Cassie drew her shoe back beneath her skirts, frowning down at a clearly puzzled Adrian.
Meanwhile, as Adrian rose, Eliza found herself desperately wishing the ballroom floor might open and swallow her whole.In Adrian’s hand was one of the buckles she’d been wearing the first night she’d gone to the Lyon’s Den…
“I borrowed them from my sister,” Cassandra said. “I hope you don’t mind, Eliza. In all the commotion, I forgot to ask.”
Adrian’s gaze jerked from her sister to Eliza. Puzzlement shifted to recognition…
Cassie flashed a look part pride, part confusion, in her sister’s direction. “She commissioned them herself, you know. But she hardly ever wears them.”
The sounds around Eliza deadened. Her stomach grew heavy. So heavy, it was both weighting down her gut and demanding to be emptied.
Adrian’s eyes…
Oh, good Heavens.
“Yes,” Adrian said stiffly. “Very. Unique. Buckles.”
The woman’s earrings swished as she turned, following Adrian’s gaze to Eliza.
Eliza raised her face. Everything around her disappeared from her vision. Everything but Adrian. Slowly, in what felt like a nightmare she was helpless to direct, he lifted his free hand. His fingers traced a line down her neck until he hit that spot.
The Rogue spot.
An involuntary noise escaped her throat.
“Blackbird,” Adrian whispered.
It didn’t matter that the word would make no sense to anyone besides themselves. By his touch, he had utterly exposed her.
She bit her lip.
He stared at her for eons, recognition warring with disbelief. Then, he dropped his hand, sending a sharp glance toward Mrs. Jasper.
“I must beg your pardon,” he said. He stepped away and folded his hands behind his back. “All of you, especially MissWainwright. I was…momentarily taken by Miss Wainwright’s exquisite taste.” He flashed one of his disarming smiles at Mrs. Jasper. “You see, I’ve been meaning to purchase a gift for my sister. Might you give me the direction of your jeweler, Miss Wainwright?”
“What a fine idea,” Lady Sarah exclaimed.
“Why don’t you come with me”—Cassandra looped a firm arm beneath Eliza’s pliant one—“so that we might find a pencil?”
“You stay, Miss Cassandra,” Lady Sarah replied. “I’ll take Miss Wainwright to find a pencil.”
“Yes,” Eliza forced. “Stay, Cassie.”
Lady Sarah smiled brightly. “No need to join us on a silly little errand, is there?”
Eliza nodded uncertainly, her gaze repeatedly slipping to Adrian. He, however, had turned away, engaging Harbury in hearty congratulations.
Adrian didn’t spare her a second glance.
Eliza and theBlackbird were one and the same.
Adrian should have been shocked. Reeling, in fact. And he had been, at first.
So shocked his unguarded reaction had exposed his love to gossip.
Were it not for Cassandra and Lady Sarah’s quick thinking, the curious looks might have transformed into an explosive scandal. Even now, if he’d stepped in a nest of adders, he would have felt less alarm.
Prurient, poisonous interest slithered and hissed all around him.
