'You're a lifesaver,' Seana shouted as she flung on her coat and raced out. 'See you at the ball; and don't you dare forget your crown!'
They were halfway to the place where the ball was being held when Seana realised just how conveniently handy that shawl had been; obviously just waiting for the right moment to be added to the costume.
'You dear, sweet thing,' she murmured to herself. 'You knew all along.' And Ralph, feeling more than just a bit silly in his Roman centurion's rig, heard only the first bit and felt slightly less uncomfortable about it all.
When they arrived at the hotel where the ball was being held, Seana felt much less conspicuous about her costume. There were several young women—and a few old enough to know better—in costumes at least as revealing as hers, at least in its altered version.
On the dance floor, Seana felt almost tiny against Ralph's comforting bulk, and she peered excitedly around the hall as they danced. Mrs Jorgensen and Frank Hutton arrived about half an hour later, and there were a few other people Seana knew. But nowhere in the growing crowd was there the slightest hint of carrot-red beard or eyes like green glass. It appeared her preparations were in vain after all.
By eleven o'clock Seana was exhausted from dancing so much, and was glad of the respite when the band took a break.
She joined Mrs Jorgensen and some of the other ladies, many of whom were lightly teasing her friend about the obvious change in temperament revealed by her date.
'Do I detect a romance in the offing?' Seana laughed, joining in the friendly teasing. 'I'm absolutely certain I saw Frank smile at least once tonight.'
'Don't start leaping before you look,' Mrs Jorgensen retorted. 'You know what jumping to conclusions can lead to. And I see your own bit of scheming Has gone awry, unless of course you've changed your mind and decided that Ralph's a safer bet than Ryan.'
Half an hour and several glasses of rather potent punch later, she wasn't so sure. The dancing was becoming livelier as the witching hour approached, and Ralph's appreciation of her costume was becoming uncomfortably evident. Then, during the short lull between numbers, a redheaded girl in a green harem outfit made her entrance, and Seana stopped worrying about her own costume's boldness.
The newcomer would have been six foot tall in her flat-heeled slippers, and she was proportionately large… everywhere. Seana felt Ralph, beside her, stiffen to attention as he noticed the redhead, and there was a tangible current of awareness that seemed to flow like magic through the masculine element of the crowd. A moment later there was another flow of emotion, this time from the females in the room, and it was pure and simple green-eyed envy.
Ralph recovered, she thought, flatteringly quickly, but she brushed aside his quiet apology. 'Don't apologise,' she replied. 'I can't say I blame you a bit. That's one of the most striking women I've ever seen.'
And truly the junoesque redhead seemed the answer to the masculine dream; she was beautiful, poised, classically lovely. But there was so much of her it was almost overwhelming.
Ralph whispered into Seana's ear as he summed up the male viewpoint, and she almost laughed out loud at the correctness of his analogy. 'She's like a prize-winning piece of livestock,' Ralph whispered. 'The kind of thing you trot out to exhibit to visitors. I can just imagine sitting in front of a great stone fireplace in my dream mansion. I'd whistle and my dog would come and sit by my side, then I'd whistle again and she would come out and sit at the other side. Pure status symbol.'
'That's ridiculous,' Seana snorted, but she knew as she protested that he had pinpointed the situation exactly.
Ralph turned her away on to the dance floor again as the musicians got their breath and once again began to play, and when they had circled back to where the redhead was, Seana missed a step and had to clutch at Ralph's shoulder to keep from falling.
The magnificent exhibit, the status symbol, was no longer alone. And the man with her, unmistakable despite his costume, was Ryan Stranger!
But this Ryan Stranger was no one Seana knew. Piece by piece, his costume was merely that, but altogether it somehow seemed real, terrifyingly real. He was transformed, and the new Ryan was the complete pirate, even to the patch which covered one eye. The remaining eye glared hotly around the room with a haughty, arrogant, almost belligerent assurance.
One hand rested on the sword at his belt; the other clutched a length of gold chain that linked him to the neck of the junoesque harem girl, claiming her, announcing to the entire crowd that she was his captive. His!
