Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
E zra arrived late to the ball and, upon entering the room, found Lady Evangeline dancing with a gentleman who was sporting the same domino as he was this evening.
He stilled at the inappropriate distance the gentleman held Lady Evangeline, and then shook the thought aside. She was not his, and the Duke of Ravensmere could speak to her regarding propriety while dancing with other men.
He swiped a glass of wine from a passing footman and started to make his way about the room. His gaze continually slipped toward where Evangeline danced a waltz with the unknown gentleman, and her riveted gaze unsettled him.
Was she captivated by this new gentleman admirer? Had his words of remorse and determination to keep her at a distance that he’d explained yesterday to the duke been conveyed? Had she finally agreed to look elsewhere for a husband?
Was she moving on from him? As she should, so why did the realization feel like a hot poker to his neck?
He groaned and downed his wine before finding another footman and partaking in another glass. It was good that she was surveying her options, allowing other men to form an attachment to her and her to them. That was why she was in London this Season—to find a husband. A love match, which seemed to be what she desired most.
He came to stand beside Ravensmere and glowered at Lady Evangeline and her favored gentleman like a child denied his dessert at dinner. What the hell was wrong with him? He could not keep denying himself a future with anyone—not just Lady Evangeline—and then be put out when the lady in question found another to marry.
He was being absurd and vapid, and it needed to stop.
Make a choice already, man, and run with it.
Yes, but what choice would that be? To find a woman to marry and bear his children. Place another innocent person before a danger they did not know of or see coming.
Already such a future ruled out Lady Evangeline. He liked her far too much already, and he feared that friendship was morphing into something so much stronger.
Damn it all to hell. Whatever would he do?
"I heard from my contact at the Foreign Office and Mr. Fournier checked out," he said to the duke when he was free of his conversation. "But I do not know this new gentleman. We may have to investigate another if their closeness is any indication."
The duke looked out to where Evangeline danced and frowned. "Hmm. I do not recognize the gentleman, but then, this evening knowing who anyone is is difficult."
"He seems a little too close, do you not think?" Ezra mentioned, hoping the duke would do his duty and speak to Evangeline about propriety—something she seemed to have forgotten.
The couple turned in the dance and Ezra stilled at the sight of the gentleman’s hand—or more to the point, his thumb rubbing circles over where he clasped her back.
The fiend dared touch her so intimately.
"Hmm," the duke said, his gaze dipping to the familiar clasp on Evangeline’s back also. "I shall have Rosalind talk to Lady Evangeline."
The dance came to an end and, surprisingly, Evangeline pulled away from the gentleman, dipped into a curtsy, and fled to the opposite side of the room.
Unease ran down Ezra’s spine. "Excuse me a moment, Your Grace. I shall return momentarily." He strode around the dancefloor since the next dance, a set of reels, had commenced. He spied Evangeline slipping through a side door of the ballroom and quickened his pace to catch up. The darkened passage, by the time he stepped into it, was vacant of Evangeline, but he heard the distant closing of a door and started in that direction.
He found a small room at the end of the passage with a dim light flickering beneath the door. He knocked, but hearing no reply, opened it. The sight of Evangeline sitting before a hearth that had long burned down to smoldering coals unnerved him, and he couldn't help but fear something was untoward.
"Evangeline, are you well?" he asked, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.
She gasped at his words before she slumped in relief to find that it was him. "I am well, Lord St. George. I just needed a moment’s peace."
She had slipped off her mask, her eyes this evening shadowed to suit the darkness of the theme. She looked beautiful, seductive, and utterly captivating.
Hell, how could he keep away from her? How was he to stop himself from wanting her as he did?
An impossible task.
"I saw you dancing this evening and then I also saw you flee. I was concerned."
"You should not be concerned, my lord. I’m perfectly well. You ought to leave before someone finds you here with me and we’re compromised. I know you do not wish to marry me."
Her blunt words rang with hurt, and he hated that he’d upset her with his honesty. "It is not that I do not desire or like you, Evangeline. But that I’m not ready to be a husband. There are things in my life that I cannot control and need to be certain of before I offer anyone my name."
She stared at him, nonplussed. "And that is all very well. In that case, you ought to go. I wish to be alone." She waved her hands in the direction of the door, which he ignored.
He ought to heed her words, but nor did it feel right to leave her upset and out of sorts as she was. "I am your friend. I do not like to see you so discombobulated."
"It is nothing. A gentleman was a little forward with me, and that was all. I wanted a moment to calm my nerves—a moment that you’re now interrupting."
He stilled at her words. "Who was he?"
She waved his question aside and stood before striding toward a window that overlooked part of the side garden, not that much was visible at this hour of the night. "It does not signify who he was or what he said or anything, but I think you should leave. I will right my nerves and return to the ball and continue my search for a suitable husband—just as you asked me to do."
"I do not wish for you to settle for a husband who is not who you truly want. If you do not find a love match this Season, there is always the next."
"I’m already an old maid by society’s standards and getting close to not being considered a viable option for any gentleman looking for a wife to start a family. I do not have the luxury of postponing my search for a husband, unlike the gentlemen of my acquaintance who somehow seem to have years ahead of them. Take Lord Chesham, eighty if he is not a day younger, and rumored to be attending the masque to search for a new bride. Yet women such as myself are forced to marry young." Evangeline pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly frustrated. "Leave, Lord St. George. I’m not in the disposition for company right at this present moment."
He turned to leave and managed to make it to the door before he stopped. "I do not wish for you to be angry with me. I thought we were friends."
"Oh please,” she scoffed. “Friends?" She laughed, the sound mocking, and he could not understand why she was being so cruel. "We are not friends. I’m a lady whom you find attractive enough to kiss in a moment of madness in a carriage, but you are not interested in me. Not truly. You do not want a wife—which I cannot force you to have. God forbid a woman make a man marry before he is ready—but friends? Not really, and nor do you truly think that is the case. We speak when we’re in the same proximity of each other, you offer to dance with me and are polite, but friends we are not."
He went to her, hating that she dismissed what was between them. He clasped her hands and shook them a little to make her look at him. "You are my friend, and I did not kiss you out of pity or anything else. I kissed you because I wanted—no—I needed to kiss you, to taste your sweet lips." He reached up and ran his thumb along her bottom lip, soft and pliant as he remembered. "I want us to be friends so I may be around you as much as I can. You make me want things that I thought I would never want again. Even if the timing is not right, do not doubt what you make me feel."
"And what is that, St. George, that you feel?" the angry tenor of Ravensmere bellowed from the door.