Father Fever

Then she turned as though she sensed his presence and caught his eye.

Not that he could see hers, or she his—not behind the masks. But there was something in the way she turned to look up at him, something in the small smile that curved her lips that told him she’d been waiting for him.

Probably not deliberately, but now that she’d seen him, she wanted to know him. Just as he wanted to know her.

He walked down the stairs and around the railing to where she stood. He removed his hat, again with a flourish, and gave her the bow he’d seen in movies.

“Mademoiselle,” he said. “D’Artagnan at your service.”

She smiled teasingly. “Technically, D’Artagnan wasn’t one of the ‘three’ Musketeers.”

He made a tsking sound. “But we’re not being technical tonight, we’re being fanciful.”

“My apologies, monsieur.” She curtsied, arms gracefully held out. “I am…Constance.”

Well. D’Artagnan’s love. She was willing to play his game.

And the rest of her—what he could see of her—was just as beautiful as his aerial view had been.

Her face was oval shaped, her lips like a small heart above a pointed little chin. She wore a black ribbon with a cameo on a slender neck fringed with fiery red tendrils of hair that had escaped the beaded headpiece.

He peered into her mask. “Blue or green eyes?” he asked. “Ah. Blue. Dark blue. But no freckles with that hair?”

She laughed lightly. He loved the sound of it.

“No, mercifully,” she replied. “Though there are a few on my back.”

“You must show me,” he teased.

At which point she turned and obligingly lowered her head, revealing slender shoulders dusted with little honey-colored dots.

It was all he could do to stop himself from lowering his lips to a small scar he saw there. He’d been celibate a long time, but he hadn’t realized it had been this long.

“Are you hungry, Constance?” he asked briskly.

He saw her blink once. “Famished,” she replied.

“Then come with me.” He tucked her arm into his and walked her toward the buffet table in the dining room. He handed her a plate.

The spread was impressive. There were large succulent prawns on ice, fancy meat and pastry roll-ups, several fruit salads, vegetable sticks and luscious chocolates.

While she pondered the table, he went into the kitchen to snatch two glasses and open a bottle of champagne. He returned to find her plate holding a very modest amount of shrimp and raw vegetables.

He led the way back to the stairs, walked halfway up, then settled them comfortably on a carpeted stair, letting his legs stretch down to make room for hers.

“Tell me, Constance,” he said, placing the glass on the stair and pouring champagne, “Are you a member of the historical society?”

She bit a shrimp in half, then shook her head as she chewed. “No. But I’m glad I happened to be here for the party.”

“You don’t live in Dancer’s Beach?”

“I’m…visiting.”

“Family?”

“Friends.”

“Friends are important,” he said. “I value mine.”

She nodded. “The other two Musketeers?”

He laughed. “You noticed. I guess the costumes are corny, but we saw them and sort of related, I guess.”

“To the fight against despotic evil?”

“Nothing so noble,” he denied candidly. “To the camaraderie, the tankards of ale, the wenching.”

She tsked. “Wenching isn’t healthy.”

“Yeah, well, like a lot of men, I talk more than I do.”

He drank his champagne to cover his close observation of her as she admired the elegantly carved stairway. He was trying to imagine her without the mask.

“I don’t recall that the Musketeers had such elegant surroundings,” she said.

“Mmm.” He refilled her glass, then his own. “When we’re not Musketeering, we need someplace comfortable to be.”

“But this is so big.”

“I know. It needs children, parties.”

“Do you have them?”

He smiled. “The children? No. No wife yet, either, but I’m looking.”

“Ah.” She took another bite of prawn. “The prospective Mrs. D’Artagnan might be here tonight.” She pointed with her glass toward a very attractive woman dressed as Cleopatra. “The Queen of Egypt is very fetching.”

He glanced at the woman, agreed with a nod, then turned back to his plate. “But there are all those palace intrigues and I understand she has something going with the Emperor of Rome. Are you single?”

She nodded absently, then asked, “Do you know anything about the history of this wonderful house?”

“Just a little,” he replied. He didn’t want to talk about the house, he wanted to talk about her. And him. “It was built before the turn of the century by someone who married into the Buckley family that founded Dancer’s Beach.”

“It’s nice to have a house with history. Are you the owner?”

“I’ve just recently moved in with a couple of friends.” All he could think about was how beautiful this woman was, even with half her face covered. “We’re not very settled yet, but we’re working on it.”

“What do you do, Mr…?”