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“Surely not.”
“Truly?” Elliot looked to his friend beside him with a risen eyebrow. “Every lady I have tried to talk to tonight has run off in that same way.” He gestured to the women’s retreat.
“I do not think that lady ran away, so much as was taken away.”
Harrison’s words made Elliot look for her again, but she was gone. As he searched for her, he caught the eye of many gentlemen that were staring straight at him. Their chins were lifted, and they looked down their long noses.
“I cannot bear to suffer these disgusted looks anymore,” Elliot said in a rush.
“Shall I pour us something stronger than champagne, then?”
“You drink it. I need some air. I will be back soon.” Elliot wasn’t certain how soon he’d really be. All he knew was that he had to get away from this ballroom. In fact, he needed to be anywhere else but here.
After suffering these stares, he was rather glad he hadn’t given in to the suggestion to introduce Grace to thetonfor her first season. Part of him felt she was still too young, and knowing now the way people would have stared at her, he would not want to have put Grace through that.
Striding across the room, Elliot ignored the stares and stolen looks over the rims of champagne glasses, heading for the door at the far end of the ballroom. One step through told him this was an equally poor idea. The terrace of the garden was filled with men who had taken a minute to smoke their pipes. Through the smoke trails, they turned to look at him. Amongst their faces were one or two men he would have once called friends, but not anymore. They had cut off contact when they’d heard of Elliot’s fall from financial comfort.
Backing into the ballroom, Elliot turned the other way, hurrying across the room and aiming for a corridor. It was impolite to wander around Lady Canning’s house uninvited, but he convinced himself it was better than staying trapped in that room, being gawked at the way a tiger was in the Tower of London menagerie.
He reached for doors, looking for anywhere to retreat and hide. He found a couple of dark rooms with no candles lit, and at one door he heard whispered voices. Deciding it was better to ignore that room altogether, he opened a door at the end of the corridor. Seeing the moonlight falling on rows and shelves of books, Elliot sighed with relief.
My favourite room. The library.
He stepped inside only to hear a gasp of breath.
Elliot had let the door close as he turned to see who else was in the room. To his surprise, it was the woman he had met just now, with the large blue eyes. Sitting in an armchair, she had a book in her lap and must have been reading it avidly in the moonlight. She stared at him, her lips parted, apparently realising the same thing he had done.
“We should not be in here alone together,” she murmured.
“No, we shouldn’t.” Yet Elliot couldn’t bring himself to leave. He had wanted to escape that ballroom so much and now that he had found a place to hide, he had no wish to leave it.
“Forgive me. I will leave you here.”
“You do not have to go,” Elliot pleaded as the lady stood to her feet.
“Oh, we both know how inappropriate that would be, do we not?” she asked with a small laugh and placed the book down on the table in front of her.
“Very inappropriate indeed,” he agreed and walked to the table. Yet she wasn’t hurrying off and neither was he. They both just stood there, staring at one another.
She really is rather beautiful.
Hers was an unusual beauty, with such bold eyes and prominent cheekbones, but it was rather entrancing to look at. Tall and slender, she was a presence in the room, flattered by the ivory gown she wore, which hugged her slender curves.
Knowing he was not behaving as he should do, he turned his eyes down to the book on the table and picked it up.
“I see I am not the only one who would rather escape a ball to read,” he observed. “ButRomancing the Forest?”he asked, startled by the title.
“You do not like it?”
“I have not read it, but I have not heard good things about it.”
“Oh, but that is like declaring that you dislike the sky, even though you have never danced amongst the stars.” Her jest caught his interest as he looked up from the book.
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Well, we all need an escape from the real world every now and then, do we not? This is my escape.” She reached forward and took the book from him. Once again, the brush of her hand against his own had that sparking effect up his arm. It made his eyes shoot to hers, trying to discover if she had felt it, too.
Who is this woman?
