Chapter 19 #2
It had been bold. She could choose to pretend he had been speaking in character if she did not return his regard.
Or…she could reveal her knowledge and allow him to speak in earnest. One look at her, and he feared she was not ready.
To spare her the embarrassment of having to decide, he took her arm and led her outside of the rotunda as people crowded on to the floor for a reel.
He did not wish to end their time together but did wish to avoid the very real temptation of inviting her to sit on a bench in a darkened alley where he might kiss her.
The lure was strong, particularly after the words he had poured into her ear.
He saw Grantly leading Miss Edwards to the rotunda and feared that Robert would come their way.
He did not wish for him to mar what was for Felix a moment of perfection.
“Shall I bring you to your friends?”
Lady Sophia was still quiet; perhaps she, too, was attempting to sort through whether they were dreaming or awake. She inhaled and shook her head. “No, that will not be necessary.”
He knew he should release her to her family, but any struggle his conscience had put up was gone, and he abandoned the attempt.
“I feared to monopolize the hours of the prettiest lady at the ball, but I cannot, in good conscience, release you without protection into this crowd. It appears my dream is to go on a bit longer.” He smiled at her, feeling the truth in his own words.
Dimples made an appearance in her cheeks, and the way she leaned into him gave him hope that she felt at least something of what he did.
A loud boom caused them both to start, and he looked around before recognizing the smell of gunpowder followed by another boom.
A flash and crackle in the air caused them to turn their focus upward, where the sky filled with bright lights like a starburst that faded into darkness.
“Oh,” she said, her lips parted in amazement.
“Fireworks. Is it your first time to see them?” he asked, leaning close to be heard and catching the whiff of bergamot in her hair.
She nodded, and another boom sounded, followed by another flash of light.
He felt her flinch and took her hand, putting it on his arm to steady her.
He watched her face as the white and gold tones of her loo mask and the powder in her hair sparkled in the light.
“Beautiful,” he said, looking at her.
She turned and their faces were close—close enough to kiss.
After a brief, charged moment, she gently slipped her hand from his arm and looked up.
He longed to recapture the moment but knew it would be pressing his luck.
It was unfair to say so much in the character of someone else and not in his own skin.
She needed to know that it was he, Felix Harwood, who spoke these words of love to her, Sophia Rowlandson—and that he meant them.
As soon as the lights from another starburst faded, he turned to her, accepting the added distance and returning to his light tones. “The unveiling is to be soon. Will I be allowed to see your true face, Diana?”
Her expression was mixed—part panic and part daring and playfulness that was her in character. “Perhaps.” Her lips turned upward. “If you are not sleeping.”
He smiled back, but his attention was diverted by the admiral escorting his wife to the rotunda, and he stepped back to make way.
Catching sight of him, the admiral turned with a bright smile. “Why, if it is not our dear Endymion! Was I not right to have kept every one of these costumes? They have certainly come in handy.”
Mrs. Mowbray’s reply was swallowed up as another boom sounded, followed by a flash of light. He turned to see whether the admiral had recognized his partner but was met with empty space. He looked around him, and there was no sign of her. It was as though she had melted out of sight.
“Oh,” he murmured to himself, disappointed. “It appears I have been dreaming after all.”
“Felix!”
Robert strode toward him, his displeasure evident. “Where did Lady Sophia go? I saw her with you just now.”
Felix turned to face him, irritated at the proprietary way Robert spoke of her. “I do not know. She did not inform me of her movements.”
“But you did know that the character of Diana was her. How? There is no similarity to how she usually looks. I would not have known if Miss Edwards had not mentioned it.” His gloved hands were fisted and a muscle quivering in his jaw showed how tightly it was clenched.
Felix was suddenly assailed by doubt. Did Robert have reason to be jealous?
“Have you an understanding with Lady Sophia?” he asked, his voice carefully controlled.
Robert looked away, frowning. “It is not an understanding in the classic sense, for nothing has yet been agreed upon between her man of business and mine. But it has long been understood that we would be paired.”
“By whom?” Felix asked. When Robert did not immediately answer, he pressed him further. “Does Lady Sophia accept this understanding?”
A giggling pair, dressed as a satyr and a beribboned courtesan, tipped into Robert from behind before joining the rotunda. He turned and scowled at them.
“My affair with Sophia is none of your business. I’ve said this before, but you had best leave her alone. There are thousands of other women in your sphere to choose from. Do not set your sights on her.”
“I will not remove Lady Sophia’s right to choose her own husband,” he shot back.
Felix could scarcely contain his fury. While he once might have agreed with Robert—conscious of what his own father was apt to remind him was all he owed to Lord Chawleigh—the constant suggestion that he was from a lower sphere began to grate.
It was not as though he were a common laborer.
He was a gentleman, a junior assistant in the Admiralty, and a member of Parliament.
He had made an appointment to purchase a house in an area of London that was not to be scoffed at.
Besides, he was fighting for reform—for people to be recognized for their merit rather than their birth—and did not the same apply to him?
Another fireworks shell burst as if in sympathy, and Felix used the distraction to turn away. He would not prolong the fight with Robert. Nor would he stop pursuing Lady Sophia.