“Your ladyship is honest, as ever. Your forthright nature is one of your most appealing qualities.”

“As if I give a hearty heigh-ho for your good opinion of me.” Constance rose, abruptly at the limit of her patience. “I wish you a pleasant evening.”

Before she’d taken a single step, Rothhaven had risen and manacled her wrist in a firm grip. He did not hurt her—he was the last person to inflict physical harm on another—but neither could she leave.

“You will please not abandon me to the darkness, my lady.”

“Why not? You are a duke, of sound mind, in good health, and the worst that can befall you on this terrace is that one of the Weatherby sisters will try to get herself compromised with you.”

He changed his hold so his fingers interlaced with Constance’s. “You must not leave me alone out here, because I am generally terrified of the out-of-doors.”

Constance’s first inclination was to laugh, scornfully, because Rothhaven’s comment sounded like a pathetic attempt at flirtation, but the quality of his grip on her hand stopped her.

“You are serious.”

“I am entirely in earnest. If you would assist me to return to the ballroom, I would be much obliged. I should never have assumed I was up to the challenge of wandering about an unwalled terrace under an open sky, even at night.”

Constance had been angry with this man for half of her life, but that tirade could keep for another time. He was entitled to his fears, and she liked the notion of having him obligated to her. She took his arm and re-joined the crowd in the ballroom, and before her thinking mind could stop her, she agreed to partner His Grace through the ordeal of the supper buffet as well.

Sensory perceptions assaulted Robert—the scent of the beeswax dripping down the chandeliers, perfume and pomade in a gaggingly thick cloud, incessant conversation that beat at his ears like angry hornets, the stomping and gliding of dancers’ feet against the chalked floor…

I will kill my baby brother.

The thought was unworthy of a duke, but Nathaniel’s behavior—abandoning Robert amid the ballroom crowd—was heinous. Robert had ventured forth from Rothhaven Hall for the first time in years only because Nathaniel’s courting aspirations had required a show of familial solidarity.

Robert had been about to excuse himself in the middle of a conversation with no less personage than Quinton, Duke of Walden, when he’d spotted a woman weaving through the crowd. She had slipped between the other guests like cool water trickling past mossy stones, and the quality of her movement—graceful, silent, efficient—had stirred Robert’s memory.