Page 7
Mercy slipped an arm around Corinna’s waist and returned her focus to the crowd. She spotted Ronan speaking to a gentleman with his back to the balcony. A smile blossomed across Mercy’s radiant face, and she greeted her husband with a little flicker of her fingers.
Grinning like a love-struck fool, Ronan gave an unabashed wave back. He pointed to the guests engaged in a cotillion and skewed his eyebrow up his forehead in a silent invitation to dance.
Mercy nodded.
Not quite as tall as Ronan, the nobleman attired in black from his jacket to his shoes glanced over his shoulder to where Ronan peered.
It was him.
The man she’d bowled into while fleeing the library.
His amber eyes collided with Corinna’s, and his sculpted mouth slowly curved into a roguish smile.
Heat skated up her cheeks even as her tummy quivered, but she didn’t look away—couldn’t look away. It wasn’t a macabre fascination with his scar or his rugged handsomeness.
No, something in his eyes sparked an indefinable recognition within her.
His eyes widened slightly before he gave the dancers a pointed glance and then, grinning, met her gaze again, a distinct question in his.
Had he just…?
Was he asking her to dance?
Did he seriously think she would agree when they hadn’t even met?
Well, been officially introduced?
And why, for all the tea in England, did the prospect of meeting him make her slightly giddy? When had a cadence of numerous drums begun echoing between her ears? At last, cobbling her thoughts together, she asked, “Mercy, who is that man with Ronan?”
“I don’t know. I’ve not met him.” Mercy gave her a rather sly smile and slid her gaze to the men.
The stranger still gazed upward like a demented Romeo.
Corinna wasn’t certain whether to be flattered or disturbed.
“I’m positive that can be remedied if you so wish, Corinna.”
Did Corinna wish?
Only to thank the gentleman for keeping her from taking a tumble after she’d plowed into him. Nothing more. Especially since other guests had begun to take note of his regard and were also stealing glances upward.
Corinna retreated a step. “He’s the man I ran into when I fled Parnell-Calloway.”
“Ah, I see.”
Something in Mercy’s tone made Corinna suspicious.
“Don’t get any ideas, Mercy.”
Lady Osborne was an infamous matchmaker. Corinna didn’t need her sister-in-law—no matter how beloved—to trundle along that same problematic path. How many times had some well-meaning person, including her parents, introduced her to someone hoping she’d finally marry?
For pity’s sake. Corinna wasn’t that long in the tooth.
“He simply kept me from taking a fall,” she reiterated.
Then why had her ribs felt like wings beat behind them when she’d glanced down, and he’d turned to stare up at her?
Didn’t he know it was rude to gawk?
