His hand was solid and warm.

Well, she thought as he led her toward the lines that were forming and Mr. Rigg played a nervous little trill on his fiddle, this was an evening she was not going to forget in a hurry. She was to dance with a handsome, proud viscount - and the opening set, no less. She wished she could go home afterward and share the fun with Hedley. /"Nessie?" /Viscount Lyngate said as he settled her in the line of ladies and prepared to depart for the gentlemen's line opposite. His eyebrows were raised again. He was not addressing her. He was asking a question. "Vanessa," she explained, and then wished she had not said it in such an apologetic way.

She did not hear clearly what he said in response as he stepped into the line opposite her own, but she thought it was "Thank God!" Had he really said it?

She looked keenly at him, but he did not repeat the words, whatever they had been.

She had never liked the shortened form of her name. Nessie Dew sounded like such a… plain woman. But even so, it was none of his business what her family and friends chose to call her.

The men on either side of Viscount Lyngate looked awed and slightly uncomfortable. So would the ladies on either side of her if she turned her head to look, Vanessa guessed.

He was going to ruin the assembly for them all. They had been looking forward to it so very much. Yet it meant less than nothing to him. He was looking up and down the lines, not even trying to hide his boredom.

Oh, dear. She was not usually so harsh in her judgments, especially of strangers - not that she saw many of those. Why were her thoughts about Viscount Lyngate so… well, spiteful? Was it because she felt too embarrassed to admit to herself that she had very nearly tumbled into love with him?