scowled. “Madame Esmerelda,” he protested, “tell Blakely he has to hurry. The way he’s acting is just not respectful.“
Madame Esmerelda looked at him. “Ned, take a breath and calm down.”
“I’m not—” Ned started, before he realized that he was, in fact, on edge with anticipation. He shut his mouth with a click.
“And, perhaps, Lord Blakely, you could consider putting one foot in front of the other. It would be the rational thing to do. If you must wait for her to come back, you’ll have to present your elephant in front of the entire assemblage.”
Blakely’s lip curled in obvious distaste. “You make an excellent point.”
Ned’s cousin turned and strolled toward the exit where the blond lady had disappeared. Ned dashed in front of him, ducking between a surprised couple, and around one large man wearing a hideous waistcoat. It didn’t take long to wrest open the unobtrusive door in the wall.
He stepped into a deserted servants’ corridor, dim and hazy after the well-lit ballroom. The walls were a nondescript whitewash, and the narrow passage stretched before them. Why had she come here?
It didn’t matter. Whatever she was doing, she hadn’t gone far. She was a scant fifteen feet down the hall. She walked almost noiselessly. Despite the bare wood floors underfoot and the unadorned walls, the quiet tap of her steps faded, folding into the muted roar of the gathering behind them.
Behind him, Blakely’s shoes clacked noisily. She heard the sound and paused.
Blakely took advantage of her hesitation. “Pardon me,” he called.
The lady turned around slowly. Very slowly. Ned caught his breath. She was younger than he was. Her features seemed almost too sharp, too pronounced. But her eyes were wide and intelligent, and even though she’d been caught alone by three people she did not know, she held her head high and her shoulders straight. She did not speak; instead, she cocked her head, as if silently granting the rabble permission to approach. That aloof calm rendered those sharp features almost beautiful.
With that haughty demeanor, she would make Blakely an excellent marchioness. Ned darted a glance at his cousin. The man seemed unaffected by her elegance.
“I believe you dropped this back in the ballroom.” Not an ounce of emotion touched Blakely’s voice as he strode toward her, holding the gouged lump of ebony in his hand.
Ned wasn’t sure which constituted the greater sacrilege: Blakely’s cursory adherence to Madame Esmerelda’s tasks, or his ability to remain unruffled when confronting his future wife. Annoyed, Ned scrambled after his cousin.
The lady frowned as Blakely came closer. “I dropped something? How clumsy of me.”
Her voice sounded like bells, Ned decided, except not the harsh clanging kind. She put him in mind of clear, high chimes, ringing out in winter weather.
Her gaze fell on the indecipherable object in Blakely’s outstretched hand. That perfect brow furrowed in consternation. “I dropped that? I think not.” A discordant note sounded in those bells.
Blakely shrugged. “As you wish.” He swiveled from her.
The effrontery of the man! He wasn’t even trying to give Madame Esmerelda’s prediction a fair chance.
Ned clamped his hand about his cousin’s wrist and turned him back around. “Oh, I think so. Where else could it have come from?”
Aside from Blakely’s pocket. Or any of the fifteen other sources that sprang to mind.
“I assure you,” she said with some asperity, “if that object had belonged to me, I shouldn’t have waited until I attended a ball to dispose of it. Even if I had dropped it, I would never admit prior ownership when questioned.”
“Well.” Ned drew out the syllable and squared his shoulders. “If you didn’t drop it, you must accept it.”
Her lips thinned. “Why?”
Why? Damnation.
“I can’t think of any reason,” Blakely interjected. His gaze seemed subtly mocking. Ned’s stomach sank. His cousin would continue to perform all his tasks in this halfhearted fashion. He had no intention of taking Madame Esmerelda’s strictures seriously. He intended to do the bare minimum, and no more.
But Madame Esmerelda was right. She saw the future. She had to do so. Because if she were wrong about Blakely, then her prediction about Ned was suspect, too. And that he could not bear.
Ned plucked the ebony from his cousin’s hand and held it out. There was only one thing for it. He was going to have to do all the work.
“Unfortunately—” Ned sighed “—there’s no good reason. You’re just going to have to take it anyway.”
She peered at the unfortunate lump of wood. “What is that thing, anyway?”
“What do you think it is?”
The lady reached out one slim finger and tapped the dark surface. She pulled back the digit immediately, as if she’d tapped a hot stove. “It appears to be some sort of round, pockmarked, misbegotten, battle-blackened … citrus?”
“You see?” Triumph boiled up in Ned and he poked Blakely in the lapels. “She knew! She knew it was an elephant! You can’t possibly deny Madame Esmerelda’s power now!”
That, at least, finally got a response from Blakely. The man shut his eyes and covered his face with a hand.
The lady frowned. “An orange is an elephant?”
She was intimidating and elegant. Ned imagined the figure he must cut in her eyes. Boyishly skinny. Overshadowed by his taller cousin. Awkward, ungainly, and just a little too loud at all the wrong times. Most especially at this moment. He flushed from head to toe.
“Yes,” Ned said. His voice still rang too loudly.
At precisely the same moment, Blakely said, “No.”
She stared at the two men. “You,” she said stabbing a finger at Ned, “are mad. You—” pointing at Blakely this time “—are tainted by association. And you—” here, she pointed at Madame Esmerelda standing behind them “—are very quiet. As for me, I am leaving.”
If she left now, fate and all the angels in heaven couldn’t bring her together with Blakely.
“Wait,” Ned called. “We haven’t been introduced! And you didn’t take your elephant.”
She turned around again. “No, we haven’t been introduced. And I certainly couldn’t accept a gift from a stranger.”
Ned bit his cheeks and wondered if he could possibly—please?—disappear on the spot. “Oh, that stupid rule doesn’t matter here. It’s only applicable to nice things. Clothing or jewelry or the like. This is a piece of rubbish.”
She stared at Ned and shook her head. “You really are mad.”
“Yes,” he agreed through gritted
