Lucifer turned his dark gaze on her. "When they realize he's not watching them anymore."
"He's not?" Alathea looked at Gabriel. He'd developed a consuming interest in his manicured fingernails.
The damned man had listened to her. Listened, and allowed her to influence his direction. She felt slightly giddy.
"He's not. And, at the moment, I'm not, either." Belligerently disapproving, Lucifer looked from her to Gabriel and back again. "I just hope you know what you're doing. That bounder Carsworth's sniffing about their skirts."
Gabriel looked up. "Has he approached either of them?"
The question was mild, the underlying tone anything but.
"Well, no," Lucifer admitted.
"Have either of the twins encouraged him?" Alathea put in.
Lucifer's expression turned mulish. "No. He intercepted Amelia-not overtly approaching her, just happening to come upon her in the crowd."
"And?"
His reluctance was palpable, but eventually he conceded, "She put on an act like Aunt Helena. Looked him down, then up, then stuck her nose in the air and swanned past without a word."
"Well, there you are." Straightening, Alathea slipped an arm through his. "They've been very well trained. They're perfectly capable of managing, if you'll only let them."
"Humph!" Lucifer let her turn him up the terrace. Arm in arm, they strolled back toward the open doors spilling light and noise across the flags. Although she spared him not a glance, Alathea was intensely aware that Gabriel prowled very close on her other side.
"Carsworth's a worm-no real threat." Over her head, Lucifer exchanged a glance with Gabriel. "But what happens when they try that trick with someone with a bit more"-he gestured-"savoir faire!"
Gabriel shrugged. "So they'll learn."
"Learn what?" Alathea asked as they stepped back into the ballroom.
"Learn what would happen if a lady tried such a ploy on, say, one of us," Lucifer replied.
Alathea raised a brow at Gabriel.
He considered her, then flicked a glance at Lucifer. Confirming his brother's attention had wandered, he looked back, into her eyes. "Try it-and you'll see."
There was something in his eyes that reminded her forcefully of a tiger; the purr in his voice underscored the connection. Recalling what had happened the last time she'd tried, nose in the air, to brush past him, Alathea stiffened her spine and lifted her head. "The twins will manage perfectly well."
Lucifer, scanning the crowd, humphed again. "Well, if you refuse to watch, then I may as well put my time to better use." One black brow arching, he glanced at Gabriel, then, with an elegant nod to Alathea, he shouldered his way into the crowd.
If anything, the crush had worsened. Alathea felt Gabriel's fingers close about hers, then her hand was on his sleeve as he steered her out of the ebb and flow before the doors. The tack he took was in the opposite direction to where they'd left her cavaliers.
"Can you see Mary and Alice?" Why she felt so breathless she couldn't understand.
"No." His lips were close to her ear, his breath a warm caress. "But, like the twins, they'll manage."
So would she, she vowed, as he found them a few square feet of space in which to stand comfortably. Although they were surrounded, they might as well have been alone for all the notice their neighbors took, too caught up in their own conversations.
"Now tell me, what did you mean about being twelve years old?" Gabriel trapped her gaze as she glanced up at him. "In case it's escaped your notice, neither you nor I are."
The meaning in his eyes was quite different from the subject of their discussion. Alathea reined in her skittering wits. "I wasn't referring to us."
"Good."
The subtle easing of his lips did quite peculiar things to her nerves. She dragged in a breath. "I meant-"
"My dear Lady Alathea."