“I—I think so,” she said.
“That is Andromeda. Do you know her story?”
Hattie shook her head.
He lowered her arm and wrapped his hand around hers. “She was the daughter of a king who chained her to a rock to appease a sea monster.”
“A sea monster! That sounds wretched. Was she forced to spend her life in chains?”
“Until Perseus saved her.”
“Good for Perseus! I hope he didn’t make her wait too long for rescue.”
He leaned down and kissed the curve of Hattie’s neck—she sucked in a breath and shivered against him. “You need a Perseus, I think,” he murmured, and kissed her neck again.
Hattie leaned her head to one side, to allow him access. He moved a hand to her neck and her chest, felt the inevitable sweep into desire and lust—
Hattie pushed his hand down and stepped away.
He was stunned at first, rudely ejected from that feeling of bliss.
“We are friends,” she said. “Because there is no other option for us.”
“There must be,” he said, and dragged his fingers through his hair. “There must be a way.”
“But there isn’t,” she said. It was dark, and the moonlight shimmered in her eyes like light on a dark sea, and he couldn’t be certain, but he thought that maybe her eyes had filled with tears. “I must go,” Hattie said. “Now. It’s time for me to go.”
“Don’t. Not yet. We—”
“Now. Please, Mateo.”
He reluctantly nodded and helped her down the narrow steps. When they returned to the study, she collected her things. She paused to look at him before she went out, her expression full of the same longing he felt in his breast. Mateo sent Carlos after her, to see her home. “She’ll refuse you,” he said in Spanish, “and if you can’t convince her, follow at a distance. But see her home.”
The footman nodded and ran out to catch Hattie.
Mateo stood in the open doorway, staring out at the square and the sky above. Hattie was Andromeda, sparkling above him. Or maybe he was Andromeda, as he felt the invisible chains trapping him. But he was determined to be Perseus and save them both.
If only he knew how.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
IFHATTIEHADany doubts about attending the ball—and she had many in the next few days—it was Daniel who in the end convinced her by appealing to her vanity. “Might as well attend if you’ve this to wear,” he said as he held up her gown to his body and studied it in the mirror in Hattie’s room. “You’ll not have many opportunities to wear something as fine as this, will you?”
He was never one to blunt his opinion. Hattie eyed him with suspicion. “You have never cared before what gowns I have or where I might wear them.”
He shrugged. “Seems like a waste to let this one go.”
He was right. She wanted Teo to see her in that gown. She was as drawn to him as she had been the first time she’d laid eyes on him; she was in love with him. But she was also exasperatingly practical, and in spite of anything Teo or Daniel had said, she knew she didn’t belong in that crowd.
Still, Teo was leaving soon—how many more times would she see him?
Not enough. Not nearly enough.
So it was the night of the Abbott ball she found herself in the ballroom, a room she had not seen in all her time at Grosvenor Square. Teo’s mother had outdone herself. There were performers in the garden, one of them swallowing fire while another one walked a high wire strung between the garden walls. There were torch lights all around, and it made the garden seem to glitter.
Inside, a twelve-piece string orchestra played from an alcove above the ballroom, and floral displays were hung from the ceiling to create the illusion of dancing in a garden.
Daniel had abandoned her the moment they’d entered, as usual, so Hattie was standing in the back, admiring it all, as well as her lovely dress, and sipping a glass of punch when Mateo entered the ballroom.