Seana felt sick inside. All her scheming now seemed only a childish dream, as futile as the dream she had been consciously cherishing that Ryan might actually care for her. His commanding presence now denied the assurances Mrs Jorgensen had given her, and Seana felt cheap at having gone to such extremes to attract Ryan's attention.
How could I compete with that? she wondered. It's like comparing a pick-up truck to a limousine, and I'd be an even worse fool to try.
Then she realised that the pirate chieftain's single eye had become fixed on her. And worse, he was forging a path through the dancers, the harem girl captive trailing behind him on her golden chain.
Seana shuddered, every instinct warning her to flee. But it was too late already. And Ryan knew it, too. Knew it, and was pleased.
Seana could only nod as Ryan introduced the tall redhead, wishing she could smile but suddenly not daring to because of her blacked-out teeth. Veronica Landsdowne, suffering no such difficulty, revealed glistening, even teeth. Close up, she was even more beautiful than at a distance, with rich brown eyes and a complexion like cream. The skimpiness of her costume revealed a truly superb figure, and she carried herself like a born courtesan despite the chain of ownership around her neck.
'Well, I see you did turn into a witch,' Ryan observed, his bold eye raking Seana from her pointed shoes to the little pointed cap on her head. She felt about ten years old beneath his gaze, so insecure did his companion make her feel, and all her defensiveness roused at his words.
'Would you have preferred a pumpkin?' she asked, knowing she sounded ridiculous talking with her mouth shut. But she was damned if she'd open it now, not with all that goop on her teeth.
He laughed, and the mockery was there, as usual, ringing its jeering assault upon her ears. 'A pumpkin would be just a little too much out of character, lady-bug,' he chuckled, then handed the golden chain to Ralph in an invitation the wildlife officer was quick to accept. And before Seana could think to object, Ryan's arm was fast about her own waist, pulling her against him as he sifted them into the madly whirling dancers.
His lips were butterflies against her ear as he held her closely and spun smoothly into the throng, and Seana didn't even have to think to follow his skilled steps. She had enough trouble just catching her breath, especially after he began to whisper to her.
'I should have known you wouldn't wait for me tonight,' his voice rasped. 'You're a woman of little faith, ladybug.'
'And you're a conceited, arrogant so-and-so if you expected me to wait on the basis of a three-week-old maybe,' she gasped in reply. 'Not that you really expected me to, seeing you obviously made sure you were well taken care of.'
His laugh was hollow, mocking. 'Jealous? I'll have to be careful or you'll turn me into a frog or something.'
'A skunk would be more appropriate,' Seana retorted. 'And you're holding me much too tightly. Your slave girl might appreciate such treatment, but I don't, thank you.'
'Ahah! You are jealous,' he replied, making absolutely no concession to her demand to be held less tightly.
'I am not!' she lied.
'Don't be ashamed of it; I might be too, if I was you,' he chuckled. 'Who knows? Maybe I'm jealous of Ralph—you never stopped to think of that, did you?'
'Certainly not. I've never heard anything so ridiculous,' she whispered. 'And stop that!' as his lips nuzzled her ear in what could only be a form of caress.
'Stop… what?' he murmured. And his lips shifted down to tr
ace feathers of delight along the length of her neck. His left hand held firmly as she tried to pull her hand free, and his right was a living flame along the smoothness of her back as it crept beneath the shawl.
Seana felt as if she would melt, held upright only by her growing anger. How dared he so deliberately set out to arouse her, caress her so… so intimately? Intimately… and worse, she realised; the intimacy was nothing when compared to the success he was enjoying. Her entire body seemed to throb at his touch, to become totally sensitive to his chest against her heaving breasts, his thigh as he pressed against her in the turns.
The music stopped not a moment too soon, and with her last vestige of willpower she thrust herself away from him. She didn't trust herself any more to speak, or even to look at him.
The sound was barely audible, but the feeling at her midriff halted her in mid-step, and she looked down to see the strands of her shawl intricately enmeshed in the design of Ryan's sword-belt. She looked up then to find him grinning down at her, aware of her predicament and enjoying it immensely.
