The Christmas Ball by Sherrill Bodine

Author:Sherrill Bodine
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: 0
Published: 2013-12-03T04:00:00+00:00

Athena stiffened at the soft knock on her door. She wasn’t quite ready yet to talk to Persephone. She hadn’t been able to sort through her feelings and tuck them away. Persephone’s bright, inquisitive mind would pick out the truth in the tales Athena had spent the morning concocting.

“Enter!” she called softly from the window seat, where she had spent most of the night sitting, staring up into a starry sky. She turned a wary eye to the threshold. “What is it, Sally?”

“Lady Persephone has requested you to join her in the front parlor. You have morning callers, and Lady Cummins and Lady Minerva have gone out.”

“Who are the callers?” she asked, already moving across the room, patting her braids into place.

“Mr. Gregory has brought that lord with him.”

A hot flush of fear made her stop suddenly and run damp palms over her gray morning gown. She stared dumbfounded at her maid. “Are you quite sure?”

“Aye.” Sally gazed at her as if she belonged in bedlam.

Of course there was no mistake. And even if somehow they had discovered the truth, she couldn’t leave Persephone alone to face them down. But truth to tell, catching sight of her plain reflection in the mirror, she knew there’d be no way for them to connect her to last night’s goddess. Her hair was pulled straight back, making her look older and colorless. He would never recognize her as the woman who had kissed him so passionately beneath the kissing bough.

For just a moment at the parlor doorway, Athena froze. He might not know her, but she remembered every detail of his chiseled face, his hard, muscular body, his beguiling voice. She could hardly take her eyes off him. Then he turned to look at the doorway and stared right through her. Certain all must see the longing in her eyes, she glanced down and entered the room, taking the place beside Persephone on the rose velvet settee.

“Athena, Gregory has just been telling me the most exciting tale of last night’s ball.”

Her eyes flew to her sister’s face. Persephone knew; her eyes gave her away.

“Go on, Gregory, tell us more,” Persephone urged, turning back to him.

“Dash it, Persephone, it will be the tale of the county for weeks. Before long you will be bored silly with hearing how this beautiful creature comes to the ball, but no one knows her. Drew here scandalizes the county by dancing every dance with the beauty. Then at midnight she vanishes, leaving us all at sixes and sevens.” His enthusiasm did not seem to be duplicated in Lord Finchley.

“Drew has me riding ventre à terre all over the county looking for her. And we have nothing to go on, except the fact that she revealed she lived nearby, and he found this.”

Her pulse pounded wildly as Lord Finchley pulled the missing rosette from his inner coat pocket. Persephone, beside her, started. Did she make the same interpretation? Was his lordship keeping the rosette close to his heart?

When had she turned into a romantic?

“This was part of her gown.

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