Proof by Seduction (Carhart #1)(31)

Her eyes widened. Something like real surprise flashed in them. “I’m not—that is to say, I don’t—”

“Yes,” Ned corrected, “you do, too. Every time I’ve met you, you’ve been off, invading dimly lit corridors. It’s a mystery. I shall have to get to the bottom of it. I shall consult Madame Esmerelda.”

She frowned at him, as if to deny the charge. But what she said was, “Madame Esmerelda?”

“Yes,” Ned said soothingly, “She’s the one who predicted the match between you and Blakely.”

Her eyes widened even more, and she stepped back. “Match? Predicted? Blakely? What match?”

“Ah.” Ned winced. “Hmm. What match?”

“You’re trying to match me with a man you just told me is mad? That’s why you’re following me?” Her eyes had widened, and she drew herself up. She still stood inches shorter than him. “You’re following me for your cousin? I thought—”

Ned raised his palms soothingly. “I can explain. What I said just now about Blakely—the madness and all? Not true. He’s not—well, he’s not so bad. In fact, he has several good qualities.”

“Well. I suppose. There is his singing, after all.”

“Um,” Ned said. “Maybe not that particular quality, so much. But he is a marquess.”

She gave a brusque shake of her head. “Well, he can’t exactly take credit for that, can he? He was born that way.”

“He’s tall. Women like tall men, don’t they?”

“He was born that way, too.”

“No.” Ned’s confidence returned. “He wasn’t. He was born a baby, just like everyone else. He only grew taller later on.”

She blinked at him for a second, and then lifted a glove to her mouth. “Yes,” she said, “but he doesn’t make me laugh.” She looked at him, her gaze direct. “This is another one of your jokes, I assume. You don’t really mean to give me to him, do you? He’s so old, after all.”

She looked up at him, and Ned felt an uncomfortable spot of warmth in his stomach. He shouldn’t have felt encouraged, that she was rejecting his cousin. Still, in comparison with Blakely, Ned felt ungainly, all clumsy elbows.

“Blakely is very responsible,” Ned said dutifully. “Heaps more responsible than me.”

She frowned dubiously. “Which is why he’s sending his younger cousin to arrange a match for him? That won’t wash.”

“Look at him.” Ned leaned against the wall easily. “Can you imagine him falling in love without a little prodding from someone like me? He’s so scientific and cold and rational. He needs me. Why would any woman want him?”

In the silent seconds that followed, Ned realized precisely why these moments of too-bright clarity seemed so familiar. He’d reached the apogee again. Twice before, he’d experienced this crystalline sense of over-reaching. It heralded an inevitable loss of control, and a descent into darkness.

Ned knew. He’d fallen before.

But Madame Esmerelda had broken that cycle of dark following light. She’d promised he could live without fear of that downward spiral. She’d told him he was not mad, and for two perfect, brilliant years, she’d been right.

And here he was, fouling everything up again.

“Why would any woman want your cousin?” Lady Kathleen echoed Ned’s last words with a shake of her head. She glanced again down the hallway, and sighed. “Don’t match me for his sake. But if you want to talk with me…” Her voice trailed off and she looked up at him, a hint of inexplicable wistfulness washing over her features.

He shook his head in confusion, and she pointed a finger behind him, directing him back toward the music room. Faint strains of applause drifted down the hall.

“Just go,” she said.

Ned went.

GARETH ESCAPED out the open doors of the music hall onto the veranda. After the thirteenth polite inquiry into the singing styles of countries of South America—excessively larded with exuberant compliments that could not possibly have been sincere—he needed fresh air. He gulped it in.

Of course, the air was only London-fresh. At least it wasn’t perfumed with the bouquet of packed bodies. But the word that came to mind instead of fresh was heavy. Night brought thick fogs, barely pierced by dim blurs of gas lighting. Every lungful of air he took in was moist enough that he might well have been some kind of amphibious salamander. That extra moisture carried all the fragrances of London. Wet soil from the small back garden he’d escaped to. The scent of unfurling buds and mulching leaves. Green smells; nature smells. They didn’t mask the underlying stink of London: particles of coal suspended in vapor and—even in this fine neighborhood—the distant smell of sewage.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized he was not alone. Madame Esmerelda sat on the edge of a cold granite bench, her back straight and her arms, stiff as ramrods, supporting her. She looked up into the night sky. The dense mist rendered it as impenetrable as a slab of slate. There were neither stars nor moon. She hadn’t seen him yet.

He took the opportunity to look her over, in a more leisurely fashion than he’d dared earlier. She looked respectable in the cream-and-red-striped dress he’d chosen. And with her hair dressed by the maid he’d had sent over from the agency, she fit in this crowd seamlessly. The cut of the gown accentuated her bosom and waist. A shame that it hid all hint of her hips. And her ankles.