Frowning his disapproval of her interest in men's concerns, Orville sought to nudge the conversation down a more useful path. "Ah, yes, Garnet." His intentional pause demanded her full attention and enabled him to watch her closely as he asked, "Will he or your father be joining us here later this afternoon?"
Amy's head dipped in a brief nod. "Father will come if Parliament adjourns in time." Annoyed by Orville's attempt to control her slightest actions, she glanced purposefully away and gave unnecessary attention to a heavily flowered rhododendron. "But I believe Garnet has other commitments to keep."
"His tests?" Orville softly probed, brows arched. Having endured one confrontation earlier today, he hoped to avoid another or at least to be forewarned and prepared.
Amy responded with another noncommittal smile, a little surprised by the question as her brother's work was not commonly known.
"Sir Orville," Lady Delwyn called. "An unexpected gift has been bestowed on our gathering. Do bring Miss Danton to see the fine portrait Lord Comlan has done of Lady Isobel." Exercising her talents as hostess, she presided carefully over the ebb and flow of mingling guests.
As a polite guest Orville could hardly ignore this summons although if he could, he would've refused or at least avoided escorting Amy to where Lady Delwyn stood beside the Irish newcomer.
Too aware of Comlan already, Amy kept eyes downcast while being led toward the fascinating man seated at one of several small tables. Once there, she focused on the sketch pad beneath his hands. On the top sheet there was a perfect likeness of Isobel. Yet it was more than the artist's undoubted skill which held Amy's full attention. She'd seen similar sure and steady pencil strokes before—in the mysterious drawing of her Irish dream castle. Was this further proof that her fantasy hero and the Lord of Doncaully were one? This confirmation sharpened Amy's determination to win private words with the man.
"Sir Orville…" A still hovering hostess again intruded, intent on ensuring a true mixing of guests by rearranging their combinations. "May I impose on you to take Lady Isobel to view the arched gateway to the west gardens?"
Orville saw that Lady Delwyn, believing her request anything but an unpleasant duty, clearly expected his compliance. Nonetheless, he obeyed and offered his arm with an ill grace almost as poorly concealed as the distaste with which Lady Isobel accepted.
Vision blurred by a rosy mist of satisfaction with the success of her party, their hostess happily assured them, "It makes a lovely sight now that I've had my gardeners train flowering vines to cover the structure."
Amy saw the irritation tightening Lady Cornelia's lips. Though sympathizing with her mother's frustration over this unwelcome twist given to her plans by their hostess, Amy couldn't stifle a smile. Both ladies hosted the same social aspirations and each year vied for the chance of stepping up to a higher rung on the upper class ladder. And Amy had long suspected that Lady Delwyn took pleasure in frustrating her mother's intentions. Her next, more telling request surely proved it true.
"And, Lord Comlan, I hope that you'll allow Miss Danton to show you my little maze." Smiling benignly, Lady Delwyn waved toward the maze's towering hedges. "It's small but despite the limited size, quite challenging."
White smile flashing, Comlan gladly rose and offered his arm to the damsel whose charcoal eyes danced with sparks of secret laughter. He welcomed the suggestion providing him with an opportunity to move closer to the goal summoning him to this mortal world—a goal proven more difficult than expected what with so many events taking place simultaneously.
While a glowering Orville stalked away with an equally displeased Isobel, Amy lightly tucked her fingers into the crook of Comlan's arm. Even more pleasing, in Amy's view, was Lady Delwyn's action in drawing both her mother and sister-in-law's attention to a completely different matter. She couldn't have concocted a more perfect arrangement if the details had been hers to choose. The pleasure in this unexpected boon made suppressing a decidedly impish grin impossible.
Seeing the young woman's often solemn expression wiped away by a beguilingly bright smile, Comlan gladly allowed her to guide him toward an opening in the wall of greenery. With the confidence of familiarity, she led him down corridors and around corners until even his exceptional senses could no longer identify with any certainty from which direction they'd started.
