I could not recall his late wife’s name. But, if memory served, she died around the same time Gabriel had. I was far too lost tomy own grief to send appropriate condolences at the time, and I regretted it now.
“Thank you. Would you care for a dance?”
“I would be delighted.” He swept me in his arms, every bit as strong and graceful as he had been when we first danced a lifetime ago.
“You seem to have misplaced your accent,” he commented.
“Just for tonight. I think it adds to the mystery.”
“Oh yes, I’m certain there are two, perhaps three people in this room who do not know you on sight. Even in the mask.”
“Four at least. Do give me credit.”
“I’ll be generous and give you a half dozen. How have you been?”
That was a question. I went to dances, parties, luncheons, and concerts. I read and practiced with my sword. I chaperoned Davina. I played cards with Mama and our friend Marie.
And several times a week I sat against a cold headstone and spoke to my dead husband.
“It wasn’t meant to be a trick,” he added, his fingers tightening gently on my waist. There was nothing sensual about it. It was merely a comfort offered from a widower to a widow.
“No, I know. I just wasn’t… I wasn’t sure which answer you wanted.”
“Whichever one you want to give me is more than fine.”
I sighed, parsing out an answer somewhere in the vicinity of the truth. “I am well enough. Most days, I am all right. Some days I’m fine, marvelous even. Other days…” I cannot breathe. “Well, you know…”
“I do.”
“And you?”
“The same. More or less. Mia—Amelia—and I, we were good together.”
“I cannot imagine you being anything else. I should have told you—I always meant to tell you—it was never about you that night. I— Gabriel was… all-consuming. You were—are—a wonderful man. I never doubted that you would make a good husband. It was just…”
“I never thought that, but I appreciate it all the same,” he assured me.
As Lord Champaign and I slowly turned on the floor, my eyes met a sharp blue gaze across the room—cobalt, royal, azure, sapphire, the bluest of blue eyes.
They were half hidden behind a black scrap of fabric knotted behind the man’s head in a lazy facsimile of a mask.
His expression was one of interest. Or perhaps something more intense. It was a headier gaze than those I was used to receiving from men. Ice spread through my veins, cool and drugging. I offered him an enticing smile, hoping to summon him to my side.
In the days before Gabriel, I’d made a game of that. Drawing men to me only to dismiss them moments later when they became tedious.
Instead of crossing the floor at my invitation, rather than grabbing me in his arms and whisking me into a waltz, he scowled.
A man scowled at me.
My eyes trailed him from my position on the dance floor. He stalked around the hell. The man wasn’t overly tall, perhaps a hand taller than me, but no more. He was compactly muscled and his movements were confident, purposeful, and irritated. I followed him all the way out to the balcony before he closed the French doors behind him. Shutting me out.
As the last strains of the song drew to a close, I turned my gaze back to the man who held me in his arms. There was something amused in the way he held the corner of his mouth.
“Enjoy yourself tonight, Lady Rycliffe. I think it’s time for both of us to live a little,” Lord Champaign dipped his head respectfully.
“Thank you,” I whispered as he backed away, disappearing into the shadows. Spinning on my heels, I strode toward the French doors the gentleman had slipped through.
I slipped out before pressing the door closed behind me. When I turned to face him, his back was toward me as he leaned against the rail of the balcony overlooking the garden. The muscles of his shoulders coiled tighter, rising as I took first one step, then another onto the balcony.
