A Passion for Pleasure(6)

Sebastian flexed his fingers and took a step toward the refreshment table just as a gentleman and young woman approached.

“Miss Butler.” Rushton inclined his head toward the woman while his left hand fisted discreetly around the sleeve of Sebastian’s coat. “Lovely as ever.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Pretty as a tea cake in a blue lace gown, she encompassed them both with a smile.

Her father, Lord Dalling, beamed with pride. A rotund man with a mustache that curled at the ends like a swine’s tail, he favored Sebastian with an approving nod. “Pleasure to see you, Hall. Rushton here tells us you’re thinking of choosing a position with the Patent Office.”

Sebastian stifled a sigh and attempted to detach himself from his father’s subtle grip. Curious word, that. Choose. No, he wouldn’t choose any bloody such thing as a position with the Patent Office. He didn’t even know if he could carry out a clerk’s duties. Not if it meant needing to write a great deal, as he doubted his ability to hold a pen for any length of time.

“Sebastian might take a position as clerk for Lord Russell,” Rushton said. “Important to make one’s way up, isn’t that right, Dalling?”

“Indeed, Rushton, indeed.”

“It’s a pleasure to see you here, Mr. Hall,” Miss Butler said, turning her blue gaze to him. “We missed you over the summer when you were on your grand tour.”

“Thank you, Miss Butler.” Sebastian returned her smile, feeling only a thin shadow of the pleasure he’d once experienced when a woman had looked at him with such a bright, admiring expression. “How is your mother?”

“Very well. Gone off for a stay in the country.”

“Champagne, Miss Butler?” Rushton lifted a hand toward a passing server. Actually, he lifted a finger, a quick gesture as if he were flicking aside an insect. A footman hurried toward them, balancing a tray of precariously perched flutes.

Rushton handed glasses to Miss Butler and Lord Dalling. Another bead of sweat rolled down Sebastian’s spine. He curved his right hand around the flute his father extended, trying to force his fingers to obey, though his little finger didn’t move at all. His teeth came together hard when a cramp seized his hand, freezing the rest of his fingers into a clawlike position.

He grasped the glass with his left hand and steadied a sudden tumble of anxiety.

No one knew. No one knew.

“Oh, a waltz,” Miss Butler remarked as the musicians began a new piece. “I do so love the waltz.”

Rushton shot him a pointed glance, which Sebastian recognized well. He looked at the couples circling the dance floor. He had always liked dancing. Last spring, he wouldn’t have hesitated to ask Miss Butler to accompany him onto the floor, and he’d have ensured they both enjoyed every step and turn.

But Sebastian hadn’t danced once in the past five months, and he couldn’t start again now. Not when he could no longer count on his ability to guide his partner with accuracy.

An awkward silence fell. Dalling cleared his throat. Miss Butler smiled again.

“Mr. Hall, aren’t you recently returned from Germany?” she asked, her heart-shaped face turned up like an open flower. “My father said you had a rather prestigious position at Weimar at the invitation of Monsieur Liszt himself.”

“I did, yes.”

“But left due to a quarrel with the musical committee?”

“They wanted to alter one of my operas. I objected.”

“Of course you did.” She giggled with delight, as if she would have expected no less of him. “Though I can’t imagine working at the Patent Office will be quite as thrilling as performing for the Court of Weimar.”

“No. Not quite.”

“Do you intend to return to performing, then?”

“One day.”

He intended to. Whether or not he could was another matter entirely.

Sebastian knew what rumor said about his resignation—he’d stormed away from the position as director of the court theater in a fiery pique over creative control of his work. The committee members had pleaded for him to return. He’d refused and fled to the home of the Grand Duchess Irina Pavlova, the woman who had recommended him to Liszt for the position in the first place, so that he could work in peace. And, of course, everyone thought she was his lover, the celebrated grand duchess a decade his senior.

None of it was true, but society loved tossing the romantic story about as if it were a balloon bouncing on currents of air.