Muffled by a succession of evergreen barriers, the sounds of the party became soft and indistinct, increasing the sense of intimacy and flooding Amy with renewed awareness of her companion. She glanced sidelong. Comlan's mocking smile reappeared. Its devastating power caught her breath and drove away any thought of quizzing him about the rescue of a foolish boy. To ward off the danger of making a complete fool of herself by shamelessly throwing herself at this incredibly handsome man, she moved to walk in front of him and lead the way into a narrower corridor.
"Tell me, Miss Danton," Comlan spoke after several minutes of obediently following the dark colleen through an apparently random course. "Is there a goal to our journey or are we meant to simply find enjoyment in the privacy of our meanderings?"
Amy fervently rued her inability to prevent the spreading color warming her cheeks. She'd erred with the very large, very basic mistake of making decisions without prudent consideration. Consequently, the course of action she'd laid out was fraught with pitfalls she ought to have seen before this moment when she hovered unprepared on the precipice.
And only now, after rashly acting with all the impulsiveness of Lovey, did Amy pause to recognize the awful difficulty of launching into the issues she'd intended to raise. Nothing this man had yet done even suggested that they might have met before their introduction at the Melton ball. So, how could she bluntly ask the Season's most sought-after bachelor if he was in reality some kind of fantasy figure? At best, Comlan was apt to think her childish; at worst, a simpleton who actually believed in fairy tales.
"Is there a specific destination for our walk?" Comlan patiently asked again.
"Oh, yes." Amy rushed to fill the awkward silence, heartily resenting an unavoidably deepening blush. Upset with herself for permitting thoughts to wander and quiet to fall, she was even more annoyed for letting it seem they were wandering through green corridors without regard to journey's end. "If we follow the right path, we'll reach a lovely fountain surrounded by stone benches."
"And do you know this right path?" Comlan wanted the conversation to continue, giving him the chance to broach matters he feared she'd still refuse to seriously consider, even less accept as fact.
Amy immediately nodded, intent on their route and anxious to prevent further uncomfortable pauses. "Lady Delwyn's oldest daughter was a friend and as children we played in this living puzzle."
Amy directed their way through twists and turns, reassured that her choices were right by the ever-increasing fragrance of Lady Delwyn's prize, imported magnolias. Bushes of fragile white flowers—grown in large pots and tended in the conservatory—were always brought out for parties and lined up along the maze's center square. Turning a last corner Amy paused before an elegant fountain. It was made of marble and shaped like a dolphin riding the crest of a wave while two forever laughing children perched on its back.
"Tibby and I used to pretend that we were the ones boldly riding through the sea on a foam-crested wave." The remembered joys of childhood sang in Amy's voice but a darker note of melancholy also ran through it.
"Tibby?"- Bronze brows arched questioningly above a green gaze. "Is she the Delwyn's daughter?"
Amy somberly nodded without glancing his way. "We came out together three years ago, and she married at the end of that Season."
By his secret nature Comlan was able to sense even the slightest emotional nuances. But the dark damsel's regret was so clear his talent was unnecessary, leaving him to wonder only about the cause of her distress. Surely not jealousy for Tibby's success in so quickly winning a husband? No…
"Did Tibby's marriage cost you a friend?" Comlan gently inquired. "Is that why you're sad?"
Amy gave her head a slight shake and, despite the bonnet brim's shadow, Comlan saw her lips curl in a prompt but forlorn smile. It earned a self-derisive smile from him. How could he pride himself on mastery of the Tuatha De's extraordinary perceptiveness while failing to immediately recognize the difference between resentment and lingering grief.
"Last year Tibby was brought to bed with her first baby." Amy took a deep breath. "Neither of them survived the birthing." Fearing he might misinterpret her sorrow as a craven fear of childbearing, she hurried to correct that impression. "I know enough of nature to realize the end to such events are not always so unhappy." Even knowing she was babbling like some insipid dolt, a mortified Amy couldn't stop. "My two older sisters are mothers of growing families. Indeed, they're not in London now because each is expecting a new addition within the next few months."
