It was only nine o’clock, but the soiree was already at full bore—music spilled out the open windows of the town house onto the street. He could hear so many raised voices, all of them gay, laughing and hooraying at each other.
The door was opened by a butler who looked harried. Mateo handed him the invitation, but because it was so loud, the butler gestured for him to follow. Mateo quickly lost the butler in the crush. Still, he managed to find his way into a drawing room where dozens of people were crammed.
A woman with stunning auburn hair turned around when he entered. She had pretty green eyes and a warm smile and flushed cheeks. “Welcome!” she cried happily. “Welcome to England, to my home!”
Mateo bowed. “Lady Dearborn, I presume.”
“Yes! But you must call me Emma. Everyone calls me Emma. And you must be Lord Abbott! I can tell. You have an air of sophistication about you. Do you like wine, Lord Abbott? We have quite a lot of it. And dancing in the dining room. We haven’t a ballroom here, but we’ve moved the tables and chairs. Feeney, show him to the dining room! Do you like to dance? I hope you do, because I’d like to dance with you. I’ll come in shortly.”
The butler had returned to his side. Lady Dearborn turned away from him and resumed her conversation with two other gentlemen. It appeared that everyone in that room was drunk.
Mateo dutifully followed the butler to the dining room, past all the laughing, drunken people. As he looked through that crowded room for any sign of Hattie, he was accosted by Lord Iddesleigh.
“My lord! Wonderful to see you!” Beck said jovially, the scent of whisky heavy on his breath. “I said to Lila you’d not come, as you are preparing to leave soon. When do you leave?”
“Next week,” Mateo answered.
“So soon? Before an offer is made? I happened to see Raney a day or so ago—between you and me, he’s eager for your call.”
“I understand,” Mateo said.
“Good, good,” Beck said, and clapped him on the back too hard. “Wine? Emma has the best wine. Has it brought in from France in the middle of the night, if you take my meaning.” He reached around Mateo and took a glass from a passing footman’s tray and handed it to Mateo.
“Thank you.” He sipped the wine, then glanced around the room...and found Hattie.
She was standing alone in the middle of the crowd, looking at him. She smiled. He did, too. He suddenly handed the wine back to Beck. “If you would be so kind,” he mumbled, and Beck juggled his glass to take Mateo’s.
He moved through the crowd to her, curtly greeting people who tried to intercept him as he went, his gaze locked on her. Hattie’s eyes followed his progress, her smile one of amusement. People watched him, curious why he was pushing through as he was, some of them offering him a drink. He ignored them all.
When he finally reached her, having escaped the clutches of a woman whose hair was starting to fall out of her coif, he was a bit tongue-tied. “You are so beautiful.”
She laughed. “And you are too kind.”
“How... How are you? How do you find your new position?”
“Tedious,” she said, and glanced past him. “I am forced to read aloud scripture. And there is not much actual writing, so my excellent penmanship is going to waste.”
“A tragedy,” he murmured as his eyes moved over her. Just looking at her made his heart feel full. He was a different man. A better man.
“And there are no pastries.”
“I must ask—how have you kept from throwing your body from the roof?”
Her smiled broadened with delight. “It’s been a terrible struggle.”
He could feel a tether between them that felt like a lifetime of knowing her instead of a few short weeks. “I’ve missed you,” he said.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered. “Everyone is looking at us. Have you made your offer?”
“Let them look, I don’t care. And no, I have not.”
“When will you?”
He very cavalierly tucked behind her ear the tendril of her hair that always fell, uncaring who saw him. “Dance?”
She shook her head.
“Walk in the garden?”
