Marquesses at the Masquerade(93)
The helmet landed with a clonk many yards away.
“Better,” Freya said. “My thanks.”
She’d wrapped a scarf about her hair, like a turban, so Tyne was deprived of even hair color as a hint to her identity. She made no move to take his hand, but rather, twined her arm through his in proper escort fashion.
Well, drat. What was a god to do? Tyne had not the first clue how to comport himself with a goddess, but a gentleman made pleasant conversation with a lady.
“You mentioned that your papa read to you. Have you any favorite tales?”
“I loved the myths and legends, the stories with fantastical beasts and clever maidens. Improving sermons put me to sleep, and fables, with their thinly disguised moralizing, bored me.”
“A woman of particular tastes.” Miss Fletcher was such a female. Tyne had the odd thought that she’d be pleased with him for this night’s version of socializing. “Do you still love the fantastical stories?”
She was silent until they reached a corner. “No, I do not. The heroic feats and strange lands are fine entertainment, but one grows up. The amazing accomplishments become dealing with disappointment, finding meaningful employment, and learning the uncharted terrain of adult responsibility.”
She sounded so sad, so resolute.
“I had a tutor once,” Tyne said, “who claimed that no great problem was ever solved without creativity and courage. The fables and legends can help us be courageous and creative. Perhaps you should resume their study.”
He’d like to give her a book of fables or a compendium of the world’s mythologies.
Or a kiss. Perhaps he should whack himself on the noggin with his borrowed sledgehammer.
“An interesting notion,” she said. “What of you? Do you love to reread certain books? Know classical tales you can recite almost by heart?”
“Wordsworth’s poetry is still wafting about in the dungeons of my memory, and I was quite fond—”
Freya stumbled on an uneven brick and pitched against Tyne. “I beg your pardon.”
“Steady on,” Tyne said, slipping an arm about her waist. She had a lovely figure, and he didn’t turn loose of her until she had clearly regained her balance. “How much farther? I can summon a hackney if you’re growing fatigued.”
“I’m managing.” She sounded as if she was uncertain where she’d left her abode. They were only two streets up from Tyne’s town house, a delightful coincidence, in his estimation.
He resumed walking, his pace slower. “Will you think me unbearably forward if I ask whether a particular swain has caught your fancy?”
Now, he was grateful for his mask, though he wished he could read Freya’s expression. This late in the evening, the neighborhood was only half conscientious about keeping terrace lamps lit.
“My affections are not engaged,” Freya said. “I admire… a man, but he’s much taken up with affairs of state, and my esteem is that of a distant acquaintance only. I suspect I would like him, given a chance to know him better, though I don’t see that chance befalling me.”
Her affections were not engaged. That was good. As for the rest of it…
“I’m sure he’s a decent sort,” Tyne said, “but he sounds as if he’d bore you silly before the conclusion of the first set. Best look elsewhere for a man worth your attention.”
She turned at the corner, onto a street where not even half the porch lamps were lit. Tyne didn’t know his neighbors well, and he certainly wasn’t acquainted with the families on this street—not yet.
“How can you form an opinion of a man whom I myself don’t know that well?”
“Because he’s an idiot,” Tyne said. “A goddess admires him from afar, and he takes no notice. Trust me on this, for I am a god, and the workings of the mortal male are well known to me.” He was a fool, but a fool who was enjoying his evening for the first time in… years?
“Do you fancy a particular lady?”
They’d reached a portion of the street where not a single household had bothered to light a lamp. This was providential, because some admissions were more easily made under cover of darkness.
“I notice my share of women,” he said. “And those ladies are lovely, and sweet, and could easily become dear, but because I never had to learn the art of romantic persuasion, I know not how to make my interest apparent. I know not, in fact, if my interest qualifies as genuine liking, loneliness, or the base urge that motivates a great deal of male foolishness.”
Or something of all three.
“You won’t learn the answer to that conundrum if you simply watch the ladies waltz by on the arms of other men,” Freya replied. “You can’t expect them to divine your thoughts by magic.”
Miss Fletcher would have offered that sort of observation, and she would have been right. Again.
“Is this where you live?” Tyne asked, for she’d brought them to a halt before a house from which not a single light shone.
“My friend bides here.”
Tyne took a moment to count how many houses lay between the closest door and the corner.
“You advise me to make my feelings known,” he said. “In the manner of a plundering Norseman, I’ll do just that. I’d like to kiss you, if you’d be comfortable allowing me such a liberty on a deserted street at a quiet hour. I’ve enjoyed your company very much, Freya, and—”