'You'd better hope the next dance is a slow one,' he said. 'Otherwise you're going to have problems.'
'I already have problems,' she hissed. 'Will you please do something?'
'Of course,' he replied, and pulled her into his arms again as the music began once more. This time he left her enough room so that she could try and untangle herself, but his very nearness seemed to make her fingers like lumps of lead, totally incapable of unsnarling the threads. There were tears of sheer frustration in her eyes when he finally moved her fingers away and shifted his own hands in between their slowly moving bodies.
Seana was forced to dance then with both arms upheld around his neck, her eyes level with his brow as he moved with head bent, his fingers at work unravelling the shawl.
'Wouldn't it be easier to do this standing still?' she hissed, feeling that everyone was staring at them. Certainly she was aware of his fingers as they touched her bare skin at the bottom of the gown's deep neckline, and it seemed to her as though everyone else should notice as well.
'Easier,' he agreed, 'but not nearly so much fun.' And his fingers slid inside the neckline, running like flames across her lower ribs, then up to tease the nipple of one breast.
Seana gasped, first with shock at his boldness, then with a moan of desire as her body responded. His caress couldn't have lasted two seconds, but it established beyond beyond question his control both of her and of the situation.
'You're not the only one who can play bewitching games tonight, ladybug,' he hissed, then lifted his head to rivet her with that single blazing eye as he moved his lips down to cover her mouth in a kiss both brief and arousing. His lips seemed to reach for her very soul, branding her, making her every bit as much his captive as the slave girl in the harem costume.
'You're free, by the way,' he whispered as he teasingly released her mouth.
Seana pulled abruptly away, but her gasp of relief became one of shock as he lifted his hands so that she slipped straight out from beneath the shawl. Then his arm was round her again, pulling her close as he did a quick shift in step that brought them next to Mrs Jorgensen and her partner.
'Yours, I believe,' he grinned, and draped the shawl across its rightful owner's shoulder before spinning Seana away even as her fingers reached for it.
She could feel the cool air on the deep cleavage he had exposed, but only for an instant. Then there was only the burning warmth of his chest against hers, the fusing of their bodies, the touch of his hands at her waist, his fingers softly stroking desire up and down her spine.
It was a slow, deliberate arousal of her entire body, and although her mind recognised that, her body paid no heed to it… only to Ryan and his touch. But Seana could move her lips, and when she'd pleaded with him long enough, he released her.
She spun out of his arms and fled like a startled doe, weaving through the crowd of dancers in a panicky dash for the powder room, where she halted just inside the door and stood panting, afraid she would be ill.
'You'd better let me help you,' said a voice from behind her as the door swung open to admit Ryan's harem girl, a worried look on her face. She led Seana to where she could sit down, then dabbled a paper towel in some water and bent down to sponge Seana's brow.
'I'll… I'll be all right,' Seana gasped, her breast still heaving as if she had run a mile.
'You won't be if you don't learn to handle Ryan Stranger better than that,' was the unexpected reply. 'Does he always affect you like this, or is tonight something special?'
'I… usually he just makes me angry,' Seana confessed, then wondered what in the world she was doing confiding in this woman, of all people.
The redhead raised an eyebrow and shook her head sadly. 'I'd say you're lucky he didn't take you over his knee, but then he's probably still in a state of shock. It's probably the first time in his life that a woman has ever stood him up.'
Seana gaped at her, unable to comprehend, much less believe what she had just heard.
'I don't understand,' she said. 'Who stood him up?'
'Well, I presume it was you,' came the astonishing reply. 'Unless he's got some other girl-friend named Seana. You're a braver girl than I am, let me tell you. When we stopped to collect you and he found you'd gone… well, I wouldn't have wanted to be in your shoes at that moment, and that's a fact.'
'But… but I didn't stand him up,' Seana protested, still not quite understanding what had been told to her. 'Unless…' and her anger flared like a torch at the thought '… unless he expected me to be waiting at the door on the basis of his suggestion that he'd see me tonight… maybe! And if that's what he thought, then it's just too damned bad!'
