So was she. She waved dismissively. "I'll come in in a few minutes."
Simon frowned, and stepped onto the balcony. "What are you up to?"
Amanda drew herself up; she would have loved to look down her nose at him, but at nineteen, he towered over her.
"I'm not 'up to' anything." Yet. And if he didn't leave, she wouldn't be. She skewered him with a censorious look. "Just what are you imagining? I step out on a balcony so narrow it should be called a ledge, and you're concerned about what?" She spread her arms wide. "I'm out of reach of the ground, and there's no one here!"
The clouds chose that moment to empty; the wind gusted, flinging fat raindrops against the house. Amanda gasped and shrank against the wall.
Simon grabbed her arm. "It's freezing! You'll catch cold, and Mama will have a fit. Come on!"
He yanked her back toward the door. Amanda hesitated; the rain began to pelt down in earnest. If she didn't go inside, she'd be drenched. Grumbling under her breath, she allowed Simon to bundle her back into the ballroom.
She just hoped Martin knew she'd kept their appointment.
From his position below the balcony, Martin heard their footsteps, heard the door click shut, then he was left listening to the rain pour down all around him. A Romeo in the rain without his Juliet.
That's what happened when plans were made in the heat of desire.
The essential uselessness of this evening's meeting hadn't occurred to him until he'd reached home after leaving Osterley. It had taken that long for his focus to shift from all that hadn't happened in the dell. And all that had. Once he'd been able to think constructively, it had waxed plainfully clear that given the current state of their discussions, there was nothing to be gained from snatching a few illicit moments with Amanda, let alone on a ledge. For the arguments he wished to put to her, allowing for the way in which he wished to put them, he'd need an hour, preferably two. On a bed.
He'd come here tonight purely to arrange such a meeting. Instead…
As soon as the rain eased, he ducked out from under the balcony, slipped out of the garden gate and climbed into his carriage, black and anonymous, waiting in the mews. Stretching out his long legs, he wrapped his greatcoat about him. As the carriage rattled back to Park Lane, it was difficult to avoid the observation that the eruption of Amanda into his life had already wrought considerable change.
Two months previously, he would never have been heading home alone at this hour. He would have been out, hunting-for distraction, for dissipation. For entertainment to fill the lonely hours.
Now… despite the fact he'd be alone once he reached home, he wouldn't be lonely, wouldn't feel the emptiness of the house closing in on him; he wouldn't have time. His mind would be racing, assessing, planning how to beguile one stubborn lady into accepting him as her lot, even though that would assuredly mean making even more changes in his life.
Taking Amanda Cynster to wife was going to cause nothing short of an upheaval. The wonder was that, despite his inherent laziness, his dislike of being disturbed, that fact didn't deter him in the least.
Kidnapping her seemed the only viable option.
The next morning, seated at his breakfast table slowly sipping coffee, Martin considered the where and how. And discovered that the card sent to him by Lady Montacute for that evening announced a masquerade, albeit one of the tame, watered-down affairs that these days went by that title. Domino, half-mask and the invitation as entrance, so her ladyship had decreed.
All those, he had.
Deciding how to make Amanda, disguised in domino and mask, readily identifiable to him and only him took no more than a minute.
Fourteen hours later, draped in a regulation black domino, her face concealed by a halfmask, she appeared on the threshold of Lady Montacute's ballroom, accompanied by another lady and a gentleman. Judging by height and the golden curls beneath the unknown lady's hood, Martin assumed she was Amanda's sister; he'd take an oath the gentleman was Carmarthen. He waited only until, after exchanging a few words, the three parted before closing in on his prey.
He was the first to her side, but only by a few strides; other men had noticed her, alone, looking about, and thought to claim her hand. He didn't bother with her hand; he slid his arm about her waist and drew her to him.
"Oh!" She looked up, knowing him in the same way he knew it was indeed her and not some other golden-haired lady who just happened to be wearing three white orchids at her throat. She blinked. "Where are we going?"
He was already steering her through the crowd.
"Somewhere we won't be disturbed."
He said nothing more as he whisked her into a corridor, then through a deserted parlor and out onto a terrace that rejoined the front porch; his hand at her back, he urged her down the steps, around the curved drive and so to the street. His carriage was waiting, horses prancing.
He opened the door. She clutched his sleeve. "Where…?"
He looked down at her. "Does it matter?"
She glared, then turned to the carriage. He helped her in, then followed, shut the door; the carriage jerked, and they were off.
Amanda set back her hood. "That was-"