She shook her head, reaching down to tug her bodice back into place, which took some doing, as it had become rather twisted and bunched after the abuse it had endured. She had to reach inside to reposition her stays and her body within so that the fabric would lie as intended and when she glanced up again, Elias was watching her with an intensity that immediately made her regret preparing to leave this room at all.
“Your stockings,” he said, his voice gone a bit hoarse as he held up the two slips of silk. “Shall I put them back on you?”
“Do you think that wise?” she asked, a mild note of hope in her voice that it wasn’t, and that he would do it, anyway.
He gave her a slow, predatory smile, his face half in shadow from the setting sun, teeth gleaming from the final flashes of light. “No.”
She sighed at the sound of voices in the hall, her head turning toward the door with a furrowing of her brows. “No,” she agreed, frowning.
“Hattie!” came Libba’s voice, carrying down the hall as though she’d used a cone to amplify it, though Hattie knew very well she had not. “Are you down here?”
“Yes!” she called, scrambling to her feet in a panic and snatching the stockings from Elias’s playful grip. “I’m coming!”
“Well…” he said, making her whirl around and slap her hand to his mouth, which grinned again, behind the skin of her palm.
“Hush,” she said, stuffing the stockings into his pocket and shoving her bare feet back into her slippers. “Follow in a few moments. I don’t fancy the commentary.”
“You don’t?” he asked, muffled and taunting.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t.”
She pulled her hand away and kissed him once more, harder than she really needed to, and gave him a light smack on the cheek at the way he was laughing before spinning and fleeing the room to intercept Libba before she could come any farther down the hall.
“Ah, there you are,” said Libba, crossing her arms. “I can’t believe you vanished like that. He’ll be back when he’s back. He’s handling it.”
“Yes, yes,” said Hattie, taking the other woman’s arm and steering her toward the ballroom. “You’re right. I just get anxious, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Libba said, her eyes narrowing with suspicion as she glanced over her shoulder back toward the bedroom. “Hattie…”
“Is there any cake left?” Hattie asked, knowing she was going shrill. “I wanted to save him a slice.”
“Of course there’s not.” Libba was still trying to see behind Hattie but did give up once they had turned the corner, much to Hattie’s relief.
It did not mean, of course, that Libba wouldn’t bring it up later.
“Is that the pianoforte?” Hattie asked, marveling. “Who is playing?”
“Oh,” said Libba, brightening. “It’s Mr. Harcourt. Monica is beside herself over it.”
“He’s playing with his injured hand?”
“Mm, I think perhapsbecauseof his injured hand,” Libba said cryptically, turning Hattie back into the festivities with a cheer of welcome.
Her absence, she was forced to acknowledge, had indeed been noted.
“Still no sign of Elias?” Malcolm asked, trotting up to them in cadence with the march his best friend was currently coaxing out of the old instrument in the central ballroom. “He’s been gone a bit long, hasn’t he?”
“Oh, I’d say so,” Libba said, cutting her eyes to Hattie, who immediately flushed.
“He’ll be along shortly, I’m certain,” she said, flushing further as Mal’s eyes fell to her bare feet with a raise of his arched brows. “What did I miss?!” she asked, louder, which did at least get his attention back up to her face.
“Oh, not much,” he said. “Some dancing. Miss Boswell danced an extremely contrary-looking waltz with Rhys. It was marvelous.”
“And odd,” Libba said, shaking her head. “They are so odd.”
“Well, that’s all right,” Hattie replied, still mired in her own panic. “Sometimes things are just a bit odd and that’s the way of it.”
Mal and Libba both stared at her for quite a while after that, until, with great mercy, Elias appeared at the ballroom doors.
