Page 105 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

She choked and set her plate and fork down with a clatter.

Andrew refilled her lemonade and waited until she’d drained fully half the glass and stopped coughing before asking, “Are you all right, Miss Martin?”

She nodded, her eyes watering as she gave a last cough.

“Shall I go on?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and then nodded.

“I like the game of billiards—because it is one of the few I can actually win,” he added. He paused, considering his next words carefully. “And I hate that I don’t recall meeting you before.”

She had a forkful of cake halfway to her mouth but lowered it untouched to her plate. Her gaze held his for a long moment before she nodded, more to herself than to him.

She took a sip of her sherry and then said, “Cerulean blue is my favorite color, and I like reading more than playing cards.” Her jaw flexed. “And I hate that I never got to say goodbye to my father.”

***

Lord Shelton’s gaze was filled with so much sympathy that Stacia’s eyes burned, and she looked away. “Your turn.”

“I like your needlework from the other night—embroidery?”

She looked up at the question in his voice and nodded.

“And I like seeing my cousin so happy in his new marriage.”

Stacia smiled. She, too, was charmed by how obviously the Duke and Duchess of Chatham loved each other.

“And I hate that I wasted so many years trying to hurt him.” He held her gaze for a long moment before breaking away and reaching for the bottle of sherry. When he gestured toward her glass, Stacia saw that it was almost empty. When had that happened?

“Oh, come, Miss Martin,” he said when she hesitated. “We are trapped here for God knows how long. Live a little.”

Stacia wasn’t sure that becoming tipsy on sherry—something she’d done once before in school, to ill effect—was living, but she nodded.

The answers seemed to come easier as she worked her way through the second glass.

They both liked plays more than operas. Unlike Stacia, his lordship liked the country better than town, but they both preferred London to Bath.

Her favorite season was summer, his winter. He liked the color green and waltzes.

“How can you possibly like a quadrille more than a waltz?” he demanded when she confessed her own preference.

“I just do.” Stacia reached for her glass, hesitating when she saw it was, yet again almost empty. She snatched it up, swallowed the remainder, and set it down a bit too firmly.

When she looked up, he was watching and waiting, a faint line between his eyes. “Why do you not like waltzing?”

Stacia scowled. “Because everyone I’ve ever waltzed with—apart from our dancing master at school—was awful.” She did not have the courage—liquid induced or otherwise—to confess she’d had fewer than a half-dozen partners.

Rather than give her a pitying look, which she would have hated, he said, “I have noticed that a great many men haul their partners around about as skillfully as they do their horses.”

“How like a man to compare women and horses.”

“Tut, tut Miss Martin—you did not listen. I just compared ham fisted dancers with ham fisted equestrians.” He stood up and held out a hand.

Stacia just stared. “What?”

He wiggled his fingers. “Come. I will show you how to waltz properly.”

“But…”