Rather than respond, she shuttered her eyelids. Hiding from him?
“Isabella?”
“You asked how it happened,” she said instead of answering his most recent question. “I was not yet Harriet’s age…”
“A mere babe, then,” he said, subduing the gut-clenching sorrow he experienced at imagining this spirited woman suffering at any age. He manufactured a laugh for her benefit. “Ah yes, Harriet. I met the vivacious sprite soon after Ed became enamored of his lady wife. Harriet again entertained me at their wedding. Which you didn’t attend. I would’ve remembered.”
“That’s…flattering of you to note. I think.”
“It is,” he confirmed then sought to soften it when he realized how pompous he sounded. “I mean, you may think it so.”
“Glad am I to have your permission on the direction my thoughts take.” Why was it her simple sentence only compounded his unintended pretentious air?
“I meant it as such. Flattering, I mean.” How the deuce did she end up making him stumble around? “Are you always this evasive? You’ve yet to really tell me—”
“Oh!” Her head snapped to the side, her entire body tensing. “Do you hear that?”
Only silence presented itself. “Hear what?”
“They’re rehearsing!” She gripped the fabric of his jacket just beneath his shoulder, at once impassioned. “No one is returned yet, are they?”
Flummoxed at the wild change of topic, Frost’s brows drew together as he puzzled her meaning…then finally…a distant howl resolved itself into the high-pitched screech of a horsehair bow scraping across catgut. “The musicians, you mean? And to answer your question, the rest of our party is still chasing after whatever items are on those blighted lists Lady Redford distributed.” He patted his pocket and heard the crumple. “Appears I still have ours. Good tinder for the fire if you ask—”
“May we continue our discourse later, do you think? I’d like to…to…lie down and rest for a bit, I believe.”
Lie down, his arse. She was lying right now, that much he knew, but to what end? “Certainly,” he agreed with false equanimity, having no desire to relinquish her company. But he was good at reading the opposition and predicting their next move. The two of them might not be in a true battle but if it was a battle of wills—or wits—she wanted, he’d give it to her. “Let me escort you to your room.”
“Oh, there’s no need for that,” she exclaimed brightly for one so suddenly exhausted, standing and smoothing her gown over her hips.
He’d wager his team of matched grays she had no inkling how very alluring the gesture, how very lured he was to ferret out her secrets. For some strange reason he wanted to be her confidant and much, much more.
Damn blasted Christmas spirit! It was blighting his soul with hope unlike any he’d known for years.
With a slight curtsy, she quit the room, leaving him slack-jawed at the poise and confidence with which she did so, gaining her bearings and stepping precisely from the settee. When her outstretched fingertips met the doorframe, she made a slight adjustment and sailed on through.
He was astonished. And impressed. “Deuced amazing.”
Not only how well she got on but that he’d finally met a female he wanted to know more about, and for the second time in as many days, she’d abandoned him mid-conversation—and this one couldn’t even see him frown!
Not that Frost felt as though he’d been frowning earlier. He was now, that was a certainty.
On silent feet he quickly followed, watching her trail one hand along the wall as she navigated the stairway and corridors of Redford Manor until coming upon the ballroom.
As graceful as an ethereal spirit, she slipped past the heavy double doors and disappeared inside without once making a sound—Frost knew because he was doing his damnedest to remain equally as quiet.
A second later he slipped inside after her.
With the drapes pulled shut and hanging candelabras and mounted wall sconces unlit, the cavernous room was dim. The only shaft of light came from the windows in the musicians’ gallery overhead, the dedicated alcove concealed from direct view by a long curtain.
He waited by the door while his eyes adjusted. The moment they did, his heart caught. Frost knew he was being granted a vision few mortals ever had the fortune to behold—that of an angel in human form gliding across an empty floor…uninhibited, unencumbered by either her own—or society’s—rigid standards.
Pure magic. Isabella’s movements were pure magic. Keeping to the center of the room, which wasn’t difficult given its enormous size, she swayed and stretched, skipped and soared, her body turning and twisting in ways he’d never dare conceive, much less imagine being a witness to, especially under what seemed clandestine circumstances.