And Then She Fell(117)

Brazenly, she patted his arm, pure steel beneath fine fabric, then stepped past him and pushed on, into the crowd.

Leaving Ryder Cavanaugh, Marquess of Raventhorne, utterly flabbergasted. “I must be losing my touch.” He said the words aloud, confident that, in the hubbub around him, no one would hear. Turning his head, he watched Mary slip through the crowd, tacking around this group, then that, halting whenever someone wished to chat, but not dallying. “What the devil was that about—and where the hell is she going?” And why?

“Clearly, I’ve grown rusty.” Either that, or . . . but he knew the advantages with which he’d been born hadn’t failed him yet. He wasn’t such a coxcomb as to believe that every woman in the land should come flocking to his lazy smile, yet . . . most did.

Mary hadn’t flocked. She’d run. No—worse—she’d calmly turned on her heel and marched off.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he thought of that, but . . . he recognized that she’d chosen her words, her way to dismiss him, deliberately. In that, she’d read him aright. Normally, if things had been normal for him, he would have smiled, mentally saluted her frank speaking, and moved on to more amenable prey.

Heaven knew, there was plenty of the latter about.

Except he’d decided to change his diet.

Which meant . . .

Because he was still watching Mary’s dark head, he saw another lady, of similar height with tumbling red-gold locks, intercept her. Angelica, now Countess of Glencrae, caught Mary by the arm, smiled as she spoke—and drew Mary to the side of the room.

Just beyond the alcove and its screen of tall palms.

Even before he’d thought, Ryder was moving toward the alcove. He’d long ago mastered the knack of cleaving his way through a crowd. If he walked purposefully in a straight line, because of his size people instinctively got out of his way, almost without conscious thought. His progress created very little by way of disturbance, and as long as he didn’t stare at Angelica or Mary, with luck neither would notice him drawing near. . . .

He slid into the shadows of the palms without either Mary or Angelica noticing.

They stood just beyond the far edge of the alcove; sinking back into the shadows, Ryder leaned his shoulders against the wall beside the statue and tuned his excellent hearing to their conversation.

Mary inwardly sighed as her cousin Angelica, a few months older than Henrietta and the previous wearer of the necklace, fixed her hazel eyes on Mary’s face and demanded, “What are you up to?”

“Why do you imagine I’m up to anything?”

“Because, sweet Mary, I know you.” Angelica snorted, glanced over her shoulder at the crowd in the ballroom, then turned back to Mary. “You might as well face it—you and I are the most alike of all the family, and Henrietta told me about you all but forcing her to wear the necklace—which, incidentally, was a very good thing, and I would have done exactly the same—but, quite clearly, you did it because you now have an agenda of your own. You didn’t push Henrietta to wear the necklace earlier because you didn’t need to, because, until recently, you didn’t have your eye on anyone.”

Mary opened her mouth, but Angelica held up an imperious hand. “No, don’t bother trying to tell me that you merely decided that at twenty-two it was your time—your turn to search for your hero. That won’t wash.” Angelica trapped Mary’s gaze. “So confess. You’ve got your eye on some gentleman, haven’t you?”

Mary narrowed her eyes, pressed her lips tight, but then, knowing Angelica far too well, admitted, “Yes. But it’s no one’s affair but my own. My hero—my choice.”

Angelica regarded her for several seconds, then her expression turned thoughtful, even intrigued. “Hmm . . .”

Mary waited, then, irritated but unable to resist—it was entirely true that she and Angelica were the most alike, and therefore most able to get under each other’s skins—prompted, “Hmm, what?”

Still regarding her, Angelica raised her brows. “It’s just that, to my knowledge, the necklace has never worked like that—with you deciding, and then, essentially, using it to verify your choice. That’s what you’re proposing to do, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But I don’t see why it won’t work like that.” Mary looked down at the necklace, at the section that supported the crystal pendant, which was currently trapped beneath her bodice and wedged between her breasts. The pendant, she realized, felt pleasantly warm, presumably from absorbing the heat from her flesh. “I’m perfectly certain I’ve found the right gentleman for me—I just . . . want confirmation.”