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She inhaled, held the breath for a moment, and exhaled, thinking of Ford. He’d given her this idea. Casting her bonnet into the street, praising her choice of gown in Cornwall, and telling her to break free from her mother’s control.
To breathe. To be fully present. To take risks and live life to the fullest. Unburdened by shame or by fear.
She was tired of the bonnets and the blindfolds.
It was time to emerge from her chrysalis.
The costume Thorndon had given him fit Ford perfectly.
Tight black trousers, shiny black boots, a white shirt with lace at the throat and cuffs, a long black silk cape with a high collar, and a black tricorn hat.
A black silk mask that tied at the back of his head completed the highwayman costume.
Ford didn’t give one goddamn about London high society and its exclusionary and frivolous entertainments, but he did care about Beatrice, and how she saw him. In this mask he was a mysterious marauder, come to steal her breath away.
He strode through the crowded ballroom with his customary swagger, and every highborn lady in the room followed him with glittering eyes behind their masks.
Sorry, ladies. I’m here for one woman, and one woman only.
And she was going to be wheeled into this ballroom on a bed atop a wooden platform laden with flowers, fruit, and birds like some sacrifice to the gods.
But he’d be the one to claim her, if only for one waltz. For one night.
He’d show everyone in this room, and Mayhew in particular, that the lady was his, and his alone. And, let’s be honest, he wanted to steal a kiss on the balcony.
And another.
As many as he could. He was well and truly addicted to Lady Beatrice Bentley.
“Admiral, this is the man I was telling you about, Stamford Wright.” Thorndon approached with a naval officer in tow. “Wright, this is Admiral Sir Francis Emsworth.”
“Wright. You’re about to sail on the HMSBoadicea, I hear?” asked the admiral.
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“You look an able-bodied sailor, Wright. We require stalwart men in the Royal Navy. I tell you what I’ll do—I’ll see about having you posted to a first-rate three-decker. How does that sound? You’d see more action that way.”
More action. More bodies to feed the roiling cauldron of the sea.
Maybe his own body weighted down by cannonball shards and growing seaweed in his hair at the bottom of the ocean.
“That sounds brilliant, sir. I’m honored.”
“Pretty ladies here tonight, Thorndon. And you can’t tell which one is your wife and which one your mistress with all of these masks, eh?”
Thorndon didn’t crack a smile. He was dressed in a similar costume to Ford, with a black cape with a red silk lining, but no tricorn hat. “I have no mistress and never will. One woman is all I can handle.”
The admiral shrugged. “To each his own.”
“What are you supposed to be, Your Grace?” Ford asked.
Thorndon pulled his black silk cape over his face with one arm. “I’m a bloodthirsty vampire. Now where is that pretty wife of mine? I want to bite her neck.”
Thorndon and the admiral left.
Ford intended to stay right here in the center of the throng, ready for Beatrice’s grand entrance. The moment had arrived. A hush fell over the crowd asthe orchestra began a dreamy melody with lots of quivering notes from the violins.
Soon Beatrice would glide through the doors, hidden at first by the high sides of the bower, and then she would rise in her glittering silk gown with her hair towered high and probably stuck all over with flowers and feathers, and, who knew? Perhaps an actual bow and arrow. Ford wouldn’t put anything past that mother of hers.
