Harrison smiled at her, truly and freely. “I think I could bear to. We ought to open the evening with a dance, I think, for our guests, as we do celebrate our wedding. But then later, perhaps, a cotillion?”

Adelaide’s surprised widening of her already perfect smile softened his resident resentment for the time being. “I would enjoy that.” She exhaled slowly, seeming to recollect their surroundings and the impending arrival of further guests. “Is there anything I should know about any of our neighbors or associates before I meet them?”

“I don’t think so,” Harrison said with a thoughtful shake of his head, hiding a smile. “I would not wish to prejudice you in any way or prevent you from making your own judgments.”

“You would throw me to the wolves, then?”

He looked down at her in surprise. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean. I’ll be standing beside you the entire time you greet them, and by the time you have made your opinions, I rather think you will be the one playing the wolf.”

Her smile was sly, smug, and a touch proud. “I had no idea you knew me so well already, Basset.”

“Oh, I am very familiar with your tactics and ways, my lady,” he assured her, finding himself smiling in response. “And I am greatly looking forward to not being the recipient of them for a moment or two.”

“I’ll get back to you eventually. It will not likely be much of a respite.” She lifted a brow, daring him to push further.

He nodded, enjoying the easy banter about their frequent sparring almost as much as he enjoyed the sparring itself. “By which time, I will have vacated my position here and gone to entertain Mr. Trembath there. He needs a wife, too, you know. And being a married man myself, I must advise him well.”

Adelaide glanced over at Gage with interest, perfect lips curving further. “Does he, indeed? Well, once I know him better, I’ll be sure to offer my advice as well. There is nothing like a married woman to make a match.”

He would pay a great deal of money to see the sort of woman Adelaide would choose for Gage, and he was not feeling particularly keen on saving his friend from his wife’s machinations on that score. It would be far too enjoyable to watch the man squirm to think of intervening.

“Dance the second dance with your sister,” Adelaide told Harrison quickly as Mervyn nodded at them, indicating the arrival of guests. “We only had time to practice the one, and she will want to have it done with. I’ve already arranged it with the musicians and will call it myself.”

Harrison gave her a sidelong look, offering his arm as they moved to the entrance of the ballroom. “That is very good of you to think of her.”