His hand stilled on her back, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “Wait here. I’ll fetch him a plate.”

She smiled to see the swiftness of his steps as he headed back into the ballroom. They couldn’t disappear for long, or people would talk. Nevertheless, anticipation fired her veins at the notion of having Hadrian all to herself, if only for a short while.

He returned bearing two glasses of champagne and a plate piled with tarts and cake. “It’s best we’re not seen,” he said in low tone. “Follow me.”

Hadrian led her toward an outside staircase that descended to the darkened garden. No one appeared to notice them since the other guests were heading inside for supper. With the steps in semidarkness, lit only by a few scattered lanterns, she was glad he’d gone first.

They had just reached the bottom when a man came hurrying out of the gloomy depths of the garden. He spied them and stopped dead, glancing furtively behind him. The moonlight made a pale cap of his wheat-gold hair and washed out his stark, startled features.

“Wymark,” Hadrian said. “Why the devil are you prowling out here in the dark?”

“I—I wanted a breath of fresh air. No different from you and Miss Fanshawe. Excuse me.”

Seeming anxious to avoid further questions, the viscount brushed past them and bounded up the stairs to rejoin the ball.

“His cravat looked disheveled,” she said as Hadrian guided her to a door on the ground floor. “Do you suppose he was meeting a woman?”

“Well, the fool did look behind him. Perhaps he told her to wait so they weren’t seen returning together.” Deftly balancing the two flutes and the plate in one hand, he opened the door. “A true gentleman would have sent her back to the ball first.”

He waved Natalie ahead of him, and she stepped into a corridor lit by candles in sconces set at intervals along the walls. “You don’t see your cousin as a gentleman?”

“Richard is a weak-willed libertine who was spoiled by his mother.”

“How odd that you were both raised by the same man, yet turned out so very differently.”

“The first Lady Godwin set great store on proper behavior. By the time the earl married the present countess, I was away at school. Richard used to brag that she always intervened whenever Godwin tried to discipline him.”

He ushered Natalie into a study lit only by an ethereal glow from the bank of windows that overlooked the moonlit garden. A rich leather scent came from the bound ledgers that lined the shelves behind the large desk. Despite its spaciousness, the shadowy room had a cozy aura with several seating areas and framed paintings on the walls.

Hadrian set down the plate and handed her one of the flutes. “But I didn’t bring you here to talk about my kinfolk.”

She took a sip of champagne, the bubbles tickling her tongue and filling her with an effervescence of spirit. The glint of his eyes in the semidarkness made her blood surge. “Oh?” she said flirtatiously. “What other possible reason could you have for luring me into your den, sir?”