Elizabeth and Grace turned to her, both of them smiling serenely with expectation. They had played out this scene before, all of them. And they all knew how it was meant to unfold.

Especially Amelia.

“No,” she said, before she could think the better of it.

He blinked. “No?”

“No, thank you, I should say.” And she smiled prettily, because she did like to be polite.

He looked stunned. “You don’t wish to dance?”

“Not tonight, I don’t think, no.” Amelia stole a glance at her sister and Grace. They looked aghast.

Amelia felt wonderful.

She felt like herself, which was something she was never allowed to feel in his presence. Or in the anticipation of his presence. Or the aftermath.

It was always about him. Wyndham this and Wyndham that, and oh how lucky she was to have snagged the most handsome duke in the land without even having to lift a finger.

The one time she allowed her rather dry humor to rise to the fore, and said, “Well, of course I had to lift my little baby rattle,” she’d been rewarded with two blank stares and one mutter of “ungrateful chit.”

That had been Jacinda Lennox’s mother, three weeks before Jacinda had received her shower of marriage proposals.

So Amelia generally kept her mouth shut and did what was expected of her. But now…

Well, this wasn’t London, and her mother wasn’t watching, and she was just so sick of the way he kept her on a leash. Really, she could have found someone else by now. She could have had fun. She could have kissed a man.

Oh, very well, not that. She wasn’t an idiot, and she did value her reputation. But she might have imagined it, which she’d certainly never bothered to do before.

And then, because she had no idea when she might feel so reckless again, she smiled up at her future husband and said, “But you should dance, if you wish it. I’m sure there are many ladies who would be happy to partner you.”

“But I wish to dance with you,” he ground out.

“Perhaps another time,” Amelia said. She gave him her sunniest smile. “Ta!”

And she walked away.

She walked away.

She wanted to skip. In fact, she did. But only once she’d turned the corner.

Thomas Cavendish liked to think himself a reasonable man, especially since his lofty position as the seventh Duke of Wyndham would have allowed him any number of unreasonable demands. He could have gone stark raving mad, dressed all in pink, and declared the world a triangle, and the ton would still have bowed and scraped and hung on his every word.