Too much time away from each other ought to do it, Allegra supposed. “We’ve grown apart” was trite and boring, but maybe it was time for Portia and Dorcas to learn that the trite and boring things were sometimes the truest of all.
If you lived your life right you wouldn’t always be the same person you were before. And if you were very lucky, the person you chose to spend the rest of your life with would grow in the same direction.
But if you were unlucky… Well, Captain L’Amour was not the only pirate in the sea. There were plenty of other fictitious fiancés to fish for. A plethora of rakes and lords and Corinthians and kings.
Allegra was done with tall tales, however. After tonight, she would proclaim herself too melancholy to speak or hear the good captain’s name. Much less be interested in pursuing new flirtations with some ordinary buck who could not compare to the love she had lost.
Portia and Dorcas would be empathetic and supportive, and Allegra could turn her attention to securing their matches, as had been the plan all along.
She leaned a blue-satin shoulder against one of the many fluted white pilasters. Allegra gazed at her cousins engaged in a lively reel upon the dance floor. A fond smile curved her lips. The Marriage Mart was for young ladies such as these. Love was for the young. Whirlwind courtships and secret affairs were especially for the—
He was here.
Allegra nearly slid off of the column and into the tray of a passing footman in surprise.
Tall, handsome, Not-Captain L’Amour…was here. Here-here-here. Strolling into the ballroom with ease and purpose, a buccaneer taking stock of the latest enemy ship he had conquered.
Dozens of seventeen- and eighteen- and nineteen-year-old misses floated around him like so much sea foam in their white gowns and pastels and lace.
He did not even glance in their direction.
His steely gaze sliced through the ballroom, slashing past the alcoves and the chandeliers and the refreshment tables to where Allegra stood on unsteady legs.
He did not smile, exactly. His expression was far more devastating than that. His eyes heated just so, the corners slightly crinkling with satisfaction—or perhaps in anticipation of a victorious plundering to come.
Or perhaps this, too, was Allegra’s imagination run wild. Surely he was still too far away for her to discern the precise edges of his stormy eyes, no matter what her wildly beating heart and drowning lungs might indicate.
Then again, he was drawing closer by the second. He had not just seen her immediately upon entering the dance hall, the Not-Captain had set forth at once in her direction, his long strides making short work of the large chamber despite the unevenness in his gait.
Had he lost a foot to an irascible shark or kraken? It was nonsense, and yet Allegra half-believed it.
He was so bloody dashing. His black hair tumbled across his forehead in a way that begged for her fingers’ touch. His chiseled jaw was smooth, as though freshly shaven, the jagged scar below his cheekbone on full display. His mouth—good God, she had to stop staring at his luscious mouth!—and his chest… and his shoulders…
Every toned, trim inch of him shown off to perfection beneath a molded-to-his-muscles coat of soft black superfine, a dazzling waistcoat of sparkling emerald, coal-black breeches and matching ebony boots so clean and shiny, one could discern the reflection of individual candles from the glass chandeliers overhead.
One of his hands curled about the handle of a smart ash cane. Sword sticks were prohibited in fine establishments such as this, but Allegra would not be the least surprised to later learn some hapless butler had taken a rapier to the gut for his insolence in daring to suggest his dashing guest forgo his favorite blade. Followed by the captain—er, the Not-Captain—sheathing his sword and sauntering past without the least regard for the destruction he left in his wake.
When he was within two steps of her, Not-Captain L’Amour paused and made a fabulous leg. Allegra’s lungs caught. Anyone could be watching him bow to her. Anyone could think…
Could she even think?
“You came,” she said breathlessly, then kicked herself for starting the evening by telling him the one thing he already knew for certain.
He lifted her fingers to his mouth and pressed a light kiss to the back of her glove. “I said I would, did I not?”
Was it possible for a hand to tremble right out of its glove? And then to snatch said glove away and toss it aside, so that she could replay the touch of his lips to her hand skin-to-skin this time?
“You had absolutely no idea what you were agreeing to,” she managed.
He smiled. No—her buccaneer Not-Smiled. She could definitely see the corners of his gray eyes crinkling with amusement.
“I was hoping you might help explain that.”
His voice was a low rumble she could feel through her shift. As though he were used to commanding attention without any increase in volume. She, at least, could not look away.
He arched a black eyebrow. “Well, then? What have I got myself into?”
“You haven’t really,” she babbled. “I mean, you have, but I’ve already thought of a way out of it. All we have to do is—”
The music changed to a country dance.
Dorcas and Portia ran up in a completely unladylike fashion, dragging their dance partners with them.
“This one is figures for six.” Portia bounced on her toes. “Come dance with us. Say you will!”
“Don’t just say it, do it,” Dorcas said. “The music has already started.”
Allegra looked at Not-Captain L’Amour helplessly. She had just claimed she could easily extricate him from the situation, and here it had already turned stickier—
He held out his arm. “Our dance, then, my lady.”
Portia frowned. “I thought you always called her your dewy petal-blossom.”
“Not in public,” he replied without missing a beat.
Portia’s cheeks flamed at the implication she had been indiscreet in mentioning a private name, but her eyes danced with delight. She managed to send Allegra an appreciative wink before her country-dance partner gently tugged her back toward the floor.
A dance floor.
Allegra was about to dance.
She had watched such scenes unfold a thousand times. Begged the girls’ dancing master to teach her all of the steps. Difficult, as Allegra was the accompanying pianist. But she had never before danced in a dance hall, on a dance floor, with an actual honest-to-God dance partner.
Not-Captain L’Amour leaned his cane against a nearby column before taking his spot in the figure. Allegra’s breath hitched. She had been so absorbed in the probability of her own impending mortification, it had not even occurred to her to wonder whether dancing was an activity the Not-Captain could or should do.
Or perhaps it was because reality and fiction had jumbled. He could shoot cannons and vanquish villains and swashbuckle his way through enemy territory. Of course he would not be bested by a country dance. He was the great and invincible Captain L’Amour!
Except this poor man was not any such thing.
Just like she was no sultry Polite Society vixen…no matter what his heated gaze might imply. He didn’t know that she was nothing more than the wallflower, poor relation, spinster cousin. He gazed at her as though she looked good enough to eat. As though he really might call her his dewy petal-blossom before impaling her with his turgid love-sword.