“All right, I see diplomacy is of no use. What I mean to say is that if you don’t decamp, sir, I cannot summon my maid.”
“In other words, I can profitably leverage my presence here.” He caressed her still-bare arm. “How about this? I will remain, duchess, unless you favor me again.”
She laughed and slipped away from his grasp. “Later. After the ball—maybe.”
A sense of déjà vu came over him. “My God, I’d dreamed of this.”
She waggled one brow. “Of being a squatter in my bed?”
“Of this whole tableau. You dressing, me ogling, a salacious invitation from me, and this exact reply from you. Later. After the ball—maybe.”
“When did you dream it?”
“The night before my Harvard lecture, which quite upset my apple cart.”
The lecture had been several months earlier. Unbeknownst to him, she’d been in the audience. And the things he’d said from the podium had led their lives to collide in a way he’d never expected.
“And sent you down a path that led directly into my evil clutches,” she teased.
“Which is not a terrible place to be at all—juicy, snug, h—”
She threw a small jar of something at him. He ducked hastily. “What have we come to? A man can’t pay his wife a compliment anymore?”
She winked. “Not when he is no longer in said evil clutches. Now off with you. I must bathe and dress.”
He hopped off her bed and pulled on his trousers. “You’ll pay for that summary dismissal after the ball, mein Liebling.”
“Maybe,” she said saucily.
He ran his hand through her unbound hair—which fell to the small of her back, as he’d dreamed. “We were meant to be, weren’t we?”
She pressed a kiss upon the palm of his hand. “Yes, darling, we were.”
The giving of a ball was an art rarely mastered by the average London hostess. She invited too many guests to fit into a space that was hardly bigger than a drawing room. She covered the windows and alcoves so that her three hundred sweltering guests asphyxiated inside an airless prison. Then, to add insult to injury, she stinted on the musicians and the refreshments.
Fitz’s wife did not make such mistakes. Her guest list was always capped at precisely one hundred and seventy-five. Her ballroom remained properly ventilated from beginning to end. And she never pinched pennies at the expense of her guests’ comfort or enjoyment.
Tonight the Fitzhugh ballroom bloomed with monuments of roses and lilies. Between the flower arrangements stood ice sculptures in the shape of Corinthian columns, faintly iridescent under the light of the electric chandeliers—electric light gave off less heat than flames and the ice sculptures would keep the ballroom cool when it brimmed with vigorously dancing guests.
Lemonade and chilled punch had been laid out. Tiered platters bore small iced cakes, piped with buttercream roses and lilies to match the flowers. And unique to the Fitzhugh balls, pyramids of Cresswell & Graves chocolate bars, cut to precisely bite size, in the brand’s most popular as well as newest flavors.
Millie stood before the punch bowl, in a plum-colored ball gown, lavishly studded with crystal drops. The amethyst-and-diamond pins he’d bought her twinkled in her hair. Her bare shoulders gleamed.
Tonight. After all these years.
But it must not change anything. His future lay with Isabelle. This was only his duty, to the title and to Millie.
She turned around at the sound of his approach.
“Everything is ready,” he said.
She smiled but did not meet his eyes. “Yes, I believe so. But it is always nerve-racking, giving a ball.”
“You’ll do just fine. What time is carriages?”
On the cards she sent out for her balls, she always specified the hour at which carriages would be ordered for the guests—when she didn’t, their guests, having such a good time, stayed till dawn, something she did not entirely approve.
And before a ball started, he always inquired after the time for carriages, so he had an idea how long he needed to man the fort. But tonight, after the carriages left…
He ought to be thinking of Isabelle’s ardent declaration of love. Of the past, the future, anything but the present. But tonight, after the carriages left, there would be Millie, her scent like a breeze from their lavender field at the height of summer, her skin as smooth as the finest velvet.
Their eyes met. She flushed. Desire tumbled through him.
“That’s—that’s the first carriage arriving.” She picked up her skirts, already walking away. “I’d best take up my position at the head of the stairs.”
He watched her—and tried to think of Isabelle.