“My lord, if you would be so kind as to introduce me to a female so I may ask her to dance, I would greatly appreciate it.”
“Diamond,” the man greeted him. “Searching for a wife at last, are you?”
At last?Geoffrey wasn’t ancient! At twenty-six, he considered himself the perfect age.
“Hoping for a new bride by Christmas?” Lord Fenwick continued. “That would make your parents happy, no doubt.”
“No, my lord. I mean, yes, I would like to marry, but not in haste.”
“Right you are. Marry in haste, repent in leisure, as they say.”
“Exactly,” Geoffrey agreed. “Would you mind introducing me to a fetching lady whom I’ve never seen before?”
“Naturally, I shall.”
Geoffrey turned, peering across the room to where he’d left her, but she was no longer there.
“She’s gone!” he exclaimed, experiencing keen disappointment.
“Who is?” the viscount asked.
Geoffrey sighed. “I don’t know her name, my lord. I shall go find her again.”
“Don’t let her get away,” Lord Fenwick called after him, making other heads turn.
Geoffrey would be the laughingstock of this springtime ball.
Caroline wished thedashing, dark-haired man would come back before her mother or her aunt spied her. Alas, within a few seconds of the stranger’s departure, her mother noticed she hadn’t returned from speaking with a friend. Lady Chimes, with her sister beside her, came to collect her only daughter.
“Why are you standing like a fence post?” her mother asked.
“I am waiting for a handsome man,” Caroline replied.
Her aunt smiled, but her mother did not.
“I am certain you shall better capture a man, handsome or otherwise, by dancing with him rather than by standing next to the musicians. Come along, Caroline. I have the very nobleman in mind for you. He was just introduced to us by our host.”
Caroline was unceremoniously dragged away to meet some Lord Nit-Wit. Sadly, although the new man was also a stranger, he wasn’t the one who had placed his hands upon her shoulders, making her tingle. He wasn’t the one with dark hair and deep blue eyes the color of delphiniums, nor the one who smelled deliciously of sandalwood and Pears soap, the same as her family used.
He had crashed into her and then held on, and every part of her had cried out for him never to let go. It was the strangest, most delightfully overwhelming sensation she’d ever experienced.
She danced a quadrille with the young man whose name she’d instantly forgotten while wishing she’d learned the name of the man whom she would not soon forget.
And then she saw him, standing by a towering candelabra, surveying the dance floor. She had the strangest inkling he wassearching for her.
Sure enough, when his blue gaze landed upon her, he smiled, and it lit up his entire face. He even took a step onto the dance floor and was nearly run over by two couples before he hurried to the side again.
He was as enthusiastic as a puppy, yet as alluring as a sable-haired wolf.
“Lady Caroline,” came the voice of her partner.
She had faltered and made a misstep while making moon-eyes across the room.
“I apologize.” She wanted to ask if they could stop, but it would ruin the formation for the other three couples in their group, so she persevered. As soon as the music ended, Caroline let her partner escort her back to her mother and aunt, who had come to the ball to keep them company as they often did.
A moment later, her blue-eyed stranger appeared before them. Beside him were their evening’s hosts, both Lord and Lady Fenwick, who addressed her mother first.
“Lady Chimes, may we introduce the son of an acquaintance of ours?”
