“Mr. Bridgerton?”
Lady Lucinda. He’d know that voice anywhere.
He turned. There she was. He congratulated himself. He’d been right about those other masked honey blonds. He definitely hadn’t come across her yet this evening.
Her eyes widened, and he realized that her mask, covered with slate blue felt, was the exact color of her eyes. He wondered if Miss Watson had obtained a similar one in green.
“It is you, isn’t it?”
“How did you know?” he returned.
She blinked. “I don’t know. I just did.” Then her lips parted—just enough to reveal a tiny little gleam of white teeth, and she said, “It’s Lucy. Lady Lucinda.”
“I know,” he murmured, still looking at her mouth. What was it about masks? It was as if by covering up the top, the bottom was made more intriguing.
Almost mesmerizing.
How was it he hadn’t noticed the way her lips tilted ever so slightly up at the corners? Or the freckles on her nose. There were seven of them. Precisely seven, all shaped like ovals, except for that last one, which looked rather like Ireland, actually.
“Were you hungry?” she asked.
He blinked, forced his eyes back to hers.
She motioned to the sandwiches. “The ham is very nice. As is the cucumber. I’m not normally partial to cucumber sandwiches—they never seem to satisfy although I do like the crunch—but these have a bit of soft cheese on them instead of just butter. It was a rather nice surprise.”
She paused and looked at him, tilting her head to the side as she awaited his reply.
And he smiled. He couldn’t help it. There was something so uncommonly entertaining about her when she was prattling on about food.
He reached out and placed a cucumber sandwich on his plate. “With such a recommendation,” he said, “how could I refuse?”
“Well, the ham is nice, too, if you don’t like it.”
Again, so like her. Wanting everyone to be happy. Try this. And if you don’t like it, try this or this or this or this. And if that doesn’t work, have mine.
She’d never said it, of course, but somehow he knew she would.
She looked down at the serving platter. “I do wish they weren’t all mixed up.”
He looked at her quizzically. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well,” she said—that singular sort of well that foretold a long and heartfelt explanation. “Don’t you think it would have made far more sense to separate the different types of sandwiches? To put each on its own smaller plate? That way, if you found one you liked, you would know exactly where to go to get another. Or”—at this she grew even more animated, as if she were attacking a problem of great societal importance—“if there was another. Consider it.” She waved at the platter. “There might not be a single ham sandwich left in the stack. And you couldn’t very well sift through them all, looking. It would be most impolite.”
He regarded her thoughtfully, then said, “You like things to be orderly, don’t you?”
“Oh, I do,” she said with feeling. “I really do.”
Gregory considered his own disorganized ways. He tossed shoes in the wardrobe, left invitations strewn about…The year before, he had released his valet-secretary from service for a week to visit his ailing father, and when the poor man had come back, the chaos on Gregory’s desk alone had nearly done him in.
Gregory looked at Lady Lucinda’s earnest expression and chuckled. He’d probably drive her mad in under a week as well.
“Do you like the sandwich?” she asked, once he’d taken a bite. “The cucumber?”
“Very intriguing,” he murmured.
“I wonder, is food meant to be intriguing?”
He finished the sandwich. “I’m not certain.”