"Half the room believes you're some foreign heiress I've kept secret out of jealousy. The other half believes you're a governess I've taken an inappropriate fancy to." His mouth curved. "I find I don't much care which story they prefer, so long as they eventually learn the true one."
"And which is that?"
"That you're a woman who noticed a cold child in a garden when no one else thought to look, and that I decided somewhat rashly that I wanted to know everything else about a person capable of that kind of attention." He paused, his gaze steady on hers. "I don't regret the decision, even after tonight's trouble in retrieving you."
Avalene felt heat rise in her cheeks that had nothing to do with the exertion of dancing. "You might regret it yet. I have very little to offer a man in your position: no fortune, no connections worth mentioning, a stepmother who would happily see me disappear entirely."
"I didn't ask what you could offer," Rhys said. "I asked whether you'd come."
The dance ended, but he didn't release her hand right away. And for a moment, they stood together at the edge of the floor while the orchestra shifted into its next piece and the crowd swirled anew around them.
It was in that pause that Avalene's stepmother finally found her.
She arrived with Clarissa and Ophelia trailing behind, all three women wearing expressions carefully arranged into pleasant surprise, as though encountering Avalene here were the happiest coincidence rather than the exact outcome they'd spent four days trying to prevent.
"Avalene, darling," her stepmother said, her voice pitched sweet enough to curdle. "What a delightful surprise! We wondered where you'd gotten to."
"I imagine you did," Avalene said evenly.
Her stepmother's smile tightened at the corners, but held. She turned it full force toward the Duke. "Your Grace, I do hope my stepdaughter hasn't been any trouble. She has a tendency toward theatrics, I'm afraid. We do our best to manage it."