Daniel swoops in before I get very far across the room. “Champagne, Miss Beaumonde?” he asks loudly, and escorts me to the bar. “What is going on between you two?” he hisses in my ear.
“Nothing.” I accept a champagne flute.
“It’s not nothing. The tension is palpable.” He fans his face with a hand. “But you’ve led him on a merry chase all night.”
Across the room, Benedict takes his place in a circle of people surrounding his aunt. But his gaze is fixed on me.
“I’m not the sort of woman to hang all over a man,” I say, slipping back into a Katherine Hepburn accent. “I find it gauche.”
“Frankie,” Daniel casts a worried look at the duke, “I don’t know what game you two are playing…”
“It’s not a game.” I sip my champagne.
“Friday’s your first ball. It needs to go perfectly.”
“And it will
