His feet moved, the clipped sound of his footfalls filling his ears before he, too, reached the ballroom. Hot, stuffy air hit him as he entered, but his feet continued to drive him forward.
He scanned the masked faces and costumes, looking for any sign of the mysterious woman, an unfamiliar hum vibrating through him at the prospect of spotting her through the throng. Fans waved and dancers swept past, and, despite himself, Percy’s lungs deflated in defeat. She’d made it clear that she didn’t want him to know her name until the unmasking. Perhaps she didn’t wish for him to know herat all. Certainly she’d enjoyed herself, but might she be the sort of woman who wished for only a tryst and not a protector? If so, he ought to respect her wishes—most particularly because he was to leave London on the morrow.
“Why so glum?” Leonard asked, sauntering to his side. “You disappeared for some time. Did something unpleasant occur?”
“Quite the contrary, I assure you,” Percy muttered.
“Indeed?” His friend’s eyes brightened behind his domino.
Percy inclined his head. “I met a woman.”
“Ah.” Leo nodded in understanding. “In the gardens?”
“Gazebo.”
Leo gestured suggestively with one hand. “And were both parties…pleasedwith the interaction?”
“Quite.”
“Then…” Leo left the question unvoiced, and Percy sighed.
“I wanted more.”
“Ah, yes. I see.”
“Rather.”
Leo sucked at his teeth. “And do you know the woman’s name?”
“No,” Percy grunted. “And I daresay I wouldn’t recognize her voice—even should I hear it again—for she whispered nearly every word.”
“No chance for a repeat encounter, then.”
“I should say not.”
The strains of another quadrille echoed through the grand room, and Leonard clapped Percy on the back. “Chin up, Percy.”
“Capital advice. Thank you.”
Heather slippedinto the corridor alongside the ballroom and found her way to the ladies’ retirement room. Despite the mystery man’s efforts, her inner thighs felt decidedly damp and in need of a more thorough cleaning. Law, but it was a messy business, thismaking love. But decidedly worth the mess.
“Is anyone here?” she murmured into the small room just off the corridor. When no reply was forthcoming from beyond the privacy screen that hid the chamber pots from view, she entered and locked the door behind her.
In an effort at efficiency and expediency, she poured water from a pitcher into one of the two washbasins atop a low chest of drawers and plunged a cloth into the chilled depths. She wrung the cloth, then lifted her skirts, carefully wiping away the faint smears of her blood and a splotch of a slick, milky substance that she could only assume was the man’s seed.
Her stomach dipped, and she hastily rinsed the cloth, then deposited the water out the window before she left, effectively discarding all evidence of her tryst.
The heat from the ballroom was suffocating, but Heather wove her way through the crush of masked patrons, her heart and mind entirely at odds with her surroundings. She’d successfully changed her life in a matter of minutes.She, Heather Morgan—the woman with no parents, few friends, and fewer prospects, who’d been forced into an engagement with an extortionist had done something with her own life. And she had loved every moment of it.
“There you are,” Maria said, leaving a group of admirers and approaching through the crush. “I haven’t seen you in an age. Where did you get off to?”
Heather’s stomach dipped again, her nerves bubbling just beneath her skin. She glanced around in search of prying ears, and whispered, “I had alast night.”
Maria’s eyes widened behind her mask. “My god, Heather! Did youreally?”
“I did. In the gazebo.”
Her friend slapped a hand over her mouth to suppress her laugh of surprise before she leaned in conspiratorially. “Who was it?”
