on the back affectionately.
Damnation!
. “Ah, I really must go now, Alderton…Dick.” Jasper quickly turned and lost himself
in the crowd before he could dig himself into an even bigger hole than he already
found himself in.
“Jasper.” He stopped when a hand touched his arm and he heard a voice he recognised.
“What is going on? What’s this about you going off with some girl?”
Jasper let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness it’s you. I need your help, Victoria.”
Grace closed her eyes, took a deep calming breath and counted to three as she exhaled.
When she opened her eyes a figure came around the pillar, but it wasn’t who she was
expecting. It was Mrs Hillary Barrett.
“So you are the gel that has snared him at last, are you?” the nasty old lady blurted
as soon as the curtain fell back in place.
Grace’s hackles rose. “I don’t know what you mean. All we were doing was kissing.”
As if it was any of her business anyway, the old battle-axe.
The older woman sucked in her breath. “You’re American? It’s just like you upstarts
to come over here and steal our men.” She made it sound like Grace had the pox or
something.
“Excuse me? You have no right to insult me or my country. You probably haven’t even
been there, so what would you know what we Americans are like? Besides, it’s none
of your business anyway.” Where was that guy, it was just like a man to keep her waiting
here by herself. Was he even coming back? “I’m sorry, but I have to be going now.”
She pushed past the strange old lady with her head held high and into the overcrowded
ballroom. Enough of this nonsense, she had to get back to work.
Grace wandered around the ballroom trying to locate the rest of her team, but without
her headset she couldn’t hope to locate them in this crowd. She looked at her phone
and saw that it was 12:30 a.m., January 2014, a half hour since the lights went out
and she hit her head…and dragged a man into a corner to have her wicked little way
with him. A giggle escaped her lips. What had come over her? She would never behave
like this on a normal night.
She needed to get some air and clear her head. She was about to escape into the garden
when a voice whispered in her ear, “I thought I told you to stay where you were?”
The man that made her hot just thinking about touched her arm and said, “Come with
me. My sister is waiting in the library.”
“I would really like to meet your sister, I would. But I have to get back to work.
Maybe I will see you before I go?” Her heart thumped wildly. She rubbed her hands
on her skirt to get rid of the moisture. She wished she hadn’t drunk so much champagne…or
hit her head on the table. This night was getting so confusing. She may have been
able to figure out what was going on if she had kept away from the alcohol. Actually
she wouldn’t be in this mess at all if she had managed to stay sober. She
knew
she shouldn’t have taken a break.
“Sorry, what kind of work are you in?” It would be just his luck if he had made his
intentions known to a prostitute.
“I’m an event manager. I organised tonight’s event.”
“I don’t think that the Duchess of Kensington will take kindly to you saying that
out loud, even if you did organise it all. She won’t want word to get out that she
was unable to arrange her own ball.” The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled
down at her. “Besides, everything is running smoothly, the place is packed. It is
a crush! A success, don’t you think; so what more can you do here? Come with me and
meet my sister and we can talk about what to do next. And I can see Mrs Barrett talking
to her crones over there and it’s only an amount of time before they notice us.”
He pointed across the room and sure enough she could see the old battle-axe deep in
conversation with some older ladies. Mrs Barrett did look like she was