but she had the satisfaction, regularly reinforced by compliments and admiring glances, of knowing that she looked well. Her upbringing and natural charm stood her in good stead with even the highest sticklers amongst the grande dames she encountered, and her full dance card was most gratifying.
The first waltz was next, she realised, glancing round from her position seated meekly beside Lady Fanny. She need not have worried, Mr Graham was at her side, bowing punctiliously to Lady Fanny before taking her charge by the hand and leading her out.
‘I am not a very experienced waltzer,’ Katherine confided, her cheeks slightly warm with the daring pressure of his hand at her waist.
‘What a relief! Neither am I,’ Roderick Graham admitted. ‘We will just take it carefully and hope your toes will be safe.’
In the event it was a pleasure. Mr Graham had a natural sense of rhythm and was too considerate to try any fancy steps, so Katherine circled the dance floor feeling perfectly at ease.
Mr Graham’s new-found expertise was not, however, up to timing his movements so as to deliver Katherine neatly back in front of her chaperon as the music stopped and they found themselves on the far side of the floor.
‘Do not worry,’ Katherine reassured him as he apologised for them having to circle back. ‘I was intending to sit this country dance out in any case.’
‘Miss Cunningham.’ It was Nick, firmly in front of them and looking, to Katherine’s appreciative, and somewhat nervous eye, distinctly saturnine.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Graham.’ Nick nodded to the other man.
‘Seaton.’ Mr Graham’s voice was equally pleasant, equally unyielding.
‘If you will excuse me, I will escort Miss Cunningham back to her chaperon.’
‘Unnecessary, Seaton, I was just escorting her myself.’
‘But I insist.’
‘And so do I.’
Oh, Lord. Now what to do? The two were bristling at each other in the most perfectly polite manner imaginable. ‘Mr Graham?’
‘Yes, Miss Cunningham?’
‘I would be most grateful for a glass of lemonade, if you would be so kind.’ Katherine opened wide brown eyes at the Scotsman and smiled.
‘But of course, Miss Cunningham. I will bring it to where Lady Fanny is sitting immediately.’ There was the slightest emphasis on the last word, then he turned on his heel and began to weave his way through the onlookers watching the dancing.
‘Honestly, Nick,’ Katherine hissed as he took her arm and began to walk in the opposite direction. ‘I was feeling like a bone between two dogs.’
‘That Scotsman is paying you altogether too much attention.’
‘He is not that Scotsman,’ Katherine retorted. ‘He is a perfectly pleasant young lawyer who has simply been courteous enough to talk to me at dinner and to ask me for two dances. If you did not want me to talk to him, you should not have placed me next to him.’
‘I had nothing to do with the seating plans.’
‘I can see that. If you had, I doubt you would have placed me next to a man who saw you hanged.’
‘What?’
‘He was at Newgate. Somehow I do not think he will recognise you.’
‘Is that why you suddenly looked faint at dinner?’ She nodded and Nick steered her neatly into an alcove. ‘That is better, one can hardly hear oneself think out there.’
‘It is certainly a difficult environment in which to have an argument in whispers,’ Katherine agreed tartly.
‘Is that what we are doing?’ He smiled and took her chin between long fingers.
‘I do not know how else to characterise it. You pounce on me when I am in the company of a perfectly unexceptionable gentleman, you lecture me on associating with him, for no good reason—oh!’ Her complaint was silenced by Nick simply leaning down and kissing her, very firmly, very calmly and with a complete disregard to whatever was happening just the other side of a silk curtain.
‘Nick!’ Katherine freed her mouth and took a hasty step backwards, coming up with a bump against a pillar. ‘People will see.’
‘Please be assured, Miss Cunningham, that if I have placed you in a compromising position I am only too ready to do the honourable thing …’
With a suppressed squeak of outrage Katherine swept out of the alcove in what was dangerously close to being a flounce. Nick did not attempt to follow her and she made her way back to Lady Fanny feeling more than a little flustered. Mr Graham was waiting patiently with her drink. He had obviously brought one for her chaperon as well, and was politely attempting to follow one of Lady Fanny’s more discursive commentaries.
‘Miss Cunningham.’ He leapt to his feet and looked behind her with furrowed brow. ‘Where is Lord Seaton?’
‘I … we … quarrelled. I think.’ Katherine took the lemonade and drank it thirstily.
‘If he has—’ The lawyer was on his feet, hands clenched.
‘No, no!’ Katherine urged him to sit again. ‘Nothing of that sort. It is a … family matter which causes some tension, that is all.’
‘You will allow me to escort you in to supper?’ He still did not seem easy with her explanation.
‘Thank you, yes, that would be most kind.’
Lady Fanny gave an approving nod, then smiled as another tall man approached. ‘Cousin Robert, have you come to ask Miss Cunningham to dance?’
‘Well, yes.’ Robert smiled cheerfully at Katherine. ‘Do you have any waltzes free after supper, Miss Cunningham? I’ll have done my duty dances by then. But I was hoping you’d let me take you in to supper.’
‘You are just too late, Lord Robert. Do you know Mr Graham?’
The men exchanged greetings and Robert suggested they all go in together. ‘Cousin Fanny?’
‘No, Robert dear, I am joining Lady Willington’s party.’
Katherine looked around her for Nick, but there was no sign of him. She bit her lip: quarrelling with him was far from what she had dreamed of doing on this fairytale evening.
Everything was as magnificent as she had imagined, yet light-hearted, almost whimsical in tone. The flowers were massed banks of wildflowers mixed with hot house blooms, the lights twinkled behind shades of different coloured glass, the luxury and attention to detail was laid on with a light hand. It made her smile and think of Nick. She had not expected it of the Duke and wondered if, despite their exchange at lunch the other day,
