Page 4 of The Forbidden Lord
While she waited for him, she strode the balcony nervously. He was taking an awfully long time. Going to the doorway, she glanced in, but he was halfway across the room, speaking to the Worthings and gesturing to her. Quickly, she darted back onto the balcony and paced some more.
Once he returned, they didn’t speak, but merely hurried together along the shadowy gallery until they reached the last room before the foyer. Then they walked briskly through it to where the footmen awaited the guests’ leisure.
Lawrence spoke in an undertone to the servants, who then scurried about, gathering her pelisse and his greatcoat as if the two of them were very important guests. How strange. The servants had often seen her here before and never treated her with such extravagant courtesy. WhathadLawrence told them?
As a servant helped her into her velvet pelisse, she thought he regarded her oddly. Then he darted away, making her wonder if she’d imagined it. The carriage was brought to the door with amazing speed, undoubtedly because it was one of Lady Dryden’s. Emily and Lawrence had been unable to take the Fairchild carriage because it was being repaired, so Lady Dryden had generously offered to send one for them.
Lawrence opened the ornate door and handed her in. She relaxed only after he’d ordered the coachman to drive on. “It was fun for a while, but I was glad to leave, weren’t you?” she said.
He leaned back against the seat, the moonlight touching on his smiling mouth. There was something odd about his smile. It seemed different. “Yes, indeed. So good of you to suggest it.”
“Suggest it? Don’t be silly, Lawrence. You’ve been wanting to leave that ball almost since we got there.”
The man across from her went very still. “Lawrence? Who the deuce is Lawrence?”
If his surprise hadn’t told her she’d made a drastic error, his language would have. Lawrence would never use such words infront of a rector’s daughter. That’s why his smile looked different and why the servants had behaved oddly when she’d left with him.
“You’re n-not Lawrence,” she whispered, her heart leaping into her throat when he frowned and quickly removed his mask.
Dear heavens. The man had Lawrence’s red hair and Lawrence’s build and Lawrence’s attire.
And a very different face.
“Of course I’m not Lawrence,” he snapped. “What kind of game are you playing?” He tilted his head, and she glimpsed his hard male jaw and clean-shaven throat before the moon ducked behind the clouds, extinguishing what little light had filtered into the carriage. “You know very well who I am. That’s why you said all that nonsense to Lady Sophie in my defense.”
Removing his silk top hat, he laid it on the well-padded cushion of the brocade seat, and the very intimacy the action implied sent her into a panic. What nonsense had she said in his defense? Obviously he meant her conversation with Sophie, which he’d clearly overheard. But they’d only talked of the girl’s coming out and her fears and...
Goodness gracious. Lord Blackmore. They’d discussed the man at length. What had Sophie started to tell her? That Lord Blackmore looked an awful lot like someone? Lawrence. That’s who his lordship resembled.
It couldn’t be. “Are you saying you’re ... you’re?—”
“Blackmore, of course. But you know that quite well.”
His irritated tone drew her up short. There was no cause for alarm. This was just a silly mistake, one they could quickly correct. The entire misunderstanding was her fault anyway. She couldn’t very well blame him for taking her at her word and assuming she needed an escort home.
“No, I didn’t know. I’m afraid you look a great deal like my cousin, Lawrence, who’s my escort this evening. In the darknesson the balcony, I mistook you for him. It’s a simple error, no harm done.”
Jordan Willis, the Earl of Blackmore, gaped at the trim, attractive woman across from him. What kind of joke was this? “Your cousin?” Deuce take it. Could this situation merely be a devilish strange mistake? He’d been wearing a mask, after all, but red hair like his was rare.
He’d assumed she was a lusty widow wanting a private encounter with him, but she did seem agitated. And if she were telling the truth ... “Do you claim you actuallymeantall that nonsense about my reputation being undeserved?”
“Of course I meant it.” She seemed bewildered by his reaction. “Why would you think otherwise?”
He stretched an arm out along the seat back. Surely the woman couldn’t be so naïve, given what she’d heard of him. “Because when a beautiful widow defends me in my hearing, she generally means to impress me.”
“A widow?” Flipping out her fan, she worked it in agitated motions. “Oh, dear, so that’s why you came along with me so easily. Because you thought ... I mean, you assumed?—”
“That you were a widow eager for a little company. Yes.” A sense of impending doom descended on him. “Tell me I wasn’t mistaken.”
“But you were! This is all a terrible error! I’m not a widow. I’m in mourning for my mother, who died last year.”
The sense of doom roared in his head. She was probably some squire’s virginal daughter. And he’d carried her off in his carriage without regard for who might see them.
No, he couldn’t be that stupid. “You’re joking. This is some sort of game.”
“Not at all! I’m telling the truth!”
“Am I to understand that you’re unmarried?” His stomach began to churn.
