Beyond Innocence by Emma Holly Page A

her to be the daughter of their hosts and, therefore, the daughter of a duke. Consequently, she was momentarily flustered by her offer.
    "It would be my honor, Miss Vance," she said once she had found her voice.
    Miss Vance wrinkled her nose. "Call me Merry," she said, as if Florence herself were the daughter of a peer. "All my friends do and I'm certain we're going to be friends."
    Miss Vance's kindness stole her breath. Dear as Keswick was, the village had been home to a great many genteel old ladies. Florence couldn't remember when she'd last had a friend her own age. Of course, she thought more soberly, Miss Vance's generosity meant she couldn't hide in the cloakroom all night.
    "My brothers are going to swamp you," her rescuer predicted.
    Florence endeavored to look as if this news were good.
    * * *
    Edward leaned againstthe wall with his champagne punch, watching an endless succession of males whirl Florence Fairleigh around the floor. She was, as she'd predicted, an awkward dancer. Not surprisingly, none of her partners seemed to mind. Rather, they gazed at her with puppyish eyes, trying
to coax her to lift her shyly lowered lashes by telling amusing tales. Even the older men played this game, as if she in her innocence made them remember theirs.
    Only Freddie succeeded. He arrived late with a shower of apologies and immediately swept Florence into a waltz. Within minutes, she was shaking her head with laughter, easy in his arms as she was in no one else's. Her smile dazzled Edward all the way across the room. Freddie was good for her. Freddie brought her into her own. Even when he took her to meet his friends, she did not lose her glow. Edward saw her speaking to them and watched them laugh at whatever she'd said. Somehow, Freddie had found
a way to share his charm with her.
    Her earlier terror might as well have been a dream. Certainly, she didn't need Edward's assistance now.
    He thrust his hands into his pockets, glummer than he could ever remember being. He shouldn't stare at her like this. He was only torturing himself. But how could he look away? Peter Vance was dancing
with her now, a sprightly polka which could not have shown her stiffness to worse effect. Why did her awkwardness enthrall him? His heart thumped at the way she craned her slender neck to watch her stumbling feet, at the way her skirts caught Vance's legs, at the way—God help him—she blushed
when Vance bent to whisper some tease in her shell-like ear.
    Edward ground his teeth. He was an idiot. A complete and utter idiot. The obsession he felt for this girl made no sense whatsoever. It did no one any good: not him, not her, not Freddie.
    "People are saying you snubbed her," said a throaty, boyish voice.
    Caught by surprise, Edward looked down quite a few inches and found himself gazing into the wide freckled smile of their hosts' youngest daughter. He'd met her at Tattersall's, he recalled, a horse-mad girl, as plain in speech as she was in appearance.
    "Miss Vance," he said, and bowed politely over her hand. "Forgive me for not noticing your approach."
    She gave him a rap with her fan that put him more in mind of Aunt Hypatia than a seventeen-year-old coquette. "Didn't you hear me? People are saying you don't like Florence Fairleigh."
    Edward squinted in confusion. "Are you acquainted with Miss Fairleigh?"
    "Oh, yes," she said airily. "Your cousin and I are great friends—ever since I heard those Wainwright witches taking cuts at her in the cloakroom."
    Edward's spine snapped straight. Someone had hurt Florence ? Someone had dared? "What Wainwright witches?"
    His unwitting growl made his companion laugh. "The same Wainwright witches whose mama has been stalking you these past two years."
    "Oh," he said, unconsciously pursing his mouth in distaste, "Greta and Minna."
    "Yes. Greta and Minna. And if you don't dance with your cousin, they'll convince everyone you disapprove of her." Her eyes narrowed and she poked the center of his chest with