Wallflower (Old Maids' Club, Book 1) (12 page)

“
I don’t think the
remaining sets will be a problem,” Leith said. “Lady Tabitha has
never been one to dance any more than absolutely necessary. She
rarely dances at all, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Noah nodded. That was true. She seemed
to prefer life on the periphery of the ballroom floor by far in
comparison to life in the midst of it. She’d been that way for as
long as he’d known her. Indeed, seeing her dance with any gentleman
was an occasion to be remembered, she did it so rarely. “We still
ought to stay close, though.”

“
I doubt either of us
would stray far at this juncture.” Leith’s lips thinned with
resolve. He pointed inconspicuously across the congested room, so
that only Noah could see his actions. “There she is. I’m going
over.”

Noah’s gaze followed the direction of
Leith’s path. There, a vision in a demure chestnut silk gown that
pulled across her gloriously full breasts and tugged against her
curvaceous hips in all the right ways, stood Lady Tabitha with Miss
Faulkner and Elaine. They flanked her, one standing sentinel to her
right, the other to her left, as though they were guarding her from
some unseen threat.

Little did they know,
there truly
was
a
threat present tonight.

Oglethorpe
. Drat, he’d almost
forgotten he was supposed to waylay the blackguard while Leith put
their plan in motion. He’d focused too long on Lady Tabitha’s
altogether-too-shapely figure, and all other thought had fled his
brain like cockroaches fleeing from torchlight. Noah forced his
eyes to leave the bodice of her gown (which left just a bit too
much to his imagination) in order to comb the ballroom for the
villain.

By Jove, he’d nearly waited too long.
Oglethorpe had apparently spotted Lady Tabitha, too, and was
picking his way through the mob of dancers making their way to the
ballroom floor. One thing on Noah’s side—Leith looked to have a
decent head start.

Still, there was no time to waste. He
started across the middle of the floor, on a path to intercept the
rogue before he could reach Lady Tabitha. Oglethorpe was focused
solely on his target; he didn’t even see Noah coming in the last
moment before they collided. Noah picked up speed just before
impact, hoping to knock the cur on his backside.

He almost succeeded.

“
Watch out, man!”
Oglethorpe said as he tried to right himself, pulling on the lapels
of his coat and disentangling himself from the legs of the table
he’d fallen into. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“
Terribly sorry. I must
not have been looking where I was going.”

Oglethorpe straightened and shot a
heated glare at Noah. “I’d recommend, my lord, that you stop being
a bloody blundering fool. It would not do for you to careen into a
lady as you’ve just done into me.” The man’s voice held an
understated threat.

“
And I’d recommend you
remember you’re in the company of ladies and ought to watch your
choice of language,” Noah returned.

“
Care to help me remember
outside?” The rascal practically cracked his knuckles with glee
over the prospect.

While he was not as big as
some men of the
ton
, Noah still stood a few inches over Oglethorpe. Size-wise,
he was on the better end of things, for certain. He could probably
come out of the bargain no worse for wear.

By Jove, was he seriously considering
this? He’d never been a fighting man—one might consider him a bit
of a pacifist. He hardly ever cursed, even. But yes, he was
thinking about taking Oglethorpe outside and teaching him a thing
or two about how to treat a lady.

Like a wholly besotted
fool.

Noah didn’t just want to defend Lady
Tabitha’s honor because she was the sister of his brother-in-law
and it was the right thing to do. No, there was something deeper
than that. He’d just been too caught up in his own problems to
recognize it for what it was.

He was smitten.

But he had to deal with a libertine
ready to take him outside and land blows before he could see to
convincing Lady Tabitha to fall head over ears in love with
him.

“
I hardly think that’s
necessary, Oglethorpe,” Noah said as serenely as he could manage.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Leith had collected Lady
Tabitha and moved her to the dance floor. Good. “I might be forced
to bloody your shirt, and the ladies would be
scandalized.”

