“Your eyes are always green.”
He pretended to be much struck by this observation and elicited another smile from her. “My point exactly,” he said. “I was born to be jealous where you’re concerned.”
“Oh, Brig,” she said softly, and gave herself up to the music and the moment.
Samuel excused himself from his circle of friends and walked to the edge of the ballroom when he saw Nathan arrive. He raised his hand slightly to catch Nathan’s attention and motioned the younger man to join him. Nathan did so quickly, feeling every inch the intruder he was.
“Don’t look guilty,” Sam said, extending his hand in a warm, familiar greeting. “You have that invitation, don’t you?”
“Thanks to you, sir.”
“No thanks to me at all. I wouldn’t have thought of it if Lydia hadn’t put the notion in your mind. I’d say that things are looking up for you, Nath. She wouldn’t have suggested you come this evening if she hadn’t wanted to see you again.”
“I hope that’s what it means,” he said, his tone doubtful. “Are you giving Brig as much encouragement as you’re giving me?”
“Brigham? That one doesn’t need encouragement. But then you’d know that, wouldn’t you? Lydia tells me you’re business partners, though it’s a damn odd way you diggers conduct business.”
“This is a very special matter, Samuel. I’m assuming I can count on your discretion.”
“As long as it’s legal.”
“It is.”
“Good. The way you and Brigham work puts me in mind of confidence men. You’d be run out of town on your ear, and that’s only if you’re lucky. Most likely you’d be hanged.”
Nathan restrained an urge to fiddle with his cravat. Samuel was liable to interpret the gesture as a guilty one.
“I’d hate to think that you were after Lydia’s money,” Samuel went on, then added significantly, “Or mine.”
“Look at her, Samuel,” Nathan said, tilting his chin in Lydia’s direction. She was on the floor with James Early now, her head thrown back with laughter, the smooth curve of her throat exposed. She was as slender as a wraith, ephemeral in her beauty, and she fairly floated across the floor, as if she were held down by James’s hand on her waist and nothing else. “Do you really think that when a man looks at her, he only sees her bloody money?” He didn’t wait to hear Samuel’s response. He was dodging the other dancing couples on the dance floor, thinking of what he would say to Lydia when he cut in.
James Early stepped aside for Nathan reluctantly. “Why haven’t you married that boy?” Nathan asked, taking Lydia in his arms. He was careful not to hold her too tightly or draw her too close.
For a moment Lydia was too stunned to answer. Nathan had appeared from nowhere, summarily dismissed her partner, and now he was asking personal questions—all without so much as a greeting. She was hardly able to take it in, much less notice that his dancing form had improved immensely. He glided across the floor, turning her easily, and she didn’t have to think to follow him, it came as simply and naturally as breathing. “It would be like marrying a brother,” she said at last. “That’s how I think of James.”
“Have you told him that?”
“Several times. I think he feels the same way, but every so often he gets it in his head that he should take a wife, and I’m as good a candidate as any. A better one, I suppose, than most of the girls he sees. At least James can talk to me.”
“And what about that other young man I see hovering around you from time to time?”
“You must mean Henry Bell. Henry’s fine, but definitely not for me.” He’d also made the regrettable error of getting caught kissing Madeline in the Chadwick gallery. They both excused their behavior on the mistletoe overhead and the high spirits of the season, and as if to prove the innocence of the gesture, Madeline still pushed Henry at Lydia’s head from time to time. “Henry’s a pleasant enough escort, but that’s all.”
“He’s proposed?”
“Once. I accepted once…and then I cried off. It all happened in the space of an evening, Mr. Hunter, so there’s no wound to speak of.” Her cobalt blue eyes were grave as she studied his hard-edged features and tried to fathom his intentions. “Your questions are exceedingly personal. I wonder what you can mean by them.”
“Only curious about the number of hearts you’ve broken,” he said, his glance shuttered. A hundred, he thought, at least a hundred. The music drifted off and the orchestra picked up the strains of another waltz. Nathan had no choice but to give her up, but it cut him that he had to deliver her to Brigham.
“I’d like to go outside, if you don’t mind,” Lydia said when Brig took her arm. “I’ve had quite enough dancing for the time being.”
“Of course,” he said, immediately solicitous. “I’ve been wanting to speak with you alone anyway.” He glanced around the ballroom and saw Madeline standing with her back to them, occupied by her conversation with Samuel and several of their friends. It was the perfect time to approach Lydia.
The Newberrys had no gazebo or pond on their property, but they did have an immense marble fountain that Mr. Newberry had had shipped from Italy. Its three tiers consisted of ornate and fanciful sculptures of dolphins, water sprites, and at the pinnacle, Neptune himself. Lydia thought the entire affair rather ghastly in daylight, but at night, as long as the moon was not too full, it looked rather pleasant and the steady spray of water was soothing to the ear. Though no word passed between her and Brig, they gravitated toward the fountain as if by mutual agreement.
White marble benches, just outside of the circle of mist, surrounded the fountain. Brig led Lydia to the one that put the fountain between them and the ballroom, thus giving them the illusion of complete privacy.
“My business in San Francisco is almost at an end, Lydia,” Brig said, slipping his hand beneath hers. Their fingers intertwined. “When I came here I had no expectations of meeting someone like yourself, someone who would make me regret leaving California alone. I realize we have not known one another long, nor especially well, but I haven’t the luxury of many more days in your city. Perhaps I am presenting this in a backward fashion, but I don’t want you to think this is the impetuous proposal of a schoolboy. It’s no infatuation that I feel, for I have enough experience to know otherwise. I’d like you to be my wife, Lydia. Come back to Sydney and the station at Ballaburn with me. We could be happy there, I know we could.”
