“Well, don’t fret. Hope’s not here yet, so there’s plenty of time. Why don’t you go off and enjoy yourself, Giles? Plenty of beauties here tonight. I don’t know whether it’s the masks or what, but several ladies have made a number of extremely improper advances to me, so—”
“I don’t believe it!” Giles exclaimed in outraged accents.
“They did, I promise you. One lady even suggested—”
“I don’t mean that. I mean—look!”
“At what?” Sebastian turned his head to follow Giles’s gaze. The staircase divided into two arms, which embraced the ballroom. Hope and her twin, with Count Rimavska and Sir Oswald, were descending the right arm of the staircase, while Lady Augusta, unmistakable in a low-cut purple dress with orange and green feathers, and two other ladies descended on the left.
Sebastian straightened at the sight of his love. “Oh, good, she’s arrived.”
“Good!
Good,
you say? It’s utterly outrageous!” Giles sounded enraged. He was staring at the left-hand staircase.
Sebastian followed his friend’s gaze and shrugged. Lady Augusta’s gowns were frequently outrageous, but Giles could fuss all he wanted; Sebastian wasn’t interested in anyone except Hope.
His chest tightened and his mouth dried as he gazed at her. She was a vision in amber, cream, and gold. Her gown was silk, in dozens of shades of amber and, as she moved, her dress flowed around her as if honey dripped down her body. The small bodice of the gown was dark amber velvet with a deep, triangular, almost transparent lace inset in the center. The bodice was laced tightly and provocatively with gold braid in a faint nod to gypsy or peasant style, and the whole was cut low against the creamy skin of her bosom.
She looked utterly ravishing. Delectable. Utterly edible.
Giles exploded, “That dress is an affront to decency! What the devil has got into her? She was forced into this, mark my words!”
His vehemence jolted Sebastian out of his rapt contemplation, but Giles was still staring at the left-hand staircase, not at Hope. “Who are you talking about? Lady Augusta?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Giles snapped.
Sebastian looked again; it took a lot to shock his rakish friend. “I can’t see anything that would horrify anyone but a genuine Hungarian gypsy. Who was forced? Talk sense, man!”
“Lady Elinore, dammit! I’ll soon put a stop to it!”
“Lady Elinore? Where? I can’t see her anywhere.”
Giles took no notice. Muttering furiously, he cleaved his way through the aristocratic crowd and strode up to the small group of ladies just reaching the foot of the left-hand staircase. Sebastian cast a quick look at Hope and followed him, fearing trouble.
“Elinore, what the
devil
are you doing?”
Sebastian blinked. Had Giles been secretly imbibing? His friend loomed, glowering, over a masked lady who could not possibly be Lady Elinore Whitelaw. Admittedly, she was small and waifishly slender, but there all resemblance ended.
This lady was dressed in a brilliant scarlet gown slashed low across a dainty bosom. It was saved from indecency—just—by a teasing ruffle of black lace. Her head was a mass of short, soft, dark curls, not a scraped-back bun, and she wore a rakish headband of scarlet feathers, black lace, and glittering diamantés. A dozen gold bangles glittered on each slender, naked arm, and a black velvet band studded with diamantés encircled her elegant throat.
There was no way in the world this dashing little creature could be Lady Elinore. Sebastian nudged his friend, but Giles seemed oblivious.
“Well? Who is responsible for this?” Giles glared at Lady Augusta.
“Good evening, Giles,” Lady Augusta said, deliberately obtuse. “Responsible for what? The ball? Lady Thorn, of course. In honor of Count Rimavska. What a pretty gypsy lad you make, Giles, I declare! Those pompoms are divine.”
Giles’s color rose, but he did not deign to respond to the older lady’s comments. “Elinore!” he growled.
The small lady said not a word, just stared at him with a haughty expression.
“Giles, come away,” Sebastian began, and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “This is not—”
Giles shrugged off his grasp furiously. “Elinore, who has done this to you?”
Finally, the lady spoke, “I do not believe we know each other, sir. Have the goodness to let us pass, if you please.”
“Don’t be ridiculous—” Giles began.
The lady produced an ebony fan and poked him in the chest with it. “Out. Of. My. Way. If. You. Please.” She punctuated each word with a poke of the fan.