Watching a curious assortment of diverse emotions chase across the winsome face whose vulnerability Amy struggled so hard to hide, Comlan was forced to make a reluctant admission. His keen senses had been tilted badly awry by this intriguing human maid more temptation than in her innocence she could possibly realize, more than he wanted to admit.
Anxious to calm her uneasiness by shifting to an innocuous subject, Comlan asked, "Have you ever seen a real dolphin?"
"No!" Startled, Amy instantly responded. Then, although welcoming the change of topic, she shot her questioner an incredulous glance for asking such a silly thing of a woman born and raised in the chilly British Isles. "But one summer I saw a performing seal as part of the entertainment presented at a seaside resort."
"What did this performing seal do to entertain you?" Comlan asked with an honest grin but sardonic glitter in his dark forest eyes.
Despite the futile wish for an immediate return to rational thinking, Amy heard herself babbling on inanely. "He played a simple tune on a line of one-note horns." With her hands she mimed pinching bulbs that forced air through the instruments. "And he balanced a ball on his nose." She was going to regret this, her stern conscience warned. Oh, how she was going to regret this foolishness!
A quiet roll of deep laughter, like thunder in the distance, earned a suspicious sidelong glance from cloudy gray eyes. The gentle amusement warming his expression smoothed her ragged tensions even as the golden mesh of his enchantment began wrapping its gossamer strands around her.
"You have an enchanting smile," Comlan murmured, moving to stand very close and gaze down into the piquant face immediately lifted to him. "It brightens the whole world and I fear it able to beguile the very heart from a man."
Perilously near to spinsterhood and unaccustomed to such flowery compliments—or any compliments at all—Amy's wildly erratic heart thumped even louder. Her gaze dropped from the dangerous heat in emerald-flame eyes to blindly study the evenly mowed grass at her feet. Finding herself disgustingly less composed and brave than she'd always wanted to believe herself to be, still Amy was sane enough not to tempt fate by letting him see how fascinated she was with him.
Comlan had entered the maze intending to charm this woman into an amenable mood open to his guidance down an avenue that would lead to discoveries he must help her find for the sake of protecting someone they both cared about. Instead he'd been forced to acknowledge dangers he'd tried to deny.
Reality made it impossible! Their worlds were so completely different, so widely separated that there could never be a shared future for them. Comlan regretfully slid one forefinger down Amy's face from temple to chin, savoring skin like delicate satin. Nudging beneath that softly pointed chin, Comlan titled Amy's face upward again until he could gaze into gray eyes gone nearly black. Dark lashes drifted down to rest on creamy cheeks as with slow, quiet intent he bent to reclaim her delicious mouth and the sweet honey of kisses he remembered all too well.
Though sensing restrained passion in the long, powerful body looming over hers, Amy lacked the will to protest as Comlan's mouth touched and teased her lips with tender, biting kisses. Instead, her fingers curled into the fine cloth covering his broad chest seeking an anchor in the abruptly shifting tide of pleasure rapidly sweeping her ever further from the safe shores of reality.
As the temptation so near yielded against him, Comlan wrapped strong arms about her, slowly gathering the soft body even closer. Amy felt as if her very bones had turned to liquid while beneath the gentle torment of his caresses a tiny moan escaped.
Gladly lost on a wildly tossing sea, surrendering to its tide of shocking excitement, Amy caught a glimpse of a slight, satisfied smile curling the lips that next began an exciting journey down her arched throat.
"Comlan, at last." Against the magnolias' background of shiny leaves and waxy blooms, Isobel stood stiff and almost shaking with poorly suppressed irritation while a glowering Orville hovered a pace behind.
Though certain Comlan's broad back had prevented these two from seeing the extent of their embrace, Amy stepped away so quickly that she'd have lost firm footing had Comlan not placed a steadying hand on her shoulder.
The action drew a positively poisonous glare from Isobel. "Orville and I have come to repair the damage caused by our interfering hostess's ill-conceived arrangements."
"Come, Amy," Orville quickly added, taking several steps forward and extending his hand in wordless demand. "Your mother is worried about your lengthy absence… as was I."
