“Many of the ladies are smirking behind their fans,” he said, “and everybody is casting glances at the Haddonfield sisters, but nobody is approaching them.” This again. Next they’d be accidentally tramping on Lady Susannah’s hems and apologizing for their clumsiness, even as they also spilled punch on the back of her skirt.
Ash took back the glass and sipped. “Scandal afoot, d’ya think? Suppose that’s the other reliable commodity at balls. That and dancing. Sounds like a waltz coming next, and about time.”
Lady Susannah had held the same glass of punch for five minutes without taking a sip. Lady Della had drained her glass too quickly, and she was tapping her foot, but not in time to the orchestra tuning up in the corner.
“Does Lady Della waltz yet?” Will asked, though even as he raised the question, he knew the answer. She was an earl’s daughter and pretty. The patronesses would have already given her permission to waltz in hopes of getting her married off, so the less titled or less lovely would have a clearer field.
Ash peered at Will owlishly. “You’re asking about Lady Della? I thought you fancied the older one, Lady Susan.”
“Lady Susannah, and she’s merely a friend.” A friend who had kissed Will in the park. He’d come to a decision regarding what to do about that folly if the lady made further advances. “Somebody needs to waltz with Lady Della.” How Will knew this, he could not say, but he was prodded by the same instinct that told him when Casriel’s hounds were about to turn on one of their own.
“You waltz competently,” Ash said. “Might do you good and she’s a lovely little creature. Now why is Trudy Mannering twittering near the men’s punch bowl and glancing at the Haddonfield ladies? Never a good sign, when a Mannering female gets to twittering.”
“I cannot waltz with Lady Della,” Will replied. “I’m the spare. Casriel should be leading her out, dammit.” A perfect opportunity to be the gallant knight, and his earl-ship was off discussing foot rot or Corn Laws. Gentlemen were bowing before their partners, couples were taking places on the dance floor.
“You just swore,” Ash marveled. “You swore and Cam wasn’t here to gloat. This is what happens when people schedule their social occasions for the full moon. Sheer folly. Nothing for it, then, but I must leap into the affray.”
Ash pushed his now-empty champagne glass at Will, shot his cuffs, ran a hand through flowing dark locks and sauntered across the ballroom. He fixed a blazing smile on Lady Della in a manner sure to draw attention.
When Ash Dorning focused on an objective, he made a good job of it. He’d be a fine solicitor, perhaps even a barrister. Ash bowed over the lady’s hand and led her out, leaving Lady Susannah looking relieved and tired.
The compulsion to go to her, to lead her out—to ask her why she’d kissed him—had Will’s feet moving in her direction.
“There’s been another one,” said a voice to Will’s left. An acrid whiff of smoke came off Cam’s clothes, and his excitement was palpable. “Just today, another one taken. Hendershot was gabbling about it.” Cam wasn’t drunk yet either, but he was in a lather about something—though a lather was Sycamore’s natural state.
“Sycamore, calm yourself,” Will said, in the same tones he’d used on an excited puppy. “Another what?”
“Another dog, this time stolen from the dowager Duchess of Ambrose. Poor old dear is distraught, and that’s why she’s not here tonight.”
Will took Cam by the arm and steered him back out onto the terrace. “Firstly, arrange your features as if you were discussing Greymoor’s new stud colt; and secondly, how did you hear of the duchess’s misfortune?”
“Who’s Greymoor?”
God save me from half-witted younger siblings. “Greymoor is an earl of our brother’s acquaintance, one who had the sense to marry several years ago. The example has yet to bear fruit with Casriel, but I cling stubbornly to hope. Tell me about the missing dog, Sycamore.”
Dogs went missing all the time in London. They ran loose in the streets, congregated in alleys, and could menace foot traffic in the meaner neighborhoods. They also kept the rat population down, and Will suspected dogs were hunted in their turn in the rookeries.
“Her Grace was devoted to the brute,” Cam said. “Rather like you and Georgette, apparently. She talked to the dog, kept it in her bedroom on stormy nights, took it with her everywhere.”
Will did not talk to his dog. Very much.
He led Cam across the terrace, in the direction of the torch-lit garden. “This was a large dog?”
“Mastiff, like Georgette, and very protective of the duchess. That’s the second one this month, Will. The second big dog to go missing from a fancy household, and nobody has seen a sign of either of ’em.”
This was not good, not good at all. Sycamore’s determination rivaled that of a bloodhound, and made Ash look like a puppy with an old shoe by comparison.