He maintained his smile. “When is it?”
“Saturday.”
“What, tomorrow? That’s quite short notice.”
Brandon cleared his throat. “I had tickets for my employees. Six couldn’t make it.”
“How much—”
“I’m gifting them to you, if you want them.”
Zach added more wrinkles to Brandon’s sleeve. “We want them. Right Noah?”
“Thank you, Brandon. That’s very generous of you.”
Zach cocked his head. “Could I have an extra, Brandy?”
Brandon looked up from his pasta, smile waning. Noah immediately sensed where this was heading and cringed, but he was too tangled in his own thoughts to discourage Zach.
“I mean, since there are six spare . . .”
“Of course.”
Zach gazed at Brandon, grinning like he couldn’t help it; Brandon bowed his head to his plate.
Noah resisted the urge to sigh.
Wentworth’s voice sailed over their neck-high folding screens as Noah shucked his cargos and climbed into padded stockings and breeches. And the longest shirt he’d ever seen.
“Where’s Zach? I’d hae sworn this was his thing.”
“Coming with Brandon, I expect.” He hoped. There was really no question who that extra ticket was for.
“Shouldhae guessed.” And then to the valets in the room, “Are there any stockings without paddin’? My calves look ridiculous.”
Elliot came laughing to his rescue and at their exchange of secret smiles, Noah struggled to suppress the wistful memory of Wade’s cold fingers on his jaw, eyes fixed on him. That guy is here with me.
A burst of laughter across the crowded room yanked him back to the present, and the waistcoat buttons he’d finagled into the wrong holes. Foolish of him to indulge in retrospection.
He entered the ballroom twenty minutes later. He’d been here once before, years ago, when it was a school. This huge room had been a gymnasium, but now . . . Polished wooden flooring; the most exquisite floral wallpaper; chandeliers; paintings of the peninsula by local artists, their gilded frames gleaming. It was surreal. Spectacular.
Noah quickly found his place as a wallflower and willed Zach to arrive.
A familiar prim laugh had his stomach jumping up his throat, and his gaze fell on Francesca fanning out her frilly golden gown. Her dark eyes sliced into him, but Noah had already moved on. He gaped.
Luc?
Luc wore his coat and necktie like they were made for him. He had an easiness in his posture that gave him an enviably rakish appearance. Gay men behold.
Luc glanced over and stopped talking to the man in the forest green coat at his side.
Noah straightened his necktie as Luc wrapped up his conversation with Green Coat and slipped away. He found Noah in his out-of-the-way corner and sat at the other end of an elegant chaise longue, looking out at the ball.
Noah kept his voice low, steady. “Is Wade coming?”
Dark lashes flicked to him and back toward Francesca and Green Coat laughing with other guests. “This isn’t his thing. I came with Franny and Robby.”
Noah took more notice of Green Coat. Robby. He hadn’t much memory of Wade’s younger brother. He’d always faded out of his focus when Wade had been around, and time had made him less recognizable still. He wasn’t as tall as his brother, but he was similarly broad. A cleaner-cut look about him overall.
“West’s my, ah, cousin,” Luc said. “I suspect he wanted to give me a reprieve from the folks. You know.”
Noah shuddered. To endure the Churchills as relatives . . . live with them . . . “And you brought Francesca and Robby?”
“Robby is . . .” Luc cleared his throat, “a good friend, and Franny and I have been getting on much better recently. It . . . It makes me hopeful she and her mum might take Wade . . . Well, if they liked us both . . . I thought the ball . . .”
Of course.
If there was any indecision left on Wade’s part, surely this would make his mind up. Enough to come out as gay, but to come out wanting a relationship with the man your sister hated over one she respected . . .
“But I don’t think Franny’s clued on to the ah . . . nature of the event. Yet.”
The waltz swept Ethan and Finley past, love in their eyes.
Luc added, “Shouldn’t imagine it will take long.”
“I’m not convinced she’ll take it well.” Was it jealousy that yanked that out of him?
No. Noah just had little faith when it came to Francesca. She’d once thought he was the best ever. Look how quickly she’d dropped him when he didn’t conform to her ideals.
Could she have changed?
Unlikely, from all he’d seen.
Luc wrung his hands together. “I had to try.”
“Luc, you came!”
They jerked their gazes to West, sauntering over with Josh in tow. They looked impeccable. Like they might have stepped out of an Austen novel.
Luc rose for a hug.
Josh planted himself next to Noah and slung an arm around him. “It’s been too long.”
