Excerpt from An Inconvenient Beauty

London, England, March 1815

While the limits of human ability prevented Griffith, Duke of Riverton, from being everything to everyone who depended on him for their livelihoods, he’d always assumed there was no limit to what he would do for his family.

His mother’s current request was more than stretching those limits. “No.”

“Miss Watters is a very particular friend of Lady Cressida. And as I am married to her father I feel obliged to ensure Cressida’s ball is a success in every way.” Griffith’s mother, Lady Blackstone, arched a brow in her son’s direction as he turned form his perusal of the crowd filling the ballroom. The former duchess may have voluntarily lowered her rank to countess when she remarried a few ears earlier, but she had never released her position as matriarch of her family, despite the fact that they’d all reached adulthood.

It was a position Griffith respected. Not only did the word God command that he do so, but he’s seen what his mother had gone through to raise her four children, including teaching her ten-year-old son how to manage a dukedom. That respect did not, however, extend to breaking one of his personal social rules.

He looked away from his mother to note the girl in question—a plain young woman hovering near a doorway, her dress an unfortunate color that was remarkably similar to the ballroom wallpaper. Given her supposedly close relationship with tonight’s hostess, one would have thought the near-professional wallflower would have known to avoid that particular shade of rose. “If there is a true need for a member of our family to rescue Miss Watters from the wall—a position which I’m sure you know she takes up at every social gathering—there are other male members you can appeal to.”

Mother’s lips pressed together into a thin line. “They are married.”

Griffith slowly lifted his own eyebrow in a perfect imitation of his mother’s earlier expression. “I had no idea the institution affected a man’s ability to dance. No matter. Up to now they’ve shown remarkable resistance to whatever marriage-related malady might inhibit a man’s dancing talents. I’m sure they can hold out for another night.

His mother said nothing, though he could tell from the crinkles forming at the corner of her eye that she wanted to laugh. Almost as much as she wanted him to dance with Miss Watters. As he only danced with women he considered family, her laughter was the only desire he was inclined to grant. One more sardonic remark from him should send her over the edge.

“It is a comfort to know, however, that public scrutiny of my lack of dancing finesse will diminish once I’ve married. Until then I shall endeavor to plant myself among the married men on the rare occasion that I join a dancing formation with a sister or cousin. Perhaps then we shall all be equally bumblesome.

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