Page 45 of The Language of Love

“No! And such a young man.” Both she and her companion looked over to where Colin was now chatting with Miss Susanna Bowman.

Colin was using his hands to describe something to her. One of his waving arms shot directly into the path of a footman carrying a tray laden with glasses of champagne.

The servant hastily stepped back to avoid the flailing limb, an action which caused him to bump into a ferocious-looking woman wearing the better part of a peacock on her head.

Henry and the women beside him gasped as the peacock careened sideways into a red-faced young buck who was dancing the reel as if it were a Highland Fling.

The dancer staggered back to avoid crushing his partner. In the process, he slammed into the man on his other side, knocking him into a throng of spectators hard enough to send several sprawling to the parquet floor.

Somebody inside the writhing mob must have jostled the same unfortunate footman with the glasses—who had somehow recovered his footing without spilling a drop—and the sound of feminine screams and breaking crystal could be heard even over the determined sawing of the orchestra.

“My goodness,” the woman beside Henry murmured, her hand raised to her mouth, her wide eyes riveted to the pandemonium.

Colin, majestically unaware of the chaotic series of dominoes he’d unknowingly set off, led Susanna Bowman toward the French doors.

Bloody hell!

What had Henry said—a hundred times at least—about not leaving the ballroom with any woman?

Henry handed both his and Colin’s empty champagne glasses to the woman still standing beside him, ignoring her indignant gasp as he darted toward his disappearing employee.

Precious minutes ticked by as he shoved his way through the crowd, his elbows and knees earning him lifetime enemies.

Harried and sweating, he reached the other side of the ballroom to find that Colin had stopped just inside the French doors and was displaying his new waistcoat to a clutch of admiring young tulips.

Miss Bowman stood to one side of Colin, arms crossed and tapping her toe, her eyes narrowed with displeasure.

Henry hovered close enough to keep an eye on them, but not too close to be noticed.

Thankfully, two more young men joined the group, and it was clear—to both Henry and Miss Susanna Bowman—that prying Colin from his admiring horde and luring him out into the gardens was now unlikely.

Henry sighed with relief, but the feeling was fleeting. He might have stopped Colin from doing something foolish tonight, but what about tomorrow night? And all the nights after?

He pushed the annoying subject from his mind, and turned his thoughts to another matter, entirely: Annis Bowman.

“Just where the devil are you hiding yourself, Annis?” he muttered under his breath as he swept the ballroom with his eyes.

He made not one, but three sweeps of the ballroom, but did not see his quarry.

It was, Henry decided with a grim smile, time to quit waiting for Annis to come to him.

Tomorrow he would go to her.