“Oh. Yes, of c-course,” George stammered. He grabbed the hand of a voluptuous redhead with a lopsided coif and a muslin dress stretched taut across her full breasts and thrust her inelegantly in Blackwell’s direction, where she dropped into a neat curtsy. “My Lord, may I introduce Miss Mirabelle Fitzhenry.”
Blackwell narrowed his eyes in suspicion, barely glancing at the girl. “I was given to believe your daughter had yellow hair.”
George shot a nervous glance at his wife, who glared back at him. “Um, yes,” he said. “My, uh, daughter is indeed blond. Miss Mirabelle Fitzhenry,” he added, gesturing to the redhead at his side, “is my niece.”
Blackwell closed his eyes. “Your niece.”
Nicholas chuckled darkly at his father’s annoyance. “It would appear the world is graced with two Miss Mirabelle Fitzhenrys,” he murmured for his father’s ears alone.
Blackwell sighed. While he was clearly disappointed with the particular Mirabelle Fitzhenry with which he was presented, the entire ballroom watched the exchange with eager eyes. With his scandalous son at his side, he would not make a scene.
Not now.
Nicholas allowed himself a moment to study his would-be bride. Her solemn blue eyes were fixed on his face, but he could not read her expression. She was not conventionally pretty, her nose a bit too short, her brows a bit too straight, her hair an unfashionably brazen color. Still her features held a certain appeal: skin as pale and luscious as Devon cream, a mouth as succulent and voluptuous as her curvy body, and hair the vibrant red of Chinese silk. A far cry from a picture-perfect blonde, but infinitely more intriguing.
Shaking off her lingering befuddlement, Miss Fitzhenry dropped into another curtsy. In a thready voice she choked out a greeting. “Lord Ashfield. I am delighted—”
“Nicholas.”
She looked up in surprise. He coughed slightly and continued, “Please, Miss Fitzhenry. I reside primarily in the country, where people do not stand so much on formality. I much prefer my Christian name.”
She straightened and offered him a shy smile. “Nicholas. And my friends and family call me Mira. It avoids a great deal of confusion,” she added, her smile turning wry.
He frowned. Young girls had been known to faint at the sight of him. They did not smile at him. Ever.
Before he could weigh the true gravity of that small smile, the Fitzhenrys tumbled forward to greet him, clearly eager to bask for a moment in his infamous light, and he lost Mira to his father’s company.
Their small party was the subject of curious stares and whispered speculation, yet they all carried on as though the situation were perfectly normal, perfectly natural. Blackwell engaged Mira in a lively conversation about Lord Byron’s recently published invective, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers—a conversation in which Mira appeared to be holding her own against Blackwell’s overbearing opinions about the upstart Byron. Meanwhile, George and Kitty assaulted the reticent Nicholas with questions about hunting hounds and haberdashers.
The banality of the conversation pained Nicholas, yet every time he glanced toward Mira, he caught her smiling at him…and that smile was driving him mad.
Kitty was in the midst of asking him about his tailor when he abruptly broke away from her with a muttered apology and took Mira by the arm.
…
Nicholas’s grip was firm, yet surprisingly gentle for a man of his size. Without a word, he led her toward the dance floor.
This, she thought, would be her chance to employ the desperate plan she’d concocted on the carriage ride to the ball: allow Nicholas to end the engagement at the expense of Mira’s honor. He would be spared from marrying a woman not to his liking, and she would be spared the possibility of being wed to a murderer. Her reputation seemed a small price to pay for the bargain. The icing atop the cake? She would win her wager with Bella.
She was working up her courage to broach the subject with Nicholas when she noticed that the musicians had begun to play a waltz. The ballroom was alive with excitement over the still-scandalous dance, and she panicked.
“Oh, my lord…Nicholas, I really do not dance well at all, and I have never waltzed before. Not ever.” She balked, trying to slow him on his course to the dance floor, but Nicholas was much larger and more determined than she was, and the crowd of guests parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses.