“Leave her be,” Clio repeated.
“It’s for her own good, Clio. She has to break the habit.”
“For heaven’s sake, why? Let her keep her string, and her peculiarities, too. Let her keep herself.” She tilted her head toward the crowded, glittering ballroom. “We were brought up to care too much about what others think of us. It changed me. It changed you, too, Daphne. And I’m sad to say, neither of us changed for the better. I refuse to let Phoebe meet the same fate. She’s remarkable.”
“ ‘Remarkable’ is just the word. Everyone will be remarking.”
She turned to Phoebe, tucking the string in her sister’s hand. “I’m going to make a promise. To you, and to myself. I’m your sister and now your guardian, and I love you. I will never make you feel you must be someone else, just to please society.”
“Don’t be naïve, Clio,” Daphne said. “You can’t brush aside society. You’re going to be the wife of a diplomat, and a marchioness.”
“No, I won’t be. I’m not marrying Piers.”
“Oh, dumpling,” Teddy said, giving her a nudge in the side. “Don’t give up now. I hope you’re not listening to what they’re saying in the card room.”
“Why? What are they saying in the card room?”
Her brother-in-law looked sheepish. “They’re wagering, of course. On whether the wedding will take place. Lord Pennington’s giving odds of four to one against it.”
Ah. That was probably the true reason they’d been invited here tonight. To provide a bit of idle speculation and amusement. A joke.
In that moment, Clio realized something wonderful.
She just didn’t care.
Perhaps they’d worn her down. Or perhaps five-and-twenty was a magical age where a woman came into her own. For whatever reason, she truly, genuinely did not care one whit.
And then, as though announcing a prize she’d been awarded, the majordomo cleared his throat. “Lord Rafe Brandon.”
No one was worried about string now. Not even Phoebe.
Clio knew the man could make a dark, dramatic entrance on horseback. But turn him out in a fitted tailcoat, snowy cravat, and polished boots . . . ?
Good heavens above.
The strong cut of his jaw was pure Brandon, as was the easy air of command. But he brought with him that essential Rafeness, too. The aura of rebellion and danger that made the air prickle and set her heart racing.
Everything about his looks declared he was born for just this setting.
Everything about his expression told Clio he hated it.
But he was here anyway.
For her.
He crossed to their corner and bowed to each of them in turn, saving Clio for last. “Miss Whitmore.”
She dropped a small curtsy. “Lord Rafe.”
“You came,” Phoebe said.
“Yes.” He gave his cuff an uneasy tug and cast a glance around the crowded ballroom. “Sorry to arrive so late. Miss Whitmore, I suppose all your dances are spoken for.”
Clio couldn’t help but laugh. “No. All my dances are free.”
“How the devil is that possible?”
“I’ve been sitting out with Phoebe.”
The orchestra struck up the first strains of a waltz. Rafe took her by the hand. “Well, you’re not sitting out a moment longer.”
Wearing a look on his face that blended defiance and unease, he led her to the dance floor and spun her into a waltz.
He was a most capable dancer. It made sense that he would be. Moving with coordination and grace was a part of his trade.
“I confess, I’d lost hope. I didn’t think you were coming.”
“I wondered, too.”
When she could bear to look up at him—and how strange that was, that gazing up at him was what she most wanted to do, and yet it cost her every scrap of courage she could muster—she noticed a faint purple shadow on his left cheekbone. And his full, sensual lips were even fuller than usual on one side.
“You’ve been hurt. What happened?”
He shrugged. “Hit a bump in the road. So to speak.”
“It rather looks as though the bump hit back.”
His swollen mouth tugged to one side. “It was nothing I wouldn’t have done ten times again to get here tonight. But I can’t stay long. I just came to give you the dance I owed. And to say farewell.”
“Farewell?”
He swept her into a turn. “I’m returning to London tonight. I assume I can leave Bruiser and Ellingworth at the castle with you.”
“Of course, but . . . Why? Piers will be home within a week or two. You’ll want to see him, and I . . .” Her chest deflated. “I just don’t understand why you have to go so soon.”
He drew her close and lowered his voice. “Come along. You’re a clever girl, and it doesn’t become you to pretend otherwise. You know why I have to leave.”
“I don’t know at all. We can agree to keep our distance.”
“There’s agreeing in principle, and then there’s nightfall. There’s being alone when it’s dark and quiet, and knowing you’re somewhere beneath the same roof. We can’t rely on your insomniac relations to keep saving you. If I spent one more night in that castle . . .”
His gaze swept down her body. She ached everywhere.
“I’d come to you.”
I’d come to you.
Those words. They made her heart flip and her knees go weak.