Provoked (12 page)

“Did he see you?” he asked Euan calmly, somehow managing to disguise his reaction. “Recognise you?”

“He didn’t seem to, but then he was looking at you,” Euan replied distractedly, his gaze still on the back of Balfour’s head. “I don’t think he even glanced my way.”

“If he’d known you, surely he’d have shown some reaction? You’re standing right beside me, after all.”

Euan sent him a curious look, as if wondering why David was being so vehement.

“Why don’t you try to get closer to him,” David added. “It might be easier to tell. I’ll go and look for the Chalmers girls and see if I can find out if Isabella Galbraith has turned up yet.”

Euan nodded. “All right,” he said, but he didn’t move immediately, and a muscle in his cheek shifted.

“Are you?” David asked, frowning. “All right, I mean?”

“Yes, it’s just I’ve never been at something like this before. What if someone—” Euan broke off, as though unsure what the worst thing was that could happen, and looked helplessly at David.

“You’ll be fine,” David assured him. “You have a ticket. You’ve every right to be here. Just circulate and try to get a look at Balfour. I’ll see you back here, at this pillar, at nine o’clock.”

Euan nodded again and this time he moved away, towards Balfour, while David turned on his heel in pursuit of the Chalmers ladies.

After a few minutes of strolling round the ballroom, David found Elizabeth, sitting with a group that included her mother and sister. Forcing aside his usual shyness, David approached, addressing his first remarks to her mother.

“Mrs. Chalmers, how pleasant to see you. I trust you are having a good evening?”

She eyed him coolly but didn’t cut him, thankfully. “I am, Mr. Lauriston. And you?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“I see your companion is not with you?”

“He was waylaid by an acquaintance,” David fibbed. “So I took the opportunity to come over. I was hoping that one of your lovely daughters might deign to dance with me.” He glanced at the Misses Chalmers and smiled. Elizabeth pinkened. The other one looked amused.

Mrs. Chalmers gestured at her daughters with one satin-gloved hand, as if to say,
Well, ask them, then, if you must,
and turned back to the older lady she had been speaking with before David’s arrival.

“Would you care to dance, Miss Elizabeth?”

“How kind,” Elizabeth replied, her cheeks scarlet as she consulted her dance card. “I am free for the next set, if that would suit?”

“Excellent. And—” He turned to the other sister whose name he couldn’t remember, pausing for too long before glancing at Elizabeth again. She seemed to realise his difficulty.

“Catherine, do let me see your dance card,” she interjected. “Oh, look, you have the one after next free. That would be perfect as we’re both dancing the set after.” She looked up at David again, eyes twinkling, and said, “Would that suit, Mr. Lauriston?”

He smiled, amused, and said, “Oh, that would suit me very well, Miss Chalmers,” before realising he was really addressing the wrong sister, and turned his attention back to Catherine who was watching him with apparent interest. “If it suits, Miss Catherine, of course,” he added humbly.

Catherine gave him a dry look and assured him it suited her well enough.

He made small talk with the two young ladies for a few more minutes before the next set began, a rather dull country dance that David knew sufficiently to perform confidently. He offered his arm to Elizabeth to lead her onto the floor, and she laid a white-gloved hand on his dark sleeve. She was a small woman, and her fussy blue gown drowned her a little. It had ruffles everywhere: little ones round the neckline and sleeves and three deep ones at the hem. The skirt of the gown seemed to be hampering her as she walked. David had to slow his usual pace to accommodate her. It made her seem fragile to him, and, for a moment, he was almost attracted to her. Not sexually, but to the feeling of protecting someone smaller and weaker than himself.

They joined an incomplete set, smiling at their neighbours and introducing themselves while they waited for the music to start. At last the orchestra began.

“You look very nice this evening, Mr. Lauriston,” Elizabeth said breathlessly on their first pass.

He smiled back. “As do you, Miss Chalmers. That shade of blue looks very well on you.”

That much was true, and David liked the way her eyes sparkled a little at the compliment. She had such a very responsive face. He was never in any doubt as to what she thought. There was something rather intoxicating about making another person so obviously, and easily, happy.