“
Watch yourself,
Devonport,” Oglethorpe said. “The next time we collide, I doubt I
shall be so forgiving.”

“
Noted,” Noah said. “You
might register the same. Good evening to you.” Without further
delay, he separated himself from the loathsome man and made his way
across to his sister and Miss Faulkner.

He had other matters to attend to
tonight.

~ * ~

Tabitha couldn’t remember the last
time Lord Leith had asked her to dance. He asked Jo all the time.
That would be nothing out of the ordinary. But whether it was due
to him recognizing her reticence or simply because he never thought
of it, they had not danced in a good many years, despite being at
the same balls most nights of almost every Season. It had never
bothered Tabitha any, either. Lord Leith was quite handsome and
would be quite a catch for some pretty young debutante. But he
would never look twice at a dowdy spinster like Tabitha.

Yet somehow she was dancing with him
tonight, despite the tenderness still plaguing her ankle. Gracious,
why had she leapt from the carriage? That had certainly not been
her most brilliant moment in life. A point which Jo had been only
too happy to make once Tabitha had finally allowed her entrance to
the retiring room.

She turned one of the figures of the
dance and her ankle slipped beneath her. She didn’t fall, but could
not stop a grimace from making an appearance on her features, even
if only for a brief moment.

Lord Leith’s eyes narrowed with
concern. “You’re in pain.” A statement, not a question. Nothing
slipped past the earl. Blast, why did he have to know her so well?
“Should we go out to the garden? Earlier I spied a bench out there.
We could sit and talk.”

“
No, I’m fine.”

“
You’re
fibbing.”

“
Fine. I’m not
fine
, but I don’t need
to sit.” In truth, she saw more potential harm than good in making
an escape to the garden. Father would be furious, as he’d already
made it clear that he would be watching her every move. And now
that she’d been out in the open, dancing with Lord Leith, Tabitha
had no doubt that Lord Oglethorpe, the slimy lout, had noticed her.
She fully expected he would follow them and try to get her alone.
That was the last thing she wanted to happen.

The dance set them apart from each
other for several bars, but Lord Leith continued to watch her with
an expression of unease.

Tabitha wanted to scream. It seemed
she couldn’t even breathe without one of the men in her life
thinking something was wrong, or that they needed to assist her in
some way. She was sick to death of their interfering, overbearing
ways.

She looked over to Jo. What a queer
sensation, for Tabitha to be on the dance floor and Jo to be on the
sidelines. Such a rarity. Jo wasn’t alone, though. Lord Devonport
stood beside her, and it looked like they were deep in
conversation.

But Lord Devonport wasn’t the only one
with Jo. Lady Cressica Frost sidled up alongside them and worked
herself into their tête-à-tête. After a moment or two, she
smiled—an aloof smile, one without any sense of herself within it.
Lord Devonport said something more and elicited a tittering, ersatz
laugh from the debutante. Then he smiled, and his eyes were full of
warmth and earnestness, and all the things that made him...well,
him.

They were a mismatch if ever she’d
seen one.

With a twirl and a shuffle, Tabitha
and Lord Leith were side-by-side again.

“
I notice you’re watching
Lord Devonport.”

The heat of a blush crept up the back
of Tabitha’s neck. How could he possibly notice everything she did?
It was as though he was living inside her mind. Terribly
frustrating, particularly since he wasn’t actually a relation. “No,
I—”

Lord Leith laughed, rich and full.
“Don’t tell another bouncer. Not in such a brief span of
time.”

She didn’t like to sulk. It seemed
such an act of puerility. But in her present state of vexation, she
couldn’t stop a mammoth pout from taking over her features. “I
despise that you know me so well. And I’ll have you know, I was
only looking to see what Jo was up to.”

“
Which took you all of
three seconds or so,” Lord Leith chided. “And ever since that
point, you’ve been watching Devonport and the debutante beside him.
But I’ll take pity on you and leave it at that.” His black eyes
continued to laugh down at her, even if he did not give voice to
his mirth.

