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10
Snow Keeper
Two dances—both without his participation—and one full hour later and Ed still hadn’t successfully gained an audience with the recalcitrant female. As slippery as slicked soap, either she kept intentionally evading his efforts to speak with her or he was having the worst possible luck since Albuera.
She’d finally come down the stairs a short while ago but saw him waiting just outside the ballroom and darted down a corridor. She was out of sight before he’d taken three steps.
After six other females traipsed the same direction, in pairs, and back again, granting him and his friends shy glances and giggles, he’d finally deduced where his woman had likely secreted herself. And she was his woman; he just had to convince her of that.
Another three minutes and he was going in after her, scandal be damned.
“How long are you both staying?” he asked his friends, hoping to stave off the jingle-jangle he sensed brewing between the two men who had just joined him outside the, “Deuced dancing arena to avoid the chits within”—according to Frost.
“Hell, man”—from Warrick—“you talk as though the fillies in there are as terrible as combat. Go on, shake a leg with one or more.”
“Not on your life.”
“Which I have you to thank for, so stop wasting yours—”
“Gentlemen, no fisticuffs at my party,” Ed intervened. “How long can I look forward to your charming company?” How long were the guests staying here? Tonight only? Or actually through Twelfth Night?
The long-time butler at Redford Manor, Walden, full of support over the match, treating Ed as though he was still a third son and ordering him about with, “Get thyself over to Lord Ballenger’s abode with haste, my lord. Secure Miss Larchmont before the frost thaws!” But no help with details over the duration of the event.
“Charming? Him?” Warrick just laughed.
“Depends.” Frostwood frowned, first down at Warrick, then back at Ed. “How long is this deuced party of yours supposed to last?”
“Nicholas!” Warrick chided, intentionally bumping into the other man’s legs after a quick adjustment of his wheels. “Would you rush true love? Ed’s happiness?”
By blazes, Ed was ready to rush.
Rush Anne up to the altar and into his bed.
Had her three minutes elapsed yet?
“Good evening,” Ed said the moment he entered the ladies’ retiring room.
Two shrieks, one screech and Anne’s “You cannot thrumble your way in here!” welcomed him into the feminine domain he dared breach.
“I can. For did I not just do that?”
“You make a spectacle of yourself.”
“Ladies.” Ignoring the woman he came to see, Ed nodded at Shrieker 1 and 2, winked toward the Lone Screecher and held the door open wide. “I appreciate your cooperation; now be gone.”
“You cannot command us to leave,” Anne again.
He ignored that too. “Ladies? Out,” he barked.
“Well, I never!”
“Father will hear about this!”
Shrieker 1 and The Screecher scuttled into the hallway, complaints heavy upon their lips.
Shrieker 2 paused at the doorway to look back. “Anne, do accept him. Gallant and determined. Quite swoon-worthy, I do believe.” She smiled at him. “Good luck to you, my lord.”
Ed immediately renamed her Anne’s Intelligent Blonde Friend. He gave her a brief bow as she swept past him, her smile beaming.
