Chapter Twenty One
Elliot wove through the ballroom after delivering Miss Applegate back to her family, searching for Kate’s dark hair above the milling crowd.
He spotted her at last, the sparkling silver of her gown peeking through a sea of vivid hues.
Somehow she had found herself shuffled away from the prime position at the edge of the ballroom floor they had once occupied and instead toward the wall where the chaperones sat.
And Mrs. Littlefield was nowhere in sight.
“Where is your mother?” he asked as he arrived beside her at last. “Surely she’s not left you alone.”
“Only for a moment,” Kate said, her shoulders rising and falling in a short shrug.
“She’s gone to the retiring room.” Her fingers were knitted before her, twisting into anxious knots.
She drew in a short, sharp breath and set her shoulders in determination.
Pitching her voice low, she asked in a nervous rush, the words toppling over one another to escape, “Could I speak with you?”
“Of course.” Elliot felt a frown tugging at his mouth as he took in the stiff set of her shoulders, the fidgety tension that afflicted her. She was going to tug her gloves straight off her hands if she kept wringing them like that. “Kate, what is wrong? Has something happened?”
“In private,” she said, squeaking out the words through the grit of her teeth. Her complexion had taken on rather a mottled hue, the flush that gilded her high cheekbones fighting for dominance over the odd pallor that seemed to want to overtake it. “I would prefer to speak in private.”
In private? At a ball? Elliot sucked in a breath. “Your mother—”
A swift, sharp shake of her head that set her dark curls to bobbing amongst their artful arrangement. “She can’t know,” she said. “Please, Elliot.”
Hell. What was he to say to that but yes?
There was no other time but now. Once the ball let out, they would be once more in the carriage, in the company of her mother.
And then she would be whisked away into Devon’s townhouse behind closed doors.
The scant few bits of privacy they had managed in the weeks they’d been in London had been found only in advantageous moments, but this—this was not advantageous.
To contrive to secure privacy between them in so crowded a place was dangerous.
Risky. Potentially injurious to her reputation.
But something—someone?—had upset her, and he could not let it pass, nor refuse her what she had asked of him so earnestly.
“Yes, of course,” he heard himself say. But where?
That glittering silver gown was lovely and eye-catching.
She hadn’t a prayer of slipping through the main ballroom doors and upstairs without being spotted by one of the staff stationed there to keep the guests away from the private rooms. It would have to be the smaller exit that wound toward the rear of the house, where the retiring room was located.
“There is a room—a library, if memory serves—two doors distant from the ladies’ retiring room. ”
Kate gave an absent little nod of her head, her eyes focused upon the door to the hallway on the opposite side of the room. “I can make it there,” she said.
“You must make it there unseen,” he stressed. “Walk slowly. Be certain you share the hallway with no one else before you chance entering. Can you do that?”
Another nod, jerky and awkward. “I think so. And Mama—”
“Let me manage her.” Kate was not a particularly good liar, but then she had never had to be. “I’ll think of some excuse for you.” It would not be comfortable to deceive Mrs. Littlefield, but better it hang upon his conscience than upon Kate’s.
“My slipper,” Kate offered. “The ribbon broke earlier. I had to have it resewn.”
Perfect. “I’ll tell her it’s come loose again.” Subtly, Elliot canted his head toward the door. “Go now,” he urged, “while the set is still in progress, so there is less chance of being noticed. And wait somewhere out of sight of the door. I’ll be only a few minutes behind you.”
At last she stopped wringing her hands like a damsel in distress and drew a deep breath into her lungs.
“All right,” she said in a voice of gritty determination, as if steeling herself for something, gathering her strength.
“I’m going.” And she slipped into the crowd that wreathed the ballroom, sliding through the press of bodies in a slow but sure progress toward the door.
Elliot laid one hand over his chest, feeling the frantic beat of worry accelerating his heart.
What on earth had happened in the scant time he’d been dancing with Miss Applegate that had so distressed her?
What could have happened in a crowded ballroom that was so nerve-wracking, so sensitive a matter that she did not even wish her mother to know?
What had happened which could only be addressed with a private conversation during a crowded ball?
