Her aunt and cousin abandoned her almost immediately, terrified of the social contagion of the stares, flocking toward safer acquaintances. Beatrice was left standing alone by a massive marble pillar near the refreshment tables.
A sharp tap of a fan on her arm made her flinch. Lady Carmichael, a dowager with a face like a dried apple and the social venom of a viper, stood before her, flanked by two giggling girls.
"Miss Ashdown," Lady Carmichael drawled, her eyes raking over the indigo silk. "How unexpected to see you out of the shadows. I see your aunt has stretched her credit. Such a charitable woman. Tell me, do you find the transition from charity case to spectacle jarring?"
The two girls behind her hid their snickers behind feathered fans.
Beatrice looked at the older woman. The old, ingrained instinct was to drop her head, apologize for her existence, and flee to the kitchens. But she remembered the dark, suffocating velvet of the carriage. She remembered Darius's voice: "I am entirely aware of who I meant."
"Not at all, Lady Carmichael," Beatrice said, her voice carrying clearly over the string quartet. "I find the view much the same. People are just as rude in the light as they are in the dark. The only difference is that now I can see their wrinkles."
Lady Carmichael's mouth snapped shut, her face flushing a violent, mottled red. Before she could unleash the inevitable tirade that would ruin Beatrice forever, a sudden heavy silence rippled through the immediate crowd.
The crowd parted. Darius strode through the sea of aristocrats as if they were tall grass. He wore stark black evening clothes, a crisp white cravat, and an expression of profound, bored annoyance that vanished the second his eyes found Beatrice. He didn't acknowledge Lady Carmichael. He didn't acknowledge the gaping onlookers. He stopped directly in front of Beatrice and executed a flawless, deep bow.
"Miss Ashdown," he said, his voice easily carrying through the stunned silence. "You promised me the first waltz."
Beatrice hadn't promised him anything. The waltz was scandalous, intimate, and entirely inappropriate for an unmarried woman of her unestablished standing. She looked into his eyes. There was a challenge there, and something else: a fierce, protective anchor.
"I did, Your Grace," she lied smoothly.
She placed her hand in his. His grip was warm and solid through the thin silk of her glove. He led her onto the floor as the orchestra struck up the opening chords. When he placed his hand on her waist, a physical jolt went through her spine. It was a firm, grounding pressure. He pulled her a fraction of an inch closer than was strictly proper.
They began to turn.
"You are shaking," Darius murmured, keeping his gaze locked on her face. The rest of the room blurred into a spinning vortex of candlelight and hostile stares.
"I am terrified," Beatrice admitted, her breath catching as he swept her into a sweeping turn. "Lady Carmichael was about to have me dragged into the street."
"Lady Carmichael is a fossil who smells of mothballs and gin," Darius said flatly.
A shocked, breathless laugh punched its way out of Beatrice's chest. The sound of it seemed to startle Darius, and then, slowly, the corners of his mouth lifted.
"You did not have to rescue me," she whispered, her eyes tracing the sharp line of his jaw.
"I didn't rescue you," Darius replied, his thumb pressing gently against the small of her back, guiding her effortlessly through the complicated steps. "I saw you gut her entirely on your own. I merely arrived to claim the spoils." He spun her again, the indigo silk of her gown flaring around his dark trousers.
"They will never accept me, Darius," Beatrice said, the cynical reality of their situation crashing back down on her. "They will whisper about me until the day I die. They will say I trapped you. They will say I am beneath you."
Darius stopped spinning. The music was still playing, but he slowed their movements to a near halt in the very center of the ballroom floor. Hundreds of eyes were fixed upon them. He didn't care. He leaned down, his mouth brushing dangerously close to her ear.
"Let them whisper," he swore quietly. "I am deaf to everyone in this room but you."
The scrutiny did not abate; it mutated. Over the next two weeks, the outright hostility shifted into a cloying, desperate sycophancy. The same people who had avoided Beatrice like a plague now sent her hothouse peaches and invitations to intimate teas. They realized the Duke was not playing a game. Beatrice found the flattery far more exhausting than the insults.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, precisely twenty days since the dinner party with the melting sugar swan. Darius had arranged for private access to a gallery at the British Museum. They were walking through the cavernous, echoing halls of the antiquities wing, blissfully alone save for a single, deeply bored footman trailing fifty paces behind.
Beatrice was studying a fragmented Roman bust. Darius was studying her.
"I am returning to Yorkshire at the end of the week," Darius said.
Beatrice froze. The chill of the marble room suddenly seeped through her sensible walking dress. It was happening: the amusement was over. The carriage ride argument roared back in her ears. He was leaving, and she would be left to face the consequences of the spotlight he had forced upon her. She gripped the edge of her reticule, fighting to keep her face a blank, defensive mask.
"I see," she said, her voice clipped, professional. "I wish you a safe journey, Your Grace. The roads should be clear this time of year."