“Yes, Sabine is dreadfully spoiled.” She chuckled. “Her family would come and fetch her to visit periodically, and she always begged them to let me come too.”
“You were very close?”
“Are.” She paused. “My parents would not allow me to correspond with her after she married, but on seeing her again, it was as if we had only been separated for a month. I suppose that sounds foolish, but it is so.”
“Not at all. I was an only child.” His voice came out of the shadows wistfully. “I have a number of friends I feel the same way about.”
Kieran looked out of the window at the slow-moving line ahead of them. “Whatever is taking them so long?”
“It’s hard to maneuver several carriages in the courtyard.” Opposite from him, she peered out too. “The house was built in the seventeenth century on an odd-shaped piece of property, so it’s not an exact square. I don’t know why the designer didn’t put the garden on this side of the house and the courtyard on the other. I gather at the time this street was more prestigious than the one bordering the garden, but it would have been a more practical arrangement.” Catching herself, she subsided and changed the subject to a more conventional one.
Although laid out off-kilter, the courtyard still presented an air of dignity as the carriage inched its way to the covered portico. Wrought-iron lamps blazed off of the glossy varnish of each vehicle, and illuminated a row of boxed shrubs set around its perimeter. Fairy lights glowing in the greenery added to the festive air as they descended from the carriage and mounted the steps up to the immense main door, now thrown open wide to admit guests.
Strains of music greeted them before they entered, for the comtesse had engaged a quartet to play near the entrance. She herself chose to greet her guests at the arched doorway to an antechamber to one side of the vestibule, out of the drafts of the cool night air. To one side of her stood the current Comte de Pontrevault and his wife, to the other Sabine and her husband, Baron Serreux, in whose honor she gave the ball.
Footmen glided forward to take their wraps as soon as they stepped inside. Allowing her wrap to fall gracefully from her shoulders, Diantha smoothedthe lace of her overskirt and dared a glance at Kieran.
Her husband stood frozen in the act of handing his cloak to an attendant, his gaze riveted on her. Triumph bubbled inside, but she took care only to lay her furled ostrich feather fan on his arm. “Shall we proceed?”
He continued to stare at her.
“Kieran?”
He collected himself and offered her his arm.
Several minutes later the comtesse, resplendent in deep blue watered silk and black pearls, kissed her cheeks in greeting. “It would appear to be going well. He looks stunned.”
Diantha glanced over to see the comte and her husband conversing. “I believe the word is ‘poleaxed.’”
“What a dreadful sounding phrase.” Sabine inclined her strawberry blond curls toward them as she giggled. The gold embroidery on her gown and the diamonds at her throat glittered in the candlelight.
“I suspect it is one of your grandmother’s trenchant phrases.” The lines around the comtesse’s eyes wrinkled in amusement. “I shall have to tax her with it next time I write to her.”
“Do! Mama strongly disapproves of it.” Diantha gurgled with laughter as she moved away from them.
Kieran’s ears pricked up at the sound of his wife’s amusement. She paused to speak with another acquaintance as he bowed over the handsof his hostesses and shook hands with the baron. Placing his fingers under Diantha’s elbow, he appraised her appearance out of the corner of his eye while they continued to greet other guests.
He had come to think of Diantha as somewhat plain except for her excellent figure. Tonight, she looked like an exotic bird as she moved among the crowd. The rich color of the lace flattered her dark blue eyes, and the material itself frothed about her shoulders and low neckline in a way that made a man want to tug it down farther.
As she strolled through the room ahead of him, the whisper of her train along the parquet floor enticed him to follow. He ran an appreciative eye over the way the pale satin material of her bustle flowed as she walked, until he looked about and saw several other men examining her covertly.
When she halted in the doorway to the next anteroom, he took his place beside her, placing a possessive hand on the small of her back. She looked over her shoulder at him and raised an eyebrow at the gesture but said nothing. Then, with a disinterested shrug, she stepped away from him. For the second time in the space of an hour, he stood dumbfounded.
Then his brows snapped together. He did not know what she was up to but he had no intention of stepping aside.
Diantha, it seemed, had other ideas.
He caught up with her as the ballroom opened out before them. She smiled up at him impishly. “I believe I see your marquise, my dear.” She gestured to the lovely widow who had thrown countless lures out to him since he had arrived in Paris.
Without another word, Diantha extended her hand to a lanky young cavalier who hurried over with a flowery compliment. Laughing, she slipped away into the crowd without a backward glance.
A light touch on Kieran’s arm claimed his attention. Beside him, Solange de Tourelle cocked her head and observed his wife’s departure. “She’s much prettier than I expected.” Her low voice purred into his ear. “But as you said, a trifle wet behind the ears. Come dance with me,mon cher.”
Watching out of the corner of his eye, he did not think Diantha looked remotely wet behind the ears as she tapped the fan against her boyish escort’s shoulder. With her cheeks flushed she looked prettier than he had ever seen her before.
“My dear Lord Rossburn.” His would-be inamorata tapped her foot as she waited for him. Without another word, he swung her out among the waltzing couples, but not without a last glower over his shoulder. The stripling bowed and left his wife when she held out both hands and bestowed a dazzling smile on a craggy-faced man who looked vaguely familiar.
The marquise pursed her lips in distaste when she observed the encounter.“Mon Dieu, tell me that decrepit old woman did not invite Sir Harry Emerson.”
