answer seemed evasive. Most irritating. She did not play such stupid games. ‘Shall we go back inside?’
‘As you wish.’
Lack of interest coloured his voice. Recognition dawned in a flash. The scent. The little finger. If not the low voice, then its mocking boredom. Oh! Such a cleverly worded denial about not having been introduced before today...
She leaped up, the chair falling backwards, clattering on the flagstones. ‘You!’
He was on his feet almost as quickly. ‘Lady Tess.’ His hand grabbed her arm as she staggered, unbalanced. ‘Take care.’
She wrenched her arm away. ‘What game are you playing, Lord Sandford?’
‘My lady. You are mistaken—’
‘No. I am not. How did you find me? And more to the point, why bother after you turned down my request?’ Oh, heaven help her, he was going to expose her to her cousin. The wretch.
‘I thought to return this.’ He retrieved a small item from the folds of his cloak. The pearl ring she’d sold. ‘A lady should never sell her jewels using her own name if she wants to keep their disappearance a secret.’
She snatched it out of his hand and forced it on over her glove. ‘A gentleman doesn’t go sneaking around following a lady.’ Oh, no! Now people at the other tables were looking at them. ‘I suppose you plan to tell my guardian?’
He took her arm. ‘Don’t make a scene, young lady. Think of your reputation.’
‘Bah. No one knows who we are and no one cares. It is a masquerade.’
‘By morning gossip will abound. Your costume fools no one.’
‘Whereas yours is the perfect disguise.’ How like a man to avoid taking any responsibility.
He held out an arm. ‘Come, let us take a turn about the shrubbery as if that was our intention for getting up all along. I am told it is quite beautiful at night.’
‘It is dark. We won’t be able to see a thing.’
‘Even better.’
She swallowed the urge to laugh at his scorn of the poor shrubbery. Tried to hang on to her anger.
‘Very well, but I expect an explanation of your behaviour.’ She snatched up her bow and slung it over one shoulder. ‘And don’t even think about trying anything untoward. I did not lie when I said my arrows were sharp.’
‘Last thing I need is an arrow in my backside,’ he muttered low in her ear. Not quite the voice she’d heard this morning—this time there was laughter in it. How surprising. And attractive. And intriguing.
Dash it all, the man was a menace.
Also surprising were the lanterns all along the garden path. Soon they were out of earshot of the couples on the terrace, but not in the dark and not out of sight if anyone had cared to look for them.
‘Well?’ she asked peremptorily.
‘Well what?’
She started to turn back. ‘I see you are still playing games.’
He held her fast by the crook of her elbow, his hand firm but not painful in its restraint.
‘Let me go.’
‘It is no game when a respectable young lady comes alone to the chambers of a bachelor.’
The emphasis on the word game sounded bitter. ‘What are you suggesting, sir?’
‘That you took a risk with my reputation as well as your own. I have no intention of being forced into marriage.’
She gasped. Blood ran hot through her veins. Tension had her shaking. ‘You think I would marry you? I don’t like you, sir. Not one bit. I gave you my reason for coming to see you this morning. You gave me your answer. We have no need for further communication.’
‘How can you say you don’t like me? You don’t even know me.’ Again he sounded amused. He was like a cat playing with a mouse. A very large self-satisfied cat.
‘You will return me to my cousin at once,’ she said with all the dignity she could muster.
‘But what about this person you need found?’
‘Do not trouble yourself, my lord. I have made other plans.’
‘It would be no trouble to me. Others, however, might take weeks to find your answer. I had the impression your matter was urgent.’
Oooh, he was so very annoying! Even if he did have the right to boast. ‘I have changed my mind.’
He turned her to face him, bending to peer into her face as if he could read her expression behind the mask. ‘I don’t believe you.’
While she could not see his face, his intensity made her breathing quicken and her heart flutter strangely.
He tipped her chin with a finger, staring into her eyes. Mesmerised, she could not move. ‘Let me take you driving tomorrow and you can tell me all about it.’
At the graze of his breath across her cheek, her insides tightened. He dropped his hand as if burned. Had he sensed her reaction? Oh goodness, she hoped not.
Panicked by her untoward response to his touch, she opened her mouth to refuse. Closed it again as her brain overtook her emotions. This was what she had wanted, was it not? His help. ‘Very well. I will, of course, return the money you paid for my ring.’
‘I don’t want your money.’
There was a seductive note in his voice. Her body trembled. Shocked, she gazed up into the void where his face should be, a face she could see in her mind’s eye. She had no trouble recalling the mocking smile on his lips. ‘What do you want?’
She had meant to sound impatient. Dismissive. Instead she sounded scared. Weak.
‘I will inform you when we meet tomorrow.’
She wanted to argue, but she also wanted to find Grey. Seething, she walked at his side, trying to think of suitably cutting words.
He turned them back towards the terrace, strolling as if there were no undercurrents rippling beneath the surface of their silence.
At the French doors, she dipped a curtsy. ‘Thank you for a pleasant dance and conversation.’
‘Pleasant?’ he murmured.
Really, the man was impossible. On legs that felt stiff and awkward, with a heart pounding loudly in her ears, she marched in the direction she had last seen Wilhelmina. When she glanced back, he was gone.
Oh heavens, what would he want? And how far was she prepared to go with this man? Her stomach gave an odd little pulse.
Dash it, she would insist on gentlemanly behaviour,
