She hummed a small laugh. “Perhaps I can help you look. I can be very useful when I put my mind to it.”
He seemed to chuckle, then turned to face her. “Are you indeed?” His eyes met hers and she could see interest flare in them. “And have you put your mind to it?”
Mary allowed herself to smirk ever so slightly. “Would you like me to?”
His lips parted on a breath, which caught in his throat. He swallowed and Mary tilted her head ever so slightly up at him. “Something wrong?”
“No,” he said softly, slowly shaking his head. “No, not a thing. Forgive me, but do I know you?”
Mary had to fight to keep from laughing. So he didn’t know her. He was so sure he would, and here he was, just as clueless as everyone else.
She smiled indulgently. “Perhaps.”
“You will not tell me?” His eyes flashed again, this time with amusement. His mouth curved up in her favorite smile. “How can I know, then?”
“Why, you must discover for yourself, Mr. Harris.” She batted her lashes flirtatiously. “It wouldn’t do for a lady to reveal her secrets.”
He laughed softly and gave her a small bow. “Of course not, my lady. I apologize. Perhaps I may tempt the lady with a dance? I wish to discover all that I can.” He held out a hand to her expectantly, though his eyes never strayed from hers.
She seemed to consider the idea for a moment. A rather long moment. Enough that it started to draw comment from the people around them, who hadn’t been paying attention until this moment. A lesser man might have faltered or begun to worry.
Not Geoffrey. His hand was as steady as his gaze, which only grew in heat and intensity the longer she waited. When she thought her toes would melt into the floor, she gave a little sigh and slid her hand into his.
“I suppose I must,” she said airily. “I would dearly love to see you attempt to identify me.”
He kissed her hand suddenly, making her gasp in shock.
“Who said I wanted to identify you?” he murmured as he came closer and began to lead her to the floor. “Perhaps I take great pleasure in mystery.”
A hot shiver raced up Mary’s spine. Now would be the time for her to say something witty, to keep the mystery alive, yet the only thoughts coursing through her mind were those that screamed that if he really knew her, he wouldn’t say such things. He wouldn’t look at her with such heat, nor tease her so suggestively.
She ought to tell him now, before things got out of hand. Before he said something he would regret when he knew who she was. Before she was overcome.
Something was happening to her that she couldn’t pretend to identify. Something only Geoff could do, whether it was the thought of him or the look of him. Something that had been coming on for some time now, but she hadn’t noticed until this moment. She felt… alive. Excited.
Hopeful.
She couldn’t tell him. She wanted to know what he would say now, what he would do next. She wanted to see him look at her this way for as long as possible. She wanted to keep the mystery alive herself. This was her last chance to be someone other than who she was, and heaven help her, she wanted this moment.
“Then a mystery you shall have,” she murmured back, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.
He was smiling at her again, the sort of smile that made one’s toes curl up and fingers tingle and breath quicken
He was no longer looking around the room.
He only looked at her.
It was heavenly. Except…
“What of the woman you were looking for?” she asked with a tilt of her head as they took their places.
He bowed with the men. “I never said who I was looking for.”
She smirked. “True. But I have kept you from your looking. Should you not like to find them?”
He took her hand and led her through the dance. “Who says I haven’t?”
Mary swallowed hastily and forced herself to take a quick, quiet breath to still her beating heart. Geoff was just as full of riddles as she herself was. It was maddening.
It was also a tantalizing sort of fun.
She tossed her hair, sending the tendrils of fabric dancing down her back. “Oh, I shouldn’t like to make a certain other female angry by taking you from her.”
“Must we talk of other females?” he scolded as he passed by her. “I wish to talk of you.”
“There is very little to tell.”
He turned with the movement and stared at her intently. “Oh, I doubt that very much. Come, tell me something. Anything.”
What could she say? She wouldn’t lie outright, but he already knew so much about her… Was there anything she had not told him?
“You must not tell a soul,” she breathed as they proceeded down the line of couples, “but my late arrival tonight was a complete accident.”
“You had no intention of making a spectacle of yourself?” he replied, his voice also low.
She hummed a low laugh. “Of course, I did. But I intended to be earlier.”
“What kept you, pray tell?”
“My dress. Some rather important stitches had come undone, and one whole section of the skirt threatened to fall out of place. I would have tripped on it the moment I began to dance, and then quite a scandal would have erupted.” She shuddered in horror—it really had been terrifying. “But as you can see, all is mended.”
He made a soft noise of assent. “Quite mended,” he murmured. “Looking at you, one would never have suspected. You are the epitome of perfection, and there is not an eye in this room that is not more fortunate for having seen you.”
There was no breath left in her lungs. She almost swooned, but he held her still as they moved through the motions.
“You must not say such things, Mr. Harris,” she attempted to scold. “A lady does not know how to take such praise.”
“If you wish it, my lady, I will be silent on the subject. But you had to notice how the others stare.”
“I had not,” she said with the shrug of one shoulder. Oh, all right, so she could outright lie, but only when it didn’t matter. “I pay little attention to what others think.” That, at least, was truth.
