Loving The Lost Duke (Dangerous Deceptions #1)(22)
‘Mr Thorne!’ Bother the man. Lady Pettigrew’s masquerade ball was a noisy, and to be frank, sweaty, crush. People shrieked to be heard above the babble of conversation, the musicians struggled even to be noticed and the windows were flung wide onto the humid summer air, giving the costumed, crowded, revellers as much relief as hot wet towels applied to their perspiring faces. It was, of course, a huge success, a magnificent squeeze destined to be written up at length in the Society columns of tomorrow’s Morning Post.
It was also an exceedingly difficult occasion at which to firstly identify a masked gentleman in fancy dress and then haul him off to a corner secluded enough to hold a delicate conversation in.
Ralph Thorne was tall, which helped, and not given to flamboyant displays, which meant she could eliminate a pirate king (shirt open to the waist and bare feet), both Chinese Emperors (too much macquillage and false hair), the Egyptian mummy (hardly moving in a tangle of bandages and a vast papier-maché mask) and Louis XIV (too fat). That left about a hundred and fifty men.
And then she spotted him. Trust Ralph to choose something as simple as a highwayman, just like last year. He was wearing plain riding dress, a black cloak, a cocked hat, red-spotted neckerchief and a simple black mask.
‘Mr Thorne!’ Sophie gathered up her trailing skirts of shredded blue silk in a myriad of shades and began to wriggle through the crowd until she was right behind him. ‘Ralph.’
He turned and peered at her mask of aquamarine silk encrusted with pearls and shells. ‘Madam? You know me… I mean, you think you know me?’
‘It’s Sophie,’ she hissed. Really, she was not vain, but no-one in London Society had hair quite the shade of guinea-gold of hers. The man had spent hours in her company and he still could not recognise her and her water nymph costume was not that concealing.
‘Oh. Good evening, Miss Wilmott.’
They were standing right in the path to the refreshment room. Sophie winced as Neptune’s trident prodded her in the ribs. ‘I need to talk to you.’ She tugged at Ralph’s arm.
‘This isn’t really the place for a conversation.’ He looked decidedly harassed.
‘As you have been avoiding me for a week it will have to do.’ She linked arms with him and began to work her way towards the terrace windows. At least he was too well-mannered to stick his heels in and refuse to move.
‘Phew.’ She fanned herself vigorously with her free hand once they reached the terrace. Mama had said she would need a fan, but she hadn’t been able to find anything that went with her costume and now she was regretting it.
‘Miss Wilmott, would Lady Elmham approve? We do not have a chaperone, would you not rather go back inside and I will fetch you a drink?’
‘No, thank you.’ She as beginning to wish for Neptune’s trident herself. ‘The terrace is brightly lit, there are people all over the place and I only want to go as far as this balustrade. See? Perfectly respectable.’ She turned and faced him, ‘Ralph, why have you been avoiding me for the past week?’
‘I have not,’ he began.
‘Even with that mask on you look shifty. Are you angry with me for going driving with Calderbrook? Because I did receive his invitation before yours. Honestly, I had no intention of snubbing you. I really do not want to lose a friend over something as foolish as this.’
‘Is that how you see me? As a friend?’ He shifted so he was closer, trying to search her expression behind the mask.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I was concerned that I had – Oh, the devil.’ He took a hasty pace away and then back. ‘I was concerned that I had perhaps raised expectations that I had not intended to raise. At least, not yet. I mean I might – But I thought that I ought to – ’ He broke off and tried to run his hand through his hair, realised that he was wearing a hat and stopped with a muttered curse.
His behaviour had been so possessive when they had encountered him in the park that she thought she would have every reason for assuming just that. Men were such idiots sometimes. ‘You had not,’ she said. ‘If, perhaps, I had a tendre for you, then I might have assumed… something. More from your frequent invitations than anything else.’
‘But you haven’t?’ he asked, anxious, seeming a good ten years younger than his age. When she shook her head he sighed, once more the sober adult male she had come to know.
‘You are not making a lot of sense, Ralph.’
‘I know. I told Cal that he ought to marry you.’
‘You did what?’
‘You would make an excellent duchess. That’s why I – He is attracted to you.’
‘How do you know that?’ She ought to wave it aside, laugh it off, but she couldn’t. ‘Has he said so?’ she demanded sharply. Along the terrace a few heads turned. Sophie made herself laugh, shifted so she was looking out from the balustrade across the gardens with their lantern-lit walks. The cousins had been discussing her.
Ralph moved to stand beside her. ‘I have eyes in my head. He is attracted and you have the breeding, the looks, the intelligence and the upbringing.’
‘Do you think he will consult the stud book, want to look at my teeth, calculate how many good breeding years I have left in me?’ she enquired sweetly. ‘I do have nice strong fetlocks.’