Dumbfounded, Giles fell back a step, and the little scarlet lady swept imperiously past him, nose in the air. Lady Augusta followed, pausing to pinch Giles on the cheek and say, “If you’re verrry good, my bonny gypsy lad, I might introduce you to my pretty little friend.” She chuckled evilly and sailed away.
“That woman is a witch!” Giles muttered, rubbing his cheek angrily.
“Well, it’s your own fault,” Sebastian declared. “It wasn’t Lady Elinore, and I don’t understand why you pushed it so far. What maggot got into your brain?”
“Maggot? Are you blind? It was Elinore, all right. Half naked and in scarlet, of all things!” Giles stared after her and said in a hoarse, desperate voice, “Oh God, Bastian, what have I done? She’s cut all her hair off and is wearing a dress more suited to an opera dancer than a lady. In
scarlet
!”
Sebastian couldn’t quite believe that the lady in red was Lady Elinore, but Giles’s complete lack of doubt was quite convincing. He looked distraught.
“If she is Lady Elinore, I’d have thought you’d rejoice to see her in colors, Giles. And looking so very fashionable.”
His friend groaned. “But not in
scarlet
! Oh, what have I done, what have I done?” he said remorsefully.
Sebastian frowned. “What
have
you done, Giles?”
Giles closed his eyes in momentary anguish. “Seduced her in a cupboard! And again on the stairs at the opera house.”
“What?”
“
Not entirely. Not all the way. She’s still a virgin. Sort of.” He groaned again. “Although she obviously doesn’t believe so. Look at her, Bastian! She’s dressed herself as a fallen woman! And it’s my fault! I’ve trampled over every one of her principles, ground her morals into the dust, ignored her boundaries. I thought because she didn’t pull her hatpin on me, she liked what we were doing. I was sure she did!
“With her upbringing, she probably believes what we did makes her a scarlet woman, almost a prostitute.” Giles ran his hands distractedly though his hair, dislodging his gypsy head scarf. “I’ve destroyed her!”
Sebastian thought about it. The small, elegant woman in scarlet and black didn’t look at all like a woman overcome with shame and self-loathing. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying herself. And that dress was not a last-minute acquisition. He looked at his friend, and his lips twitched. Giles’s anguished expression of guilt sat ill on his ludicrous gypsy costume.
“If that’s what you think, you’ll have to make it right.”
Giles gave him an anxious look. “How can I make it right? That’s the question.”
Sebastian shrugged. “There is a time-honored method of righting the wrongs of the flesh.”
Giles looked blank.
Sebastian rolled his eyes at his friend’s thickheadedness. “You said yourself she needed to be married.”
“Marriage! To Lady Elinore Whitelaw? Me?”
Sebastian wasn’t sure whether Giles was appalled, stunned, or simply disbelieving. He spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “It’s only one time-honored solution to this sort of problem. There are others. You must sort out the mess in whatever way you choose. It’s your problem, Giles.”
He glanced across the room to where Hope had just been joined by Lady Augusta, the chaperone, and the mysterious lady in red. “My immediate need is to engage Miss Merridew for the supper dance.” He patted Giles on the cheek in mocking imitation of Lady Augusta. “Come on, bonny gypsy lad, and see if you can get a dance with Lady Augusta’s new little friend.”
Giles gave a warning snarl but followed him meekly across the dance floor.
A gaggle of gypsified gentlemen clustered around Hope and her sister like bees in search of honey. When Sebastian looked at the way the tightly laced velvet bodice cupped Hope’s creamy bosom, he felt distinctly, blatantly primitive. They could cluster around Miss Faith all they wanted, but Hope was his!
Sebastian cut a determined swathe through the crowd, Giles in his wake. The small, scarlet lady tossed her head haughtily as they approached and hurried away. Giles veered off after her, and then Sebastian was standing in front of Hope, and he forgot all about anyone else.
“Miss Merridew.” Sebastian bowed over her hand, resisting the urge to bring it to his lips. He scanned her face intently. A faint blush stole over her features as she lifted her eyes to his. He stared down at her a long moment, wishing they were alone again. He needed to kiss her. Again. And again. Their eyes met, clung, kissed. It was not enough. They swayed toward each other.
Sir Oswald Merridew cleared his throat ostentatiously, and Sebastian recalled his surroundings. Somehow he managed to greet Sir Oswald, Lady Augusta, Hope’s twin sister, the count, and the chaperone, who glared daggers at him. Bilious again, poor woman.