He looked rather impressed. “You are more and more a mystery, my lady.”
“A good mystery, or a bad one?” she could not help but ask.
His blue eyes blazed in their intensity as he looked at her. “Oh, a good one. Very, very good.”
Mary swallowed hard and prayed she would live through the evening.
Geoffrey needed to be more careful. More than once already he had nearly revealed that he knew exactly to whom he was speaking. But how could he help it when Mary was being so maddeningly alluring? He had thought this whole charade of the masquerade would be hilarious, but he was so far from laughing it unnerved him. All he wanted to do was take Mary from this overcrowded, overheated ballroom and run away with her into the night. And she was willing, oh was she willing. Or at least, her character was. He had to believe that it was not entirely an act. She could not hide what was in her eyes, and in them, he saw interest, enjoyment, and at times, the same desire that swirled in his stomach. But she was playing a role, and he would let it play out.
But he would not make it easy for her.
Their dance had been delightful and full of shameless flirts and teases, and the two following it had been so full of unspoken emotion he’d nearly choked with it. How he was managing to at least appear so calm was beyond his comprehension. She was giving him her undivided attention, and that in excess. It had been almost two hours since she had arrived, and yet it seemed only minutes. He could have stayed with her like this for years…
His breath caught at the sudden pain in his chest. He wanted her for the rest of his life. He wanted her as she was tonight, as she had been yesterday, as she would be any given day or time. He wanted her. And more than that, she was his. There would never be anyone else for him, not in a million lifetimes. No one knew him so well, no one made him
feel as she did, no one had such power over him, and no one could ever mean more to him than she did. She was his.
He looked down at her, only half listening to whatever it was she was saying. Had he never noticed how her lips moved so perfectly with every word she spoke? He was so captivated that he missed a question, which he discovered as she tilted her head up at him and said, “Well?”
He shook his head and smiled at her. “I apologize, my lady, what did you ask?”
“I am boring you,” she pouted, turning on her heel to leave.
He seized her arm in a vice-like grip. She was not going anywhere. “You are not boring me.”
She turned her head only and looked back at him. “Then why were you not listening?”
“I was thinking about you.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “You were?”
He only nodded.
“And that took all of your mental capacity so that there was no room for listening?”
He grinned at her wit. “When in the company of a captivating mystery such as yourself, merely thinking about you can absorb quite a good deal of mental capacity. I have been attentive this whole night, does that not signify?”
She shook her head firmly, pursing her lips together. “Attentiveness does not signify true attention. I’ve had many suitors that were the most attentive of men who never heard a single word I ever spoke. It was the most tiresome thing on the planet.”
Geoff could not help it; he burst out laughing, turning a few heads in their direction. He knew she spoke truth from her experiences, and he loved that she would share that with him. It made his heart swell with pride and hope.
Mary turned to him fully, smiling herself. “You find me amusing, sir?”
He kept his hold on her arm, but gentled it considerably. He gave her a warm look. “Terribly so. And breathtaking.”
She gave a little laugh that he heard the smallest sounds of surprise in. “Breathtaking? Surely not.”
“Surely yes,” he murmured, pulling the arm he held so that her hand rested on his chest, where his heart had begun to pound wildly. “Can you feel that?”
Her eyes dropped to her hand where it lay on his chest, and he saw her fight for a swallow. “I think… you flatter me, Mr. Harris.”
“Oh, I hope I flatter you,” he said earnestly, his eyes raking over her. “I hope I inspire you. I hope I steal into your dreams at night and never leave them.”
Mary’s chest heaved with her breaths that panted between her lips. Still she didn’t meet his eyes. “I think you’ve said quite enough,” she whispered.
“I don’t think I have said nearly enough,” he breathed, his own breath hard to come by. He had not said enough for a lifetime. “But if you cannot bear to hear any more, then I will be silent.”
There could not have been anyone else in the room but the pair of them, not when he felt this intensity surrounding them, not when his pulse pounded in his ears, not when she stood before him in this way, so shy and modest, yet her hand rested over his heart. The heat pulsating from her touch coursed through his limbs, and he almost could not bear it. But he would bear it, and much more, if only…
She swallowed with great difficulty. “What else would you say?”
He had almost missed the words, so softly were they spoken. She wasn’t attempting to mask her voice any longer, and he heard raw terror in it. Yet she had forced them out in spite of her feelings. She wanted to know.
He reached out his fingers and tilted her face up so she would meet his eyes. The lights of the ballroom danced within her incomparable eyes, glittering like diamonds in the heavens. He stroked the soft underside of her chin once.
“That you are exquisite,” he told her, his voice low and warm. “That I have forgotten any other woman exists. That my heart has never known sensations like this. That one evening with you would never be enough. That I have realized that no one else will ever do for me. That I want nothing else but to adore you all the days of my life.”
He leaned in as if he would kiss her. He had to kiss her. He wanted nothing more in the world than to kiss her.
She gasped, but he heard something in it and pulled back to look at her. Her eyes had filled with tears and she fought for composure.
“I have to go,” she managed, her voice choked with emotion.
“What? Why?” he asked suddenly, bewildered as to what had happened.
