“I assure you I would,” he said in all seriousness. “But alas . . .” He motioned to his cane.

Frances gave a sympathetic nod. “Well, then, I’m very glad I was able to sit with you. It’s no fun sitting alone while everyone else is dancing.” She stood and turned to her sister. “Shall I get you some cake?”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”

“But you just said you wanted some.”

“She said she needed some,” Hugh said.

Sarah looked at him as if he’d sprouted tentacles.

“I remember things,” he said simply.

“I’ll get you cake,” Frances decided, and walked off.

Hugh entertained himself by counting to see how long it would take for Lady Sarah to cut through the silence and speak to him after her sister departed. When he reached forty-three seconds (give or take a few; he didn’t have a timepiece for a truly accurate measure) he realized that he was going to have to be the adult of the duo, and he said, “You like to dance.”

She started, and when she turned to him, he realized instantly from her expression that while he had been measuring an awkward pause in the conversation, she had merely been sitting in companionable silence.

He found this strange. And perhaps even unsettling.

“I do,” she said abruptly, still blinking with surprise. “The music is delightful. It really does make one stand up and— I beg your pardon.” She flushed, the way everyone did when they said something that might possibly refer to his injured leg.

“I used to like to dance,” he said, mostly to be contrary.

“I— ah—” She cleared her throat. “Ehrm.”

“It’s difficult now, of course.”

Her eyes took on a vague expression of alarm, so he smiled placidly and took a sip of his wine.

“I thought you did not drink in the presence of the Smythe-Smiths,” she said.

He took another sip—the wine was quite good, just as she’d promised the night before—and turned to her with every intention of responding with a dry jest, but when he saw her sitting there, her skin still pink and dewy from her recent exertions, something turned within him, and the little knot of anger he worked so hard to keep buried burst forth and began to bleed.

He was never going to dance again.

He was never going to ride a horse or climb a tree or stride purposefully across a room and sweep a lady off her feet. There were a thousand things he’d never do, and you’d think it would have been a man who’d reminded him of this—an able-bodied man who could hunt and box and do all those bloody things a man was meant to do, but no, it was her, Lady Sarah Pleinsworth, with her fine eyes and nimble feet, and every bloody smile she’d bestowed upon her dance partners that morning.

He didn’t like her. He really didn’t, but by God, he’d have sold a piece of his soul right then to dance with her.