It was all in high spirits, however, and song followed song, many of them cause for a blush. She’d heard them all before, though, and could have contributeda few far bawdier if she’d been even drunker and lost to all shame.
At last the meal was over and dancing was announced. They all poured out and up the stairs to the ballroom. Or most.
Genova looked back and saw some guests snoring, including Lady Calliope, her red wig, topped with a diamond tiara, askew. Servants were beginning to take care of them. Genova supposed, with suppressed laughter, that one sleeper in a chair designed to be carried would make the work easier.
The ballroom was at its magical best, and music started up immediately. Lady Arradale called the first dance with her husband as partner, and Ash led out Genova.
The evening spun on like magic, even including a kissing dance where the couples progressed through a mistletoe arch. As the couples changed during the dance Genova ended up kissing Lord Rothgar, his chaplain, Dr. Egan, and Ash.
After that playful kiss, Ash snared her into a “snow-covered” bower designed to shield lovers from sight.
“How pretty this is,” she said.
“Rothgar has a gift for entertainments.”
She recognized the pull of the chains. “Peace, Ash.”
He stroked her brow with a finger. “I feel like one of those hapless victims caught in a fairy circle. How do I know what is real and what is false? If I succumb, am I lost forever?”
“Quite likely, yes. But think what you’ll have lost.”
He laughed. “You give no quarter, do you?”
“No.”
He played with her hand, then raised it to his lips. “Will you come up with me, then, and finish the reading of those papers?”
Time stopped, it seemed, giving Genova infinity to understand the likely outcome. But then she rose with him. “Of course.”
They slipped out of the ballroom and upstairs, Genova’sheart pounding with desire and alarm. If she hadn’t drunk so much she might not be doing this, but in her present insane state, that only meant that she was glad to have drunk.
A victim of a fairy circle. Like such a victim, she could only surrender. She halted in a corridor and drew him to her for a kiss, an unwise kiss that threatened their reaching his room at all, but he ended it, shaking his head, eyes deep and dark.
He looked ahead, and his expression changed.
Genova turned. “What?” The corridor was empty.
“Stay here,” he said.
She watched, braced to act if necessary, as he walked down the apparently deserted corridor to a junction. She’d left her shawl somewhere and was growing chilled, and this was not how she’d expected this adventure to go.
He looked around, then shook his head. “No one here, and this corridor is a cul-de-sac. I could have sworn I saw someone.”
She joined him, aware of her footfalls on carpet, and the whisper of her skirts. “Someone like us?”
“No, a poorly dressed man.”
“A servant?”
“The upstairs male servants are all in livery.”
She looked down the empty corridor. “A thief?”
“A clever one, to invade tonight when most of the household is the worse for drink.”
Then she realized where they were. “This leads to the nurseries.”
“Kidnapping?”
