Fifteen
“May I assist you, Lord Fairmont?”
James turned away from the window, startled. “Where did you come from, Crosby?”
“The hallway, my lord.”
“Ah.” He’d been a thousand miles away and hadn’t noticed his bedchamber door opening. How long had he been standing here, staring out into his aunt’s dark rose gardens? “What is it, Crosby?”
Crosby blinked. “Does your lordship wish for my assistance in undressing this evening?”
“Oh, right. That. No, thank you.” James waved a hand toward the door and turned back to the window. “You may go.”
“Very good, Lord Fairmont.”
There was a shuffle of footsteps as Crosby crossed the bedchamber, and a moment later, the door closed.
Well, then. Now what?
It was a foolish question. Now he’d go to bed, of course. What else?
He tugged on the end of his cravat, unwound the perfect Cascade knot Crosby had tied earlier, and tossed the length ofsilk onto the chair beside the bed, then stripped off his coat and waistcoat, and dropped them on top of his cravat.
It was late, well past time he went to his bed, yet as he unfastened his shirt cuffs, he found himself wandering back to the window, and gazing unseeing into the impenetrable darkness.
He was out of sorts, his head all muddled.
The house was silent around him, even the servants having taken to their beds. He should do the same, but a strange hesitancy was upon him as if he were waiting for something.
Only he didn’t know what.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the pale glow of moonlight outside his window, but the velvet darkness had no time to settle over his eyelids before a picture arose, hazy at first, but becoming clearer with every breath he pulled into his lungs.
Miss Templeton, in her blue ball gown.
No, not Miss Templeton, but Euphemia. She’d never invited him to call her that, but when he thought of her now, he thought of her as Euphemia.
Not Phee. Somehow, the shortened version of her name didn’t encompass all she was.
Not to him.
That gown she’d worn tonight… he’d never seen that shade of blue before.
Azure, his aunt had called it. Azure blue, a shade somewhere between sky blue, and cerulean. She was stunning in it, like a patch of the morning sky had been plucked from the heavens and set free in the middle of Lady Upton’s ballroom.
No lady had ever worn a gown the way Euphemia had worn that gown this evening.
As if she had every right to it. As if it had been made only for her.
She’d come alive tonight, like a gorgeous, colorful butterfly bursting from its cocoon with a vengeance, and it… dear God, it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Thetonhad been stunned silent. No doubt they were all still gossiping about timid Euphemia Templeton and her vivid blue gown, but Euphemia wasn’t at all the fearful lady they all believed her to be.
She never had been.
She wasn’t the lady he’d once believed her to be, either.
How had he ever thought her meek? How could she ever have thought herself a coward? He’d never met anyone braver than she was.