An unsmiling Amy permitted the irate little man to escort her from the maze. She recognized the impossibility of rejecting this summons without causing the kind of scene that would see her bundled off to the country and locked in Wyfirth Grange for the foreseeable future. And, since she'd abjectly failed to advance her scheme to see Comlan forewarned of Orville's wretched intents, Amy couldn't permit herself to be exiled from London.
From a tiny corner somewhere behind that virtuous claim her conscience's small inner voice demanded an honest confession: Most importantly she wanted to see her golden, fantasy hero again… and again… and again…
Chapter 6
"But, lambie," Beatrice wailed, standing just inside a closed door. "It just isn't done!"
Seated at the dainty rosewood escritoire in her own little sitting room, Amy paused with pen poised above a sheet of creamy paper to glance over one shoulder. Though she gave the horrified Beattie a rueful smile, Amy had no intention of abandoning this promising if possibly scandalous tactic.
Amy inwardly acknowledged the disgrace risked by any genteel lady committing such a questionable act as this. But it was also clear that social encounters arrived at in the accepted manner—amid intrusive crowds—were extremely unlikely to afford the privacy necessary for issuing even a delicately phrased warning.
While turning to write a final few words, Amy could feel the older woman's accusing eyes boring a hole in her back. Beattie was right. Were this action to become publicly known, it would badly damage her reputation which, as all self-respecting debutantes knew, must remain unblemished to have hope for making a good match. But then since she'd earlier admitted to having no earnest desire to attain that goal, particularly not if it meant Orville, gray eyes began to glitter with silver sparks of obstinate determination. She wouldn't let unworthy fears keep her from sending this personal invitation requesting Lord Comlan's company the next morning on a carriage ride through Hyde Park.
Because Beattie was her oldest friend, Amy knew very well that the woman was unlikely to accept the rationale of any excuse. Nonetheless, it was important to try. She took a deep, bolstering breath and began.
"At the tea party today I saw a portrait Lord Comlan drew of Lady Isobel."
Beattie went still. They hadn't discussed the Irish lord since the morning after the Season's opening ball. Still, she wasn't the least bit surprised to learn he was the cause of Amy's improper behavior.
"What's a portrait of Lady Isobel to do with you?" Brows arched with the question dropped instantly into a disapproving scowl as Beatrice added, "I do hope it's not jealousy that's provoked this indiscr
etion."
Amy exercised her usual control to restrain an initial urge to snap back a heated denial. Laying her pen down, she pulled out the desk's single drawer to extract her drawing pad. From the very back she slipped a page free and handed it to the suspicious Beattie. Several patience-straining minutes passed while the other woman studied the paper.
"Having watched me sketch for years," Amy broke the uncomfortable silence, "you know it wasn't me who created that powerful image of a mysterious castle."
Beattie nodded but lingering doubts clouded her narrowed eyes.
"It's a picture of the castle in my dream and was lying atop my drawing of the castle's ruins when I awoke in the fairy ring." Amy lifted open palms toward her old friend in wordless plea. "Don't you see? The styles are the same. He drew both this picture and the portrait of Isobel."
"What I see," Beatrice said, gazing at the younger woman with the same sternness she'd used against arguments of the headstrong child Amy had been, "is that you are still trying to convince me you actually danced with a fairy-tale king and visited his fantasy castle."
"No." Amy shook her head so fervently that thick, dark hair nearly escaped the confining net holding it neatly rolled at her nape. "I'm telling you what truly did happen. It must have been real."
"Whether one way or the other"—as if to mark an end to the matter, Beatrice thrust the drawing back into Amethyst's hold—"it can hardly justify your disgraceful intention."
With growing exasperation, Amy laid the drawing aside, conceding the battle to win even simple acceptance from Beattie. And yet she refused to alter her plan.
"Nothing you say will prevent me from sending this." Amy waved her finished note. "I showed you the picture and tried to explain because I wanted you to understand why doing all I can to thwart Orville is so very important to me."
"Thwart Orville?" Beattie's brown eyes widened. Amy claimed to have given an explanation, but not once had she mentioned the disagreeable man. "What role did that sorry buffoon play in your fantasy?"
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