Chapter Ten

“I believe I would very much like to attend a ball,” Oriana announced the next morning.

It was not well-received.

“Oriana?” Danielle queried, almost curiously, as she surveyed her companion from the curved rim of her teacup, poised just before her lips. The fact that Ori’s declaration had originated from the previously contemplative silence that had settled over the occupants in the drawing room for well over twenty minutes made it appear even more peculiar.

“A ball,” Oriana felt inclined to clarify, “a luncheon, a soiree- some form of social occasion. The sort where one associates with acquaintances, converses and dances- you know the sort, I’m sure.”

Dani narrowed her eyes. “You are teasing me,” she accused testily.

“Not at all. I merely feel somewhat confined,” Oriana admitted. She determinedly ignored Cole’s penetrating silver gaze, aware that his attention had been honed on her since the moment she had opened her mouth. “Restless.”

“I am not aware of any such events in the area,” Dani began slowly. “Besides which, I doubt very much that you will find such a thing this late into autumn.”

Ori smiled. “Would it be unfeasible to host one yourself then?”

From the head of the table, Rhys began to cough.

“Oh,” Dani murmured. “I hadn’t really considered the possibility-”

“We could invite our dearest friends,” Oriana urged eagerly. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see them all? It will be a small affair, of course, nothing too ostentatious, but… cosy.”

Having sufficiently recovered, Lord Ashcroft threw Oriana a withering glare. “With all due respect, Miss Brightmore,” he said with a tight edge to his voice, “Falmouth is not suited to the sort of affair you are speaking of.”

“Falmouth,” Dani challenged slyly, “or you, my lord?”

“Danielle-”

“Oh, come now, Rhys,” Lady Ashcroft admonished good-naturedly, which was testament to her soothing effect on the normally ornery and reclusive earl, “our guest is merely expressing the need for some excitement. We can be rather mundane company compared to what Oriana is usually accustomed to-”

“Oh,” Ori interrupted quickly, “that’s not it, at all. I am very content with the company present and could happily remain so for the duration of my stay at Falmouth.” For a brief moment, Oriana allowed her gaze to shift and find Cole’s, and in that moment her heart shuddered to a grinding halt in her breast and a burst of heat flushed through her body but she quickly recovered, averting her face and compelling her mind to shy from errant memories of the previous evening that lingered on the peripherals like hungry wolves waiting to pounce during a weaker moment.

“If you are content, Miss Brightmore,” Rhys said, “then why is there a need to fill these halls with guests?”

“Do not mind Rhys,” Dani told Ori with a grin. “He is not used to company.”

“I can speak for myself, Danielle.”

“And I,” his wife returned, “think that it would do you some good to host an event, Rhys. Goodness, Falmouth hasn’t seen something like that since… well, since we were betrothed.”

 Rhys sighed and the paper he had been reading was set aside, indicating the seriousness of the matter that he was required to consider. Solemnly, he regarded his wife and Ori discovered something new and intricate and wonderfully hopeful about the couple’s relationship: Rhys Ashcroft implicitly and irrevocably trusted and respected his wife. He would consider her every request, no matter how silly or frivolous it may seem, and give her due credit. It was not something Oriana could vouch for in other marriages where one appeared to dominate the other (more often than not one’s husband). Rhys and Dani operated as a well-oiled, functioning unit. “Would this… ball please you?” he asked her quietly.

“I believe it would not displease you, my lord,” Dani teased.

Oriana hadn’t been aware that she had been holding her breath with anticipation until Rhys smiled and all the tension evaporated from her shoulders. She wondered whether the Earl of Falmouth was aware of just how enigmatic and influential a man he was. “Very well,” Rhys assented. “You may have your “winter ball”, my lady.”

“Have you suggested the theme?”

“And I trust the guest list will be restricted to our acquaintances alone?” Rhys queried though Oriana suspected the question was rhetorical.

“Well, naturally-”

Ori interjected mildly, halting Dani’s words as they left her lips, “I rather thought that we might include a few acquaintances of acquaintances.”

