‘Are you ready for a bite to eat? I must confess, all this dancing has given me quite an appetite.’

‘Oh. Um...’ He wasn’t out of breath, though. Her cousins were fanning their flushed faces, Mr Morgan was mopping his brow with a handkerchief, but Lord Havelock wasn’t displaying the slightest sign of fatigue. He was obviously very fit.

Not that she ought to notice such things about a man.

Flustered by the turn of her thoughts, she took the viscount’s hand and allowed him to place her hand on his sleeve.

It must just be that something about him reminded her of her brother’s friends. Several of them had been of his class and had about them the same air of...vitality. Of vigour. And the same self-assurance that came with knowing they were born to command.

She regarded her hand, where it lay on his sleeve. The arm encased in the soft material of his evening coat felt like a plank of oak. Just like her brother’s had. And those of his friends he’d sometimes brought home, who’d escorted her round the town. Not that this viscount actually worked for his living, like those lads who’d served in the navy. From what she knew of aristocrats, he probably maintained his fitness by boxing and fencing, and riding.

He was probably what her brother would have called a Corinthian. She darted a swift glance at his profile, taking in the firm set of his jaw and the healthy complexion. Yes, definitely a Corinthian. At least, he certainly didn’t look as though he spent his days sleeping off the effects of the night before.

And, if he was one of the sporting set, that would explain why he wore clothing that looked comfortable, rather than fitted tightly to show off his physique. He might not be on the catch for an heiress at all.

Her cheeks flushed. She couldn’t believe she was speculating about his reasons for being here. Or the body underneath his clothing. Not that she’d ever spent so much time thinking about a man’s choice of clothing, either. Just because he seemed better turned out than any other man present, in some indefinable way, she had no business making so much of it.

‘I hope the crowd of people we are following are heading to the supper room,’ he said, breaking into her thoughts.

‘I...I suppose they must be,’ she replied, but only after casting about desperately for an interesting reply and coming up empty.

‘You are not a regular visitor to this house?’

She shook her head. ‘I have only been in London a few days,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t know anyone.’

‘Apart from the lady you are with. Your...aunt?’

Mary shook her head again. ‘I had never even met her before I turned up on her doorstep with a letter of introduction from my lawyer. And to be perfectly frank, I’m not at all sure the connection is...’

Suddenly Mary wondered why on earth she was telling this total stranger such personal information. It couldn’t be simply because there was something about him that put her in mind of her brother and his fellow officers, could it? Or because he’d given her that look, earlier, that had made her feel as though he was genuinely interested?

How pathetic did that make her? One kind word, one keen look, a smile and a touch of his hand and she’d been on the verge of unburdening herself.

Good grief—she was as susceptible to a good-looking man as the cousins she’d decried as ninnies not an hour earlier. She, who’d sworn never to let a handsome face sway her judgement, had just spent a full five minutes wondering how he managed to keep so fit and speculating about the cut of his clothes, and what lay beneath them.

‘You don’t really have any family left to speak of, is that what you were about to say?’

She couldn’t recall what she’d been about to say. Nor even what the question had been. Her mind kept veering off into realms it had never strayed into before and consequently got lost there.

‘Your...aunt, or whatever she is,’ he persisted, while her cheeks flooded with guilty heat, ‘said you are in mourning. Was it...for someone very close?’

Well, that dealt with the strange effects his proximity had been wreaking in her mind and body. He might as well have doused her with a bucket of cold water.

‘My mother,’ she said. ‘She was all I had left.’

She might be in a crowded ballroom tonight, on the arm of the most handsome and eligible man in the room, but the truth was that she was utterly alone in the world, and destitute.

‘That’s c...’ He pulled himself up short and patted her hand. ‘I mean to say, dreadful. For you.’

They’d reached the doorway now and beyond she could see tables laid out with a bewildering array of dishes that looked extremely decorative, but not at all like anything she might ever have eaten before.

Since they’d both come without an invitation, space was found for them at a table squeezed into the bay of a window.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said when he noted her gaze darting about anxiously. ‘I shall make sure we find your aunt once we have eaten and return you to her side in complete safety.’

She was amazed he’d noticed how awkward she felt. And that he’d correctly deduced it was being separated from her aunt that had caused it. Most men couldn’t see further than the end of their noses.

He must have noticed the way she’d eyed the food with trepidation, too, because he took great care, when offering her dishes, to ask if she liked the principal ingredient of each. Which deftly concealed her ignorance. For he could have explained what everything was, making her feel even more awkward, whilst puffing off his own savoir faire. As it was, since the other men at their table were passing dishes round, and helping the ladies to slices of this, or spoonfuls of that, nobody noticed anything untoward.

Eventually, her plate, like that of everyone else at the table, was piled high and conversation began to flow.

Except between Lord Havelock and her.

She supposed he’d gone to the length of his chivalry. She supposed he was waiting for her to make some kind of remark that would open up the kind of light, inconsequential conversations that were springing up all around them.

But for the life of her she couldn’t dredge up a single topic she could imagine might be of interest to a man like him. Or the kind of man she suspected he was. She didn’t really know a thing about him.

And though she was grateful to him for the way he’d behaved so far, she began to wish she was with her aunt and cousins. They would know how to entertain him, she was sure. They wouldn’t let this awkward silence go on, and on, and on...

He cleared his throat, half turned towards her and said, ‘Do you...?’ He cleared his throat again, took a sip of wine and started over. ‘That is, I wonder, do you enjoy living in town, or do you prefer the country? I suppose,’ he said with a swift frown before she could answer, ‘I should have enquired where you lived before you had to come to London, shouldn’t I? I don’t know why I assumed you had lived in the country before.’

‘I lived in Portsmouth, actually,’ she said, relieved to be able to have a question she could answer without having to rack her brains. ‘And I haven’t been here long enough to know whether I prefer it, or not.’

‘But do you have any objection to living in the countryside?’

It was her turn to frown. ‘I cannot tell. I have never lived anywhere but in a town.’

Oh, what a stupid, stupid thing to say. She should have made some remark about how...bustling London was in comparison to Portsmouth, or...or how she missed the sound of the sea. Or even better, asked him about his preferences. That was what men liked, really, wasn’t it? To talk about themselves? Instead, she’d killed the potential conversation stone dead.

They resumed eating in silence for a few more minutes before he made a second, valiant attempt to breach it. ‘Well, do you like children?’