“I made a promise to my cousin,” Sarah said in a tight voice. To say nothing of Iris and her judgmental ways. “As a gentleman, you should allow me to at least attempt to fulfill that promise.”

“Very well,” he said, and his voice was not angry. Nor was it resigned, or amused, or anything she could discern. He held out his arm, as any gentleman would, but she hesitated. Was she supposed to take it? Would it set him off balance?

“You won’t knock me over,” he said.

She took his arm.

He tilted his head toward hers. “Unless, of course, you push.”

She felt herself flush.

“Oh, come now, Lady Sarah,” he said, looking down at her with a condescending expression. “Surely you can take a joke. Especially when it’s at my expense.”

Sarah forced her lips into a tight smile.

Lord Hugh chuckled, and they headed for the door, making faster progress than she would have expected. His limp was pronounced, but he had clearly figured out how best to compensate for it. He must have had to relearn how to walk, she realized with amazement. It would have taken months, maybe years.

And it would have been painful.

Something akin to admiration began to flutter within her. He was still rude and annoying, and she certainly did not enjoy his company, but for the first time since that fateful duel three and a half years earlier, Sarah found that she admired him. He was strong. No, not in that watch-how-effortlessly-I-can-toss-a-young-lady-onto-a-horse way, although for all she knew he was that, too. She did have her hand on his arm, and there was nothing soft about him.

Hugh Prentice was strong on the inside, where it truly counted. He’d have to be, to come back from such an injury.

She swallowed, her eyes finding focus somewhere across the room even as she continued in step next to him. She felt unsettled, as if the floor had suddenly dropped an inch to the right, or the air had gone thin. She had spent the last few years detesting this man, and while this anger had not consumed her, it had, in some small way, defined her.

Lord Hugh Prentice had been her excuse. He had been her constant. When the world tipped and changed around her, he had remained her steady object of disgust. He was cold, he was heartless, he was without conscience. He had ruined her cousin’s life and never apologized for it. He was horrible in a way that meant nothing else in life could ever be that bad.

And now she had found something within him to admire? That was unlike her. Honoria was the one who found the good in people; Sarah held the grudge.

And she did not change her mind.

Except, apparently, when she did.

“Will you dance to your heart’s content once I’ve left?” Lord Hugh suddenly asked.

Sarah started, so lost in the tumult of her thoughts that his voice hit too loudly at her ears. “I hadn’t thought about it, honestly,” she said.