Free Under the Kissing Bough by Shannon Donnelly

affair at Westerley. His pride could not endure another woman running from him, and certainly not in the midst of a London ball.
    He realized that she was not looking at him. Her fear seemed to be focused on the crowd around them.
    At least it's not me , he thought. Relief coursed through him, easing the tension in his back. Still, it would not do to have her run from his side as if he were a monster, or she a fool. He glanced around, seeking the source of her distress, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He looked back down at her.
    Fear lay stark in a pale sheen on her skin. Her chest rose and fell with rapid, shallow breaths, and her eyes had lightened to the color of weak tea. What the devil had frightened her?
    The crowd closed around them, glances speculative as Lord Rushton asked those assembled to take up a glass and toast the happy couple, and he beamed and the crowd pressed closer to offer their best wishes. Eleanor muttered something, and tried to tug her arm free. Geoff realized what it must be.
    Of course. The crowd. The attention. She had asked him if he could teach her how to look uncaring. And had his future countess not perfected her art of disappearing to avoid such situations just as these?
    A touch of displeasure tugged a frown from him. How the devil could she act a countess if she could not even bear this small amount of attention?
    He glanced down at that pale face, thinking that his annoyance would deepen, but instead his mood softened.
    She looked like a fawn caught by a pack of slavering hounds. She had stopped tugging on his arm, and seemed to be trying her best to withstand the stares, but he could see that she winced at each whispered speculation as if under a lash. Her stare remained fixed on the floor, and he could readily believe she was trying to will the parquet to part and swallow her.
    The tightness around his mouth and his chest loosened.
    She had asked him for his help, and that should count for something. It also meant that he ought to do something. Only he would need both hands free if he were to do anything.
    Glancing around, he found one of the other Glover girls—Emma, he thought it was—on his other side. He thrust his empty wine glass at her, and she took it, her response automatic and her eyebrows rising in surprise. But he only turned and took Eleanor's glass from her hand and thrust it at Emma as well. Let her juggle the dashed crystal.
    Eleanor glanced up at him, her eyes glazed and distant. Before she could do more, he captured her hand firmly in his and tucked his arm around her waist, quite aware that even though they were engaged he was taking shocking liberties to so hold her. Society, however, would expect no less of a gentleman with his reputation, and Eleanor hardly seemed to notice.
    "Look at me," he ordered, his voice low and firm.
    She glanced up, and her throat moved with a convulsive swallow. "Please. I don't feel well. You must excuse me."
    "And you will have to forgive me later, for I'm not letting you go anywhere. No, don't look at them," he commanded, as her frightened stare fixed on the crowd again. "Look at me. Only me. I am the only one who matters here. Not them. Not their chatter."
    A brief smile barely lifted her lips and disappeared. "You must think me the worst coward."
    "I think that if you really wish to learn how to act like an arrogant, smug dolt, such as myself, then you must focus upon me to learn my secrets."
    The lines eased from her tightened forehead, and he wished that they were in private so that he could drop a grateful kiss upon that now smooth brow. But if he kissed his intended in front of everyone and God that would cause a sensation. Lord, but it tempted him to do so. Only she'd bolt for certain.
    He glanced at the avid stares cast at him—and Eleanor—at the speculation in the ladies' eyes; at the commiserating looks from the gentlemen who knew that they, too, must someday marry to please their families, not themselves. And a