Merely the Groom (Free Fellows League 2)

Gillian cast a sidelong glance at him from beneath the cover of her lashes as their hostess, Lady Harralson, tapped the viscount on the arm with her fan and admonished, “Lord Grantham, you cannot ask for such a favor until you’ve been properly introduced.”

“I have already made Lady Davies’s acquaintance,” Grantham explained. “We met several months ago at one of my mother’s ‘at homes.’” He smiled at his hostess.

Having met her obligations as hostess, Lady Harralson took the opportunity to withdraw. “I’m pleased to know it.” She nodded to Lady Davies and to Gillian. “Lady Davies, Miss Davies, I shall leave Lord Grantham in your charming company and see to my other guests.”

Viscount Grantham thanked his hostess, then turned his attention to Gillian’s mother. “If I am not mistaken, Lady Davies, you and my esteemed mother serve on the same charitable committees.”

Lady Davies blushed as he released her hand. “That’s correct, Lord Grantham. How kind of you to recall.”

“I rarely forget so charming a meeting,” Colin replied. The truth was that he rarely forgot any face or meeting. His memory for people and places was one of the talents that had kept him alive, but neither one of the ladies present needed to know that. He smiled at Lady Davies once again. “Unfortunately, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your daughter.”

Lady Davies took the hint. ?

?Lord Grantham, may I present my daughter, Miss Gillian Davies?”

Colin studied the young lady sitting before him. His curiosity was piqued. Miss Davies was beautiful. She had thick, dark hair and big, blue eyes surrounded by dark lashes, which dominated a rather small oval face with a slim nose, determined chin, and plump, red lips. Her eyes were red-rimmed and slightly swollen, but that didn’t detract from her looks. She didn’t appear to be awkward and shy or have two left feet, and her face was as far removed from the image of a gargoyle as it was possible to be. And as for having the approximate tonnage of a frigate... As far as Colin could tell, she was sleek and slim and curved in all the right places. She wasn’t beautiful in the conventional sense of the word, but she was beautiful nonetheless. It seemed impossible to him that all the other men present failed to notice.

Colin smiled down at her.

Gillian offered him her hand, and Colin pressed his lips against the soft fabric of her glove. “A pleasure, Miss Davies.”

She told herself that his actions were smooth and practiced and his words, requisite good manners, but Gillian warmed to them in much the same way as her mother. When he smiled, Lord Grantham came dangerously close to being irresistible.

Lady Davies turned to Gillian and continued the introductions. “Gillian, may I present Lord Grantham?”

Gillian looked up and stared into his eyes. “Delighted, Lord Grantham.”

She expected him to release her hand, but he surprised her by keeping a firm grip upon it as he straightened to his full height and gently tugged Gillian to her feet.

Bits of ivory-colored paper fluttered to the floor like delicate blossoms on a windy day, coming to rest on the top of Colin’s shiny black leather shoes.

Gillian blushed red with embarrassment.

Colin ignored the scraps of paper littering the floor around them. He reached for the silver cord looped around Gillian’s wrist and took hold of the tiny pencil hanging beside the remains of her mangled dance card. “May I?” Gillian lifted her chin a notch and looked him in the eye. “Be my guest.”

Colin scribbled his name on what was left of her dance card. “I am in your debt, Miss Davies,” he told her, offering her his elbow as the orchestra began tuning up for the next set.

“Are you?” Gillian replied, placing her gloved hand in the crook of his arm.

“Aye,” Colin answered, his voice a soft, rumbling burr.

“In what way?” Gillian curtsied as Lord Grantham bowed and the first strains of an old-fashioned minuet began.

“You spared my feelings by removing the names of all the other gentlemen who have signed your dance card.” He caught a whiff of a delicately tantalizing fragrance, and then lost it amid the stronger, overpowering scents of heavy perfumes and profusely perspiring bodies surrounding them on the dance floor.

Gillian looked up at him from beneath the cover of her lashes. His eyes were green, she realized. A crisp, gray green that sparkled with wit and humor and that challenged her to respond in kind. Gillian smiled her first genuine smile of the evening. “You undoubtedly know better than that, my lord.”

Colin arched his eyebrow in eloquent query.

“If other gentlemen had signed their names to my dance card, you and I wouldn’t be dancing now.”

“How so?” Colin asked the question, not because he didn’t understand but simply because he was curious to hear her answer. And satisfying curiosity was what a mission of discovery was all about.

“There would have been no need for Lady Harralson to prevail upon you to rescue me by asking me to dance.”

“I didn’t rescue you, Miss Davies,” Colin replied gallantly. “You rescued me—from a deadly dull evening.”

Gillian couldn’t contain her spontaneous burst of laughter. “How is that possible? Lady Harralson’s evenings are never deadly dull for those who love to dance.”