He had to leave it be at least for a
bit, because the figures of the quadrille had separated them again.
As much as she didn’t want to (because Lord Leith was undoubtedly
watching her), Tabitha turned her gaze yet again to where Jo, Lord
Devonport, and Lady Cressica had been talking. The debutante had
left, but so had Lord Devonport.

She tried to focus on the dance and
Lord Leith, but her mind refused to cooperate. It continued to
wander to Lord Devonport and Lady Cressica. Miss Jennings, at
least, was a young lady Tabitha could understand a gentleman being
interested in. She could carry on a conversation and seemed
genuinely interested in the people around her.

But Lady Cressica? If she
was the type of lady who would interest Lord Devonport, then
Tabitha ought to altogether thrust any wild fantasies she might
have of his flirting with
her
aside. He had moved on to someone younger,
someone more prosaic, someone rather more suitable for a gentleman
of his stature in every way imaginable.

She hoped he would be happy with his
choice.

As the orchestra signaled the
impending end of the set, Tabitha and Lord Leith once again drew
together. He winked at her, but she didn’t have enough vigor left
to reprimand him for his over-familiarity. That could wait for
another day.

“
Shall I return you to
Miss Faulkner?” he asked, placing her hand in the crook of his arm
and guiding her to the side of the room. He was moving in that
direction no matter her wishes on the matter. How presumptive of
him.

It was a good thing for him that was
precisely where she wanted to be. “Yes, thank you. And thank you
for the dance, my lord.”

“
I should be the one
thanking you,” he replied.

Before they reached Jo, however, Lord
Oglethorpe had come upon them. “Lady Tabitha,” he rushed out, “I
had hoped I could request your hand for the next set.” Lord Leith’s
arm tensed beneath her hand. “If, of course, you have not already
promised it to another.”

Damn and
blast
. She didn’t want to dance with
Oglethorpe. She didn’t particularly care to dance again at all, and
she wanted nothing to do anything with Oglethorpe or any of his
breed. She wanted, more than anything else at the moment, to sit
down and rest her ankle. “I—”

“
Lady Tabitha has already
promised the next set to me,” Lord Devonport interrupted from
behind her and off to the opposite side of Lord Leith. Goodness,
where had he come from? And why would he tell such an untruth about
the next set?

“
I’ve done no such thing.”
She was unable to stop herself from knitting her brow and frowning
as he drew himself up beside her.

Lord Devonport turned to her with an
almost haughty expression, one that seemed to command her not to
disagree. “But you would have if Lord Leith hadn’t rushed you off
to begin your set. You just didn’t have time to grant your
consent.”

Unbelievable
. “My lord, I am afraid
you are mistaken. Perhaps you’ve confused me with Lady Cressica,
though I’m uncertain how such a misperception could
occur.”

“
Then the next set is
open?” Lord Oglethorpe pressed on. “Might I have the honor of your
hand?”

“
You may not,” Lord
Devonport said.

“
He may,” Tabitha shot
back. Then she turned to Lord Oglethorpe with a firm nod. “You
may.” Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. What had she done?

Oglethorpe smiled back at her. Or was
it a leer?

Upon further inspection, it was most
decidedly a leer. A lecherous, exultant, possessive
leer.

Jo came up beside Lord Leith and
looked on inquisitively but didn’t interrupt.

Lord Leith’s hand appeared at
Tabitha’s back, though she was unaware how her hand had left his
arm. He seemed almost to draw her closer to him, albeit in a very
protective manner. Not anything untoward. But still, it was
inappropriate. He oughtn’t to behave in such a manner.

“
Lady Tabitha,” Lord
Devonport said brusquely, “I beg you to reconsider.” He, too, took
a step closer to her, until he and Lord Leith had her virtually
blocked between them.