“…your Miss Chalmers is enamoured with you…”

“You are very kind,” she said softly, and the expression on her face was tender and exposed.

“…because you’re beautiful, virtuous and utterly unthreatening…”

David swallowed. All the pleasure he felt in paying Elizabeth a compliment fled. Was he encouraging something he ought not to encourage? Might she interpret his kindness wrongly? And would it be cruel to allow that? He felt suddenly unsure and was glad when the dance parted them.

By the time they came together again, David had himself back under control. He asked after her younger sisters.

“Maria and Jane have been to private dances before, but Mother decided they were too young to come to a public assembly,” Elizabeth said, smiling mischievously. “They are wild with envy over Catherine and I being allowed to come, so although I shall officially remark that they are very well, in truth, they are gnashing their teeth at home with Father.”

David chuckled. “Judging by how much time they spent talking about a much less grand-sounding assembly at dinner a few nights ago, I should imagine that they are quite devastated.”

“Oh, quite,” Elizabeth agreed merrily, and he thought how very almost-pretty she looked when she was amused and how much he simply liked her. It occurred to him then that he
could
actually imagine being married to her. He would never desire her, but he would be fond of her and respect her, and she could give him so much. A place in the world, a family, a home. The only thing there would never be between them was passion.

And would that even matter? Would he miss that?

Would she? She was a gently reared girl after all. She wouldn’t expect passion in her marriage, would she?

For a few moments, the strangely appealing thought took hold. Perhaps Balfour was not as wrong as David had first supposed when he suggested that David could marry this girl. Perhaps he was capable of the sort of compromise that marriage would entail.

Was he? Capable of setting aside his unnatural desires forever?

His heart sank. He knew he wouldn’t be able to do it. He wouldn’t want to lapse, but he would do so. He only had to remember the way he’d felt when he’d seen Balfour across the room earlier this evening; how it had felt, suddenly, as though there was no one else in the room. How desire, hot and swift, had risen in him. Those feelings were very different from the tepid protectiveness he felt for this girl. Those feelings were deeply compelling, demanding, all-consuming.

“Mr. Lauriston?” Elizabeth was looking at him with raised brows, and he realised, embarrassed, that the dance had come to an end. He bowed hurriedly and Elizabeth curtseyed; then she set her hand on his arm, and he took her back to her seat.

Two more ladies had joined the group by the time they got back, an older, handsome woman who was deep in conversation with Mrs. Chalmers, and a beautiful girl of around twenty with black hair and skin as pale as new-fallen snow. She was several inches taller than the other ladies in the group, and her striking amber-coloured eyes were level with David’s own when Elizabeth introduced them.

“This is my very particular friend, Miss Isabella Galbraith,” she said. “We went to the same ladies’ seminary and have been friends for a few years now, haven’t we, Bella?”

Isabella smiled remotely. “Yes, the very best of friends.”

“And this is Mr. Lauriston,” Elizabeth continued. “He’s an advocate, Bella. He’s working on a case with Father just now.”

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Galbraith,” David said, bowing over the lady’s proffered hand. “Perhaps you would do me the honour of dancing with me later?”

“Of course,” she replied coolly. She consulted her empty dance card and, after an almost insulting pause, suggested a set to which David politely agreed. Once that was taken care of, she turned away to speak with her mother again. Elizabeth frowned at her friend’s back, plainly disgruntled on David’s behalf. When she glanced at David again, it was with an apologetic expression, and he could see she was caught in a quandary. If she made excuses for Miss Galbraith, she was acknowledging that the other girl had indeed been rude. And since David had maintained a blank expression throughout their exchange, Elizabeth wasn’t certain he’d noticed. She wasn’t to know that David cared little what Isabella Galbraith thought of him. He only wanted a chance to talk with her to see what, if anything, he could discover from her.

The starting up of the orchestra for the next set saved them both from an awkward exchange. David excused himself and made his way over to where Catherine Chalmers sat to claim her for the next set. She stood up quickly, apparently pleased to get away from the two matrons she was sitting between.

