"How odd." Shifting his gaze to Lord Malmsey, James waved a hand toward the beckoning paths. "You two go on ahead. I'll help Lady Juliana find her gloves, and then we'll catch up to you."
As Frances and Lord Malmsey walked off, Juliana leaned to peek below the table. "I cannot imagine where they might have gone." She rose and looked under her chair. "They seem to have disappeared."
"Perhaps they're in my pocket," James said. "Right beside mine."
She looked up at him, startled. "How would they get there?"
He shrugged one shoulder, a corner of his mouth turning up in a half smile. "How indeed?"
She laughed. "Give them to me."
"I think not. I think you'll need to get them for yourself."
She eyed his striped silk waistcoat, his dark tailcoat, his crisp white trousers. She didn't know which of his pockets he'd hidden her gloves in, but she wasn't about to slip her hands into his clothing to find out. She laughed again. "James…"
He took her bare hand in his. "Your aunt and Lord Malmsey will get too far ahead if we don't go after them. Come along."
The paths seemed gayer now that it was dark, the company enlivened with mirth and good humor. Music drifted from the orchestra through the trees. Seemingly suspended everywhere, the lamps looked like little illuminated balls glowing every color of the rainbow. Some were arranged in lines or arches, others grouped to represent the starry heavens.
Juliana thought Vauxhall Gardens was the most wonderful place she'd ever been. Her heart felt light, and her hand felt warm in James's. She knew she shouldn't allow him to hold it, but just then she didn't care about proprieties. Ahead of them on the path, Aunt Frances leaned close to Lord Malmsey, oblivious to her charge.
When they caught up to the older couple, who had stopped by a tinkling fountain, Juliana pulled her hand free.
"Look!" Frances pointed overhead. "It's Madame Saqui!"
Wearing an outlandish dress decorated with tinsel, spangles, and plumes, the celebrated tightrope walker seemed to be dancing on air as she ascended a rope attached to a sixty-foot mast. Despite her glittery attire, her appearance was rather masculine. Juliana could see up her dress, and her legs were muscled like a circus strongman's. But her balance was impeccable, her steps graceful and seemingly timed to the orchestra's lilting music.
"It looks like a ballet, doesn't it?" Juliana said.
"A ballet for two," James replied as the dancer's husband mounted a second rope beside hers. "I've heard they earn a hundred guineas per week."
She slanted him a teasing smile. "A sum you'd like to see spent on smallpox vaccinations, no doubt."
He laughed. "Entertaining enchanting ladies is also a worthy cause."
A curious quiver rippled through her at the thought he might find her enchanting, although she knew quite well he was speaking of the company in general. They watched for a few minutes in breathless silence as the couple dipped and swayed, seemingly unworried they might plunge to their deaths. At the top, Madame Saqui performed an agile turn and saluted her husband as she passed him on her way down. When she reached the bottom, she sank into a theatrical curtsy and swept up a little girl, settling her small slippered feet on the tightrope.
"She cannot be more than four years old!" Juliana gasped at the sight of the young miss climbing the rope toward the stars. She covered her face with her hands. "I cannot watch."
"She's their daughter." James slipped an arm around her waist. "Performance is in her blood," he said, drawing her against himself.
She dropped her hands, glancing to see if her aunt had noticed James's bold move.
Her chaperone was no longer beside her.
"Aunt Frances?" She looked around. "Where is Aunt Frances?"
"She went off with Lord Malmsey," James said, the suggestive tone of his voice making her picture her aunt in a very compromising position. "Shall we resume our walk?"
As he drew her down a darkened lane, still holding her close, she was struck again, as she had been at the Egyptian Hall, by how well they fit together. He smelled of starch and soap, clean and fresh and masculine. He matched his longer gait to her shorter one, and it seemed the night was warmer, the gardens more lush and fragrant. Tall trees towered on both sides, their silhouettes dark against the lantern-hazed sky.
"When will you bring Lady Amanda here?" she asked.
"Hmm," he said noncommittally, turning into a tiny secluded pocket garden.
It had a stone bench and a single lantern, so it wasn't quite dark. But it was dim, with high hedges all around. She heard a couple walk by, gravel crunching beneath their feet. No one peeked in through the narrow opening.
James released her and walked over to the bench, she assumed to sit down. But he didn't. Instead, he slid off his tailcoat and draped it over the seat. "Do you think this would be a good spot to bring Lady Amanda?" he asked.
"Maybe." Amanda would surely grow closer to him in this private, hidden location. And he would grow closer to her. They'd become friends, and then they'd marry and have a child. "I mean, yes," she decided. "This would be an excellent place to bring Lady Amanda."
"I thought so." His long fingers worked at the knot in his cravat, the sight of which seemed to make butterflies flutter in her stomach. "What do you expect I should do with Lady Amanda when we're here?"
He should kiss her, of course, but Juliana wasn't about to say that out loud. She didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything. She just watched him pull the cravat from around his neck, slowly and steadily, until it came off entirely and dangled from his fingers.
"Well?" His intense dark gaze was fastened on her in that way that made her wonder if he could read her mind. "Have you no suggestions?" He released the cravat, and it fluttered to the bench, a
