Page 3 of Beau

Abraham shook his head. “My daughter is a strong-minded, independent woman. She won’t be happy that I’ve hired somebody to protect her. For now, I’d rather let you acquaint yourself with her. If that doesn’t work, I’ll introduce you as a son of a friend of mine.”

Beau nodded. “As you wish. At the very least, could you point her out to me?”

The senator glanced around the ballroom. “She’s dressed as Amelia Earhart, in trousers, a dusty-brown jacket and goggles instead of a mask.” The man shook his head. “I couldn’t get her to wear a dress to save my life.”

Beau’s lips twitched. “She sounds like she has a mind of her own.”

The senator chuckled. “That she does.” He lifted his chin, indicating direction. “That’s her dancing with my executive assistant. At least the ballroom dance lessons that I paid for weren’t wasted. They would’ve looked better if she were wearing the antebellum dress I had commissioned for her.”

The woman in the goggles waltzed past Beau in the arms of a man dressed as a swashbuckling pirate.

Now, that was a costume. Beau wished he’d had more time to find a better disguise than the Robin Hood one, which was the last decent choice at the costume shop in New Orleans.

He hadn’t had time to go to a different costume shop, given that he’d only been notified of this mission around noon that day. His only other choice was a hairy Sasquatch costume.

Although, he was now beginning to wish he’d gone with Sasquatch. He felt very exposed wearing green tights, even though the jacket was long enough, just barely covering his ass.

“Good luck keeping up with her,” the senator said.

Beau’s lips pressed together as he watched the woman laugh out loud at something the pirate said. “I’ll take it from here,” he said, leaving the senator at his post receiving guests.

Beau wandered into the ballroom, his gaze on Amelia Earhart, a.k.a. Aurelie Anderson. He stopped at a table serving lemonade and what appeared to be mint juleps. He chose a lemonade and stood back, watching Miss Anderson dance around the room with the pirate. As he sipped the lemonade, he thought through the different scenarios where he could introduce himself.

The woman appeared relaxed, dancing and talking with the senator’s executive assistant. Her movements appeared effortless, a testimony to the dance lessons her father had paid for her to take. An orchestra provided the music, playing various reimagined modern songs in an 18th-century style.

As the song came to a close, Miss Anderson and her partner slowed to stop. The pirate gave her a sweeping bow and then waved a hand toward the open bar.

Aurelie shook her head and said something Beau couldn’t hear. Then, she walked away from the executive assistant. She ducked through a doorway and disappeared.

Beau set his glass down on an empty tray and hurried to follow. He left through the same door that she had and walked quickly down a hallway. He spotted her pushing through another doorway further down the corridor.

Though he hurried to catch up, he came to an abrupt halt in front of the swinging door with a placard indicating that the room inside was the ladies’ restroom.

Since he couldn’t follow her through that door, he walked further down the hall and stood in front of the men’s room, waiting for Miss Anderson to emerge.

A few minutes later, the senator’s daughter emerged from the bathroom.

When she looked in his direction, Beau pretended to be coming out of the men’s room. She only gave him a cursory glance before she headed back to the ballroom, her shoulders back, head held high as if she were marching into battle.

Beau followed and found her standing against the wall, her foot tapping to the beat of the music. Beau crossed to the lemonade table, snagged two glasses of lemonade and walked back to where Miss Anderson stood half-hidden by a potted plant. He stopped next to her without looking at her, his gaze on the people dancing across the floor. Eventually, he held up the glass to her. “You look like you need this more than I do.”

She took the glass from him and downed most of it in one long swallow. “Thanks, I did need that.”

He chuckled. “Do you always dance so rigorously?”

She lifted her chin. “A wise person once told me to put your heart and soul into everything you do, or don’t bother doing it at all.”

“Have you ever bothered to do the nothing at all?” He quirked his lips upward on the corners in challenge.

“A number of times,” the Anderson woman said.

“Now that you’ve consumed an entire glass of lemonade given to you by a complete stranger, did you stop to think I might have spiked that lemonade with a date rape drug?” he asked.

Her brow wrinkled. “You don’t look like the type of man who would spike a girl’s drink.”

He looked down at his costume. “Is it the costume?”

She laughed. “Partly. And the fact that you wouldn’t have given me the lemonade spiked with any drug with my father watching like a hawk.” She lifted her chin toward the man dressed as Abraham Lincoln. “He’s been watching me all evening. He even enlisted his executive assistant to have a pity-dance with me to keep me busy.”

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