Tonight, she wore a gown of the deepest, most rich sapphire blue. It brought to her mind the flowers underneath a canopy of trees, just when summer finally kissed the world.
The bluebells that danced everywhere, filling hearts with hope.
And this gown slid over her frame like the water that had sluiced down Garret’s body the night before when he stood up from his bath.
The silk was thin and extremely expensive. There was nothing between her and it, except for a very fine chemise and a small set of stays that propped her breasts up. The gown barely covered them.
As a matter of fact, the bosom skimmed her nipples ever so slightly and she could have sworn that if she turned the right way, the pink of her aureoles might show.
The shoulders were mere scraps held together with gold beads. Gold feathers had been embroidered into the folds of the skirt. She was certain that if she stood before a fire, the gown was so thin that one might see the silhouette of her form.
The golden belt just beneath her breasts did the most marvelous things to her figure, and Garret had left a necklace for her to wear.
It was a single sapphire the size of a pigeon’s egg that hung directly between her breasts.
She looked completely different.
Her hair was coiled atop her head in russet red tones, unadorned. There wasn’t a flower or a pearl in sight, but the coiffure was exceedingly different from her usual formal affair.
There was a carefree look to it as if she had tumbled out of bed and found that she absolutely adored it. Usually, her scalp grew painful by the end of a night at a ball because the braiding and the weaving of her hair was so intense, and the pins poked so fiercely.
Instead, she felt free as she slowly walked down his wide staircase, and she must have looked it too because his eyes lit up when he spotted her.
Garret’s entire face transformed as if he was seeing a mirage, like the fabled fountains in the desert that beckoned to dying men, promising them water to ease their thirst.
And seeing herself in his eyes, she too could barely draw breath. She kept her shoulders back, proud, as she carefully took the last steps so she would not catch her slipper in the hem of her gown.
He quickly shook his head, causing whatever was in it to be dashed away, and he extended his strong palm to her.
“Cat,” he said, “you are going to ruin many a man.”
“I do hope so, Your Grace,” she said.
And with that, she placed her fingertips into his, and a traitorous thought danced through her mind.
The only man she wanted washim.
It was indeed traitorous, something worthy of being forgotten immediately because it was the absolute opposite of what she wanted.
She did not wantaman. She wanted to be with many so that she did not have to rely on any of them. But something quaked through her body as her fingertips touched his warm skin, and she swallowed hard.
“Are you quite all right?” he asked.
“I have never been better in all my life than I am in this moment,” she lied. “Thank you, Garret.”
“You’re welcome,” he returned. “Now let us go and continue your education.”
“Thank you, Your Grace. Where are we to go?” She dared to wink. “Some wicked house in Covenant Garden?”
He leaned down and whispered dramatically, “I’m going to take you to a ball, Cat, and you might actually know people there.”
She gasped. “What? A ball? I don’t understand.”
His lips curved into a knowing smile. “It’ll not be like a ball that you have been to. There is a social life that is completely distant from the ones in which young ladies are trotted out to like sheep to be sold at market. This one is full of drama, of good conversation, and of people who live a very different life than the one that you’ve known. And there will be many gentlemen that you have no doubt danced with there this evening.”
“Will they recognize me?” she gasped.
“It’s possible,” he said evenly. But as he drew his gaze along her frame appreciatively, he added, “But I doubt it. And even if they do, do you care?”