LITMIR.BIZ

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love I offered, but he never did, Ryan. Not ever.” She waved a hand impatiently. “How I do go on. It’s the eve of a new year!”

      The smile she gave him echoed the softness of the nights of his youth, when she used to sit by his bed and sing to him and Journey until they drifted, on the wings of her sweet voice, off to sleep. It never occurred to her that there was anything wrong with both boys sharing a bed, but only one having the right to grow up free. He hadn’t known the truth then, but he realized it now. She considered the slaves her family. She simply hadn’t known that they might want the freedom to choose.

      He took her arm and escorted her onto the dance floor.

      “Oh, don’t dance with your old mother.” She shooed him away, regal as she regained command of herself. “There are too many wonderful girls waiting for you.”

      Isadora couldn’t quite understand how she had come to be here, in this airy patio, amid silky trumpet music and exotic food smells, dressed in something that felt as insubstantial as a nightgown.

      Indeed, the moment seemed to belong to another person. It was as if the spirit of Rio had invaded her blood and bones, possessed her, transformed Isadora Dudley Peabody into someone completely different. A fanciful notion, but strangely accurate.

      Though in truth it had been two lovely, relentless sisters who had possessed her.

      Help me, she prayed silently, looking down at her scandalous gypsy costume. This is surely a sin.

      Yet a part of her stood aside and observed that other ladies—perfectly proper wives of foreign ship’s captains and coffee planters and politicians and Portuguese ministers—were garbed even more festively. And not only were they dancing and clapping to the music—they seemed to be enjoying it.

      It struck Isadora that, despite the gypsy dress she wore, she occupied much the same position tonight as she did at the dancing parties and soirées her parents held in Boston. She stood on the side of the assembly, invisible, watching other people have a good time.

      Across the open-air patio, she saw a broad-shouldered man slip from the shadows, stepping into a dazzle of colored light cast by an orange paper lantern.

      Her breath caught. Ryan.

      But Ryan as she had never seen him before. From the very first she had been startled by his flawless male beauty, though a certain careless flamboyance had kept him to a human level. As she grew to know him, she no longer dwelled upon his physical attributes, but came to enjoy the person he was.

      Now the carelessness had given way to perfection. He had dressed for the masquerade in tight black leather breeches with silver-studded outer seams, tucked into tall boots. A wide-sleeved red shirt gathered at the wrists, a half mask of black silk, an outrageous plumed hat and a slim, lethal-looking dress sword swinging at his side completed the costume.

      He was the storybook cavalier who had performed feats of derring-do in the novels that used to keep her loneliness at bay. He was the bold hero whose swordfights, described in fireside tales, had given her chills. He was every perfect fantasy she tried so hard not to dream about—but dreamed, anyway.

      Heavens be, this was Ryan, she told herself, trying to quell the uncomfortable fluttering in her stomach. Ryan, who teased and gave commands and laughed in order to cover the strange darkness in his soul. Ryan, who strode across the patio, magnificently oblivious to the raft of beautiful girls who followed in his wake.

      He went directly to the neighboring patrao’s daughter and bent gracefully over her lacy-gloved hand.

      Isadora released an audible sigh as she watched him lead the giggling young woman out onto the tiled dance-floor, leaving behind a logjam of swooning ladies. She felt a peculiar agony in her heart. This was different from the ache of being ignored by Chad. That throbbed with the pain of futility, but the hurt of wanting Ryan was the hurt of a possibility being taken away.

      Fanning herself with the painted fan that hung from a cord around her waist, she pressed herself against the wall to watch. Like a skilled physician, she attempted to discover the true nature of her ailment. Seeing Ryan like this—so handsome, so romantic—hurt her. Why?

      Because she missed Chad, perhaps. Ryan revived all her longing for the man she had wanted for years. He placed her squarely in the path of heartbreak again. Had she learned nothing from being trampled by a handsome man?

      She resolved to stand aloof and try to enjoy the evening. The ache in her heart melted into a dull throb that was almost bearable when combined with the rhythmic thump of the music and the sinuous melody of the horns. Isadora did what she did best—she became invisible, retreated into her realm of the mind, with a wall of glass between herself and the real world, a safe place where she could watch unobserved.

      Ryan danced with girl after girl, each one prettier than the last, prettier than Isadora’s sisters, prettier than Lydia Haven. Isadora leaned against a vine-draped column, wondering what Chad was doing right now, wondering what Chad would look like in studded trousers of oiled leather that gleamed in the multicolored light.

      And then the unthinkable happened. The dance ended and Ryan headed in her direction.

      “Oh, no,” she said, the words coming too easily. “I shan’t fall into that trap again.” She recalled the awful moment with Chad in Boston when she had been so certain he wanted to dance with her but all he really wanted was to send her on a fool’s errand.

      Ryan bowed before her, sweeping off the plumed hat. “May I have this dance, senhorita?”

      “No,” she said—too quickly.

      He covered his heart with the hat. “You wound me to the quick. Why will you not dance with me?”

      “Why do you care?”

      “Because,” he said with measured patience, “it’s what people do at dancing parties.”

      “It’s not what I do.” Isadora drew herself up with exaggerated dignity. She’d rather be a wallflower than a spectacle. But she wanted to accept. She really did.

      He stood silent for a moment. His gaze drifted from her face to her feet strapped into sandals. “Isadora Peabody, as I live and breathe.”

      “This is supposed to be a masquerade. I’m supposed to be a mystery lady.”

      “Oh, sugar-pie, you are that,” he said gallantly. “The Isadora Peabody I know would never show her ankles like a sailor on shore leave.”

      “I’m not—that is, Isadora is not showing her ankles like a sailor on shore leave.”

      “But the mystery lady is.”

      She couldn’t help herself. She giggled. Giggled. Isadora was quite certain she had never giggled before. “Perhaps,” she admitted.

      “And perhaps, being so mysterious, she would take a stroll with me in the garden.”

      Remembering what had happened during their last garden stroll, Isadora hesitated.

      Ryan held out his hand. “Come with me, my mystery lady.”

      She got over her hesitation. Being in costume shielded her from the rigors of everyday propriety. She could be anyone she wanted tonight. A gypsy. A flamenco dancer. A pirate’s lady.

      A forbidden thrill shot up her spine as she took his hand.

      “So I wonder,” he said, leading her out between the colonnades, “why Isadora has avoided tonight’s festivities.”

      “She’s never been good at them,” Isadora said. “She’s never been fond of standing at the edge of a dance floor and wishing she were up in her chamber reading a good book.”

      “Why does she always stand at the edge?”

      “Because no one has ever brought her into the circle.”

      “The circle?”

      “The charmed circle. It’s an imaginary

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