Leaping Hearts(62)

She felt like Elvis, back from the dead.

Then the whispering started. She wasn’t sure whether they were commenting on her return to the family fold or her stallion or her trainer or her gown. She felt like she’d been hit with a spotlight on a stage and the glare was overwhelming.

Faced with all the stares and murmurs, she forced herself not to turn around and run back to her room. Stiffening her resolve, she dived into the crowd and started to weave her way through the throng of people, with no particular destination in mind.

One step into the room and she was accosted by a stuffed shirt and his trophy wife. The manufacturer of toothpicks and a renowned womanizer, the man ran his greedy gaze over A.J. like she was a piece of art up for sale. The woman beside him, his third wife if memory served, looked fierce.

“If you aren’t full of surprises,” he was saying before he came even closer and whispered in A.J.’s ear, “Why you’ve hidden such talent under those riding clothes is a mystery.”

With men like him, she thought it was self-explanatory. As gracefully as she could, she tried to peel his arms off of her.

To A.J.’s relief, Garrett materialized out of the crowd to rescue her. The lech immediately assumed the guise of propriety though it didn’t reach his eyes, and it was a relief when, after some conventional talk, she and her father headed over to the bar. By the time she had a glass of chardonnay in her hand, she was getting a sense of what Devlin had been talking about. At every turn, she heard her name floating in the air, part of the swell of conversation that swirled in the room like acrid smoke. Catching the quick eyes and faster tongues of the crowd, she felt like public property. She didn’t like it.

And she liked it even less as the evening wore on. After the elaborate buffet was unveiled in the dining room and picked away at, the crowd returned to the grand living room for an evening of dancing and dessert. If she’d thought her big entrance was bad, she found the ball intolerable. Men who’d spent the evening looking at her finally had a socially acceptable excuse to touch her. Once on the dance floor, their intentions were obvious, earning her more vicious looks from their wives. After an hour, she had a headache coming on from the clash of a dozen different colognes and she was exhausted from fighting off cloying arms.

The life of a siren was overrated, A.J. decided, scratching her nose.

Not able to stand another dance, she tried to take refuge in conversation, only to get trapped by a former English professor who’d retired from his day job at a prestigious university but hadn’t given up his avocation for being a verbose blowhard. He was a curmudgeonly old man, with white hair growing out of everywhere. There were little tufts at his ears, twin hedges over his eyes, a section of beard under his chin, which he’d been missing for quite some time.

As he droned on, A.J. put herself on autopilot and found she was more than ready for the speeches to start, the white chestnut cake to be cut and the evening to come to an end. The fact that her toes were numb and she was tired of feeling like she was walking on top of a fence didn’t make time pass any faster.

“So that, my dear, is the difference between crass innovation and an enduring classic,” Professor Rogaine’s voice crescendoed as another couple of people joined them. Though they did dilute the elderly man’s dull conversation, A.J. found herself squirming under the eyes of one guy who seemed all too interested in what she might have been hiding in her bodice. She felt like asking him whether he thought he’d lost his wallet down there.

Breaking free from the group, she pivoted, only to find herself caught in another tight knot of people. Her escape foiled, she tried to take a deep breath but all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room. Her chest grew tight.

All this and now she was coming face-to-face with claustrophobia. She eyed the doorway with desperation and ambition. She was about to bolt, had committed to making a bid for freedom, even if it meant missing her father’s birthday toast, when she saw a guard there was no sneaking past. Between her and the salvation of the stairway stood Regina, holding court.

Her stepmother was addressing a crowd flamboyantly. She was flanked by Peter and Garrett, two human topiaries she watered with adoring looks but clipped into place with a fast remark if they got more attention than she did. The courtiers around her clung to her every word like it was a toehold on greatness, which explained the happiness radiating from her face.

Or maybe that was just reflected light bouncing off all the jewels, A.J. thought, taking in the choker of diamonds and pearls around Regina’s neck and the pair of matching earrings that dangled from her lobes.

Peter caught A.J. eyeing the group and gave her a stiff nod. By unspoken agreement, the two had studiously ignored each other over the past week. Seeing him across the room, she became even more determined to leave.

As she turned toward the doors that led out to the rear terrace, she halted, feeling odd. She looked down at her flute of champagne. It hadn’t been touched and she hadn’t finished her one glass of wine.

It couldn’t be the alcohol, she thought.

Maybe all the insomnia she’d been suffering from was catching up to her?

Even though she tried to shake it off, the sensation persisted. A quick look behind didn’t yield an explanation, just more of the same people she was determined to get away from. Craning her neck, she peeked over more carefully coiffed heads, wondering what the eerie feeling was all about.