Dancing With The Duke

Chapter 21

Alex could not believe he was planning to attend the Stanhope ball. He had decided not to attend any parties when he had planned to come to London. He did not need the distraction. He was here purely for business matters and absolutely nothing else.

But he could not bring his heart to refuse Lady Mottram and then one thing led to another and now he found himself attending yet another ball. What was worse was that he was looking forward to it. Not the ball in general but meeting Eleanor in particular.

Really, it was most improper for him to be meeting her like this when he had no intention of getting married. Eleanor was not the kind of young lady to be dallied with.

Not to mention that she was his friend’s sister. He had no business lusting after Daniel's sister, but damn, he could not keep to himself. Although he kept his hands to himself, his treacherous mind had an excellent and vivid imagination.

Eleanor was not what one would call a ravishing beauty or the diamond of first waters but she had a quiet inner beauty about her. Her oval face with hazel green eyes and her small mouth with lush lips, he would have to be a eunuch not to notice. He wondered how no one else had seemed to notice by now. Except for Badger, of course. Eleanor had told him that Badger was bothering her a lot even after Eleanor had implied that she had no interest in him. But Alex thought Badger must have been after Eleanor's dowry more than her beauty.

Her beauty lay in her dignity, in her kindness, in her wit and sense of humour. It was quite refreshing to find a young lady with these attributes in London society. He knew very well how the young misses frequented the London parties with the sole objective to snare a title.

His Eleanor was not one of those. He knew she would even marry a man without a title if she loved him dearly.

His Eleanor. He had started thinking in those terms since the day they had formed a friendship. He needed to stop this. The train of his thoughts was threatening to go in the wrong direction. And so he ventured further into the ballroom of the Stanhope ball in search of the object that had his mind preoccupied almost at all times of the day.

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