Chapter 10
Two hours later, Henry reflected that, for the girl who’d been crowned the toast of London, Caroline Astley was a remarkably bad dancer.
Not that he was dancing with her.
Not intentionally, in any case.
Strictly speaking, she was dancing with Lord Graverley, and his partner was Peter Ferguson’s little sister, Charlotte, whom Ferguson had asked him to lead out. It was Charlotte’s first season, Ferguson had said, and she was worried about being labelled a wallflower.
But the dance was a cotillion, in which the couples arranged themselves into squares, with one couple on each side. Henry had attempted to slink into a group at the bottom of the set.
Lady Stanhope put a stop to that. “My gracious, Lord Thetford,” she said, “we cannot have someone of your rank so low in the set.
