Teresa Medeiros (23 page)

Sylvie’s first words erased her amusement. “There you are! I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever arrive. And where is that handsome Mr. Claremont of yours?”

Humiliation curled in the pit of Lucy’s stomach. She extracted herself from Sylvie’s peppermint-scented embrace, terrified she might burst into tears and make a public spectacle of herself. “He’s not
my
Mr. Claremont. I assume he’s with the other servants where he
belongs. It would hardly do to have him lurking behind the potted palms, frightening your mother’s guests.”

Sylvie shifted Gilligan’s considerable weight to her other hip where he proceeded to yank a handful of pink feathers from her mask. “Isn’t he supposed to look after you?”

Sylvie’s innocent question conjured up a myriad of images: Gerard bundling her against the warmth of his body, carrying her through the icy rain, tucking a faded quilt around her trembling legs. Pressing his lips to the bruise on her throat as if his kiss alone held the power to heal it.

“Champagne, ladies?” The underfootman’s voice interrupted her dangerous reverie.

“Not now, David,” Sylvie said, knowing of Lucy’s aversion to spirits. “Perhaps later when—”

“Why, thank you. I’d be delighted.” Sylvie stared and even Gilligan looked nonplussed as Lucy snatched a fluted glass and downed its sparkling contents in a single swallow.

The tart bubbles made her nose tingle. Infectious warmth spread through her belly although it couldn’t quite smooth the razor’s edge off her yearning.

“You see, Sylvie, I don’t need Mr. Claremont to look after me,” she said brightly, depositing the glass back on the tray. “Tonight I have my father to protect me. And when we’re together, neither of us needs anyone else.”

Sylvie watched as her friend made her way boldly through the dancers to the uniformed crowd slavering over the Admiral’s every word. It was impossible to miss the annoyance that flickered over his face as his daughter tugged his sleeve. But Lucy stood her ground until he was forced to gallantly offer her his arm for a
dance or appear the worst sort of lout before his staunchest admirers.

Sylvie absently peeled a soggy feather from Gilligan’s tongue, wondering if it was the unfamiliar sting of the champagne or genuine tears she saw glittering in Lucy’s eyes as she went into the Admiral’s arms.

Gerard resisted the urge to beat his fist against the frosted glass of the terrace door. Lucinda Snow was back where she belonged. In her father’s arms.

Even knowing better, he caught himself falling prey to their spell as they danced. The Admiral’s uneven gait added an aura of tragic dignity to his regal bearing. With his immaculate uniform and the cluster of medals gleaming on his barreled chest, he resembled an aged king returned from some noble crusade. Once Gerard had idolized such men and would have sacrificed everything he possessed to walk among them.

As if cursed with the same foolish longing, Lucy reached up and gently corrected the angle of one of the Admiral’s medals.

Gerard’s heroic illusions shattered, mercifully, swiftly, as beneath the guise of a clumsy stumble, Lucien Snow harshly thrust his daughter from him. He left her standing alone in the middle of the floor as he swept from the ballroom, pausing only to make the curtest of apologies to Lord and Lady Howell. Not even the brave tilt of Lucy’s chin could completely disguise the naked hurt in her eyes as her father fled her company.

Gerard was tempted to follow, but he’d been at Ionia long enough to know where the bastard was going.

His gaze was drawn back to the Admiral’s daughter. She had wisely eschewed elaborate costumes and feathered headdresses, choosing to adorn herself in a
classical Grecian gown with a half-mask cut from the same white silk. Her hair had been drawn back from her face with a gold fillet. An air of ineffable sadness clung to her, as poignant and irresistible as the lemon verbena that lingered in his nostrils even when she was separated from him by an impenetrable wall of glass.

She drifted in a sea of glittering lights and laughing people. As a child, Gerard had only dreamed such places existed. They were as distant to him as the tantalizing glimpse of a single star flung high above soot-laden clouds. As fantastical as the vast expanses of ocean that billowed in his imagination. As out of his reach as heaven itself or the love of a woman like Lucy Snow.

Lucy’s courageous confession echoed through his heart like a bittersweet melody. He curled his hands into hungry fists, flooded with the same blind ambition that had once before cost him both his freedom and his name. He’d been deprived of too many nights such as this in his life. He wanted tonight. One stolen night, its memory sweet enough to last a lifetime.

His gaze dropped in disgust to his worn trousers, his scuffed boots. What the hell was he supposed to be masquerading as? The basest of menials? Lucy’s inferior?

“I say there, chap, can you help me?”

A man garbed in impeccable evening clothes came limping toward him.

“I seem to have stepped in a bit of unpleasantness,” he said with such irritating intonation that Gerard suspected his black half-mask was pinching off his nose. “I’ve warned Lord Howell about those blasted spaniels. Breed some mastiffs, I said! Those dainty dogs haven’t any manners a’tall. I say, have you a rag on you to clean my heel? I’m already appallingly late.”

The man had obviously mistaken him for one of
Lord Howell’s servants, a groundskeeper perhaps or a poorly outfitted footman. Gerard opened his mouth to suggest the arrogant dandy lick his boots clean, then snapped it shut. He raked a calculating gaze from the blinding white of the stranger’s flawlessly knotted cravat to the tapered seams of his trousers, then shot a quizzical glance heavenward, knowing he wasn’t deserving of such good fortune.

“Come now, I haven’t all night,” the man snapped, straightening his ruffled shirt cuffs. “Your handkerchief should do. Will you help me or not?”

