“I think, Felicity,” Selena observed to change the subject, “that you owe Reverend Denby an apology.”
Felicity nodded eagerly.
“And,” Kyle added, “I want your promise that you won’t play any more tricks.”
Felicity gulped. “I won’t, but…” She gave Selena a desperate look. “What if I already have?”
Selena experienced a sinking feeling. “Felicity, what did you do?”
“I… left Horatio’s cage open.”
Kyle raised his eyes to the ceiling as if praying for patience, while Selena bit her lip. “I’d better check on him,” she said worriedly.
Leaving Kyle to deal with his sister, Selena hastened downstairs. She didn’t need to search for the parrot, however, for she could hear his raucous squawks coming from the parlor. It would have been dreadful enough if he had strictly been issuing his usual invitation, but her worst fears were realized when she caught what he was saying. Mortified, Selena hurried into the room, where she found Horatio perched near the ceiling on the punkah fan, overlooking the crumpets and cucumber sandwiches. He was flapping his feathers as he entertained the guests, his lively curses drawing titters and shocked gasps from the company.
Cheeks aflame, Selena scooped up a handful of blueberries from a dish and offered it to the bird.
“Blast it! Awk. Blast it!” Horatio replied, but after a moment, he fluttered down to perch on her arm and devour his feast.
Managing a polite disclaimer, Selena turned to make her escape with the parrot and found Kyle watching her from the doorway. He looked at her with laughter in his eyes but responded to her unspoken plea by launching into an apology to the company for the bird’s scandalous behavior. Intensely grateful, she gave Kyle a strained smile as she passed.
She found Horatio’s cage in her office, where she had left it, and when she had restored the parrot to his home, Selena took a deep breath and returned to the parlor, reluctant to face the guests after such a scene.
Much to her chagrin, those same ladies were present the next evening at the ball. Selena had strong reservations about the occasion. She dreaded meeting countless strangers and being subjected to their critical scrutiny. Yet when the day arrived, she was relieved to find she had already met many of them, and that they seemed to accept her with genuine goodwill.
The ball was a great success, if one judged by the numbers of guests that had been pouring into Montrose all day and who now overflowed the house. The only drawback to an otherwise perfect evening was the heat, Selena thought as she glanced around the crowded drawing room. The candlelight that blazed from a myriad of wax tapers looked lovely gleaming off silver dishes and polished floors, but it added greatly to the warmth.
The gathering was less formal than those she was accustomed to, indeed was a study in contrasts—lavish elegance vying with rustic simplicity. In the drawing room played an orchestra of violins and tambourines, while in the courtyard, a grizzled old black man performed a Virginia jig upon a gourd fiddle. The ladies’ costumes, too, presented a view of a disparate society. The planters’ wives had arrived in carriages, bedecked in jewels and lace, yet their less affluent female neighbors had ridden on horseback, dressed in calicoes and were carrying their ball gowns in bundles.
Kyle, in an elegant forest-green coat, was a contrast all to himself, Selena thought as her eyes sought him above the heads of the guests. Rugged yet graceful, he possessed a strength and vitality that was incredibly appealing to her heightened senses.
His blatant masculinity appealed to the other females present, as well, Selena was aware. More than once she caught another lady favoring Kyle with a discreet glance, looking at him sideways with fluttering lashes and a pretty blush. He returned their interest with an open friendliness, his teasing remarks no different from his interactions with his sisters, the aristocratic dowager who had conferred her presence on the ball or even Angel. Indeed, Selena was beginning to realize that Kyle accorded highborn ladies the same treatment as the lowest of tavern wenches—he treated both simply as women.
Yet she couldn’t help experiencing an ungovernable jealousy at all the attention he was attracting, especially when she observed an ebony-haired beauty fawning over Kyle during an entire set of dances. When the set ended, Selena realized her concern was much too obvious, for it was the first thing Bea mentioned when she joined her.
“Don’t pay Miss Jenkins any mind,” Bea advised. “She’s one of the dozens and dozens of ladies who have pursued my brother to no avail.”
“I’m not concerned,” Selena said untruthfully. “Like I, she hasn’t the right color hair.”
“Well, you put her in the shade. You look exquisite—as I’m sure I’ve already told you.”
Selena smiled gratefully at the compliment. In deference to the poorer guests, she had eschewed jewelry and chosen a bandeau that sported an ostrich plume as her only adornment, yet her empire-waist lutestring gown, the shade of dusty violets, bespoke wealth and supreme good taste. She thought she looked attractive, but in the face of such competition from the other beauties present, she needed the reassurance.
Bea gave her that and more, swearing that Kyle had only danced with Miss Jenkins out of duty. Yet Selena was grateful when he turned the dark-haired beauty over to a new partner.
When her own partner claimed her for the next dance, she made a determined effort to bring her jealousy under control, trying not to gaze at her husband above once a minute. Even so she found it difficult. She was far more aware of Kyle than she had ever been of any man. He had awakened her physically to a lush world of pleasure and desire and sensation, of aching need and passion. A thousand times a day Selena found herself wanting to touch him, to slip into his arms and fit her lips and her body against his, and she found it a torment not to be able to do so now.
More incredible, though, was his ability to rouse her with merely a glance. Kyle had only to caress her with those glowing hazel eyes to remind her of past moments when he had been buried deep inside her, and she would start to quiver.
Still, it was only lust. Her plan to make Kyle fall in love with her, she knew, was no further along than it had been several days earlier when she’d met him in the fields. Since then they’d had little chance for intimacy other than their early-morning conferences. And she hadn’t spoken to Kyle at all this evening, not since the first dance, when, as the guests of honor, they had opened the ball together.
It was with the hope of drawing Kyle away from the company for a moment or two of privacy that Selena refused the next dance and threaded her way through the crowd. She found him conversing with an elderly couple, but no sooner had the couple wandered off to partake of the buffet supper than they were joined by the Reverend Denby.
Selena tried not to show her disappointment. She was politely inquiring of Reverend Denby whether he had recovered from his ordeal with the pepper, when a hush fell over the crowd. Turning to see what was causing the problem, Selena spied Danielle Whitfield standing in the doorway to the drawing room. Her chin was lifted slightly, and she clung with the slightest pressure to Orrin Chandler’s arm, as if she were determined to brave the wolves but needed his help to do so.
Selena’s heart twisted the way it always did when she saw the beautiful redhead. Danielle was garbed in a plain gown of gray cambric, yet she was as lovely as ever. The wealth of sadness that shone in her eyes only added to the impression of enduring strength and touching vulnerability—the epitome of womanhood. Selena had thought her own ball dress attractive, but she felt colorless and faded in comparison to Danielle’s vibrant beauty.
She would have preferred to slip away to a dark corner and hide but was obliged to play hostess; Bea wasn’t in the drawing room at present, and the guests seemed to be awaiting her response with bated breaths, in anticipation of a scandal. They wouldn’t know of her tentative friendship with Danielle, Selena realized.