“God forbid. I thought perhaps I might be Georgina.”
“Certainly. I’d be happy to call you Georgina.” From now until the end of time, whenever he did something to annoy me. “Or Henrietta, if you prefer.”
He eyed me, having perhaps realized that he had opened a can of worms. “Never mind. You know, Darling, I think perhaps you should just call me St George. And I’ll call you Darling.”
“Fine by me,” I said, “Georgina.”
He closed his eyes. “You’re horrid, Darling.”
“You asked for it,” I told him. “Really, Georgina, you ought to have known better.”
He sighed. “I suppose I ought to have. You’re not going to forget this, are you?”
Not at all likely. “I’m sure I will,” I said, “eventually.”
“In a few years?”
“Doubtful. It’ll take at least a decade.”
“Marvelous.” He held out a hand. “Since I no longer have to pretend, give me the hat and the wrap, please, and I’ll see if one of the booths is empty.”
“I’d say that’s highly unlikely,” I told him, but I followed behind when he headed up towards the back looking for an out-of-the-way booth that might not have been discovered yet.
The first two we passed were occupied: the first by a party of four, two men and two ‘women,’ bonding over glasses of champagne. They all eyed Crispin as he went by, and ignored me completely.
The second booth had a couple in it, attached at the lips, and it was impossible to determine which persuasion they were, although the one who had his—or her—back to us was dressed in a shimmery taupe gown, while the other had the usual black worsted dinner jacket on. I could see the sleeves, if nothing else.
Given the venue, I assumed that we were looking at another pair of men, however. And since staring seemed intrusive, I quickly averted my eyes and scurried off after Crispin.
“This’ll do.” The next booth was empty, and he dropped the top hat and wrap on the tabletop. “Let’s see if that will be enough to claim ownership. If we come back and someone else has taken up residence, we’ll just have to figure out a way to share.”
“Or take our things and leave,” I said, since I was rethinking the whole outing by this point. I felt terribly awkward and out of place, and I had no idea how Crispin could move around so unselfconsciously in what had to be thoroughly unfamiliar circumstances.
But perhaps it was simply that he was Crispin St George, scion of the Sutherlands, and he couldn’t conceive of a setting where he wouldn’t be welcome, if not with open arms, then at least with the respect accorded his title and family history.
“All right, Darling.” He turned to me and held out a hand. “Shall we dance?”
Part of me wanted to crawl into the booth and hide, but the quirk of his eyebrow when I didn’t jump quickly enough to agree steeled my spine. “Certainly. Lead on, St George.”
“At least you didn’t call me Georgina that time,” Crispin said, and led me toward the dance floor.
After that,and for as long as we stayed on the parquet, it was pretty much like any other nightclub. The smoke, the music, the shuffling steps of the other couples around us, the occasional unavoidable collision. After a few minutes, I forgot that I was wearing a man’s evening suit, and that my companion was wearing a gown and lipstick. At least until I inadvertently looked up and got an eyeful of pink lips and darkened lashes.
“What?” Crispin asked when my lips twitched again.
I stopped pretending I wasn’t amused and gave him a broad grin. “I keep forgetting what you look like. Until I look up and see your face. Pink lipstick, eyelash enhancer, and all.”
“I have fabulous eyelashes, I’ll have you know.” He fluttered them. “Everyone says so.”
“Far be it from me to oppose all your other women, St George. They’re nice eyelashes, I agree.” Christopher has them, too, so it wasn’t as if they were unfamiliar.
A corner of his mouth turned up, but he didn’t let me in on what he found amusing. Instead, he shifted his hand against my back and turned me in the other direction. “At least I have that to recommend me.”
“There are worse things you could have,” I agreed, and abandoned the subject of his eyelashes to look around. “Have you seen Christopher yet?”
Crispin shook his head. “I imagine he’s in a booth somewhere. If he were on the dancefloor, I think we would have seen him by now.”
I thought so, too. The room was large and the crowd bigger than I had expected, but there were still only about a hundred or perhaps a hundred and twenty people present. Admittedly, the lights were low and the smoke heavy, but I knew exactly what I was looking for—a shiny black cap of hair and a black dress of crepe de chiffon embroidered with beads, over an underdress of black crepe de satin.
