Chapter 8 #3
Not as good a kiss as Fort’s, she thought as he squeezed her close. Then she sighed over the fact that Fort had become her standard—her unreachable standard.
Sir Cronan invited her to find a more secluded corner.
Elf playfully refused and returned to the ballroom so as to be visible.
Though she hoped Fort would spot her, she didn’t stop searching the crowd for tall men of the right build.
As she danced with a domino’d gentleman too short to be her quarry, she continued to assess the men around.
A number were the right type, but she felt strangely certain that none of them was Fort Ware.
When the set ended, she glanced at a clock, alarmed by how fast time was flying. It still lacked half an hour to eleven, but at midnight masks would come off as everyone went to enjoy supper. She had to identify Fort and leave with him before then.
Perhaps he hadn’t come after all.
A sickening sense of disappointment settled into her stomach and it had nothing to do with rounding up the Scots.
Then she spotted a tall man in a brown domino. She supposed Fort might not wear black, particularly if he were trying to disguise himself. With a hasty excuse to her partner, she pursued the man into the small antechamber where drinks were set out.
As he accepted a glass of wine from a servant, Elf bumped him lightly so a few drops spilled.
“Oh, monsieur!” she exclaimed. “Je vous demande pardon!”
He wiped his hand with the cloth hastily presented by the footman and responded in excellent French. “No harm done, my dear. May I command you some wine of your own?”
It wasn’t Fort. Elf made herself smile. “Oh yes, sir, if you please.”
Now, she had to waste precious minutes talking to the man in brown.
Reentering the ballroom, Elf encountered Lord Ferron in a toga and laurel wreath.
He was one of her longtime suitors, but clearly didn’t recognize her.
Elf accepted his invitation to dance, thinking it would be a useful test of her disguise.
Dancing with him turned out to be a mistake, however. He didn’t recognize her, but had great difficulty managing both toga and partner. At one point, the cloth slipped, baring his chest, and Elf noticed with surprise how narrow it was.
She’d always thought Ferron a well-set-up young man, but clearly he owed most of his charms to his tailor. His hair, she now noted, was thin and receding. No wonder he always wore a wig.
Really, she thought, as they danced down the line, it was completely unfair that men could keep themselves so modestly shrouded!
A woman had to at least bare her chest and part of her arms, which inevitably told something of her form.
A man, on the other hand, could hide everything but his face and hands.
He had to show his legs, she supposed.
She glanced sideways and saw, as she’d expected from his chest, that Ferron’s naked calves were decidedly spindly and he must normally wear padded stockings. Of course, a spindleshanks with thinning hair could be a wonderful person, but a lady should know what hid beneath the covers.
Perhaps she would start a movement for greater exposure of the male form!
Executing a turn made awkward by the toga’s drapery, a hooded monk caught her wandering eye. The long, black robe hid this man’s form entirely, and yet something in the way he moved as he walked down the room suggested a naked body she remembered only too well.
If it was Fort, had he spotted her? Surely her flaming scarlet couldn’t be missed.
If he had, he was not seeking her out. He was heading toward the door in the same autocratic manner as when he’d parted the crowds at Vauxhall.
He was leaving!
Elf excused herself to Ferron with a few mumbled words about a pinched toe, and dashed after the monk, silently cursing the chaos of the merry crowd. As she ran, gasping, onto the landing, she saw him already descending the stairs toward the hall and the door.
Running down and past him, she barred his way at the bottom of the sweeping curve of steps.
He stopped.
She looked up and saw her instincts had been right. The narrow black mask did not prevent her recognizing Fort.
“Madam?”
Standing two steps above her, he was painfully high. Elf moved up a step, even though it took her closer. “Monsieur Le Comte.”
“You require something?” he asked in French, but as if speaking to a total stranger.
Well, he certainly hadn’t spent sleepless nights longing for his lost Lisette!
Elf shook out her scarlet-striped skirts. “You promised me lessons in taste, my lord.”
“I think you are mistaken.” He stepped to the side to pass her.
Elf grabbed the rope around his waist. “I think not. A lady is allowed to change her mind.”
He swung to face her, then gripped her arm and hustled her into a small anteroom off the hall. “Are you completely mad?” he snapped as he shut the door.
Furious again. Just his ordinary, charming self. He released her arm, and Elf let go of his cord. “Why do you say that, my lord?”
