Betraying Season (22 page)

“Thank you,” she murmured, settling her gown in graceful folds around her. She’d worn a jaunty striped silk evening frock that had seemed perfect back in Madame Gendreau’s very exclusive shop in London but was just enough ahead of the fashion here to make her feel conspicuous. That wasn’t helping her mood, either.

Lady Keating made a slight disgusted noise. “He was drunk. It was positively shameful. You should have refused to dance with him after the second time he asked you.”

“I tried. He somehow didn’t hear me. I didn’t want to create a scene, so . . .” She shrugged and hunched her shoulders. Putting up
with it had been bad enough; now why did she have to explain herself to Lady Keating?

“There, child. I’m not scolding you.” The frown vanished as Lady Keating patted her hand, but it quickly reappeared. “Where the devil is Niall?” she murmured to herself, scanning the room.

Pen sighed again and began to fold her dance card into pleats. She’d been asking herself the same question. Nothing had gone the way she’d hoped it would this evening.

First, there had been Doireann. She had helped Pen dress earlier that evening before Lady Keating’s maid had come to do her hair. At first it had almost seemed like the old days, when she and Persy would get ready for balls together during their season. Sometimes Doireann was like this, friendly and girlish and funny in an acerbic way. But as she did up the long row of tiny hooks that fastened the back of Pen’s dress, she’d sighed. “Maybe I’m glad I’m not feeling well and won’t go to the Whelans’ party tonight.”

Pen held her breath while Doireann finished the last hooks, then exhaled. “Why?”

“So that I won’t have to watch my dear brother make an utter fool of himself over the girls. I don’t know what it is—the music, maybe? The dancing? It just seems that whenever we go to a ball, Niall is just, well, incorrigible.” She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Sometimes it’s downright embarrassing, the way he goes on. I hope you won’t find it too off-putting. Maybe he’ll try to behave himself tonight, in front of you. I should hope so.”

Pen had shrugged and assumed that it was Doireann being Doireann. But could she be right? Pen knew from personal experience that Niall was more than capable of flirting, and accompanying
the Keatings to so many social events lately, she’d seen how women looked at him, as if he were a dish of particularly luscious sweets they were aching to devour. Surely Niall must be aware of the effect he had on them as well?

The evening had gone downhill from there. They had arrived at the Whelans’, and Edward Enniskean had been practically lying in wait for her to claim the first dance. She’d danced with him politely enough. Delayed gratification was supposedly sweeter, after all, and she’d been looking forward to dancing with Niall for
ages.
Another fifteen minutes wouldn’t kill her.

But when she’d finished dancing with Mr. Enniskean, Niall had been nowhere to be found. She’d sat out the next dance trying to look nonchalant while searching the room for him, which should have been easy—after all, how many men were there tonight who were as tall and fair-haired as Niall? But she did not see him until her gaze fell by chance on a group of young women on the far side of the room, clustered around a man. It was Niall.

He was smiling and chatting, and appeared quite relaxed and at his ease. She’d turned away and pretended to be suddenly fascinated by one of the carved ivory sticks of her fan. Surely he’d escape in a moment and come to claim her for their promised dance. From the look in his eyes, he’d wanted it just as much as she had.

But barely two minutes later, she saw him once again . . . and he was leading a young lady Pen had never seen before out into the room as the musicians played the opening notes of a waltz. Then Edward Enniskean had reappeared beside her, and before she knew what had happened, she too was dancing.

For a while she fumed in silence. So had Niall’s fervent little “I want the first dance” been just another of the flirtation games he still
seemed to feel the need to play with her? Then she’d contemplated what she could do to relieve her feelings. Changing the color of his cravat very slowly from snowy white to bright purple was a possibility. After all, she and Persy had worked on color-changing spells last year when the London draper’s shop had sent the wrong shade of tussah silk for the curtains in Persy’s bedroom.

Then he waltzed by her again—with Charlotte Enniskean.

With some effort, she restrained herself from bypassing the color spell and just setting his shoes on fire. Satisfying as that might be, she knew she couldn’t actually harm him. Well, not physically, anyway. But Doireann’s soft voice seemed to be murmuring in her ears.
I’m glad I won’t have to watch it . . . sometimes it’s downright embarrassing
.

