Carcel and Ines turned to the door.
"I never imagined, even in my dreams, that the duke I had only heard of through rumors would be this handso!"
The voice, a bright, musical, and utterly, joyfully feminine trill, echoed from outside. It was a voice that held the confidence of a woman who had never, not once in her life, been nervous about anything.
Carcel’s hand, the one on her shoulder, jerked. He snatched it back as if he had been burned, as if her gray morning dress had suddenly beco red-hot iron. He took a fast, guilty step back, his face, which had been so open, so kind, instantly shuttering, becoming, once again, the cold, distant, unreadable mask of the Duke of Carleton.
"You flatter ," Rowan’s voice, a low, charming, flirtatious baritone, followed. "In the presence of your beauty, Countess, everything else loses its shine."
Ines flinched. She, too, took a step back, her body suddenly cold where Carcel’s presence had been. Her heart, which had been doing a slow, warm, happy rhythm, was now a frantic, trapped, terrified bird.
They’re here.
"It seems," Ines whispered, her voice a small, tight, breathless sound, "the Countess has arrived."
Her hands, of their own accord, flew up, not in greeting, but in defense. She smoothed her simple gray dress, which had, just a mont ago, felt perfectly adequate, but which now felt, under the imagined gaze of a fashionable Countess, plain, and dowdy, and wrong. She pulled back a stray strand of reddish-brown hair, her fingers trembling, trying to tuck it back into the simple, severe bun she had fashioned that morning.
Carcel watched her.
He watched this small, frantic, panicked transformation. The woman who had, with a cool, audacious curiosity, asked to see his body... the woman who had, with a soft, sensual, unconscious grace, moaned on the library desk... the woman who had, just monts ago, laughed at him, her eyes bright with confidence...
...was gone.
In her place was this. A pale, terrified, trembling creature, who looked as if she were about to be led to her own execution.
He had to say sothing, to calm her down.
"Ines," he said, his voice a low, urgent, command.
She looked at him, her eyes wide, and dark, and full of a pure social terror.
"Yes?" she breathed.
"Alia is a pleasant person," he said, his voice firm, insistent. He was trying to give her... armor. "She is... she is outgoing. She is kind. You will be able to beco friends. Quickly."
He moved, just a fraction. He lifted his hand. He was going to touch her shoulder again. He was going to... steady her.
He touched her. His fingers, just for a second, grazed the fabric of her sleeve. It was a jolt, a static shock, that they both felt.
He looked at her face, at her pale, parted, trembling lips.
"And..." he began, his voice dropping, his own, complicated, impossible feelings rising, thick and hot, in his throat.
And you, his mind scread, you are more interesting. You are more real. You are... you are more beautiful than any of them. Do not... do not let her frighten you. Do not...
"You..." he said, his voice a low, rough, aching sound...
"Oh my! And this must be your drawing room! Rowan, it is... it is magnificent! And... oh!"
Alia’s voice, bright, and sharp, and here, filled the drawing room.
Carcel removed his hand.
He stepped back, his face, once again, cold. The mont was over.
Ines turned, her back rigid, her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white. She was, once again, the girl in the alcove, waiting, silently, to be judged.
Rowan ca in, his face bright, laughing. He was, Ines noted with a small, distant, bitter pang, chard.
And beside him, was the most beautiful, confident, and alive woman Ines had ever seen.
The Countess Beaufort was not a woman. She was an event. She was a vision of bright, peacock-blue, Parisian silk. Diamonds glittered at her ears, even though it was, Ines noted, morning. Her hair was a shade of blonde so pale it was almost white, and it was piled, in a series of intricate, fashionable, and utterly perfect, curls, on top of her head. She was, in a word, everything Ines was not.
She was laughing, her hand resting, with a light, easy, intimate familiarity, on Rowan’s arm.
And then, she saw Ines.
She stopped. Her bright, blue-eyed, gaze swept over Ines, from the top of her severe, reddish-brown, bun, down to the tip of her plain, gray, sensible, shoes.
Ines felt, in that one, single, silent, second, as if she had been weighed, asured, and, in all probability, found... lacking.
This was it. The judgnt.
"It’s nice to et you," Alia said, her smile, if possible, widening.
Ines, on pure, terrified, aristocratic routine, moved. She stepped forward, and she curtsied. It was a deep, stiff, perfect, practiced curtsy.
"Nice to et you too, Countess Beaufort," Ines managed, her voice a small, tight, formal, whisper.
She waited. She waited for the polite, cool, dismissal. She waited for the Countess to turn, her interest in the "plain, strange, sister" gone, back to the two handso, powerful, interesting Dukes.
But the Countess did not turn.
She laughed. A warm, genuine, booming laugh that seed to fill the entire, stale, room with sunlight.
"Oh, no," Alia said, waving her own, perfectly-gloved, hand in the air, a gesture of pure, dismissive, horror. "No, no. Please. You must not call Countess. It is so... formal. It is what my husband’s dreadful, ancient, aunt calls . It makes feel... positively ancient myself."
She stepped away from Rowan. She closed the distance between them. She was, Ines noted, in a cloud of a very, very, expensive, French perfu.
"Even though we’re eting for the first ti today," Alia said, her voice dropping, just a fraction, into a warm, friendly tone, "since you are Carcel’s friend..."
She glanced, just for a second, at Carcel, who was still, a silent, dark, brooding statue, by the window.
"...you are also my friend, too, Lady Hamilton."
She did not wait for an answer. She did not wait for permission. She reached out. And she took Ines’s hand. Not... not her gloved hand. Her bare hand, which Ines had, in her panic, left ungloved.
"Please," Alia said, her grip warm, and firm, and real. "You must call Alia."
Ines just... stared. Her hand... was being held. By a woman. Who was... smiling at her.
"In that case," Ines said, her voice a small, stunned, disbelieving sound, "I... I will take the liberty of calling you... Alia."
She looked up, into the Countess’s bright, kind, smiling eyes.
"You can as well," she said, her own voice, to her own, profound, shock, strengthening, "call by my na. Ines."
"Perfect!" Alia bead.
And then, still holding her hand, she pulled her, gently, towards the sofa. "Co. Sit. You must tell everything. Rowan tells you are a recluse, but Carcel," she said, shooting him another, sharp, knowing look, "tells you are a brilliant scholar. I am, I must admit, far more intrigued by Carcel’s version. Now. Sit."
Alia, with a swish of blue silk, sat on the sofa. And she tugged, gently, on Ines’s hand, pulling Ines down, to sit, not in a far-off, safe, distant, chair... but right next to her.
Ines sat.
She looked at this woman. This Alia. She was bright. She was loud. She was... kind. She had not... she had not cared about formality. She had... she had called her Carcel’s friend.
She’s... Ines’s mind, her poor, terrified, confused mind, whispered, ...she’s like Gladys.
She was.
She was, Ines realized, in her own, high-born, fashionable, noble way... just... nice.
A small, slow, genuine smile, a smile of pure relief, spread across Ines’s face.
Carcel watched from the window, his arms crossed. He watched Ines, his Ines, smile. He watched her sit, her posture, which had been so rigid, relax. He watched her, in the presence of this bright, loud, fashionable, other woman...bloom.
And Rowan, who had been watching this new, fast, and, to him, utterly baffling, female friendship form, simply... smiled.
His plan, his brilliant, wonderful, matchmaking plan... It was, he thought, working perfectly.
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