Once Upon a Wicked Night by Jennifer Haymore Page B

nodded. “I did. Since I arrived so unfashionably late, I was presented to her at once so she could determine whether she should bestow upon me the honor of remaining.”
    Serena blew out a breath. “I’m glad the verdict was in your favor.”
    “Only because you’re here, and, according to the dowager, ‘looking decidedly glum.’ I have been given the task of cheering you up. If I don’t ‘improve your expression’ within the next hour, the duchess has assured me she will throw us both out.”
    Serena grimaced. “It’s a wonder she didn’t throw me out the moment I darkened her doorstep.”
    “On the contrary, love, I think she has finally accepted you. All her closest friends expect threats like that. But that’s all they are. You know you’ve fallen out of favor when the threats come to fruition.”
    Serena shuddered. “Isn’t there anyone she treats with kindness?”
    “Of course. Her lapdog, Romeo.”
    Olivia suppressed a laugh, but Serena wasn’t so successful. “A match made in Heaven, I daresay.”
    Smiling, Jonathan gazed at Serena for a long moment, then raised his hand to stroke a black leather glove–encased knuckle across the back of her cheek. “God, I missed you. Next time, come home with me.”
    Olivia suddenly felt like an intruder in a personal moment. She turned away to gaze at the dance floor. When she didn’t see Jessica right away, her eye caught on one of the four curtained balconies that swept along the upper floor along the edge of the ballroom, and she said, in an offhand manner, “I heard the upstairs galleries were lovely.”
    After a short pause, Jonathan cleared his throat. “They are. We were up there… before. I haven’t returned.”
    His voice was low and gravelly, and Olivia flinched as understanding washed through her. One of those upstairs alcoves was where Serena and Jonathan had been discovered in a
most
compromising position.
    Olivia didn’t know what to say. She felt foolish and awkward. How like her, to remind her sister and brother-in-law of a moment in time they’d been trying to forget for years.
    “Would you like to go up?” Serena asked her. Then, seeing the look of consternation on Olivia’s face, she gave a low laugh and spoke under her breath so that anyone standing nearby wouldn’t hear. “Honestly, it’s all right, Olivia. I think going up there again will go far in healing old wounds.”
    At that moment, Olivia saw the way to give Jonathan and Serena the few moments alone they so obviously needed. “No, no, you go,” she said. “This dance will end soon, and, remember, I have promised the waltz to Lord Fenwicke.”
    Stepping back from Serena, Jonathan frowned, seeming to notice the clusters of people surrounding them for the first time. “Lord Fenwicke? He’s here?”
    “He is.” Serena tilted her head at him. “Why? Don’t you approve of him dancing with Olivia?”
    A group of tittering young ladies approached, and Olivia, Jonathan, and Serena watched them in silence as they passed, whispering behind their fans, on their way to the punch table.
    When the ladies were far enough away not to hear him, Jonathan shrugged. “It should be all right. You do know he’s married, don’t you?”
    Olivia hadn’t known that. Lord Fenwicke was handsome in a dark and rakish sort of way, and when he’d asked her to dance, he’d looked at her like a wolf assessing whether a diminutive fox was plump and juicy enough to be its next meal. Then he’d smiled and relaxed, and she’d realized he
had
deemed her worthy.
    He was a high-ranking lord, a handsome gentleman, an upstanding member of London society, and he’d thought her worthy. It was a compliment to her, and it had bolstered Olivia’s ever-fragile self-esteem.
    But now, hearing from Jonathan that he was married, she was confused. She wasn’t familiar with the ways of the
ton
, but certainly the way he’d looked at her wasn’t the way a married man should be looking at a young