Not the comment she’d expected and doubtless designed to throw her off her stride. She lightly shrugged. “I’m told the color suits me.” She arched a brow his way and waited to see if he would respond.
After a second, he glanced around. “Your carriage?”
She smiled and waved at the sleek black carriage her coachman had drawn up to the curb twenty yards away. As they started in that direction, she airily said, “I assume you’ve yet to make up your mind over anchoring the performances at my musical evenings.”
They reached the pavement beside the carriage, and he paused and looked down at her, his golden eyes meeting hers. Several seconds ticked by, then he replied, “Just so. I’ve yet to make up my mind.”
She bit her tongue to hold back a tart quip that she’d always heard that hers was the indecisive sex.
Without shifting his gaze from hers, he reached out, opened the carriage door, and with a flourishing bow, gestured her inside.
With a graceful dip by way of farewell, she moved past him and climbed the steps.
When she turned and sat, he closed the door, then stepped back. At the last, as her coachman gave the horses the office and the carriage started to roll, Frederick raised a hand in salute—almost as if he hadn’t been able to stop himself.
She leaned back against the squabs, replayed the exchange, then grinned.
He might not have agreed—indeed, for reasons known only to him, he might be deliberately leading her on and have no intention of agreeing to her request—but as long as he hadn’t refused and denied her, hope remained.
That was good enough—encouragement enough—for her; she’d been warned wearing him down would take time.
The next day, Frederick lunched at his club, the Athenaeum, with his two closest friends, George Fitzsimmons, Lord Farleigh, and Percy Hawley, Viscount Piper. They’d been friends since Eton and met frequently whenever all three were in town.
Yet even while, relaxed and indulgent, Frederick listened to his friends’ news and smiled at their jests, he was aware of a gnawing wish to be elsewhere, crossing verbal swords in a more stimulating—in multiple ways—encounter with a certain lady.
He couldn’t recall ever being prey to such a distraction before and determinedly ignored the feeling.
Eventually, however, with a meeting with his man-of-business looming, he left the others in the smoking room and quit the hallowed precincts of the club.
After farewelling the doorman, he descended the steps to the pavement and turned toward Pall Mall—only to be brought to an immediate halt by a curvaceous lady in a stylish emerald-green carriage dress, who stood directly in his path.
Frederick arched a brow at her. “No red today?”
Her luscious lips curved. “No lady wishes to be predictable.”
“I see.” He found himself smiling back, captured by the light in her eyes. “And what brings you here?” He glanced around. “This is not an area generally frequented by ladies of the ton.”
“Business,” she replied, but didn’t elaborate, leaving him to conclude that her business was with him. “I gathered that, when in town, you eschew the ton’s balls and parties. Consequently, when I saw you exiting the club, I thought to seize the chance to inquire whether you had yet seen your way to agreeing to my request.”
“I…” Frederick paused, surprised to discover that he didn’t know how he wanted to answer—to agree or to refuse her. “In all honesty,” he said, “I’m still considering your proposal—I haven’t yet made up my mind.”
And he hadn’t.
Prior to meeting her, his response to such a request would have been an immediate and immutable negative. Now… Was he truly flirting with agreeing to her scheme?
He refocused on her face—on her dramatically vivid features—and saw them lighten, as if some inner glow had bloomed. Hope. She was hoping he would agree, and she truly wanted him to perform for her.
His reaction to the sight, to being the cause of that softening in her face, unsettled him.
He suddenly realized he was standing on the pavement within yards of the club’s doors, and several who knew him, including George and Percy, might exit and come upon him and her at any moment.
Her periwinkle-blue eyes, bright and alert, were searching his face.
Rather than meet her gaze, he glanced toward Pall Mall and Waterloo Place beyond. “I take it your carriage is nearby?”
She waved to the west. “Just along Pall Mall.”
He gestured in that direction. “I’ll walk you to it.”