He pushed his cowl back, revealing unpowdered hair curling loose on his shoulders. It made him look . . . untamed. It reminded her of him naked in a bedroom except that now he was angry.
A ripple of fear passed through her—an awareness that she might have stirred up more than she’d planned—but she placed an unsteady hand on his chest. “I’m truly sorry for running away like that the other night, my lord. But it was all such a shock. When I had time to think about it—”
He covered her hand. Captured it. “You realized the advantages?” He studied her so closely that she feared he would have to recognize Elf Malloren despite mask, powder, and foreign tongue. “I can’t even be sure you are the same woman. You could be one of your relatives in the same outfit.”
Elf was surprisingly upset that he held nothing in his memory of her except her dress. Which he thought appalling, the horrid man.
“Of course,” he said, “I might recognize the taste of you.”
Oh, the rogue! But Elf’s feelings were soothed by this beginning of seduction. He was not indifferent after all.
She pretended to be coy. “I’m a little nervous at the thought of kissing a religious man, my lord.”
He raised her chin. “I give you absolution before we sin.”
His kiss was as thorough as last time, but in some subtle way mechanical. When he raised his head, she wanted to scrub at her lips. “That didn’t feel very sinful, my lord.”
“If you want to sin, Lisette, I’ll show you the way to hell before the night is out.” His voice contained no trace of seductive warmth. “Now, tell me the purpose for this.”
So, even if he accepted her as Lisette, he was the man Elf knew too well—watchful, wary, and cynical. Perhaps the other night had been an aberration after all. What did this mean for her plans?
She had to at least accompany him out onto the street to draw out the Scots. But a night of seductive passion seemed unlikely.
She fought a betraying tremble in her lips, hiding them behind her fan. “I just wanted to see you again, my lord.”
“Why? Having had the ingenuity to escape, I’d have thought you wiser than that.”
She turned away coyly. “I’m sorry, my lord. I was just nervous. I thought, no matter what you said, you’d ravish me eventually.”
“The chance of me ravishing you eventually is increasing by the moment. You’re not making sense, Lisette. Who’s behind this?”
“No one!”
Strongly tempted to hit him over the head with something, Elf turned to see that he’d moved to lean against the back of a sofa, arms folded. For some reason the pose sent shivers down her spine, and they weren’t of fear.
“How did you get in?” he demanded. “I doubt Lady Yardley sent you an invitation.”
“Well really! My cousin received one. She is titled.”
“Is she?” He paused to consider it. “And your hostess is here?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Who is she?”
“Why should I tell you that?”
“Still trying to preserve your anonymity?” He smiled cynically. “So, the lady is as loose in her control of you as usual, and will not create a stir if I carry you off. We’ll let that pass for the moment while you tell me just what you have planned. And be quick about it.”
Elf took refuge in fanning herself. Why couldn’t the wretch play his part and try to seduce her again, so she would merely have to put up weak resistance? Instead, it appeared she would have to seduce him.
“I . . . I just wanted to say that I was sorry, my lord. I was afraid I’d hurt your feelings.”
He laughed. “Be at ease. I never gave it a thought other than to worry that you might have ended up in the gutter with your throat slit. I’d like my pistol back, though.”
Elf realized she was glaring at the insensitive oaf and relaxed her features. “I will return it, my lord.”
“You’d better, or I’ll hunt you down and see you transported for theft.”
He sounded as if he meant it!
He studied her for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t know what you thought to gain by taking it, anyway. Waving an empty pistol around is not much deterrent.”
“I loaded it, of course.
“Did you, begad?” And now he looked at her with new alertness. Was that a flicker of recognition in his eyes?
She hastily lowered her chin and fluttered her fan. “My brother taught me, my lord. I didn’t have to fire it, though, thank heavens. I’m not a good shot.”
“Just as well.” He moved so suddenly that he was on her, hand dangerously at her throat, before she had time to react. His thumb forced up her chin. “Just who are you, Lisette?”
Heart thundering, Elf stared up into his cool blue eyes wondering how he could not recognize her. But then, whyever would he imagine that Lady Elfled Malloren the Well Protected would be masquerading as Lisette Belhardi, a young lightskirt in search of a protector?
Half choked, she said, “I don’t want to give you my full name, my lord.”
He let her go but stayed close. “Very wise, though I’m no danger to you. Have you given thought to the man with the knife, though? He was not best pleased to find I’d let you slip.”