“Just what,” Cole spoke at last, “does that mean?”

He drew her gaze and she wondered whether it was deliberate. Perhaps he had figured her out, her sudden fondness for social events outside the Season months, but Oriana did not mind. Whatever flirtation she had begun with Captain Stanley had been terminated-permanently- the previous evening.

She had been a fool to think he could favour her so much as to want her as his wife, a silly, besotted fool. But she couldn’t allow herself to pine, to dwell on her insecurities again and become a miserable heap because yet another man had rejected her. At least, she thought, Cole had appeared to want her, which was more than she could say for her dalliance with Gabriel Sinclair all those many years ago.

Needless to say, she refused to wallow. She refused to let Cole see just how deeply she had felt for him and now… well, now, there were repercussions and she only had herself to blame. She should have known from the moment she had met him, and the moments that came after, that Cole Stanley was a downright scoundrel.

“It means,” Ori explained to him, choosing her words evenly and carefully, “that I would like to request the presence of any available and notable bachelors of our acquaintances’ acquaintance.”

“Well,” Dani hedged uncomfortably, glancing between Cole and Ori, “that should not be too large a gathering to organise. I shall make a note of it on the invitations, and write to the Weatherly’s and the Sinclaire’s-”

“Oh, I do have one more special request,” Oriana said quickly. “Please, I beg of you, do not feel inclined to include my family in the invitation. I came to Falmouth for a reprieve from… well, everything. I would be very much in your debt if you did not mention this to any of them.”

Dani considered Oriana curiously but nodded her head, displaying her understanding and assent of her request.

Oriana agreed to assist Danielle with the invitations later in the day and excused herself from the table.

It was predictable that Cole would hunt her down and demand she explain herself, though she knew she had no reason or responsibility to provide him with an excuse. However, he did not do so immediately.

Instead, he found her later that afternoon while she was winding her way towards the study where Danielle was awaiting her counsel.

She heard his footsteps first, his gait considerably faster and more purposeful than her own, growing louder as he easily gained on her. Then he was behind her, close, but she ignored him, pretended with all her might that he wasn’t there, that she didn’t long for him.

“A ball?” he scoffed, keeping in stride.

“Go away.”

“A ball?” he repeated, incredulously. “And you intend to find yourself a suitor?”

“That’s none of your concern, Captain Stanley,” Oriana told him flatly. “None of what I do is any of your concern.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

She increased her pace, needing to escape, and desperately prevented herself from answering him. When the silence continued, Cole snatched her wrist and pulled her to a staggering halt. “I am not a gentleman,” he ground out obtusely.

“Clearly.” Damn, she hadn’t meant to say anything. Oriana pursed her lips shut and turned away from him.

“I am not,” he repeated firmly, “a gentleman. I will not tiptoe around you to spare your feelings, nor will I behave myself. I will not keep myself aloof or mince about and fawn over other women. I am not a gentleman.”

If she hadn’t been certain what he was prattling about when he first began, she wasn’t any wiser for it now. The most she could grant him was a glance and possibly a request to release her so that she could proceed towards her assignation, but when her eyes settled on him again her voice lodged somewhere in her throat and that peculiar hot feeling washed over her skin, immobilizing her. The expression on her face must have provoked something softer within him for he lowered his voice and the fierceness left his jaw.

“I am emotional,” Cole explained. “I am governed by my needs and wants, and I still want you. I cannot guarantee the lack of a scandal should you have your little affair, because I will put my fist in the first man’s face that holds your interest.”

She glared at him, but the will to fight with him had largely dissipated since the night prior, leaving only a hollow, aching void. However, the audacity of his statement should have made her furious. “You do not want me,” she said flatly. “You made your choice, allow me to make mine.”

“Oriana-”

She turned away from him, his voice dying quietly on his lips, and slowly, as if his fingers were reluctant to lose the touch of her skin, she slid from his grasp, and walked away.

This time he did not follow.