So she’d danced with Edward and several other young men, outwardly smiling and inwardly seething as she watched Niall dance with others from the little group of women . . . and with Charlotte again. And again.

Now sitting next to Lady Keating, she watched as he danced by with Charlotte once more. His cravat was a faint shade of lavender, but no one had seemed to notice yet. For a moment Pen wanted to laugh—neither she nor Niall seemed to be able to escape the Enniskeans tonight. Honestly, if she didn’t see another one again, male or female, it wouldn’t be too soon. Too bad Niall didn’t seem to feel the same way.

Next to her, Lady Keating muttered something under her breath and rose. “Will you excuse me a moment, my dear? I just saw someone I must speak to.”

“Of course.” Pen watched Lady Keating sweep away, looking determined. Drat. There went her insurance against Edward Enniskean taking it into his addled brain to come ask her to dance again.

“M-miss Leland?”

Pen looked up and tried to smile. “Why, Johnny.”

Sir John Whelan’s young nephew stood before her, looking terrified at his own daring in speaking to her. She’d danced with him once, earlier, after Sir John had brought him over and introduced him. He was Sir John’s heir as well as namesake, and this dance was partly in honor of his sixteenth birthday. He was as shy as Sir John was bluff and hearty. Remembering her own sister’s shyness, Pen had tried to be nice to him.

“W-would you do me the honor of giv—” His voice broke in a comical squeak. Pen kept her expression perfectly sober and waited as he cleared his throat and began again, but her heart sank. He was asking her to dance. This was the last dance before the supper break, and she would have to let him take her down to the dining room and spend the next three quarters of an hour with him. She wasn’t sure her kindness could hold out that long, not after the way the evening had turned out. On the other hand, he wasn’t an Enniskean. That counted for a lot just now.

“Would you—”

“I say, Whelan, there you are.” Niall had materialized behind Johnny. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Your aunt has been looking all over for you. I believe she’s in the supper room. Better run along and see what she wants.”

Pen stole a glance at him from under her lashes. His voice was cheerful, but his countenance was anything but. Well, what was he so cross about? He was the one who’d just spent practically the entire evening glued to Charlotte Enniskean and every other female in the room but her . . . or at least it felt that way.

Johnny cast her an agonized look but bobbed his head. “Yes, sir.
’Scuse me, Miss Leland.” He twisted from under Niall’s hand and scurried away.

Pen watched him go, pointedly not looking at Niall.

“Since your young swain had to run along, would you give me this dance instead, Miss Leland?” he asked after a moment of silence.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, but she didn’t. That would be childish, and she was not a child. But it certainly would have been gratifying.

“Thank you, Mr. Keating,” she replied, permitting herself to sound faintly bored and reluctant instead as she took his proffered hand. He practically yanked her out of her chair and out into the room.

That was it. She was going to step on his toes every chance she got.

But as the grace and movement of the dance wove its spell, Pen remembered that for days she’d been looking forward to her first waltz with Niall. They’d spent hours together in conversation, but dancing was different: It was conversation with the body, not with words. She’d wondered just what it would be like—the touch of his hand at her waist, leading her through the steps, the subtleties of posture and stance communicating what words could not . . . oh, why did it have to happen when they were both in such bad moods?

Well, she’d done nothing to merit his annoyance. Being civil and gracious would not only be morally correct but also a sneaky form of revenge.

“Miss Enniskean looked very well this evening,” she observed politely after a few moments of getting the rhythm of Niall’s dancing.

“I hadn’t noticed.” His voice was neutral, but clouds had begun to gather on his brow.

“I had thought you were dancing with her just now—”

“I was,
thank you
”—venom edged his words—“but she had a slight mishap with her, um, attire, and had to leave. Something to do with petticoats, I believe.”

“Oh.” Bother, why hadn’t she thought of that? She could have done a spell to dissolve all the ties and hooks on Charlotte’s underclothes and got rid of her
hours
ago.

They danced in silence. “Is Lady Whelan all right?” she inquired a few moments later.

“The devil if I know.”

“But you told Johnny—”

“Johnny?”
he mimicked. “Since when are you on a first-name basis with that puppy?”

