Until You by Gina Conkle

Author:Gina Conkle [Conkle, Gina]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 9

Above stairs, the Whitwell’s home had been transformed to nothing less than perfection…gauze imbued with stars, delicate papier mâché butterflies, large pan flutes fashioned as trays. The décor was lovely and the guests mildly sotted. The music room hosted card games, a tamer pursuit, though a buxom Titania leaned suggestively against a man trying so very hard to focus on a game of whist.

She left that room to wander into another filled with grand paintings, marble busts, and a row of windows overlooking the terrace. An older couple, their masks loose, admired art on the wall. Footmen moved unobtrusively, gathering empty glasses, as footmen did.

Candles burned too bright for naughty assignations, and there were two sets of doors.

“No chance of getting locked in the dark in here,” she said, admiring a marble bust of Marcus Aurelius.

“What’s that, miss?” A smooth Scots brogue.

Her head whipped toward the sound.

“Mr. Ramsay?” Her voice was a squeak.

He towered above Marcus Aurelius, dark-eyed and shocked, a snow-white periwig on his head—and no mask.

Her breath was jagged and spare for there was no mistaking the remarkable shoulders looming over the famed emperor’s head. A steadying hand on the pedestal, she inched around for a full view of Mr. Ramsay.

Spine erect and white-gloved hands clasped low at his waist, he was somberness in the flesh, though his mouth was hard and handsome.

At least he displayed fine manners. She’d apparently lost hers.

“Your coat and breeches…they’re—they’re burgundy and gold…or mulberry and gold, the shade of which depends on the beholder and of course, how much light is in a room, and is, I believe, the…Whitwell livery,” she uttered Whitwell livery in the faintest voice.

No sooner had she finished that feather-brained gush of words when her mother’s warning about the Earl of Esterly wearing Whitwell livery sprang to mind. Was Mr. Ramsay wearing a costume? Was he a peer of the realm?

She shook her head to jiggle cobwebs of confusion.

“Are you in costume?”

“No, miss.” His voice dripped coldly with pride.

“You are a footman…footman.”

“Saying it once is enough, miss.”

She winced at his caustic tone and looked out the window. “You must think me soft in the head. It’s just…you took me by surprise. That’s all.”

Gorgeously gowned and costumed people milled in torchlit garden paths. From this elevation, their world appeared perfect. No messy emotions, no thwarted desires. Neat and colorful they were, each one free to come and go as they pleased.

“Well, this explains why you can only meet on Thursday afternoons,” she said.

“My half day.”

“It all makes sense, I suppose.”

“Are ye bothered by my…position?”

That hesitation of his spoke volumes. The first crack in armored pride. A What bothers you more? That I’m a bastard? Or a footman? message was in it. His dignity was in the balance, as real as the pedestal she gripped. She was drawn to the tall, dark Scot. Could she ever not be? His medieval stature, his strength, his certainty. Mr. Ramsay was an enigma plainly wrapped and utterly concealed—and she wanted more of him…his contradictions, his mysteries, his tainted past.

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