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'It seems our friends have deserted us,' she said to cover the awkwardness of the growing silence. It was skilfully done. The line offered him a choice to take it up as commiseration or as an invitation to ask her to dance. A gentleman would do the latter. He was not that man. He was on a mission from his grandfather.

'I am not dancing tonight, Lady Mary,' he explained bluntly. Even if he was dancing, it would not be with her. Lady Mary Kimber was no more his type of woman than he was her type of man. He liked a lick of fire, an edge of steel, a certain sensual confidence in his women. He had an opera singer he consorted with in Piccadilly on occasion who ticked all those boxes quite nicely and expected nothing in return that he wasn't willing to give. He did not see the dutiful Lady Mary checking those boxes and she was most definitely the sort of woman who would have expectations.

'A ball seems an odd choice of entertainment for someone who doesn't wish to dance.' Her grey eyes gave him a challenging stare, one slim brow arching in an attempt to call his bluff. Did she think he was bluffing? Her boldness surprised him. Maybe she did tick one of his boxes after all.

'I am here supporting my cousin,' he offered in explanation.

'Ah, the decent Parkhurst,' she said with a cool detachment that translated into the smallest of smiles on those soft pink lips of hers as if she hadn't just rendered him an insult, or at least tried to.

He laughed, rather enjoying this unexpected show of sharp wit. 'You'll have to do better than that if you want to offend me.' Such wit rather begged the question as to why she hadn't bagged the Duke of Harlow. Had Harlow not liked the sharp honesty? She'd certainly not lost him on account of her looks. Lady Mary was objectively pretty, albeit in a non-standard sense. No blonde hair and blue eyes here. Instead, her beauty lay claim to quicksilver eyes, glossy nut-brown hair and a willowy figure with enough height to give her a sense of poise the other girls lacked. There were other attributes, too: the slim, elegant column of her neck that begged a man to run his hand down its length and those sensual lips that invited kisses without trying. His eyes were riveted by them and his thoughts followed.

'Offending you was hardly my intention, Mr Parkhurst. I was merely stating a fact.' There was more of that delicious coolness she seemed to cultivate so well in a heated ballroom. With a little practice she could freeze a man at twenty paces. What a duchess she would be with a look like that.

Harlow was definitely missing out.

'Neither was insult my intention, Lady Mary. I simply find it expedient to make my position known from the start. It saves people from disappointment later on.' By people, he meant naive debutantes who had a fancy to take to the floor with a notorious rake.

She gave a dry laugh. 'I assure you, forgoing a dance with you will not disappoint me.'

'What does disappoint you, Lady Mary?' He couldn't resist the words any more than his gaze could resist moving over her mouth. What he could do with those lips... He'd not meant to instigate flirting with her. He knew better. She was off limits by his own self-imposed rules. And his curiosity was piqued. What did lay beneath all that collected coolness? Something did—the sharpness of her wit was proof that not all of her was calm and smooth.

Her grey eyes met his, a little flame rising to the challenge, licking in their depths. 'Starving children in the London streets, oppression of native peoples in Britain's colonies, the suppression of women here at home who are denied the right to lead their own lives. That is real disappointment, Mr Parkhurst.' She was testing him with her response.

Really, it was an impressive answer. His grandfather would approve of such an agenda, as did he. 'And the Duke of Harlow, is he on that list as well?' Caine ventured boldly.

'The concept of disappointment assumes that I've failed to claim something I wanted. Harlow was my parents' dream, not mine.' Despite the casualness with which she dismissed society's latest speculations, the shadow in her grey eyes said she could not entirely dismiss the sting of Harlow's choice, however much she'd like to.

 

No one liked being overlooked. She had his empathy there. He knew a little something about that himself. In his own way, because of a lack of a title or real prospects, he and his brothers were often overlooked after a fashion because they were sons of a third son.

She gave him a cool glance. 'Make no mistake, I did not want Harlow. If he has found happiness elsewhere, I wish him well.'