Gerard blinked behind his spectacles and gave him a feline smile. “Step right over here to the bushes, sir. I’m just the man you’ve been looking for.”

Lucy winced as Sophie’s eleven-year-old brother trod hard upon her toe.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, his ears flushing crimson. “I hope my dancing master didn’t see that. He’ll box my ears tomorrow for sure.”

“Tell him it was my fault,” Lucy whispered to the dusky curls that just reached her chin.

“I couldn’t do that, Miss Lucy.” His adoring eyes devoured her face. “You’re the very best, you know. Brave enough to stand up to the likes of Captain Doom himself.”

He suppressed an impolite “oomph” as Lucy did step on his foot. How could she explain to this earnest child that the kiss of a real man had banished Captain Doom to the realm of fantasy where he belonged?

At a loss, she gently excused herself and went in search of another glass of champagne. She ducked behind a chattering flock of guests at the sight of Lord Howell anxiously searching the crowd for her. As if to blunt the impact of the Admiral’s defection, Sylvie and her mother had sicced each of the Howell males on her
in turn until she feared she would have to toddle around the floor with Gilligan before the night was over.

She wanted nothing more than to escape the maddening babble and tinny music, but her only refuge was the carriage and that meant facing Claremont again, this time without the Admiral’s dubious protection.

Fresh mortification heated her cheeks at the prospect. After checking guiltily to make sure no one was watching, she filched a brimming glass of champagne from an abandoned tray and downed it in one greedy gulp. As she lowered the glass, she realized she had made yet another grave error in judgment.

Someone was watching her.

A stranger, leaning against the marble mantel with lazy grace, his beautifully tailored evening clothes and black mask making him look both elegant and dangerous. Droll amusement quirked his lips as he lifted his own champagne glass to her in a mocking salute.

Dismayed to find herself the victim of such a shameless flirtation, Lucy ducked between the dancers, hoping to lose herself in their twirling gaiety. But when she dared a glance over her shoulder, the stranger was still there.

Watching her. His heated gaze caressed her bare shoulders.

Inexplicable panic swept through her. She felt trapped, innocent prey cornered by a master hunter. Desperate for escape, she snatched Sylvie’s pudgy eight-year-old brother Christopher from a cluster of his friends.

“Dance with me,” she hissed. “Or I’ll tell your dancing master to box your ears.”

“I d-don’t have a dancing master, Miss Lucy,” he stammered.

“Then I shall box them myself.”

He swallowed his protest, fearful any girl stout enough to best Captain Doom would pack a mighty wallop. They shuffled awkwardly around the floor, Lucy taking mincing steps to match his abbreviated gait. She peeped over his head at the mantel only to discover the man was gone.

His absence taunted her more than his presence had done. She scanned the crowd, searching for any hint of him. Her heart leaped to discover a similarly garbed man across the room only to plummet as she saw the vapid blue eyes behind his ebony mask. Twice, three times, she thought she caught a glimpse of the stranger, but then he was gone again. Elusive. Mysterious. Provocative.

“Miss Lucy?”

“Yes, Chris?” she replied absently, teetering on her tiptoes to gain a better view of the room.

“The music has stopped. May I be dismissed?”

Lucy quit shuffling her feet and dropped her gaze to his cherubic face. “Of course. And thank you, Chris. For being so gallant.”

He swept her a clumsy bow that made his apple-cheeks redden. As he scampered back to his snickering friends, Lucy sighed. Now that she had succeeded in dodging the unwanted attentions of her covert admirer, she felt more bereft than before. She resolved to escape the farce her evening had become only to find a broad expanse of chest blocking her path. A crystal globe of golden bubbles floated before her eyes.

“Champagne?” At the caress of the rich baritone, every pulse in her body throbbed.

Determined to give the insolent rake the setdown he deserved, she presented her back to him, preferring to ignore the fact that he’d just witnessed her gulping
champagne with all the finesse of a habitual drunkard. “No, thank you, sir. I don’t drink.”

His voice came again, silky, seductive, so near to her ear that his warm breath stirred the infinitesimal hairs along its lobe. “That’s just as well, I suppose. We wouldn’t want to weaken your moral character, now would we, Miss Snow?”

Lucy spun around, mesmerized by the wicked glitter of the hazel eyes beneath the mask. Hope and fury warred in her heart. Her mouth widened to an accusing circle, but before she could let fly a string of recriminations, her bodyguard gently pressed the rim of the wineglass to her lower lip. Their gazes melded as she drank deeply and without hesitation.

Gerard didn’t need champagne. He was intoxicated by the graceful motion of Lucy’s throat as she swallowed, the tantalizing dart of her pink tongue as she licked an errant drop from the corner of her mouth.

He twirled the fragile stem of the wineglass between his fingers. A bemused smile curved his lips. “I knew I had to shut you up before you denounced me, but I feared kissing you might cause a scandal.”

“So might plying me with champagne.” Lucy’s airy tone belied the treacherous thunder of her heart. “A weakened moral character can be a very dangerous thing.”

“Ah, but dangerous for whom? You? Or me?”

He opened his arms, inviting her to share the risk. As Lucy went into them, the barriers of class that separated them dissolved. He swept her into the waltz with a natural grace that defied convention.

The marble-tiled floor rolled beneath their feet like the deck of some majestic ship. Lucy was caught up in Gerard’s masterful rhythm and the miracle of being enfolded in the warmth of his arms.

“How did you learn to dance so beautifully?” she asked over the swell of the music.

He gave her one of those enigmatic smiles that drove her to distraction. “In my profession, a man must learn to be the master of many talents.”