A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting(51)

‘Ought we to leave, Kitty?’ Cecily whispered. Her dreamy and distracted nature usually protected her from noticing such slights, but even she was now looking anxious.

‘No,’ Kitty insisted. ‘No, we cannot retreat.’

Yet what other options did they have? Do as they do, her mother would have said – and the ton were about to dance. But with Mr Stanfield gone, Kitty could not be sure that any one of her other suitors would now come to her rescue. Who else, amongst all these sheep, would not care about her sudden fall from grace?

Across the dance floor, her eyes fell on Radcliffe. Well … it was not exactly a friendly face. She led Cecy forward, ignoring all the figures that were shrinking away from them.

‘Lord Radcliffe, Captain Hinsley, good evening,’ she said, in businesslike tones.

‘Miss Talbot,’ Captain Hinsley greeted her with a bow and a smile as if they were old friends.

‘Watch yourself, Hinsley, she might be armed,’ Radcliffe warned.

‘Are neither of you dancing?’ Kitty asked pointedly, ignoring this remark. ‘I think they are making up the set now.’

It was a blatant move, totally lacking in subtlety – and both men’s eyebrows shot up.

Captain Hinsley recovered first, bowing gallantly. ‘Is it too much to hope your hand is not already promised, Miss Talbot?’

‘It is not,’ she said, placing her hand in his. She held onto Radcliffe’s gaze, challengingly. She was thinking of the favour he owed her and knew he was too. He raised his eyebrows further. She jutted her chin, challengingly, and cut her eyes to Cecily, with strong meaning. He sighed.

‘Miss Cecily, would you do me the honour?’ Radcliffe asked.

Cecily had quite missed the silent interchange between her elder sister and Radcliffe – though Captain Hinsley had watched it, much intrigued – but smiled gratefully, nonetheless. They made their way to the floor.

‘Do you know which dance it is?’ Cecily asked.

‘The quadrille, I believe,’ Radcliffe answered.

‘It is properly pronounced quadree,’ Cecily corrected him, with an ostentatious French flourish of the word. Radcliffe paused – but what else, really, was there to say, except, ‘Thank you, Miss Talbot.’

Radcliffe had danced only twice that Season, once with the elder Miss Talbot and once with his mother. He was widely known to be as stubborn as a mule about it, and so the ton watched with surprise and interest as he led Miss Cecily Talbot onto the floor for only his third dance of the whole year. Kitty watched them watching and hoped this would constitute enough of a reminder as to why they had accepted the Talbots in the first place.

Kitty felt so agitated that she could not think of a single thing to say to Captain Hinsley as they took their places, but he fortunately seemed perfectly able to run the conversation by himself.

‘Miss Talbot, I feel I should thank you,’ he said. ‘This has already been the most interesting Season I’ve seen in years.’

‘Is that so?’ she said, trying to scan the crowd without appearing to do so.

‘And to get Radcliffe dancing too … He’s awfully good at it, once you get him out here – wouldn’t think it to look at him, though, would you?’ At this he sent a roguish grin Kitty’s way, as if to invite her to join him in disparaging Radcliffe.

‘Wouldn’t you?’ she said, still distracted. ‘One only has to see him ride to know he’s graceful.’

The music began before Hinsley could answer – though his eyebrows were now sitting a little higher upon his forehead – and soon they were too busy with their chassés and jettés to speak. The quadrille lasted only six minutes, but by the time it was over, Kitty could tell their position upon the social ladder was far less precarious. Radcliffe relinquished Cecily to a glaring Lord Montagu – who had just made a late arrival – and Kitty accepted Hinsley’s escort to the refreshment table. There he left her, with a knowing smile which Kitty failed to interpret, beckoned back to the dance floor by Lady Derby, and Kitty had the relief of accepting a lemonade from a new gentleman, able to breathe more easily.

‘I do not believe we have met,’ she said to the stranger, smiling – she was willing to look kindly on any gentleman, right now.

‘We have not, though I have long wished to be acquainted, Miss Talbot. I am Selbourne,’ he said in a slow drawl. ‘I must say, I do admire your work.’

‘My work?’ she repeated, frowning.

‘Come now,’ he said chidingly. ‘There is no harm in speaking openly. I am a friend of Mr de Lacy’s, you know, and he has told me all about you. Though he doesn’t realise, of course, how the story sounds to one such as I.’

‘I am sure I do not know what you mean, my lord,’ she said slowly.

‘I quite recognise you for a kindred spirit, you know,’ he said smoothly – too smoothly. ‘Both of us, on the outskirts of all this’ – he gestured to the room – ‘both doing our best to win, despite it all.’

‘Is that so?’ she asked politely, though her hackles were beginning to rise. ‘I’ll have to take your word for it, my lord, though I for one fail to see the similarity.’

He smiled, approvingly. ‘A fine hitter, too. Miss Talbot, I feel I have known you for all my life.’