“I guess that all depends on what you think. Francesca?” Elise added when she didn’t immediately turn around, but busied herself adjusting the gown. “What do you think?”
Francesca was glad when Clarisse rapped at the door, asking to start her bath in preparation for the ball. It seemed like a good time to change the subject.
* * *
Her heart pounded uncomfortably at eight forty-five that evening as she stood in the reception line with Lucien and Elise behind her, waiting to offer her official well wishes to the earl and countess on their anniversary. Elise and Lucien looked like a vision—Elise in a gown of deep purple that optimally highlighted the rare color of her eyes, an exquisite platinum and sapphire necklace and her pavé diamond and sapphire wedding ring; Lucien strikingly handsome, as usual, in a formal tuxedo with white tie. The Great Hall was breathtaking, decorated with firelit crystal globes, magnificent silver candelabra, and fresh, aromatic garland, the Christmas tree ablaze.
She wasn’t quite sure why her heart was beating so fast in anxious excitement, but thought perhaps it was due to all the fine people filling the hall: the rich, the titled, and the famous mixing with the house staff and several people from the village. They all milled around, sipping the champagne being passed by waiters, waiting for the ballroom doors to be thrown open. A string quartet played in muted tones, contributing to the festive mood of anticipation. Lucien and Elise’s presence right behind her in the line gave her some of the reassurance she sorely required. She glimpsed Clarisse in the distance, looking pretty in a pale gold dress. The maid gave a little wave and Francesca waved back, returning her excited grin.
She saw the back of a tall, broad-shouldered man in the distance in the receiving line wearing a tuxedo, and realized she’d get a chance immediately to thank Gerard for the dress. He deserved her gratitude. She’d never felt so pretty. The dress fit her like it’d been made for her. Clarisse had styled her hair in a delicate weave, using the diamond pins to skillfully form it into a red-gold, loose sort of crown that struck Francesca as unpretentious yet supremely elegant.
They finally reached the anniversary couple.
“Francesca, dear,” Anne said, her voice sounding unnaturally high as Francesca leaned down to kiss her cheek and offer her congratulations. Why did Anne look so undone—strangely radiant and worried at once? Francesca wondered blankly when she straightened and noticed the countess’s expression.
“The dress looks lovely on you. I knew it would.”
An electrical pulse seemed to start at the very base of Francesca’s brain and course down her spine, setting off a chain reaction to every nerve in her body. She stood as if frozen. It hadn’t been Gerard she’d seen standing in the reception line with Anne and James.
“I didn’t have time to tell you,” she distantly heard Anne mutter apologetically under her breath.
“He just came down as the first guests arrived,” James said.
Ian’s face looked like it’d been carved from cold alabaster, but his eyes seemed to burn right through her.
“Well,” he said quietly, his familiar deep, slightly gruff, British-accented voice seeming to scrape gently over her prickling skin. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
She inhaled fully for the first time since seeing Anne’s anguished expression.
“Yes,” she replied. “Excuse me.”
She turned and plunged into the mingling crowd, the brilliant gowns and flickering flame and abrupt laughter striking her stunned brain like an assault. The only thing that she could be sure of, the only thing that felt terrifyingly real, was that invisible tether that had always seemed to join her and Ian stretching tight. It tugged painfully deep in her chest as she fled, threatening to rip at something vital.
Chapter Four
The tap that came at her suite door was light and cautious . . . feminine. She gave her face one last glance in the bathroom mirror and went to open the door. Her limbs still felt numb from shock.
Ian is here.
Her mind kept repeating the sentence like a harsh mantra, as if her brain was stubbornly refusing to absorb the truth and it had to be pounded into her consciousness by force. Even though she’d suspected that the knock was feminine, she sighed in relief when she saw Elise standing on the other side of the door. She stepped back, granting her entrance, and closed the door.
“Sit down,” Elise instructed. “You’re white as a sheet.” She handed Francesca a glass of water from the bathroom a moment later.
“I can’t believe it,” she muttered more to herself than to Elise.
“Yes. It came as a shock to everyone. He told Lucien before I followed you up that he just arrived a half hour before the reception began. He snuck upstairs to his suite to dress before anyone realized he was here.”
She tried to focus on Elise’s concerned face. “Did he say why he came?”
Elise shook her head helplessly. She could read a hundred questions in her friend’s sapphire-blue eyes, but Elise expressed none of them. She must know Francesca didn’t have the answers, either.
“I have to go back down,” Francesca said, setting the glass on a side table. “I can’t hide in here like a moody adolescent. It’d be so rude, when Anne and James asked me here for this event.”
“They would understand, I’m sure. Given the circumstances,” Elise said. “Her ladyship is the one who asked me to check on you. After she tried to stop Ian from following you, that is.”
Her gaze flew to Elise’s face. “Tried?”