Page 19 of Let Me Be Your Hero
He lookedmagnificentin a black coat, cream breeches, and a garnet-red waistcoat. The clothes were similar to what every other gentleman in attendance had on. Butlud—she had never seen a man who could fill out a coat likethat!
Standing with her mother and sister, she fanned herself patiently, waiting for the chance to catch his eye and send him a smile. But he didn’t look her way, not even once.
The supper dance that marked the midpoint of the ball came and went. Izzie danced twice more, still paying more attention to the man standing alone in the corner than to her actual partner.
The ball was almost over, and he hadn’t so much as looked at her.
It was time to take matters into her own hands.
As a country dance ended, she saw him slip from the room, heading down a deserted hallway.
“Oh, dear!” she cried to her partner. “My, um… sister! She needs me.”
Lord Cuthbert, who was heir to the Marquess of Lindisfarne and whose shoulders compared very poorly indeed with thoseof Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy, glanced around. “Do you mean Lady Lucy? I don’t see her anywhere.”
Izzie pressed a hand to her heart. “I don’t have to see my sister to know when she is in”—she paused, staring into the distance, as if communing with some mystical power—“not distress, precisely, but… We’re twins, you see. Do excuse me!”
She left Lord Cuthbert looking extremely confused in the middle of the ballroom and threaded her way through the crowd.
The corridor Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy had entered wasn’t dark, but it was sparsely lit, suggesting that this was not the main area intended for guests. Izzie checked a few doors along the way but found the rooms deserted.
Finally, just as she was reaching the end of the hallway, a door clicked open, and her quarry stepped into the shadowy corridor.
“Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy!” she exclaimed, rushing over. “I’ve been looking for you all night.”
“M-me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, then looking around as if there could possibly be someone else with the last name ofNettlethorpe-Ogilvyin the deserted hallway.
“Of course,” she said, giving him her most brilliant smile.
They lapsed into silence. This flirting business was more difficult than it looked. Izzie cast about for a topic. “What brought you down this way?” she finally asked.
His ears turned as red as his waistcoat. “Oh, um. I was just visiting the, um… You know.”
Suddenly, Izzie’s face felt warm as well.Perfect. She had cornered him while he’d been using the necessary.
Very romantic, Isabella!
Oh, well. Sometimes you had to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, so she smiled at him again.
He cleared his throat. “What, um… What are you doing down this way?”
She decided that fortune favored the bold. “Waiting for you to ask me to dance.”
“Oh!” His whole body jerked, as if something had crept up behind him and bitten him on the leg. “I… I… Would you grant me the pleasure of a dance, Lady Isabella?”
He was so masculine, unquestionably a man, not a boy. But he really did look adorable with that befuddled expression.
Isabella smiled. “No.”
He looked not annoyed so much as perplexed. “No? But you just said—”
She seized both of his hands in hers, smiling coquettishly as she walked backward, pulling him along after her. “Now that I think on it, I find that I would much prefer a turn about the gardens.”
He tripped over his own foot. “A turn about the—” He stared at their joined hands, his expression one of complete and utter confusion. “Are… Are youflirtingwith me?”
She gave a bleak laugh as she turned to face forward, looping her arm through his. “Not very effectively if you have to ask that question.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest it was ineffective so much as incomprehensible,” he muttered.
