Huxley raked her with his eyes. “What have you been doing? You look most untidy. And are you wearing cosmetics?”
Magdala patted her wild hair and blushed.
“My dear child,” Huxley continued. “Cosmetics don’t do you any favors.”
Shame burned through her, and she bit her lip against the urge to say what she was thinking—an unflattering compilation of four-letter words—and get herself fired. Besides, she agreed with him. The cosmetics had been a silly, frivolous idea. She was not meant to be admired in that way.
“Go and find my brother,” Huxley ordered.
Magdala stiffened. “I’m working for Lady Angelonia …”
“Yes, go and find him,” Angelonia said. “Huxley can look after me.”
Magdala was not a maid, and she was not supposed to go looking for stray fiancés, but because she was bored and her knees had locked, she shook off her stiffness and dove into the crowd, making for the tall exterior doors. If Julian had any sense at all, he’d fled the crush of bodies and was strolling in the garden.
Like a drowning woman striking out for the surface of the water, Magdala swam desperately toward the open door and stumbled out onto the dark balcony.
The evening was warm, and Magdala’s hair had gone rogue. She tried, in vain, to smooth it as she retreated into the comforting shadows. The balcony was deserted, except for a tall, young man leaning against the stone balustrade, looking at the garden below.
No, not the garden. If he were looking at the garden, his head would be tilted down. His eyes were fixed upward, gazing at the stars.
His black shirt stretched over broad shoulders, showing off the lean muscles in his back. She admired him for a beat, and just as she realized she was staring, he turned.
Magdala didn't drop her gaze, and his keen, honeyed green eyes met hers. He was very striking and very strange.
If he’d attempted to wax his loose black curls, he needed to find a new pomade, because his hair tangled unfashionably over his brow. And unlike the sallow gentry twirling across the dance floor, his skin was sun-touched, tanned golden, like he spent much of his time outdoors. A day’s stubble covered his sharp jaw.
He didn’t fit any mold Magdala knew for Largotian gentry, so she deduced that he was a country squire come to the christening to see the city, get drunk, and then sleep all the way back home.
But that did not explain why he was barefoot.
“Royal guard?” he asked without preamble.
“Yes,” she replied.
“What captain?”
“Huxley Davenport.”
He winced. “What horrible sin did you commit to end up with him?” He lifted a glass to his lips. Magdala noticed his hand was trembling. When he’d drained the cup dry, he set it down with deliberate care on the top of the balustrade.
“Are you in need of assistance?” she asked.
He dodged the question. “How is it? Working for Huxley Davenport?”
Humiliating, maddening, akin to slavery.
“Adequate,” Magdala replied.
The man smiled. He wore his devious beauty like a shield. He was so different from Julian with his waxed hair and tidy uniform or the rest of the gentry in their sashes and diamonds. Something flashed in Magdala’s chest when she looked at him—a spark no man had ever lit in her before, not even Julian and Huxley with their perfect golden hair and clean jaws. It was a forbidden, intrusive spark, and it drained the blood from her cheeks.
Mortified at herself, Magdala lashed out. “You’re too intoxicated to be here. I can escort you to your coach so you can return home.”
“Who said I’m intoxicated?” the man said. “I’m stone-cold sober.”
Like hell he was.
“Might I find your friends and take you …”
