“Your Grace,” Lord Hollister acknowledged, as the last strains of music died away.
“May I?” Daniel reached for the dance card dangling from Miranda’s wrist, opened it, and lifted it high enough for him to read without bending. “I believe this was my dance …” He did his best to keep from sounding disappointed. Miranda always granted him the first and last dances at the duchess’s annual gala.
“You were late,” Miranda told him. “And Lord Hollister kindly took your place.”
Daniel watched as Miranda smiled at the recently widowed viscount.
His gut knotted at the sight.
The pain had nothing to do with his wound and everything to do with the way Miranda was looking at Patrick Hollister. And the way Hollister was looking at her.
Turning slightly, Daniel brushed his lips against Miranda’s gloved hand. He’d seen Miranda smile at other men. He’d admired her as she danced with other men on countless occasions. But this was different. Miranda stood three or four inches taller than Hollister and hadn’t appeared bothered by it in the least. Nor had she seemed bothered by his own tardy arrival, despite the fact that until tonight she had never danced the first dance with anyone but him. Holding her hand a fraction longer than was necessary, Daniel stared over the top of it and met Hollister’s gaze. “Then I’m indebted to you, my lord, for standing in my stead and accompanying Lady Miranda onto the dance floor.”
There was no mistaking the ducal dismissal, but Lord Hollister refused to go silently. “Not at all, Your Grace,” he murmured. “I didn’t consider that I was standing in your stead. For, if truth be known, I took advantage of your absence to dance with the lady of my choice.” Hollister gave Miranda a smile. “And I was honored by her acceptance.”
The knot in Daniel’s stomach grew tighter. He met Hollister’s gaze as he pressed his lips against Miranda’s hand once again, then stepped closer and tucked it into the crook of his arm. “Then I’m certain you won’t object if she honors me with the next dance.”
“No,” Lord Hollister agreed, glancing from Miranda to Daniel and back again. “I don’t suppose I will. Thank you for the dance, Lady Miranda.”
“Thank you, Lord Hollister,” she answered. “For coming to my rescue.”
Hollister bowed to her, then slowly stepped away, leaving her in the Duke of Sussex’s care.
“Your rescue?” Daniel arched an elegant brow at her.
“What would you call it?” she demanded, glaring at him when Lord Hollister moved out of earshot. “Your mother was very surprised and none too pleased to see me.”
He grinned.
“This isn’t funny, Daniel.” She jerked her hand out of the crook of his arm. “The duchess made it quite clear that my name was not on the guest list.”
“Not on her guest list,” Sussex corrected.
“Your mother’s guest list is the only one that matters,” Miranda snapped at him.
“Not to me,” he countered, lowering his voice as he stared into her eyes. “And I invited you.”
“Then you should have had the decency to inform your mother, because hers is the guest list they use at the front door.”
He winced.
Miranda frowned. “You do this to me every year, Daniel, and you know she doesn’t like me crashing her party.”
It was true. His mother had never liked or approved of Miranda. There was, the duchess always said, something unsettling about a girl Miranda’s age inheriting her late father’s title and becoming a peeress in her own right. There was, she said, something shocking about a young woman who considered herself the equal to male peers. Daniel suspected his mother might be more jealous than disapproving, for the duchess had been born an honorable miss and had gained her lofty title by marrying a duke, while Miranda had rightfully inherited hers. So Daniel invited Miranda to the annual gala every year knowing his mother had deliberately omitted her name from the guest list.
It began as a way to right his mother’s injustice, but Daniel had continued to invite Miranda year after year because he enjoyed her company. He had wanted to see her again, to hear her voice and resume the verbal sparring they’d enjoyed during their brief courtship—a courtship that had come to a rather abrupt end when he’d been a few months shy of his majority and certain his dream of becoming a member of the Free Fellows League was within his grasp. Miranda had just inherited her title, and his attraction to her had scared him.
He’d been looking for companionship and a light flirtation.
But Miranda deserved so much more than he could offer her. She had the air of permanence about her. He’d wanted her, but she was a lady and he couldn’t, in good conscience, take what he wanted from her without offering her a wedding ring in return. Nor could he find it in his heart to ask her to wait for him or settle for anything less. He told himself he was doing what was best for both of them, told himself that he had to stop calling on her before he fell madly in love with her, before he went so far as to propose matrimony when he was not ready to settle down, do his duty, and be the sort of husband Miranda deserved.
And when Daniel stopped calling, he and Miranda had gone from would-be lovers to complete adversaries almost overnight.
He should have let her go completely and done everything in his power to forget her. He should have ignored his mother’s pettiness and let Miranda handle the duchess in her own way. But he’d seized the opportunity to intervene instead. Every year he invited her to his mother’s society gala, and every year Miranda responded to his invitation. And Daniel was convinced it wasn’t just to avoid the humiliation of having everyone else in the ton know that hers was the only prominent name that didn’t appear on the duchess’s guest list. She looked forward to seeing him, being with him, verbally sparring with him, every bit as much as he did.
“Yet, you came,” he mused.
“I must be as daft to accept as you are to invite me,” Miranda admitted. “And I promise you it won’t happen again, because this year, Her Grace i