Page 69 of One Perfect Dance
The intruders backed still further, then broke and ran, one punching a footman who tried to stop him, the other evading the clutching hands of another footman. In a moment, they were out the door and gone.
“Let us return to the ballroom,” Regina suggested, when Geoffrey looked as if he would give chase. He sighed and offered her his arm.
They continued their circuit of the room. William and Deerhaven reentered a while later. She would have to remember to ask them what had happened.
As the set approached a close, they reached Lord and Lady Arthur, and Geoffrey was beside himself with delight to meet the other author of the adventures he so enjoyed. “I would love to travel above all things,” he told Lord Arthur.
Really? Regina had had no idea. She eavesdropped on the ensuing conversation even as she chatted with Lady Arthur and Lady Barker. Apparently, Geoffrey intended to complete his university studies and then embark on an inspection tour of all of the far-flung business interests he had inherited from Gideon. Regina wondered how long he had been nurturing such a plan.
He was growing up and away from her.
The music ended, just as a page ran up to whisper to her, “Mr. Ashby has arrived, ma’am.”
She must have misheard. She turned to look, and there he was, reclining on the sofa from her private sitting room, being carried down the shallow steps into the ballroom by a phalanx of sturdy footmen.
“By all that is famous!” Geoffrey said. “Ashby knows how to make an entrance.”
Those who had been heading to the dance floor had stopped. Even the orchestra had ceased tuning their instruments, staring as avidly as the guests at the adventurer and his bearers.
Ash looked around, caught Regina’s eyes, and gave a command. With no dancers in the way to impeded them, the footmen marched across the center of the room, straight toward where Regina stood with her friends.
“The combination of fairy king and English gentleman is quite irresistible,” commented Lady Barker. Ash had clearly had inside information, for his costume matched hers.
Lady Arthur chuckled. “Your intended is keen to claim a place at your side, I think.”
Regina barely heard them. Elijah was in front of her, his hand stretched towards her. She placed her hand in his, and he lifted it to his lips for a kiss. “I could not stay away, my Titania. Not tonight.”
“What of your injury? The doctor said—”
“To keep my leg up for a week.” He gestured to his legs. “I am doing so, I promise. Hence the sofa.” He grinned and wagged his eyebrows. “There is room enough for you if your duties as hostess allow you time to spend with the man who loves you.”
He looked only at her, ignoring the onlookers who had gathered around, and who were relaying every detail of their conversation to those who could not get close. She followed his lead. What did they matter, all these social butterflies who rejoiced in the troubles of others? “I will join you for the supper dance, King Oberon. It is to be a waltz, and I do not intend to waltz with anyone but you.”
He kissed her hand again, and the murmuring grew louder. Regina gave herself another moment with her hand warm and comfortable in his, and then withdrew it.
“Put the king’s sofa over here by these chairs,” she told the footmen. She gestured to the orchestra, and they began to play again. “Oberon, I must go and attend to my duties as a hostess, but I shall return.”
On a whim, she gave him the curtsey she had learned from her mother for her presentation to the Queen, down until one knee nearly touched the ground, her gown billowing and then settling around her.
Elijah inclined his head, regal in all but the spark of mischief in his eye, the broad grin on his face. “My queen,” he said.
Her own grin was as broad as she commandeered Geoffrey’s arm and took him to present to a partner for the set that was now forming.
A crowd soon gathered around Elijah’s sofa. Regina caught glimpses of him as she moved around the room. He seemed well entertained, and his arrival had changed the mood of the room, the slight distance Regina had sensed washed away in an air of sentimental approval.
She cornered William and demanded an explanation of the confrontation in the entry hall. William admitted that he and Deerhaven had not planned to mention it to her. “They did not get in, Regina, and they escaped into the night. Nothing to tell. No idea what they hoped to achieve. Put it out of your mind.”
That was not hard, since it was time to return to Elijah. As the orchestra began a waltz, she tapped on the shoulder of one of the ladies in the crowd around his sofa. “Excuse me.”
The group parted, allowing her passage, and closing behind her.
When Elijah’s smile welcomed her, she forgot about them. “It is time for our dance,” she told him.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said to those around them, without taking his eyes off Regina. “I cannot at the moment waltz with my betrothed, but I would like to spend the dance with her, and—though I thank you for your company—your presence is nowde trop.”
Laughing, the crowd melted away, and just the two of them were left, with a large empty space around them.
“All the world loves a love story,” Elijah told her, as she perched on the edge of the sofa, his body stretched behind her.
