“Perhaps through the French doors just over there.”
His big round face lit up. “By Jupiter, a capital idea! But . . . do you think we ought to? Never know what’s right and what’s not! My mother’s always after me but damn if I can remember her infernal rules! And there I just said ‘damn’! Damn it all!”
Suppressing a strong impulse to laugh—a loud and wicked laugh—Livia rose to her feet and slid her hand around his arm with the same confidence she’d seen Cecily display toward Mr. Penhallow. Tugging slightly, she propelled him forward, and once he saw that the French doors were ajar, he took to the idea with alacrity and nearly pulled her off her feet as he hurried toward them.
Together they fled into the welcome coolness of the night.
From halfway across the ballroom, Gabriel watched them go. What the hell was that foolish girl thinking, to let Tom Orr whisk her away? Didn’t she realize how scandalously she was behaving? Not only that, Tom was an oaf and twice her size. He could easily overpower her. And it was obvious to anyone with eyes that he’d been struck by her alluring appearance. The girl—that irritating ninny!—had willingly put herself into a dangerous situation.
He thought about Lady Washbourne’s poor innocent brainless daughter. And this girl, Miss Orr had said, was an orphan. Who was looking out for her?
The remaining minutes of the quadrille passed with tortuous slowness. When finally it was over, he politely thanked his partner, whose name he had already forgotten; intent on rescuing the girl in white from Tom’s clammy embrace (and then shaking her so hard her head rattled), he utilized his superior height and breadth of shoulder to cleave his way through the masses of people milling about.
As it turned out, his exit through the French doors was not unobserved. If he’d been a little less focused, he might even have realized it.
Chapter 3
Livia stifled a yawn. It hadn’t taken much encouragement for Tom Orr to embark on his favorite subject: snuff. He was going on and on about Petersham’s Blend, the Prince’s Mixture, and Brummel’s Sort. He might as well have been speaking a foreign language.
Still, it was nice to be out of that hot, crowded ballroom, where there was nobody gawking at her in that awful way, and here in the midst of a beautiful garden. They had found an inviting stone seat along a wide gravel pathway flanked by shrubs that looked as if they’d been shaped by a mathematician’s hand, such were their precise edges. Too, it was pleasant to imagine Lady Glanville’s horror when she realized that her precious son was gone, and in danger of being contaminated by the presence of poor little Livia.
“—and as for Vigo Prize Snuff, why, that’s the dandy! ’Twas the first real snuff I ever tried, and I sneezed so hard my waistcoat could never be made clean again.”
“Dear me,” Livia murmured. “Do go on.”
“Well, there was nothing for it but to practice, you know, and to keep a good supply of handkerchiefs at the ready. Must have gone through hundreds till I got it right. You’ve got to hold your wrist just so, and inhale so you don’t sneeze. I say—” Tom Orr suddenly broke off and grabbed earnestly at her hand. “You do listen so well to a chap. Whyever haven’t we met before?”
“Oh, Mr. Orr, I—” Livia began, when suddenly a firm step was heard on the gravel path and Mr. Penhallow himself appeared, looking so tall and scowling so darkly that he had all the appearance of an avenging angel. And she had to admit—now that she had the opportunity to look at him more closely—that he was quite dashing in his dark long-tailed jacket and satin knee breeches. But what on earth was he doing here? Had he somehow misplaced Cecily, Miss Perfect?
Tom Orr snatched away his hand, and even in the dimness of the shrubbery Livia could see that he was flushing a bright, embarrassed red. “Oh! Sir! How—how d’you do?” he stammered, quickly getting to his feet. “I was just—just explaining to Miss Stuart here all about . . . about . . .”
“Snuff,” Livia put in helpfully.
Mr. Penhallow looked like he could cheerfully strangle both of them, one with each hand. “Snuff.”
“Yes, snuff, sir, I’m awfully fond of it, and as I was explaining to Miss Stuart, it takes a—a good deal of practice. So I . . . you see, I . . .” Visibly wilting under the withering gaze of the older man, Tom Orr trailed off and looked miserably at Livia. “Well . . . goodbye,” he muttered, and keeping his gaze fixed on the ground, scuttled in a very cowardly way past Mr. Penhallow back toward the ballroom.
“You little fool!” he snapped at her.