Marquesses at the Masquerade(89)
Tyne silently promised himself escape in fifteen minutes.
“Good evening, sir,” drawled a voice to Tyne’s right. “What a fine figure of a Norseman you make.”
Ye gods. Lady Artemnesia Chalfont was nicknamed Lady Amnesia, so predictable was her habit of leaving a reticule, glove, or fan behind at a social call. She’d retrieve the item at the time of her choosing, and she always selected a moment when the bachelor sons of the household were on hand to play Find the Glove at my lady’s direction.
“My thanks for your compliment,” Tyne said, bowing. “I gather Roman legend inspired your own ensemble.” She was Diana, aptly enough. She’d hunted Tyne for the past two Seasons, though she didn’t appear to recognize him now. “I believe I saw a centurion patrolling beneath the minstrels’ gallery.”
The dance floor was full of the usual assortment of highwaymen, Rob Roys, a Louis Quinze with his Madame de Pompadour, and Greek goddesses. Couldn’t have a masquerade without a few dozen bow-wielding ladies waltzing about in their dressing gowns.
Tyne was the only Thor so far. Thank heavens he’d bothered with a half-mask, or Lady Artemnesia would have started plaguing him the moment he’d arrived.
“Come now,” Lady Artemnesia said, smacking his arm with a closed fan. “Should I trouble myself with a mere centurion when I can instead pass the time with a god?”
The centurion put his hand on the shepherdess’s shoulder, and she sidled out from under his grasp. Because he didn’t remove his paw from her person, the strap of her gown was momentarily pushed off her shoulder and drooped down her arm. She reassembled her bodice, her mouth compressed in a line.
“Perhaps the centurion is free to dance,” Tyne said, holding up the sledgehammer he’d rested headfirst against his boot. “I’m rather encumbered by my accoutrements.”
“What a mighty hammer that is.”
Seven more minutes, and Tyne would have outlasted his personal endurance record at a masquerade.
“Blasted thing is heavy,” he said. “Puts a crimp in even a god’s waltzing.”
What sort of shepherdess carried a spear rather than a crook? And what was that upon her head? The young lady besieged by a Roman army of one had positioned her spear in her right hand, the same side upon which Maximus Gloriosus stood. His hand was back on her shoulder, his thumb brushing over her bare flesh in a most familiar manner.
“You will excuse me,” Tyne said. “I believe I’ve spotted my partner for the next set.”
“But you said you weren’t dancing.”
Tyne bowed and propped his sledgehammer on his shoulder. “I’m not.”
He sauntered along the edge of the ballroom, earning some stares. The sledgehammer was a lovely touch, quite authentic. Perhaps he’d start a fashion for carrying sledgehammers rather than sword-canes on Bond Street.
“Excuse me,” Tyne said, bowing to the spear-wielding shepherdess with the bizarre millinery. “I believe my dance is coming up.”
Gloriosus glowered at him. “The Valkyrie isn’t dancing. She told me so herself. I’m sitting out with her.”
Behind her half-mask, the lady’s blue eyes flashed perdition to presuming soldiers. “I said I was not free to dance with you, sir. I suggest you find somebody who is.”
Gloriosus was the Honorable Captain Dinwiddie Dunstable, an earl’s younger son who had apparently suffered a few blows to the head in the course of his military career. He was as stupid as he was indolent, and he stood much too close to the lady’s spear for his continued good health.
Tyne offered his arm. “Madam Valkyrie.”
She shoved her spear at Gloriosus. “You may have this, to fend off all the women doubtless waiting to importune you for a turn on the dance floor.”
She was a compact little creature, her hair pinned back under some winged copper contraption that might have been concocted of spare kitchenware. Her mask obscured her eyes and half of her nose, and her complexion was English-lady pale.
“We needn’t dance,” Tyne said, leading her in the direction of the gallery. “I’ve grown fond of striding about with a sledgehammer on my shoulder. If I set my hammer aside in this company, somebody’s likely to steal it, and then I’d lose my magical powers.”
“A guest at this gathering would steal a sledgehammer?”
“A guest, a footman, a maid. Some of the extra staff hired for a social gathering can be less than exemplary. It’s a fine tool and the property of a god, after all. No telling what imps or fairies might yearn to wrest it from me.”
She peered up at him, as if visual inspection might reveal how much of the punch Tyne had imbibed. “It’s a hammer, sir. A handle and a weight, for smacking things.”
“Like most well-made tools, this hammer has probably been handed down from father to son to nephew. One replaces the head, the other replaces the handle, and yet, it’s the heirloom hammer, carrying a craftsman’s share of pride from one generation to the next. I call that magic, and I’m a god, so you mustn’t gainsay me. A pouting god is an unpredictable creature.”
He found them a cushioned bench beneath a burned-out sconce. The guests strolling the garden were doubtless enjoying more of nature’s delights than Tyne would consider decent, while the gallery was both quieter and cooler than the ballroom. A fine place to spend the three or four minutes remaining of his penance with…