“Do you remember me?”
Caught off guard by his low query, Marguerite wasn’t sure why but she shook her head no. At once she saw what she would swear was disappointment in his dark eyes, but right now she simply wanted to run back to Corie and Lindsay and have the comfort of family and friends around her.
Panic filled her breast. Why would she have ever thought that even with such notables surrounding her, people might look at her differently?Why?
“You were very brave that night in Roscoff.”
Marguerite sucked in her breath, her heart beginning to pound. “I had to be for my sisters. It was so terrible…to be abducted from our beds and forced aboard a ship, and threatened to be given over to Moroccan pirates if our captors didn’t get what they wanted. And then Donovan might have been killed—and Corie, too! If not for you and Jared and his other men coming to our rescue—oh!”
Walker had suddenly drawn her even closer, bending his head to whisper in her ear, “So you do remember me after all.”
She shivered, his breath so warm upon her neck, the hardness of his chest pressed against her breasts.
Remember him? In truth her vivid memory of the man did him a grave injustice. Nothing could have prepared her for the reality of flesh and blood propelling her around the room.
The strength of his hand clasping hers.
The powerful breadth of his shoulders blocking out all else around them.
His hair black as night and his eyes, staring into hers, even blacker.
The smell of him that filled her senses…sandalwood and citrus and something decidedly masculine.
Her panic had fled, replaced by something she’d never felt before that made her wish she could remain in his arms and the waltz go on and on…
“I regret to say the music has ended, Marguerite.”
She flared open her eyes, not realizing she had closed them or that she and Walker still spun slowly in the center of the assembly room gone silent around them.
Silent but for awkward coughs and whispered tittering behind fans while everyone stared at them…including the party with whom she’d come to Almack’s that stood off to one side with the Duke and Duchess of Arundale.
Lindsay smiling with her hands pressed together, as if she couldn’t be more delighted.
Corie glancing at Donovan and then at Marguerite with a hint of concern in her eyes.
Jared’s jaw tight as he stood stiffly next to Lindsay.
Meanwhile Sir Russell hastened toward them with a look of disapproval on his face, which made Walker stop abruptly and release her, his expression immediately darkening.
Flushing with embarrassment that all eyes seemed to be upon her, Marguerite found herself wishing now that the floor would simply open up to swallow her and end her misery. She could read the displeasure upon Sir Russell’s face as if he were shouting it from one end of Almack’s to the other.
A lowly parson’s daughter waltzing with the future Duke of Summerlin, why, the brazen unseemliness of it all! Sir Russell had already inferred quite blatantly that she wasn’t suitable for such attention, hadn’t he?
Marguerite didn’t wait to hear any further insults from the baronet but fled toward Corie and Lindsay without even a glance at Walker. She heard him curse behind her, which only made her cheeks flare hotter.
No doubt he had realized, too, the spectacle they had made and regretted his choice for a dance partner! Oh, why had she ever agreed to venture to London again?
Tears stung her eyes as she reached her sister at the same moment a buzz of excitement swelled in the air. To her immense relief, Marguerite saw that she was no longer the focus of attention as everyone rushed toward the main entrance of the room.
“Ah, look,” said Nigel, taking his wife’s arm so they might move closer, too. “His Royal Highness Prince George has arrived!”
Marguerite felt as if she were caught in the flow of a current as Corie and Donovan, flanking her, drew her along with them while Lindsay and Jared followed close behind.
Above the din of conversation now resounding in the assembly room, Marguerite could hear Jared saying tersely to Lindsay, “Walker’snotthe one for her, Lindsay, and you know the reason as well as I do. Now enough, we’ll speak of it later.”
To that, Lindsay uttered a retort that Marguerite could not discern for all the mounting commotion, but which told her from Lindsay’s indignant tone that she had no intention of letting the matter rest at all.
Marguerite heard no more, though, swept up as she was in the tide that split in two by the entrance when a tall and quite corpulent gentleman strode into the room with his sumptuously dressed entourage. At once everyone began to bow and curtsey as the Prince Regent waved grandly to his subjects while a massive gilt chair was carried inside by footmen to accommodate his girth.
