Free Undoing of a Lady by Nicola Cornick Page A

might hold you to that.”
    Lizzie was enjoying herself. The room was spinning, the candles dancing in beautiful golden leaps and curves. Mary was a far better musician than she was and was playing very nicely indeed. Lizzie executed a turn, lost her footing and almost tripped. Jerrold grabbed her in his arms to prevent her from falling. It was rather nice to be in his arms. He felt strong. Lizzie could see Nat watching her—he and Priscilla were not dancing such an energetic country-dance, of course—and there was a heavy frown on his forehead now. Priscilla was whispering to himsecretively behind her fan. And close by Sir James Wheeler was not even bothering to lower his voice.
    “The chit is a hoyden, Vera! How you can possibly consider her suitable for George is quite beyond me.”
    And Lady Wheeler’s reply: “James, when a rich, titled heiress behaves like a hoyden then she is merely displaying high spirits.”
    “I don’t think that they should get their hopes up for George,” Lizzie hiccupped in Jerrold’s ear. “He has no chance of securing either my fortune or my person.”
    “Hush,” Jerrold said, putting a hand over her mouth. “You do not want to offend Lady Wheeler too deeply.” He bent closer to her. “Would you like to take some air on the terrace?”
    Lizzie looked at him. He was not inviting her outside so that she could sober up. She knew that. They would go out into the dark and he would kiss her and she…Well, she would respond because she was curious to know if he was any good at kissing and after all it did not really matter who she kissed now because Nat did not love her…She might even go further if she liked the way Jerrold kissed, because everyone would know anyway that she was a flirt and a wanton so why not? Perhaps it would make her feel less miserable. She felt the edges of her mind starting to fray with despair and jumped when someone spoke from close by.
    “Jerrold.” It was Nat’s voice, very hard and very cold now. “If I might cut in?”
    Lizzie saw the smile wiped from John Jerrold’s facelike a candle blown out. The sudden tension in the air made her spine prickle as the little shivers ran down it.
    “Of course, Waterhouse.” Jerrold conceded gracefully, with a bow. “Lady Elizabeth…”
    “Do you mind?” Lizzie snapped as Nat’s hand closed about her wrist and he drew her inexorably to the side of the room. “I was enjoying myself—”
    “That is all too evident,” Nat said grimly.
    “It is Monty’s job to take care of me, not yours,” Lizzie said, nodding toward where her elder brother was dozing before the fire, face flushed, the inevitable glass of wine in his hand. He might not have inherited their mother’s fabled looks and charm, she thought, but he had certainly inherited her taste for drink. The misery twisted in her again.
    “Not that I need anyone to protect me,” she finished, and hated the forlorn tone that had somehow crept into her voice.
    “Can we talk about that?” Nat asked. His gloved hand still rested gently on her wrist and Lizzie looked from it up into his face and found that she could not seem to look away. Had she ever looked at Nat properly before, she wondered. She knew what he looked like, of course. She had seen him so many times during her childhood and youth that she could describe him with her eyes closed. But had she ever stopped to think about the way in which his features had changed as he, too, had grown older, developing from the youth she had known into the man he wasnow; how the curves and planes of his face had grown leaner and hardened with experience, how the lines had deepened about his eyes and his hair had darkened to the ebony it was now in the firelight?
    Had she noticed when first the stubble had started to shadow his cheeks and chin and when the expression in his eyes had changed from the bright eagerness of youth to this watchful calculation? She did not think that she had detected the precise moment.