She was on her feet, all ready to rush back out and have it out with Ryan then and there, but the redhead's hand on her arm restrained her.
'Look, I don't know about his suggestions,' Veronica cautioned, 'but before you go off half-cocked you'd better know that I do know he sent you a message last week to make the date for tonight. I know he did, because my husband and I were both standing right there when he did it.'
Husband! It was a toss-up which was the greater surprise, the fact that Veronica was not, as Seana had reckoned,- Ryan's date for the evening, or the proof that he had sent her a message—one she'd never received.
'True,' said Veronica. 'He was afraid we wouldn't get out until the last minute, so he asked a trucker he knew to phone you and let you know.'
Seana sank back into the seat, her knees suddenly unable to support her. 'But… but I never got any phone call,' she said. 'I wouldn't have… oh, what difference does it make now? He wouldn't believe me anyway.'
'Well, he sure won't if you don't even tell him,' said Veronica. 'And what's it going to hurt? He's cooled down a lot or he wouldn't even have danced with you, I'd imagine, much less send me in here to make sure you were okay.'
'Ryan sent you?' Seana was surprised and it must have showed on her face.
'That's right. I think he was going to send your friend Mrs… oh, the lady with the white hair. But she was being wooed rather vigorously, to use Ryan's words, so he sent me instead. And now that I've done my good deed for the day, I think I'll go see if I can find my husband. You're sure you can cope?'
'Oh… yes, I'm fine… now,' Seana smiled, then laughed as Veronica shrank back at the sight of her blackened teeth. 'Awful, aren't they?' she giggled. 'They were supposed to be a surprise for Ryan, but I think I'll clean them before I go out in case he's not in the mood for any more surprises.'
She did so quickly, then almost pranced back into the ballroom, she felt so much better. Ralph was seated with Mrs Jorgensen and Frank Hutton, but there wasn't a sign of Ryan, and Ralph's reply to Seana's query was like a slap in the face.
'He's gone. And I don't blame him a bit. That was a dirty trick and I'm not pleased at being involved in it,' he said.
CHAPTER NINE
'Gone? But he can't be! I have to explain,' Seana said
blankly, her soul going cold at the very thought of Ryan leaving without her even having a chance to tell him what had happened.
She started towards the door, only to be halted by Ralph's hand at her elbow. 'You won't catch him now,' he said. 'The way he went out of here, he'll be halfway back to the Kakwa by now. Why don't you try explaining to me instead? I think I deserve it almost as much.'
Seana, for the first time, looked at Ralph, seeing the anger hidden beneath the surface as he struggled to hang on to his temper. A glance at Mrs Jorgensen brought the surprising revelation that she, too, thought that Seana had deliberately used Ralph in an attempt to get at Ryan.
'I… I know what you must be thinking,' she said numbly, allowing Ralph to lead her into a chair. 'But I didn't get any message from Ryan. I didn't know a thing about it until Veronica mentioned it to me just a few minutes ago. And that's the truth!' she added, her heart stricken by the looks of censure she had been getting. 'Veronica said he sent a message with a trucker, but I never got it. I didn't!'
'It's true, unless- she's a better actress than I think she is,' said a voice from behind them, and Veronica slid into a vacant chair before introducing her husband, an American businessman who had hunted with Ryan for several seasons and was a close friend.
'But he did send the message,' said the man. 'Both of us were right there when he did it.' He went on to describe the trucker to whom Ryan had entrusted the suddenly-significant message, whereupon Ralph burst out with an oath that fairly shook the room.
'Hell!' he cried. 'I know now why you didn't get it. I arrested that joker halfway to town after I caught him poaching. He was in court that same afternoon and after the fine he had thrown at him, I'm not surprised he didn't remember anything about Ryan's message.'
Vindicated, but no happier because of it, Seana could only sit in numbed sorrow as everyone commiserated. It was all very nice, but it accomplished nothing to solve the problem. Ryan was gone, probably for the remainder of the hunting season, since Veronica's husband said he was fully booked out.
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