Free A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh

and everyone looked with avid curiosity at the two of them as they passed. His arm was almost brushing her shoulder, though they had scarcely glanced at each other since his arrival with his parents. When she did steal a glance, it was to see that he was smiling with all his considerable charm at all and sundry. But then she was smiling too.
    They were behaving, as expected, like a happily betrothed couple.
    Mrs. Mason was beside her on the other side, her husband beyond her. They were both shaking hands with everyone when a curtsy and a bow would have sufficed, and they both seemed to feel it necessary to chat with everyone and so hold up the progress of the line. It must surely stretch all the way down the stairs and across the hall to the front doors. Maybe even outside the doors. That would cause problems for some footmen and coachmen.
    She did not doubt that Papa was severely annoyed by the delay. He was probably feeling horribly humiliated too. Mama was being her usual gracious self. Annabelle suspected that her mother rather liked Mrs. Mason, though she had not said so.

    Finally the line came to an end and Mr. Mason stood rubbing his hands together and gazing about genially while his son inclined his head to Annabelle and offered her his arm. He was still smiling and at last he was smiling directly at her. With unreadable eyes.
    They were to lead off the dancing.
    Annabelle felt so exposed when they stepped onto the empty dance floor that she even glanced down to make sure that she really had remembered to put on her gown. Candles flickered brightly from every holder in the candelabra above and from every wall sconce. Banks of white roses and carnations and green ferns had turned the ballroom into a fragrant garden. Guests were crammed three and four deep about the perimeter of the room, a kaleidoscope of color, rich jewels twinkling and sparkling to rival the candles.
    Her betrothed settled her a short distance from him and gazed steadily at her as other couples began to form lines beside them. He was no longer smiling. Annabelle frowned slightly at him. Was it not enough that every other eye in the room was on her? Must his be too—as if he would see right through to the back of her mind? She felt a childish urge to poke her tongue out at him, and she was alarmed lest she actually do it.

    â€œYou ought not to have done it,” he said, and for a moment she thought that perhaps she really had ...
    But he explained what he meant.
    â€œWorn white, that is,” he said.
    She hated wearing white, but it was what most unmarried young ladies wore, and for a while longer she was an unmarried young lady.
    â€œMama thought it important that I look... well, innocent ,” she said.
    â€œVirginal?” He raised his eyebrows. “One might as well call a spade a spade, Lady Annabelle. It was probably misguided advice. The less attention you draw to your possibly virginal state the better, would you not agree?”
    Her jaw might have dropped if she had not been so aware of all the watching eyes. She glared at him instead. Her nostrils flared.
    â€œThere is surely no need to be offensive ,” she said.
    â€œAre you, ah, virginal ?” he asked.
    She felt suddenly as if two candles must have dropped from the candelabrum above their heads and set her cheeks on fire.
    â€œOh, how dare you?” she said, her bosom heaving. “How dare you!”
    His lips drew up at the corners.

    â€œThat is better,” he said. “Now you have some color about you. You need not answer my question, by the way. It was purely rhetorical. And purely cosmetic.”
    She felt a horrifying urge to laugh. He had done it again—brought color to her cheeks, that is. And it had apparently been deliberate both times. But she was not going to take such treatment meekly.
    â€œAre you ?” she asked him. “ Virginal, that is?”
    He pursed his lips and gazed at her with half-closed eyes. Equally as