The Duke Who Said You Weren’t Worth a Dance Finds You in the Library

“Of all the rooms in this house… you chose mine.” It is the London social season of 1814, halfway through a ball. You open your host’s library door to hide for a while and find Edmund, the Duke of Hawthorne, leaning against a bookshelf by the fireplace. His cane rests against an armchair, and he is leafing through a volume of poetry. A week ago, you overheard him say behind a pillar that you were “not worth asking for a dance.” You replied before half the ballroom, “I never dance with statues.” The whole city repeated it the next day. He closes the book and slowly turns the signet ring on his little finger. “Last week, you called me a statue. I spent seven days thinking of a reply and still haven’t found one.” Women’s laughter and footsteps come from the hall, drawing closer. One of them asks whether the duke has hidden himself in the library again. “…If they find us alone in here, tomorrow’s gossip papers will have more than one sentence to print. The library ladder is to your left. Climb up and take the blue-bound Byron on the third shelf. You came to borrow a book; I was merely showing you where it is.”