He sat up beside her. Her chest squeezed tight—surely he would leave now, retreat into his fortress of silence, and she would be alone again.
Instead, his large hands caught her feet. Brow furrowed in soldierly concentration, he rubbed them with a firmness that made her toes tingle, her arches loosen. Heat spread where his calloused palms worked her soft skin. The gesture was fierce and so much like Hawk that tears filled her eyes. Then he drew the blanket over her legs and pulled her close until her feet were wedged between his calves, pinned and sheltered by his body.
When she dared look at him, his gaze met hers.
"You have cold feet," he said gruffly.
Her throat closed. The words were rough, but they blanketed her like silk. Her love swelled so fiercely it ached.
Oh, Hawk, you meant to protect my virginity by denying us both, but you were wrong. Love didn't wait for consummation. It had already happened.
There was no corner of her, no fear, no thought, no fragile chamber of her heart, that this general had not breached, claimed, and filled with his warmth.
The ballroom was a battlefield. And Celeste was its weary general. Drapes billowed, flowers drooped, chairs creaked across the parquet. Footmen stood in clumps, blinking like dazed infantry as Rue charged past them, her arms laden with another roll of bunting.
“Hydrangeas on the left! No, my left, Simmons, not yours. Did they not teach directions in the British Army?” Rue snapped, wielding a trailing vine like a whip.
Thomas was lifting furniture as if posing for a Greek statue competition, entirely ignoring the buckets of flowers wilting beside him. Prue, meanwhile, hovered behind him with the air of a girl moments from composing an ode to his biceps.
Captain Graves surveyed the chaos with the long-suffering expression of a man who would choose cannon fire over another argument about table settings.
“All this effort, Lady Cecilia,” he muttered as Celeste darted past, a silver ribbon clenched between her teeth. “Last year, we had biscuits. And punch. And no one died.”
“That,” Celeste declared, “is precisely the tragedy I mean tocorrect.”
She stopped in the center of the room, hands on hips. Her cheeks were flushed, curls tumbling from their pins, a smudge of lavender on her wrist where she’d tested the flower dye herself.
She would do this. She had to. Hawk may not have asked her to organize the 13th yearly summer ball—but she would give him one worthy of his Regiment.
“The maestro hasn’t arrived!” cried the first violinist, wringing his bow.
Celeste stilled. “What?”
“He was to come from Canterbury,” the man babbled. “We sent the postilion hours ago. Perhaps his coach lost a wheel.”
Celeste slumped into a chair, the vision blurring. No orchestra. No music. No dance. It was impossible. Everything would unravel, the illusion collapsing before it could even begin.
“Are you the one in charge of this splendid chaos?”
A voice tinged with amusement came from the door.
She glanced up. A man she did not recognize, tall, fair, and impeccably dressed, strutted closer.
Celeste sprang to her feet. “Thank heavens! You must be the maestro!”
He blinked once, then smiled. “I must be, mustn’t I?”
She studied him from his lush white hair to his old-fashioned breeches. “What sort of maestro travels without his baton?”
He opened his mouth, but she waved him off.
“Never mind.” She snatched a hydrangea in one hand and a silver soup ladle in the other. “Pick your weapon. The musicians won’t care so long as you wave it with feeling.”
He blinked at the options. “Do I get a third choice?”
“Not tonight. You’re already late for rehearsal. Come, I’ve selected a gavotte to open the evening. Something bright. Festive. The soldiers will be grim as thunderclouds if I don’t give them music worth twirling to.”
He allowed himself to be led toward the music alcove. “And if I don’t know your tune?”
