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from thoughts of crops and soil improvements.
    “—won’t stay long. I should think if we dance twice that should prove sufficient.”
    Pelham almost balked. Almost. He was a duke and did not show his emotions. But he thought his deaf ear might have deceived him. “A dance?” he asked, keeping his voice level.
    “Or two.”
    “Two?” He could not have possibly heard correctly.
    He must have sounded choked, because she raised a dark brow. “Is that a problem, Your Grace?”
    She had brown hair and brown eyes and was pretty enough. Pelham cared little about her looks, but he did care about her temperament. She was a serious sort—or so he’d always thought. But just now, he had thought she might be laughing at him. It was too dark in the coach—even with the carriage lights—to tell, though.
    It must have been his imagination.
    “Dancing is such…” Torture. “A frivolous pursuit,” he managed.
    “But surely you dance?” Lady Elizabeth asked.
    He did and he had, but he did not enjoy it. It didn’t seem dignified. “If you think it absolutely necessary.” The evening had hardly begun and was already rapidly degenerating.
    Lady Elizabeth did not comment, and Pelham wondered if it was too soon in the engagement to outline some rules. For example, in the future he would not be required to dance. Or attend balls. Really, he had little interest in most ton functions, but he did not want to be unreasonable. Perhaps they might attend one small soiree each Season…
    The coachman announced their arrival, and Pelham peered out the window for a glimpse of Carlton House. It faced Pall Mall on the south, and the gardens were adjacent to St. James’s Park. Palladian in style, the house appeared austere, formal, and classic on the outside. Inside was a different matter entirely. Henry Holland, the architect, had acquiesced to the prince’s every whim, and the interior of the house was garish and ornate.
    Horace Walpole, whose criticisms Pelham usually agreed with, had called the house “the most perfect in Europe.” Pelham privately wondered if Walpole was going blind.
    The coach sped past a small crowd of onlookers, eager to see the arrival of the wealthy or titled—as few possessed both wealth and title—they read about daily in their morning papers. Lady Elizabeth gave a small wave to the crowds, but Pelham ignored them. The coach joined a long line of other coaches, and it was a quarter hour before Pelham and Lady Elizabeth alighted and entered through the hexastyle portico of Corinthian columns. They entered a grand foyer graced by anterooms on either side, and proceeded to the entrance hall.
    This hall soared two stories above them and boasted Ionic columns of yellow scagliola. Pelham was unimpressed, but Lady Elizabeth was turning her head this way and that, seeming to take it all in. He did hope she wasn’t gleaning any ideas for remodeling his sober residence. He did not think he could stand yellow marble.
    They were escorted to the ballroom and announced, and Pelham led his fiancée into the crowds. Her mother and father were the first to greet them, and Pelham spent a good quarter of an hour exchanging mindless pleasantries with them. He was informed the prince had yet to make an appearance, which meant Pelham might be here indefinitely. The thought depressed him, and he offered to fetch Lady Elizabeth and her mother, the Marchioness of Nowlund, glasses of champagne. There were footmen circling with trays, but Pelham needed a reason to escape.
    He strolled away, immediately engulfed by the crush of people, and headed for the French doors opening onto the terrace. He had just stepped outside and breathed in fresh air when Fitzhugh joined him.
    “I must be hallucinating,” he said. “That’s the only explanation I have for seeing the Duke of Pelham at Prinny’s ball.”
    “Stubble it,” Pelham growled.
    Fitzhugh laughed. “Drink?” He handed Pelham a snifter of what appeared to be brandy, and