“Dear Brilliance, if I could, I would, but we have been away from the ball for a long time. Besides, anyone who looks at you will know you’ve been kissed to distraction.”
He rose to his feet and did a strange movement, swiveling his hips slightly before shifting from one foot to the other.
“I have some discomfort myself,” he confessed.
“Is it your shoes?” she asked.
Vincent grinned ruefully. “No. The part of me that most wants to connect with a certain part of you has awakened quite fiercely.” He did another swiveling motion. “A man’s arousal is harder to hide.”
She looked from his handsome face to his ... tented breeches, and understanding dawned.
“Oh!”Brilliance felt her cheeks heat.
“On your feet, my fiancée,” he ordered, handing over her glass that still had some champagne. “Let us toast to our engagement.”
Brilliance could not help sighing. “That is a pretty word. French, I believe.”
He nodded. They each took a sip from the same glass, and then he set it aside.
“We really must return to the ballroom. Lady Flowers and Lady Martine may be looking for you.”
“I do hate to worry them, but I need to stop in the ladies’ retiring room first and make sure I am tidy.”
Again, her cheeks bloomed with color even discussing such a thing. It was easier to kiss Vincent and let him touch her intimately than to talk about the retiring room where there were facilities for passing water. However, he didn’t seem the least bothered.
In two minutes, they parted at the doorway where maids were on hand to assist with anything the female guest needed, even if it was simply making sure her clothing wasn’t in disarray.
While Brilliance studied herself in the looking glass to see if Vincent was correct about appearing to have been kissed, Mrs. Castern came in. Their eyes met in the mirror, and the woman walked directly toward her.
“That is a pretty costume,” she said.
Brilliance turned and took in her appearance. “Thank you. And you look to be a perfect shepherdess.”
“It is an amusing costume,” Mrs. Castern said. “We both have the pantalettes.”
“Yes,” Brilliance agreed. “I love them.” She nearly asked the woman if her husband had, in fact, come as a footpad.
“And what is Vincent this evening?” Mrs. Castern asked, touching a hand to her snowy, white cap while she peered at her own reflection.
Vincent?Brilliance examined the woman’s face.Was she being intentionally forward, or had his name slipped out from their earlier association?
“Lord Hewitt came as Johann Sebastian Bach.”
Mrs. Castern laughed. “Unsurprising. He always had an admiration for Bach, almost as much as he had for Handel.”
“It sounds as though you were friends,” Brilliance guessed. “Was that through your marriage to Mr. Castern?”
The woman stared for a moment of silence. “Didn’t Vincent tell you?”
Mrs. Castern had done it again, and plainly on purpose, too.
“Tell me what?” Brilliance asked, ignoring her impudence.
“That he and I were engaged before I married Ambrose.”
Brilliance didn’t care for the odd swooping sensation in her stomach, nor how the floor seemed to slant. It was unpleasant, as if she were falling from a great height. She didn’t want to lie and say she knew, although she ought to have known.
However, she was suddenly struck by the unsettling notion that she had agreed to marry a man whom she knew little about. And she had done so based on her instincts and her emotions.
