“No.” There was a wealth of assurance in the negation.

“No?”

“When I think about sex with you there is no worry involved. Eagerness, yes. Anxiety, no.” He closed the small gap between them and bent over her. His voice came as an intimate whisper. “Do not hesitate for that reason. We are young. We can wed and wait, or we can wait and then wed. Even with my ring on your finger, I will not ask you to do anything you do not wish to. Not yet.” His mouth twitched. “In a few years, however, I may not be so accommodating. I must reproduce eventually, and I do find you supremely alluring.”

Amelia tilted her head, considering. Then she nodded.

“Good,” Ware said with obvious satisfaction. “Progress, however incremental, is always good.”

“Perhaps it is time to post the banns.”

“By God, that is more than an incremental move forward!” he cried with exaggerated verve. “We are actually getting somewhere.”

She laughed and he winked mischievously.

“We will be happy together,” he promised.

“I know.”

Ware took a moment to once again secure his mask, and her gaze wandered as she waited. Following the line of the marble railing, she found a profusion of ivy climbing the brick exterior. That visual trail led to another terrace farther down, this one unlit in an obvious gambit to deter guests from lingering away from the ballroom. It appeared, however, that the lack of welcome was too subtle for two attendees, or perhaps they simply did not care to heed it. Regardless, the reason why they were there was not what caught Amelia’s attention. She was more interested in who was there.

Despite the deep shadows that blanketed the second patio, she recognized her phantom follower by the pure white of his mask and the way his garments and hair blended into the night around him.

“My lord,” she murmured, reaching out blindly to clutch Ware’s arm. “Do you see those gentlemen over there?”