“Mr. Reyne!” the chaperone snapped.
“Yes, madam?” He inclined his head politely at her, wishing he could remember her name.
“Your hand?”
“Eh?” Sebastian was confused. He hadn’t asked the chaperone to dance. The woman was puffing visibly with disapproval, Sir Oswald was scowling at him, Lady Augusta and Miss Faith were grinning openly, and Miss Merridew was blushing rosily and trying not to smile. Around him he could feel aristocratic gypsies seething and muttering.
“Your hand, sirrah!” The chaperone glared pointedly at his left hand.
What was the matter? He’d remembered to put on his gloves. He glanced down. “Ah!” He hurriedly dropped Miss Merridew’s hand, which had somehow remained encased in his and come to be placed against his heart. “Sorry.” He had no memory of doing it.
Miss Hope’s blushed intensified. Her eyes glowed up at him. A tiny dimple quivered to the left of her lips. He stared, fascinated.
“You wanted to ask Miss Merridew something?” prompted Lady Augusta, with a less-than-discreet nudge in the ribs and a broad wink. Sebastian’s scattered wits began to function again.
“Ah, yes. Miss Merridew, I’ve come to beg the honor of dancing the supper dance with you.”
“The supper dance? Yes, of course.” She took out her dance card and said as she wrote on it, “I will put you down for the supper dance . . . and . . .” She gave him a bewitching smile. “And also for the last waltz, Mr. Reyne.”
The last waltz!
It was as if someone had punched him in the stomach. For a moment he couldn’t breathe. Had he heard her aright?
She had put him down for the last waltz!
The chaperone made an odd hissing sound between her teeth. Sir Oswald Merridew snorted with surprise. A mutter rippled through the masculine crowd surrounding them. She
never
put
anyone’s
name down for the last waltz.
Sebastian bowed over her hand and slowly, deliberately, pressed his mouth to the inside of her wrist the pulse point. “I shall count the moments,” he said gruffly.
He turned to Sir Oswald. “May I have a private word, sir?”
Sir Oswald’s eyes narrowed. “Very well, young Reyne. Come this way.”
“You’d better make her happy, young man!”
“It will be my life’s work,” Sebastian said simply. Sir Oswald had given them his blessing without a murmur. Sebastian could hardly believe it.
The old man gave a grunt. “Had you investigated, Reyne. Dark horse, ain’t you?”
Sebastian raised his brows. “In what way?”
“I have more than a few fingers in trade myself, though it’s not well-known. You’ve done well.” He gave Sebastian a shrewd look. “It’s widely believed you married the boss’s daughter for her fortune.”
“Is it?” Sebastian feigned interest in a painting. He would not justify himself to anyone. What was done was done.
“Tale for the tabbies, though, ain’t it? Boot on the other foot, I discovered. Her father did the courtin’. Wanted you for your clever fingers and your head for business, didn’t he?”
Sebastian deliberately flexed his hand, exposing the damaged fingers.
Sir Oswald made a dismissive gesture. “Don’t mean it literally. They say you have a genius for machinery. Made so many adjustments and improvements in his manufactories that he nearly doubled his production. Fellow was frightened he’d lose you to another employer. Married you to his daughter to keep you. Visions of foundin’ a dynasty.”
Sebastian didn’t deny it. It was pretty much the truth. What Sir Oswald had left out were Sebastian’s own feelings in the matter. He’d been twenty-three, and though he didn’t love Thea, he’d had hopes of rebuilding his family.
It hadn’t worked out that way.
Sir Oswald interrupted his thoughts. “From what I heard, she wasn’t an easy woman.”
Sebastian said nothing.
“Demandin’. Spoilt. Shrewish.”
Sebastian shrugged.
The old man nodded, satisfied. “They said that, too.”
Sebastian frowned. “Said what?”
“That you were a model husband. Faithful. Patient. And never said a word against her.”
Sebastian returned to his perusal of the painting. Such talk made him uncomfortable.
“How did she die?”
Sebastian swallowed. He still found it hard to talk of. “She miscarried a month or so after her father died. She was found dead in a pool of blood.”
Sir Oswald nodded, “Hence the lurid tales. But I checked with the doctor. It wasn’t her first miscarriage, was it?”
Sebastian’s brows rose. “You’re very thorough.”