Her face nearly crumpled and she shook her head. “You don’t know,” she whispered harshly, yanking her hand from his chest and his hold. “You don’t even know.” She whirled away and ran, darting in and out of people so fast he had not the smallest hope of pursuing her.
People turned and stared at him, then whispered amongst themselves.
He didn’t care.
Mary was gone.
What had he done?
“What in heaven’s name did you say to that goddess?” Colin asked as he suddenly appeared at Geoff’s side. “I thought the pair of you were getting on rather well.”
“I told her the truth.”
Colin winced and hissed loudly. “Never a good idea, old chap. Lies are much better.”
Geoff didn’t reply. He ached in places he didn’t know he could ache, yearned for the moments to roll back, that he could live in those precious seconds where time had ceased to exist and Mary had been his.
“So what great truth did you reveal to the siren, hmm?”
“That I love her,” Geoff murmured, still staring at the now vacated entrance where Mary had disappeared from view. “Well, not that, but that I adore her, and that I wanted to do so for the rest of my life.”
Colin whistled low. “Bravo, Geoff,” he chuckled. “Pity it didn’t go over so well. Do you know who she was?”
“Mary.” Even her name ached as it passed his lips.
“Pardon?” Colin asked as he took another glass from a passing footman, apparently having not heard.
“It was Mary.”
Whatever beverage had been in the process of being drunk suddenly came blasting out of Colin’s mouth, and unfortunately misted the nearest guests. But Colin, being Colin, didn’t notice any of it as he stared at Geoff with large eyes. “That was… that was Mary?”
“Of course, it was Mary,” Geoff snorted. “Who else?”
“Stop,” Colin said, shaking his head quickly. “Stop, that couldn’t have… Mary, really?”
Geoff rolled his eyes and moved to the nearest wall of the room and leaned on it, tilting his head back with a groan. “Who else, Colin? You think I would have said that to just anybody?”
“Wait, you knew it was her all the time?” Colin asked as he followed and stood facing him.
He nodded. “She didn’t know that I knew, but I did. How could I not? I love her.”
Colin paled. “I beg your pardon?”
Geoff glared at him. “I love Mary,” he said in a slow, deliberate tone that left absolutely no room for misinterpretation. “I always have.”
“Oh,” Colin said softly, blinking in confusion. He swallowed and took another long drink of his beverage. “Correct me if I am wrong, I know so little of these things…”
Geoff waited, tempted to roll his eyes already.
“But… should you not have… run after her, then?” He gestured faintly in the direction of the exit once, and then again for effect.
Geoffrey winced and looked up at the ceiling.
“Would that not be the romantic thing to do?” Colin prodded thoughtfully, starting to smile ever so smugly, gesturing one last time towards the exit.
Geoff exhaled forcefully and took the liberty of banging his head against the wall repeatedly. Those nearest looked at him with concern, but quickly skirted away.
Colin watched with interest, then cleared his throat. “Oh dear. Geoffrey Harris, by all the authority given me by the Society of London, I hereby proclaim that you utterly fail at being a romantic hero.”
Geoff glared at him again, which only served to make Col
in chuckle.
“Come on,” Colin said cheerily, throwing an arm about his shoulder. “Let’s go somewhere much more suited to my taste and your stupidity. All these masks are making me very uneasy.”
Geoff resisted. “Colin, I am not in humor for…”
“For an expeditious gathering of our friends to plot how to put you back on the romantic road and see you collect the fair hand of your lady love?” Colin finished with a wry rising of one brow. “Are you sure?”
Geoff opened his mouth in shock.
Colin grinned broadly. “Nice to know I can still take you by surprise, Harris. Come on, we’ve work to do.”
Chapter Twenty Three
Three days. Three long and lonely days with nothing to do but sit in anguish and ponder over her abject stupidity. How could she have been such a fool?
She had fallen in love with Geoffrey Harris.
Again.
She slapped her bedcovers as she lounged against her headboard. She was a complete idiot. She had fallen for his charms, his goodness, and the way he made her feel. She had let herself become soft where he was concerned, and in spite of every attempt, she had let him take her heart.
And he didn’t care at all.
How dare he make her fall in love with him again, after all this time, after all the fighting, after all her tricks of the season and his ill-humor and rudeness, after everything they’d come through, and then to make violent love to a perfect stranger in a mask? The gall of the man! Had he no decency or sense or honor at all?
And what of Lily Arden? He had fawned over her before, and again at the ball, when he was supposed to be waiting and looking for Mary, he had been at it once more!
She thought she knew him. She thought she could trust him. She barked a laugh at herself and closed her eyes. She had thought she could love him. Worse than that, she thought it might be possible for him to love her.
It was a ridiculous notion. He would never love her. Oh, he was a good friend when he chose to be, and she had no doubt he loved her dearly. But it would never be how a man should love a woman.
How she wanted him to love her. It didn’t matter that lately he had been sweet and charming and made her feel things she’d thought her heart too sensible to feel again. It didn’t matter that his eyes had somehow developed the power to melt her bones and set her heart aflame.
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