Page 31 of The Subtle Craft of Courting Kate

“You startled me,” Kate accused, blowing out a breath of relief.

Elliot issued a soft snort. “Better me than anyone else. Katie, you can’t go wandering off from a ball.”

“I didn’t go wandering off,” Kate protested. “I stepped outside for a bit of air. The heat in the ballroom is—”

“Immaterial,” Elliot pronounced, in a voice which had taken on an uncharacteristically stern cadence. “You told Rebecca you were for the retiring room.”

“I was. But after, I just needed a moment of privacy.” Away from the people. Away from the heat. Away from Elliot’s damned dimple and that smile he had bestowed upon the bashfully blushing Miss Applegate.

“Kate,” Elliot said, his shoulders shaking with a low, rueful chuckle, “for an unmarried lady, there is no such thing as a moment of privacy at an event such as this.”

“Pardon me, then, for not knowing. In the countryside—”

“This isn’t the countryside. This is London. It’s practically a different world.” His head turned back toward the house at the sudden advent of voices in the hallway through the window. “Christ,” he said, and charged from the light into the shelter of the shadows with her. “Were you seen? By anyone other than me?”

“I don’t think so.” She hadn’t been paying much attention, but she also hadn’t been seeking it from anyone else. Away from the window in the shadows of the house had seemed a safe place to snatch a bit of room to breathe and a moment to herself.

Elliot muttered an oath beneath his breath. In the darkness, his hand groped for hers. “Come with me,” he said. “We’re too damned close to the windows.” And the moment he had judged it safe enough, he plunged out of the shadows and into the garden, pulling her along in his wake.

Rose bushes flew by, silky crimson petals blurring into brief flashes of color across Kate’s field of vision as she stumbled along behind Elliot. Past the hedgerows, deeper into the garden than she would have ventured on her own. “Elliot,” she said, clutching at his hand as his grip threatened to pull her glove straight off of her fingers. “Where are we going?”

“Away from windows.” The response was terse, swift, and decisive.

“I thought I wasn’t meant to be out here alone.”

“You aren’t. You can’t be seen unchaperoned, and we can’t be seen alone together, and that’s the damned trouble. You’ve been lucky so far, but there’s no guarantee that luck will hold out, and I have got to find a safe place to put you until I can send Rebecca to retrieve you.”

“Oh, of course,” Kate said through the grit of her teeth, wincing as she nearly rolled her ankle about an especially tight turn. “Rebecca may go about as she pleases!”

“Yes,” Elliot said, his voice gone low and faintly guttural, “because she’s a married woman and a suitable chaperone for an unmarried one besides—and would you keep your voice down? I have got a care for your reputation, you know.”

“What reputation?” Kate asked, with an odd little laugh. She would be in London for a few weeks more and then—then she would return to the countryside, with her sheep and her rolling hills and her solitude. And Elliot would be married, his visits necessarily less frequent. Possibly she would never again see Rebecca or Richard. What was a few weeks in London? Practically nothing. Soon enough, no one would even recall her. “Elliot, I haven’t got any sort of reputation to speak of.”

“You will if you are observed, and it will not be a good one.” Another turn, and they breezed past still more hedgerows, so tall they rose even above Elliot’s head. “Your mother will not be well-pleased to hear your name bandied about in gossip, Rebecca will be devastated to have allowed an incident to have occurred when she was meant to be your chaperone, and I will hold myself responsible for having dragged you to London in the first place.”

“It’s—it’s not so dire as all that, is it?” Her voice wobbled uncertainly, and Kate realized she’d begun to grip his hand so tightly that her nails must have dug into his skin even through their gloves.

Elliot drew to a halt so abruptly that Kate almost slammed into his back, the soles of her dancing slippers sliding upon the grass. “I’m not going to let it be,” he said, and he loosed his hold on her hand at last.

Kate cast her gaze around, but saw only dark walls formed of thick hedges, the moon and stars high overhead. “Where are we?”

“Near the center of the hedge maze,” he said. “It’s not a particularly large one, if memory serves. But it is at least enough to keep us out of view. And mostly out of hearing.”

“And you can find your way back?” Kate asked as she brushed the flat of her hand against the nearest hedge wall and felt the prickly leaves stick in the fabric of her glove. “You’ll be able to direct Rebecca?”

“I’ll be able to direct her to you,” he said. “Whether she’ll be able to follow instructions—that’s another issue altogether. Were you engaged for another set?”

“No,” she said. “That is—no one else has yet asked.” Not that she had much given anyone the opportunity with the way she had fled from the room.

Elliot cast his head back, and in the moonlight drifting down from the sky, his hair glowed silver. He raked his gloved fingers through it, scratching grooves through the strands which had once been perfectly combed. “It’s likely, then, that you haven’t been missed. And Rebecca is wise enough to make excuses for you should anyone come asking. By the time anyone next sees you, you’ll be in her company, and your reputation will be safe,” he said, on a low sigh of relief.

“Won’t you be missed?” Kate asked.

“Oh, certainly,” he said, and even in the darkness she could see the shine of his teeth in a crooked smile. “But the difference is that no one is likely to come looking for me. No young lady could, and no gentleman would dare. My absence will be noted, but not questioned.” He let his head drop and rubbed at the back of his neck as if he had developed an ache there. “Do you know,” he said slowly, quietly, “I suppose I could use a few minutes out here myself.”

“Really? You looked to be having such a grand time.” With Miss Applegate. Laughing together, as if they had been the dearest of friends for years and years. As if Kate had already been usurped in his affections.

Elliot shrugged. “I enjoy dancing,” he said. “Less so feeling like a slab of meat hung within a butcher’s window.” He turned his face up to catch the wick of the wind that slid through the hedgerows, issuing a low sigh at the sensation. “And you? Did you enjoy your dance with Lord Shaw?”