Page 6 of What's an Earl Gotta Do?
... until he crashed at full speed into a column and went sprawling on his backside.
Oh, dear God. She glanced around and saw people openly gawking at her. Her dress must be even worse than she’d feared. Every instinct demanded that she flee, but… why wasn’t anyone checking on the fallen gentleman? What if he were truly injured? She couldn’t just leave him lying there on the floor.
Tamping down her annoyance, she hurried to his side, relieved to see that his kilt had settled modestly. “Are you all right, sir?”
He stared up at her, looking rather dazed. “That depends upon your answer.”
“My answer? I—I don’t understand.”
She extended her hand to help him up, only to find it firmly seized. The man kissed the back of her gloved hand (actually kissed it—Anne had never been so scandalized in her life!) “Tell me at once—do I stand a chance?”
“I… I don’t know what you mean, sir—”
“I mean,” he said, “that tonight I have seen beauty such as I never dreamed could exist. Say you’ll take pity on me, fair goddess, and grant me the favor of a dance.”
Oh dear, Anne mused. He must have hit his head. “I apologize, sir,” she said, struggling to free her hand, “but I… I don’t even know you, and—”
“Alexander Fitzroy, at your service, Madame. May I know the name of my enchantress?”
A tall man who wore his blond hair in the sort of casually windswept style that probably took an hour to arrange spoke. “She is Lady Wynters. And I would like a dance as well.”
Anne stared at the masked man for a beat, then realized it was the Viscount Scudamore.
Strange. Lord Scudamore was the treasurer of the Royal Military Asylum. They were both actively involved in the charity world, so Anne knew him fairly well. He’d been showing more and more interest in the Ladies’ Society over the past year, and Anne had him on her short list of candidates for a vacant position on her board as vice president.
But he had never asked her to dance before. He was precisely the type of man who never asked her to dance. He was rich; although the estate he had inherited had been mired in debt, Lord Scudamore had worked a miracle, turning it around in three short years. He was also young. Titled. Handsome, even.
Anne blanched, realizing that Lord Scudamore was awaiting her response. “Um, certainly, my lord. And you as well, Mr. Fitzroy,” she added hastily, seeing his woeful expression.
She penciled their names onto her dance card. “You look surprised, my lady,” Lord Scudamore said.
“A bit,” Anne admitted. “You’ve never asked me to dance before.”
“You were never available before,” Lord Scudamore countered.
She was blinking at him in surprise when a man dressed as Sir Walter Raleigh drawled, “We’ve all been waiting for you to come out of mourning.” Anne’s mouth fell open, and chuckles broke out from the cluster of men surrounding her.
That cluster was growing in size and increasing in volume.
“Lady Wynters, would you do me the honor—”
“May I have the pleasure—”
“I would particularly like to request the supper dance—”
Anne quickly surrendered her dance card. She recognized most of the gentlemen in spite of their masks, but not all, and it seemed simpler to let them write their own names.
After penciling in his name, Nathaniel Bartindale smiled. “Just one dance left,” he said, holding the dance card aloft.
A half-dozen arms shot out at once, and three men managed to take hold of it.
Augustus Mapplethorpe gave it a sharp pull. “Come on, you two, give it here.”
“No, you give it here,” William Davison retorted.
“Let go, the both of you,” grunted Baron Gladstone, who was dressed as Julius Caesar.
Gracious, this was the strangest night of her life! None of these men had ever shown her the slightest interest before. But now they were scrapping after her dance card like a pack of starving dogs. Anne took a hasty step back as Mr. Davison’s elbow came within inches of grazing her ribs.
