterday during the encounter with Mr. Bodin. When she’d fretted about it last night, Knight had reassured her that he valued her help. Then he’d expressed his appreciation in another way. A way that made her toes curl in her slippers just thinking about it now.
As if he had gleaned her thoughts, Knight’s gaze heated.
“What a lucky fellow I am,” he said softly. “To have a duchess who is not only beautiful but an invaluable helpmate as well. Now, relax, my sweet.” He brought her gloved hand to his lips. “Tonight, we Knightons will take the ton by storm.”
Smiling tremulously, she nodded.
“Not the kind that leaves a trail of destruction in its wake, one hopes,” Aunt Esther said.
The lady’s flawless delivery of the witticism dispelled Fancy’s tension.
She was giggling, and Knight’s eyes were gleaming with laughter when the butler announced, “The Duke and Duchess of Knighton!”
As Severin watched his wife whirl around the dance floor with their host, the Duke of Ranelagh and Somerville, pride inflated his chest.
Fancy’s debut in Society was a success. He didn’t know how he could have doubted her. Through her hard work and ingenuity, she had transformed herself from a tinker’s daughter into the belle of the ball.
She looked breathtaking in a gown of claret velvet that matched her lips and the ruby ring he’d given her. The rich shade suited her coloring, and Madame Rousseau had earned every penny of her hefty bill with the design of the gown. The off-the-shoulder bodice showcased Fancy’s smooth shoulders, accentuating the fullness of her bosom and slenderness of her waist. The sleeves and hem of the domed skirts had been artfully adorned with vibrant silk flowers.
With a touch of whimsy, Severin thought that his wife could be a storybook faerie queen cavorting with mortals for the eve. As she laughed at something her partner said, he felt a tug of jealousy. Not because he questioned Fancy’s fidelity or that of the Duke of Ranelagh and Somerville, whose devotion to his own beautiful duchess was the stuff of legend. No, Severin was jealous simply because he wanted his wife—all of her, even her laughter—to himself.
The realization caused a rattling of a dark cage inside him. He flashed to the teetering bag of bricks, the smashed rubble, how fragile and stricken Fancy had looked. He saw his own mama, blade in hand, her eyes unrecognizable. And he felt the icy burn of the scar, a reminder that everything that mattered could be taken away in an instant.
“Knighton, I did not expect to see you here,” came the familiar, bell-like tones.
Seeing Imogen gliding toward him, he exhaled, slamming the lid on chaos.
“Good evening, Lady Cardiff.” He bowed politely over her hand.
Imogen carried herself with the confidence of a woman who knows that she will stand out in any room she enters. She was as perfect as an oil painting. Her rose-gold hair was artfully twisted upon her head, her lissome figure draped in ice-blue silk. The collar of sapphires circling her slender neck was no match for her eyes.
She smiled at him. “Your siblings are doing well this eve.”
“They are, aren’t they?” He looked out into the ballroom. “The credit goes to my wife.”
Cecily, he saw, was taking a turn around the dance floor with a respectable lord, Aunt Esther watching the pair with eagle eyes. Jonas was fetching lemonade for a debutante. And Fancy…he frowned. She had been asked to dance again, this time by a handsome buck he did not know.
“Your duchess is making quite the splash. That is Lord Egerton dancing with her,” Imogen said. “He is newly returned from Italy, where he is studying to be a sculptor, I believe.”
Sculptor, is he? Severin narrowed his eyes as Egerton pulled Fancy closer than necessary during a spin. If the bastard wants to keep his hands, then he