Page 51

“Pardon me,” Sarah said. “I think I am a bit lost?—”

“Easily done in this old pile,” Mr Darcy hastened to assure. “We can show you the way back to the ballroom.”

“No. I mean, yes, that too, but…I have a question, and I think you are likely the only one who can answer it. Your cousin—Colonel Fitzwilliam, that is—has declared his intentions. And what I want to know…to the best one can know anything, I su ppose, is…do you trust him? I mean, not do you trust Elizabeth with him, because of course she is eminently trustworthy, and besides, everyone can see she only has eyes for you. But him…just…Richard. Your cousin. Your friend, or he was once. I am sorry to be so bold but beg you to be honest with me, for if I turn away now, I shall still be able to find happiness. If I allow myself to love him, however, as I am capable of loving him…” she trailed off, her cheeks blazing with embarrassment beneath the gold paint, barely managing to hold Mr Darcy’s gaze.

He looked at her for long moments, his eyes dark and fathomless. She could not read that look, and never would be able to. Elizabeth, she noted, quietly placed her hand upon his arm, saying nothing, allowing him his answer, whatever it might be. Sarah hardly dared breathe.

“Yes,” he said at last, and paused. “With my life. With my life, and with my…with Elizabeth’s. You are safe with him.”

Sarah felt her smile begin at the top of her serpent-covered head and travel all the way to the tips of her toes—she had not, until this moment, known a smile could fill every corner of her being, every nook and cranny. Her face was far too small to contain it.

“Thank you!” she exclaimed, just as a nearby clock began to chime the hour. “Thank you so much. Oh, Elizabeth, I am very glad your megrim did not keep you away. If you will pardon me—I believe it is time for the supper dance, and…I think I can find my own way, after all.”

Fitzwilliam was nearly frantic. He had been searching everywhere, and Sarah was nowhere to be found. No one had seen her, and since her costume was so very distinctive, he had the sinking feeling she had left the masque altogether. Had he scared her off? Been over-bold?

It was only that he had already wasted so much time!

Never had he met a woman so unique, so interesting, so courageous—it would take him a lifetime to learn her, a life that would never be dull.

Added to that, she had a softness, a womanliness he could lose himself in…

it was simply not in his nature to hesitate or waver once he had made up his mind.

And his mind and heart wanted Sarah Bentley.

A horrifying thought occurred to him. Had one of these masked ‘fools and idiots’ borne her away? If anyone had hurt her, he would find him and he would kill him, and no one would ever find the body. A home, an estate of his own—none of it would matter if Sarah were not there to share it with him.

Until the start of the supper dance, he held out hope that she was merely biding her time until its beginning.

Cursing himself for ever letting her from his sight in the first place, he had just decided he would interrogate Sarah’s maid, when his lost Medusa burst into the ballroom as if she had been running.

Unfortunately, it was the wrong side of the ballroom, with fifty couples impeding his path to her.

They could not stop him.

With single-eyed purpose, he stalked through patterns and upended pairings.

It was also possible that in the disruption he ‘accidentally’ tripped Reggie Withers, causing him to fall face-first onto Miss Barlowe, producing a costume malfunction of vastly embarrassing proportions.

He did not stay to watch it, only moved ever closer to his goal.

Sarah held still, simply waiting for him, beaming a sunny, funny, wickedly clever, and deeply innocent ray of light and goodness—all while wearing a dress designed to bring him to his knees. At long last, he reached her, taking both her hands in his.

“I cannot go down on bended knee, for I have not yet spoken to your father,” he said. “I would not insult you by failing to do the thing correctly. But I want everyone here to know that I am yours. May I shout it from the rafters?”

He followed Sarah’s gaze and glanced at the havoc behind him, where dancers were struggling to re-form their circles, Withers limped off the floor covering his eye, and Miss Barlowe, flanked by Aurelia and Miss Hilgrove, was being quickly escorted from the room .

“I think you already have,” Sarah replied.

“Shall we dance?” he asked. She nodded, and he gave the conductor—a good comrade whose pockets he had already lined—another signal, this one meaning, ‘Forget whatever dance was called, make it a waltz instead, and do it now’ .

The musicians, with hardly a missed beat, slipped into the slower tune.

Most of the dancers—barely regrouped from his previous disruption—were confused, and there was some stumbling, commotion, and a loudly voiced complaint from Miss Fisher.

But he thought he heard Saye’s laughter.

And then she was in his arms, still smiling, and he felt that smile reach into his scarred heart and make itself a home there.

Wherever she was, from this time forward, would always be home.