It was a more complicated dance this time, and it took all of David’s concentration just to get the steps vaguely right. Catherine kept him mostly correct with sharp nudges to his side, tugs of his sleeve and hissed instructions. By the time the dance was over, David was sure he must have more than a few bruises.

He led Catherine back to the group of ladies to discover that Balfour was there, speaking with Isabella Galbraith, Mrs. Galbraith and Elizabeth. Balfour’s gaze sought David’s as David led Catherine towards them.

“Good evening, Mr. Lauriston,” he said. “Are you enjoying the dancing?”

David smiled politely, consciously disguising the jittery excitement that danced in his gut at this, his second sight of Balfour this evening. He was good at hiding his nerves. The first few minutes of any court hearing were always torture for him, but he’d learned to take deep, calming breaths without inflating his chest or obviously taking in air. He’d learned to bear silences—silences were necessary if you were to get hold of yourself so that your voice, when it emerged, was calm and clear and certain.

“I am not much of a dancer, my lord,” he replied. “But the ladies have taken pity on me.”

There was a duet of protests at this from Elizabeth and Catherine.

“It seems the ladies disagree,” Balfour pointed out with a smile.

“They are very kind.”

“Did you come alone this evening?” Balfour asked then. His expression held nothing beyond mild curiosity, but David couldn’t help thinking the question was significant, and that Balfour meant him to realise that. That he knew already that David had come with someone. Possibly even why that person was here.

“I came with a friend.”

“A friend?”

It was an invitation to disclose more, but David had no intention of saying anything beyond that which was entirely necessary.

“Yes—and I should go and find him, actually. Please do excuse me.” Without waiting for a response, he bowed to the ladies, including them all in the polite gesture, then turned around and walked in the opposite direction, his heart pounding. Immediately, he felt foolish. He should have stayed longer, observed Balfour with Miss Galbraith, tried to get a sense of how well they knew each other. He’d allowed his own nerves to chase him away and wasted an opportunity in the process.

It was already past nine o’clock, and he had to walk round the ballroom twice before he found Euan, skulking on the fringes of a large, merry group, none of whom appeared to notice he wasn’t with them.

“Where have you been?” Euan muttered, peeling away from the group when David approached. “I waited at the pillar for ten minutes. I thought you’d gone.”

“I told you I was going to dance. I danced a set with each of the Chalmers girls, so that took a bit of time. And I’ve got to go back and dance with Miss Galbraith soon. Did you get any closer to Lord Murdo?”

“Aye.”

“And?”

Euan paused. “It’s not him.”

Relief flooded David, making his legs feel suddenly weak and trembly. He wanted to find a chair and sink into it, put his head between his knees and just breathe for a moment. The strength of his own reaction stunned him speechless. He tried to use the same skills he’d just employed in conversation with Balfour to hide that reaction from Euan, but he couldn’t prevent himself visibly swallowing and felt sure Euan must notice.

“Are you certain?” he said at last.

“I think so.”

David glanced sharply at Euan, frowning as he took in Euan’s troubled expression. “You
think
so?”

Euan shook his head unhappily. “He looks like him! But no.” He said the last word with what sounded like reluctance. “No, I’m sure it’s not him.”

“Then what? Do you think he’s related to Lees? Is the resemblance a family one?”

Euan nodded. “It must be. It’s uncanny, Davy.”

So it seemed Balfour was involved with Lees in some way, then, even if only as a kinsman. That knowledge made David wonder why Balfour was really in Scotland, why he’d been in Stirling on the very day of Baird and Hardie’s execution. Coincidence?

Or was he here because he took orders from the same masters as his kinsman?

That last thought made David feel as though he was falling, his gut spasming in sudden alarm. David had revealed his sympathies for the weavers’ cause to Balfour without much thought at all. Until this moment, when he was faced with the reality that Balfour
had
to be connected to it all, he hadn’t considered how imprudent it was to be so frank. Now his unwise words, spoken into the anonymity of night as he walked at Balfour’s side, seemed arrogantly naïve, and he burned with regret.

He gave a sigh, forcing those unhelpful thoughts aside. There was nothing to be done about his foolishness.