“Oh, good Lord,” Emma squawked. “What onearthis he doing here?”
Melody’s eyes flew open. Her head snapped up.
She saw at once what Emma was speaking of. The ballroom crowd had gone quiet, a space forming in the center of the room while whispers shot around the corners, sharp as gunshots.
A man stood in the empty space. He wasnotdressed for a ball. He wore a loose shirt, tucked into the waistband of akilt, whichhung freely around his knees. Bare knees! Over by the chairs, some matronly lady fainted.
Melody was on her feet before she knew what she was doing.
“Callum,” she breathed.
Callum could not have failed to notice the stir his arrival had made. He glanced around at the gawkers, his eyebrows lifting a fraction.
Behind him, a pair of footmen, led by the butler, came scrambling toward him, red-faced with mortification.
“Sir, sir, this is a private party,” the butler hissed. “Unless you can show your invitation?—”
“He is my… friend,” Melody heard herself saying, loudly in the silence. “Leave him be.”
The butler flinched, clearly offended. He glanced uncertainly between Callum’s implacable face and Melody’s unwavering gaze, then glanced around for his employer.
Papa was nowhere to be seen, however, and Melody guessed that he was in the card-room, gambling away his sorrows over his final asset, his daughter, having ruined herself so intensely. Whispers would reach him soon of a strange and frightening Scotsman in his ballroom, but for now, there was nobody else for the butler to apply to for help.
“Very well, Lady Melody,” the butler said austerely, with an edge to his voice which implied that they had not heard the last of this. He melted off into the crowd, flanked by his confused footmen.
The rest of the guests, however, remained where they were, clearly struck dumb with surprise.
“You… you’re here,” Melody stammered.
Callum gave a terse nod. There was a tension in his shoulders she hadn’t seen before, and his gaze flickered warily from side to side. He looked like a man expecting an attack fromeverydirection.
“I’d like to talk,” he said suddenly, turning a glowering stare on one intrepid middle-aged woman and her husband, who seemed about to approach and start up a conversation. The woman wisely steered her husband away. “But we’ll get nay privacy here. Can we go somewhere quieter?”
“Yes, it ought to be quieter in the hall. I’ll show you the way,” she offered, unable to disguise her relief at the prospect of getting out of the ballroom and away from all the bulging-eyed stares.
Glancing back over her shoulder, she met Emma’s confused and intrigued gaze and gave a nervous smile.
“Excuse us.”
“Not at all,” Emma responded, and then stood, bewildered, as Melody led Callum across the vast floor to a narrow doorway, which led into one of the cool corridors that rounded the ballroom. The crowd parted to let them go through, and murmurs rose up afresh in her wake.
Callum let out a long sigh when they stepped into the corridor.
“What a crush. All those people in that cavernous room? Awful.”
Melody allowed herself a faint smile. “Yes, it’s a lot to manage. We should talk quickly, as Papa will be here soon. Somebody will tell him that you’re here.”
Callum huffed. “And what will he do? Fight me, I suppose.”
Melody allowed herself a faint smile. “No, nothing like that. He’ll only be icily polite to you until you feel obliged to leave.”
“Terrifyin’. Well, then, I’ll get straight to it, then. Melody, I have thought of ye every moment since ye left. I miss ye.”
She dropped her gaze to her satin dancing slippers.
“I miss you too,” she confessed. “But we agreed that my departure was necessary. You could have stopped me, Callum. You could have stopped me at any moment, but you didn’t.”
“Aye, and I regret it. I…” he paused, and when she looked up, he was frowning at her slippers too. His gaze raked up her frame, taking in the delicate silk of her ballgown. “What sort of dress is that? So thin, the wind’ll rip right through.”