“Since he told me he had just turned sixteen last week and this was his first dance and it frightened him to pieces to be called Mr. Whelan,” she shot back.

Niall snorted. “It’s time his nanny brought little Johnny back up to the nursery. Lady Whelan is quite well. I just said the first thing that popped into my head that seemed believable enough to get him away from you.”

Pen nearly lost her footing. “What?”

“Damn it, I’ve been watching him and Enniskean monopolize you all evening, and I—”

“Monopolize me? Pardon me, but you were free to claim a dance with me if you wished. But you seemed quite occupied with Charlotte Enniskean, or should I say preoccupied?”

“Do you think I wanted to be?” Niall glowered at her from under ferociously furrowed brows.

“It certainly looked that way.”

“Look. Charlotte fell upon me and claimed she’d brought half a dozen cousins and would I have mercy on them and give them each a dance. I wanted to ask why the hell wasn’t their cousin Edward doing his duty by them instead of me, but I couldn’t. So I signed all their damned dance cards, but half the time when I went to find any of them to dance with, they’d disappeared. Then Charlotte would get flustered and say it would be a shame for me to miss the dance so she’d fill in and scold her cousins later. There was nothing I could do about it without seeming monstrously rude.” He shook his head. “And it gave her brother a clear shot at you as well. I suppose I ought to be impressed at her grasp of tactics.”

“I somehow never suspected Miss Enniskean had quite the, er, mental capacity for such a stratagem.” Pen stared fixedly at his jaw above his spotless—and once again white—cravat. When had she told it to stop being purple?

“You’re saying that you don’t believe me.” Niall’s voice was flat.

She couldn’t help it. The little imp of jealousy that had been murmuring in her ear all evening prodded her, sounding exactly like Doireann. “Yes,” she said, equally flatly.

He was silent for several seconds as they danced, though she thought she saw his jaw tighten and felt his hand at her waist grip her more tightly than was seemly. Suddenly he reversed his steps—she just managed not to trip over her own feet as he did—and backed them into a corner behind a tall Chinese screen and a pair of slightly bedraggled potted palms. “Will you believe this, then?” he demanded.

Before she could even reply, he pulled her against him and kissed her.

Maybe she should have shrieked and jumped away. Or pulled
back deliberately and withered him with a cold, cutting, well-chosen word or two. But she was so surprised, in so many ways—by his audacity, first and foremost, but also by the amazing feeling of his mouth on hers, warm and intimate . . . and his arms tight around her . . . and his sheer closeness, pressed against her—that she didn’t—
couldn’t
—move.

Niall broke the kiss after a few seconds but did not release her. “There,” he whispered after dropping more kisses across her cheekbone. “Now do you know who it is I wanted to spend the night dancing with?”

His lips brushed against her ear, and all at once she was glad he held her in so close an embrace, because everything below her shoulders felt as if it had turned to jelly. “Niall” was all she could say.

In one part of her brain she knew she should put a stop to this now. They were in a room with twenty other dancing couples. If anyone were to peek around the screen, there would be an uproar. But only a part of her brain was saying so, and right now it didn’t seem to have much authority over the rest of her.

Niall trailed kisses down to the side of her neck. She breathed in suddenly and shivered. Dear God, was this why Persy and Lochinvar could hardly bear to leave each other’s sight? No wonder she’d constantly found them kissing when she’d stayed with them last fall, if this was what it felt like.

“Who is it that’s kept me from getting to sleep six nights out of seven, because I can’t stop thinking about her, and who ends up haunting my dreams after that? Who is the only woman I’ve ever been able to talk to and know she understands? It’s you, Pen. I’m
sick to death of the Charlotte Enniskeans of this world. You’re the only one I want.” His voice was soft but fierce in her ear.

“Niall,” she said again, and realized that at some point her arms had closed around him so that she was holding him as tightly as he held her. “Oh, Niall.”

“My dearest, sweetest, tell me that you feel the same way.”

He kissed her again, and all at once she wanted to laugh, not from embarrassment or shyness, but from happiness. She returned his kiss as well as she could—there seemed to be an element of practice and technique to it that she hadn’t suspected before—then broke away. “I—I do feel the same way. About you. I think I love you,” she said, a little breathlessly.