The simple fact was that a large part of him wanted to confess all to Therese.
He was inching closer and closer—his emotions were inexorably pushing him nearer and nearer—to revealing his truth.
The battle to hold back, to hold the line and not speak precipitously and ruin his chances, was what was making him so tense.
Ambling from group to group—giving others no chance to claim her attention for too long—seemed to alleviate the possessive pressure somewhat. As he and she left another circle of ladies and gentlemen and he steered her on through the throng, she glanced up at him.
He felt her gaze briefly scan his face. He looked down, met her eyes, and arched a brow.
She searched his eyes for a second, then faced forward; her fingers tightened fleetingly on his arm as she murmured, “Just so you know, I’m delighted to have you by my side.”
He wasn’t sure what to make of that, but before he could ask, she flashed him a pixielike smile and, looking ahead again, went on, “The grandes dames are watching us like hawks and no doubt speculating and getting the wrong idea, but I don’t want them—their attention—to frighten you off.”
She looked up at him, and there was a warmth in her eyes of a sort he’d longed to see. “For the record, I like the way we’ve been recently, over recent weeks, with me helping you in business and with politics rather more than before.” She paused, then returned her gaze to the circle they were approaching and gently gripped his sleeve as if for emphasis. “I like this new and improved version of us.”
Devlin had to take a moment to breathe. If she’d looked at him then, she would have seen his dilemma in his eyes.
Tell her! Tell her!
The impulse battered him. In that instant, he wanted nothing more than to seize the moment, but the middle of a haut ton ballroom was the last place any sane gentleman would choose to reveal his heart.
But he couldn’t let the moment slip. He had to say something.
Words leapt to his tongue, and he heard himself say, “Good.” That would have been enough, but with the opening there, placed before him, he couldn’t resist adding, “And who knows? The grandes dames’ speculation might not be in error.”
Even as the words fell from his lips, he wanted to close his eyes and groan.
Courtesy of his bumbling overeagerness, he’d done it again—the equivalent of speaking in tongues.
Therese heard Devlin’s comment, and although she continued to glide toward the next group of guests with a suitable smile curving her lips, her mind came to a screeching halt, then scrambled to make sense of his words. Her heart—an increasingly sensitive organ where he was concerned—seemed to stutter, then race. What had he meant? His tone had sounded lighthearted, almost flippant, yet…
Even while she greeted the three couples they had joined and responded to their observations more or less by rote, she turned Devlin’s words over in her mind, then sternly told herself not to be so stupid.
Doubtless he thought that, due to his recent habit of spending more time by her side, the grandes dames were speculating that he was growing more attached to her. Nothing more. For anyone who didn’t know the ladies involved, that was an entirely reasonable conclusion.
But she knew every grande dame present and was prepared to wager the Alverton diamonds presently gracing her throat that wouldn’t be what that cohort of old ladies was thinking.
No. What the grandes dames were thinking—and hoping—was that after five years of marriage, Devlin was finally falling in love with her.
For some unfathomable reason, the realization left her feeling exposed. Vulnerable.
She told herself to let the comment pass unremarked, but their marriage was central to her existence, and any occurrence impinging on it was, for her, impossible to ignore.
As they moved on to the next circle of guests, she glanced at Devlin’s face, but his expression, as it usually was, especially in social settings, was unreadable. But she remembered the incident at Christopher’s wedding breakfast and the hours of agitation that had caused her, purely because, at the time, she hadn’t pushed Devlin for an explanation.
In her mind, she replayed his words. “And who knows? The grandes dames’ speculation might not be in error.”
Accepting that she simply had to know, she forced herself to catch his eye and quietly ask, “Regarding your earlier comment about what the grandes dames might be thinking, I assume you meant that it’s impossible to say what their conjecture might be.” Her tone made it clear she was asking a question rather than making a statement.
He looked ahead and hesitated—just for an instant—then a muscle in the side of his jaw tensed, and he dipped his head. “Just so.”
Therese stared, then forced herself to face forward as well. Far from answering her question, he’d only compounded her confusion, because she was as sure as she could be that he’d…perhaps not lied, but certainly his “just so” hadn’t been the whole truth. Possibly not even a part of the truth. She was learning to read the signs of prevarication in his sons; now she knew from whom they’d learned the knack.
To her annoyance, the Hemmingses approached through the increasing crowd, and she was forced to cling to her social mask when what she really wanted to do was drag Devlin into some anteroom and demand to be told precisely what he’d meant…
Gah! Even as she traded greetings and observations with James and Veronica, a fresh wave of uncertainty rose and swamped her. She couldn’t help but recall how she’d overthought and overinterpreted Devlin’s words at Christopher’s wedding. Ten to one, she was making too much of his latest throwaway comment as well.
She had to force herself not to grit her teeth; this was the second time he’d flung her into an emotional fluster with an ambiguous incidental comment.
Determined to put the latest episode behind her, she ruthlessly focused on the tale Veronica was relating about an excursion to a fabric warehouse in pursuit of curtains for her most-recent refurbishing effort. Veronica seemed compelled to redecorate at least every second year; Therese strongly suspected that Veronica did so for reasons other than keeping up with the latest style.
Devlin was doing a passable job of listening with some degree of attention, while James, as usual, looked supremely bored and just a trifle irritated—which might have been Veronica’s intention.
Keeping her social façade firmly in place and her mind focused on the task, Therese set herself to behave and react as expected of the Countess of Alverton.
Devlin cast a sidelong glance at Therese and tried to tell himself all was well, but he knew that wasn’t the case. Aside from all else, beneath his polished, impenetrable veneer, his heart continued to beat too rapidly—whether in trepidation, in misplaced hope, or in expectation, he couldn’t tell.
Once again, he’d muddied the waters between them. He knew perfectly well that the grandes dames, keenly perspicacious as they were, would be speculating that his attentions to Therese signaled that he was falling in love with her. Given that the Cassington ballroom was in no way an appropriate venue for any such personal revelation, he should have shut up after his “Good.” If he had, all would, indeed, have been well.
Instead, in oblique and ambiguous fashion, he’d suggested the grandes dames might be correct without actually confirming anything at all.