. . Jacob. He would have said. They spent an entire night together and he would have said if he was a blasted duke! That would be the kind of thing one mentioned.
Jacob’s dark eyes watched her with familiar intensity, and she knew he was gauging her reaction and properly reading her astonishment.
Prim was aware of a few things happening around her: a general murmur that carried throughout the room in an undulating current, her sister and mother performing hasty curtsies. Prim found she could not do the same. She could not offer the expected courtesy. She had turned into a hunk of marble, lost in Jacob’s familiar stare.
Familiar and yet oddly strange here, in the surplus of candlelight glowing throughout the ballroom.
His gaze was trained on her. He did not even glance at her mother or sister. Only Prim.
He looked only at her.
Redding was still speaking. Mama uttered something perfectly inane.
Primrose heard her name and turned slowly to see her mother sending her killing glares.
“I said, would you go fetch my shawl, Primrose dear? I am quite cold.” She asked the question between her teeth. The evening was as warm as any summer evening. She clearly wanted Prim gone from the sphere of a duke.
Prim nodded, but did not move or speak. It was all too impossible, too astonishing.
Mama was gesturing to Aster. “My daughter, Aster, is a beautiful dancer, Your Grace. Why, Mrs. Beckworth herself said she had not seen so graceful a girl at Almacks in many a season.”
Not that they were of a class to frequent Almacks, but Mama liked to make it sound as though they did. The Ainsworths had never received an invitation to any assembly there, but Mrs. Beckworth had. Mama had made that particularly grand lady’s acquaintance once, and once was all it took for Mama to invent all manner of exchanges between Mrs. Beckworth and herself. All fabrication, of course, because no one would ever claim Aster to be a beautiful dancer.
“Is that so?” Jacob murmured, still scrutinizing Primrose.
Mama followed his gaze to Prim with a perplexed frown.
“Ah, Prim?” Mama said tightly. “My shawl?”
Mama could be no more direct. She wanted Prim gone from them.
Just then the orchestra struck up a waltz.
“Ah! Lovely. The first waltz of the night,” Mama proclaimed, giving Aster a hard elbow, nudging her forward.
Jacob took one stride forward.
Mama’s face lit up and then fell to confusion as he bowed before Primrose and took her gloved hand in his.
“Miss Ainsworth. Might I have this dance?”
Do not let the selfish and greedy pursuit of happiness prevent you from living your most modest and correct life.
—Lady Druthers’s Guide to Perfect Deportment and Etiquette
Happiness matters.
Chapter Sixteen
Jacob’s eyes glinted at Primrose over her hand, and she knew he was immensely enjoying himself in this moment. Lifting it up, still clasping her fingertips, he turned to look at her gaping mother. “With your permission, of course, Mrs. Ainsworth.”
“I—I—” Her mother’s mouth sagged open, revealing its inside. It was most unappealing.
She sputtered for a few more moments until finally Aster piped up beside her. “Of course. Mama would be happy for you both to take a turn about the floor.” Aster’s gaze swung back and forth between Mama and Primrose.
Mama was still unable to speak. A miracle in and of itself. Prim would have to mark this date for posterity.
Jacob’s gaze fastened on Prim’s face. “Miss Primrose?”
“Yes. Yes, I should like that, Your Grace.”
Without waiting for her mother to collect herself and manage a response, Jacob led Prim out onto the dance floor.
As soon as they were standing in the center of the marbled parquet, they settled into the proper position—one of her hands clasped in his, the other on his very solid shoulder.
The duke’s broad hand settled on the small of her back, bringing her in close, and she was assailed with the scent of him and the memory of them together. She closed her eyes briefly. Don’t swoon.
They began waltzing, joining the other couples whirling around them.
“What are you doing here?”
“Delivering on that waltz I promised you.”
He remembered that?
“This is madness,” she whispered, feeling the multitude of stares on them. It was a wholly new sensation to find herself the subject of so much attention.
People were staring, and Mama was dead somewhere in the ferns edging the ballroom.
She would have enjoyed that if this was not all so mortifying.
“A promise is a promise.”
She started to shake her head and then stopped herself. She was dancing with a duke. This was not