Her braids were dark red, a deep auburn it was written, perhaps Titian if one were a poet. It was she, no doubt in his mind at all. In odd moments over the years he'd wondered if he would die a doddering old man, not finding her, if it still wasn't the right time. But it was the right time and he was here and so was she. It was an unspeakable relief.

He walked toward her, aware that people were watching him; they usually did because he was an earl and no one knew a thing about him. London society loved a mystery, particularly if the mystery in question was an unattached presentable male with a title. There was his size too, one of his grandfather's gifts to him, and he knew he intimidated. With his black hair, pulled back and tied with a black velvet ribbon, he knew people looked at him and saw a man not quite civilized. They might have been right. He knew his eyes could turn cold as death, another gift from his grandfather-black eyes that made people think of wizards, perhaps, or executioners.

A couple danced into his path. He smoothly moved aside at the alarm on the man's face, but he scarcely noticed them, he was so focused on her.

Each of his senses recognized and accepted she was indeed the one he sought. She was waltzing now, her partner whirling her in wide circles, and her blue satin skirts swirled and ballooned around her. She was light on her feet, smoothly following her partner, an older man-old enough to be her father, only he wasn't paunchy and jowly like a father should be; he was tall and lean and graceful, his blue eyes bright as a summer sky, nearly the same light blue as hers, and that face of his was too handsome, his smile too charming. Her husband? Surely not, she was too young. He laughed at himself. Girls were married off at seventeen, some even sixteen, to men older than this one, who also looked fit and surely too spry for his age.