Page 20 of A Widow for the Earl
She was not the only one amused, as a series of yelps and shouts and curses ricocheted through the room, followed by giddy laughter.
“I am hopeless at this!” Prudence said, cackling.
“I am not moving!” Teresa insisted, laughing heartily.
“Do you have a statue of Aphrodite in this ballroom, or have I merely found my wife?” Duncan asked, and Beatrice could hear the loving grin in his voice.
“Duncan!” Valeria scolded, giggling like a giddy newlywed.
“Tess, I am coming to save you!” Cyrus called out, warming Beatrice’s heart.
“I am here, my love!” Teresa called back. “Come to me, my darling!”
Beatrice listened to it all, so full of sudden and intense joy she thought she might burst.
She had never wanted to be married, and resented the entire institution all the more after her array of misfortunes, but she wouldalwayschampion the marriages of her friends and loved ones. Sometimes, she would observe them in their utter happiness and feel as happy as if she were the one in love. Indeed, she had no doubt that, for her, thatwasall the love she would ever need: the affection she felt for her friends and her cousin, and getting to witness their joy and their lives together.
“Oh, I think I found something!” Prudence declared. “No… never mind, it is just the doorknob.”
Beatrice stifled a snort, resuming her own search for the hidden frog.
Just then, a hard edge collided with her thigh. She stepped backward sharply, surprised by the bump, only to panic as she felt her foot catch on something. In the light, she would have righted herself easily. In the dark, as she tried to free herself, she felt herself begin to fall, her foot caught in fabric, tripping her.
“Oh!” she yelped, losing her balance.
Her breath abandoned her lungs altogether as an arm grabbed her around the waist, pulling her hard against a firm body, righting her where she could not right herself.
Still startled and not at all steady, she grasped for purchase, her hands seizing the silky fabric of what felt like lapels.
It would not be Duncan or Cyrus. They would not be so bold.
“Freddie?” she whispered. “Is that you?”
“Did you say something, Trixie?” Frederick’s voice replied, too far away to be the man who now held her close to a chest that rose and fell with the rasp of harsh breaths.
Beatrice swallowed thickly, a prickle running down the back of her neck. If it was not Frederick, and it was unlikely to be Duncan or Cyrus, then who on earth was holding her in his arms?Stillholding her, though the danger had passed, and it was not at all proper for him to have his arm around her waist like that?
Warm breath tickled the curve of her neck as the man bent his head, whispering, “Is this how a viscountess behaves? Are you enjoying yourself,Trixie?”
Her breath caught in her throat, that prickle down the back of her neck becoming a shiver… a shiver that was not entirely unpleasant. The intensity of his voice gripped her tighter thanhis embrace, until she could not have moved away, even if she had wanted to.
“Vincent?” she rasped, surprised by the strength of him.
Of course, she was not unaware of his athletic physique and towering height, and had not failed to notice how the fabric of his tailcoat sometimes strained to accommodate the powerful muscles of his arms. But seeing such things andfeelingsuch things were two very different things.
Before she could stop herself, her hands relaxed on his lapels, her palms feeling the rock solid breadth of his chest instead. Beneath her hand and the silky feel of his waistcoat, his heart thudded wildly. The beat of a man who was either furious or overcome.
She did not need to see his face to know which it was; she had heard it in his tone.
“Enough of this!” he barked, stepping away from Beatrice. “Open the curtains at once!”
Somewhere in the room, Prudence squeaked, and Teresa gasped, but it was a stony-faced Valeria who pulled open the drapes. Gray light glanced in through the French doors, raindrops chasing each other down the panes, the clouds unburdening themselves of their soggy cargo as a wild wind shook the oak trees and made the canvas screen for the puppet show snap like a sail in a storm.
Beatrice’s eyes widened as she looked upon Vincent’s glowering face, realizing that though he had stepped back, his hand had her by the wrist. She had been too stunned to notice.
“It was a harmless game, Lord Grayling,” Valeria said, polite despite her annoyed expression. “We would have invited you to play if we had known you were here. You should have announced yourself.”
Vincent shot her a dark look. “There should have been no games in this manor at all without my approval. I did not give permission for a party.”