Not half a minute later, he caught sight of Mrs. Littlefield making her way back toward him, even as Kate was still threading her way toward the door.
“Lord Elliot,” she said in greeting, her brows knitting. “But where is Kate?”
Elliot lifted his hand to gesture toward the opposite side of the room. “You’ve just missed one another,” he said. “She mentioned something about a slipper ribbon?” Not entirely a lie, at that. But still an obfuscation that pricked a little at his conscience.
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Littlefield clucked, with a wry little shake of her head. “It must’ve torn again. And she’ll certainly miss the next set. The retiring room is rather crowded at the moment.”
The whole damned ball was crowded, and that was at least half the problem. There was no guarantee that whatever few moments of privacy they managed to wrest out of the library would remain private for very long.
But, conveniently, Mrs. Littlefield would not be expecting Kate back with any particular promptness. “I think I see a friend from my university days,” Elliot said. “Would you mind terribly if I were to—”
“No, not at all,” Mrs. Littlefield sighed. “Truth to tell, I’d welcome a bit of time to sit quietly while Kate is off to the retiring room.” She gave a weak smile. “These late nights, you know. I’m lucky to be holding my feet.”
Elliot offered her a bow and waved her off to the row of chairs reserved for the chaperones. Better still that she was seated; she would not see him through the crowd as he made his way toward the door through which Kate had exited only a minute or two ago.
The hallway was deserted, and the lively chatter emanating from the crowded retiring room disguised the sound of his footsteps.
He’d have to move quickly; there was no telling how long it would be before someone emerged.
Had Kate made it safely? There was no sign of her in the hallway; he could only assume she had.
The door opened smoothly at the press of his hand, and he slipped into the darkened room.
Murky shapes swam around him; the looming towers of bookshelves arrayed in a vaguely mazelike pattern.
The quiet intensified as the door shut behind him, with just the tiniest dregs of sound slipping in beneath the door, the faintest reminder that the retiring room was just down the hall.
Elliot moved through the web of shadows, finessing his way around the shelves.
“Kate?” he whispered into the all-encompassing darkness.
A stray beam of moonlight pierced the gloom as he made it through the tangle of bookshelves and reached the furthest edge of the room, with its wide wall of windows.
“I’m here.” The answering whisper caressed his ears, muted and soft and intimate.
A lover’s whisper, which conjured up images of soft pillows and smooth sheets.
It prickled the fine hairs at the nape of his neck and made his heart race in his chest. With some effort, he shook off the sensation, quelled it with the press of his blunt nails into the flesh of his palms through the fabric of his gloves.
Kate had had the foresight to hide well away from the door, tucking herself into a little alcove against the far wall, behind the shield of a tall bookshelf.
Only a sliver of her silver skirt peeked out of the shadows in which she had cloaked herself.
Probably he would not have spotted her if she hadn’t spoken—but then, no one else would have, either.
The rug spread across the floor muffled his footsteps as he moved toward her, crossing the space that separated them with quick, purposeful strides.
“Katie, what is it? Has someone offended you in some way?” Lord Shaw had been present this evening.
Had he failed to take Elliot’s stern lecture to heart and redoubled his insult?
She gave a little shake of her head and clasped her hands before her once again. “No. No, nothing—nothing like that.”
Then what on earth had gotten her so agitated, so bloody nervous? Surely something had happened. “You do know,” he said, “that you can tell me anything. Don’t you?”
“Yes, of course, but—but some things are more difficult than others.” Her shoulders rolled as if she sought to relieve the strain within them. Her breath came in swift little catches.
“It can’t be so difficult as all that, can it?
” Elliot’s brow creased in confusion. From childhood, they had been one another’s closest confidants.
It was a kind of familiarity, of intimacy, which surpassed even the bounds of family.
But for a few precious secrets held close to his chest, he’d always told her everything—and he had thought she had done the same.
“Once more,” she said abruptly, her strangely fraught voice slicing through the still air.
“Once more?” She had said it like it was meant to be somehow significant, like it was meant to convey some sort of understanding to him.
Her breath shuddered out of her lungs on a sigh, and she worried her lower lip between her teeth. “That evening in Richard and Rebecca’s drawing room…do you recall it?”