‘I …’ Henrietta looked up into his face and suddenly felt a dizziness that owed nothing to their revolutions to the music. ‘I do not know. I …’ She was a little breathless. She had looked into that face a thousand times, and yet this was the first time. She was looking at him not as ‘Charles’, big brother substitute, dear friend. What she saw was a man with grey-blue eyes that drew one in, whose corners crinkled when he laughed, a man with a firm chin and a small white scar upon the jaw, which she remembered he got many years ago when he fell from a tree when trying to rescue her entangled kite. At which point the ‘brother’ blended in once more, and the stirring of emotion seemed all wrong. Her lips were parted, her bosom heaving.

‘I just wish that I could please you.’ Actually, he wished at that moment he could kiss her. ‘I will try to be as the others are, if that is what you want. I am not some Bond Street beau, you know that, but beneath my clumsiness you know also that I only ever want your happiness.’

She just stared at him. They twirled about, and afterwards neither could explain how they did not cannon into other couples. When the music ceased, both looked as if they had suffered some sort of shock. Lord Henfield drew Henrietta’s arm through his own, and led her back to where Lady Elstead was waiting, and watching. What she had seen had distracted her from Caroline, which was perhaps as well.

Lord Martley completely forgot about whether or not Lady Elstead was watching, once he had Miss Felbridge in his hold. She looked up at him with just the degree of bashfulness and adoring hero worship that would be guaranteed to set a fellow’s heart racing, and so Lord Martley’s heart raced. For several revolutions he could say nothing, and then he successfully uttered the thought at the top of his mind.

‘You wore it.’

‘Oh, thank goodness,’ exclaimed Caroline, which was not quite what he was expecting. ‘I feared, since there was no note, that I might in error wear it and give some gentleman whom I do not like the impression that …’

‘You … like me, Miss Felbridge?’ Martley managed, and Caroline made an indeterminate gurgling noise, which was not intrinsically attractive, but in this instance conveyed a satisfying affirmative. ‘I am so glad … that you wore the flowers.’

The pause was just long enough to let her know that was not all about which he was glad.

‘They are perfect,’ she breathed, and blushed.

‘No, it is you who are …’ He caught his breath. ‘I ought not to be so bold, Miss Felbridge, but right now, and right here, I feel the boldest man in England.’