“Why are you so obsessed with my marital status? Truly, it is acceptable to me that I have not yet married. If I wake one morning and think ‘today is the day to marry, old girl,’ then I guarantee I will have a husband by sundown.”
“Betrothed. You will have a betrothed by sundown. The husband comes about three weeks later, yes?”
“Hmpf.”
They strolled in silence around the back of the gardens and then toward the lighted ballroom. It was a fantastic sight, seeing the flash of color whirl about the room while observing the dancers in secret. He would like to take his goddess and lead her around the room, holding her tight and whispering a few naughty things in her ear. Of course, she would have had to know how to waltz for such a possibility to occur.
He should part company with her inside the ballroom. He’d monopolized her time in a way that was inappropriate and gossip-worthy.
As they walked up the stairs to the double doors, the cacophony of light and sound overwhelmed.
“Carlow, I’m going to sit in the library for a while. Thank you for the lovely evening. There must be a dozen young ladies who would love to dance with you and to do that, I must depart. But, I repeat myself.”
“At least that many. Let me escort you. I don’t know how you would get through this room uninjured. Why you might have an eye put out with some of those headpieces.”
She laughed. “I could just fly over the crowd.” She lifted one of her black wings but consented to his escort by placing her other hand on his arm again. She seemed drawn to him and willing to touch him given the smallest encouragement. Or was he imagining something just because he greatly desired it?
“To which library would you like me to take you? The library used as the gaming room this evening or the larger one near the family rooms?”
“There are two libraries?” She stiffened next to him and stopped to glance around.
“Yes. The small one is quite comfortable. No, I will take you to the large one. It is more likely there are women gathered inside with whom you might converse, along with a lighted fireplace in case you took a chill while we were outdoors.”
“I’d rather be alone. They will gossip about people I don’t know, and I can’t think of anything less appealing.”
Carlow wasn’t ready to give up his secret prize. Not until he knew her identity. And then he could make plans for an interesting future as he courted the young miss all the way to the altar.
Good Lord! Two hours ago, he was happily sitting down to a game of vingt-et-un. Now he was talking and thinking like a man who wanted a wife. That was the last thing he needed! He had years of work to complete at his estates to bring them up to snuff. Ground lying fallow. Herds that needed to be rebuilt. New tenants to find. Buildings to renovate.
He didn’t need to be producing babies while he ignored the more important work of the earldom.
Carlow pushed forward, ignoring the jostling as his thoughts turned inward. He steered them back toward the gaming room they’d departed earlier, an actual library on most days.
“Here we are,” he said as he opened the door.
The room was empty as the buffet had enticed the hungry masses, the dance floor drew flirty misses and curiosity grew as the disguised parties would soon be revealed on the ballroom floor. A few clusters of chairs and two-and-a-half walls of books lined the sides of the room. If he remembered correctly, this was the history library: travelogues, world history, war summaries, archaeology. Lord and Lady Weatherby were daft, according to most, but they had the best of everything.
“I’ve said thank you several times, but you seem intent to stay at my side.” She took a seat on the plush couchette facing the fireplace, where a small fire burned.
“You’ve beguiled me in every way. I don’t think I will sleep well tonight. Unless, of course, I find out who you are. I’m afraid if I leave your side for a moment, you may disappear, and I will never see you again,” Gabriel said. He was thinking more intimate thoughts. Thoughts that ought not be said to a woman he did not know. Thoughts that would certainly cause a loss of sleep and uncomfortable bodily torment.
He sat beside her and slid his arm over the back of the couch, his fingers dangling temptingly close to her shoulder.
“You are blinded by a false intrigue. There is nothing special about me. If we had met on a normal day, perhaps at the park, you would have passed by without notice.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute. Aren’t you tired of wearing that?” he asked, lifting his chin to indicate her masque garb. “It is charming, by the way, one of the more interesting masks I noticed this evening.”
“I made it. You have no idea how difficult it is to replicate a mask that is truly Venetian in style.”
“Wait until next year. Lady Weatherby will find another theme to dazzle and confound us. As for me, I will pull out my trusty cape and domino without worrying whether it is suitable.” He touched his face and then his jacket, realizing he had left his mask behind.
“Oh, to be a man without a care,” she said.
“My cares have to do with fertilizer and sheep shearing.”
“That sounds very bucolic.”
“It is. About six months of the year. But as the season is upon us, I must do as all lords do: be seen in the right places and be seen by the right people.”
“And attending the right balls makes you
