if he—?
‘Shall we, my dear?’ said Richard, offering his arm. As she permitted him to steer her through the crowd, he gave a deep laugh. ‘Pompous ass,’ he said.
‘Richard! It’s not funny!’ she whispered fiercely. ‘What if he—?’
‘If he tries anything with you,’ said Richard, in deadly quiet tones, ‘I will take great pleasure in dealing with him.’ All vestiges of amusement had vanished.
‘I’m not worried about me!’ she snapped. ‘I’m worried about you!’
He blinked, patently surprised. And then a quite different sort of smile crept across his face. A tender smile, a smile that spoke of things she had long considered lost to her. Despite the warning bell clanging deep within her, a glowing sensation spread through her, and for a moment there hung between them something almost tangible. She caught her breath … if only—oh, if only!
‘Where shall we sit out?’ she asked.
‘Sit out?’ He stared at her. ‘We’re going to dance.’
‘Dance?’
‘Well, of course! Unless—’ An odd look came into his eyes. ‘Unless you would prefer to sit out?’
Shock slammed into her. He wanted to dance? Actually dance? She hadn’t really believed that he could mean it.
It would be safer not to dance. This shattering awareness of him unsettled her as it was. Dancing, being held in his arms, with music a shimmering web around them, would be twice as dizzying. Like the sudden blaze in the dark eyes as he stared at her.
She had never intended to dance—she had not thought he would want it.
And yet, why should she not? What harm could there be in dancing with Richard? Of all men, he was the one she would feel most comfortable with. She summoned a smile, swallowed the last of her champagne and said, ‘I would be honoured to dance with you, Richard.’
He took her empty champagne glass and handed it, along with his own, to a footman. Then, with another devastating smile, he offered her his arm. ‘Our dance, I believe,’ he said. He steered her on to the dance floor and swept her into the waltz.
She didn’t know what she had expected. Not fear. Certainly not that. And not revulsion. Not with Richard. Never with him. But … the chill … the sense of distance she had learnt to place mentally between herself and anyone who came too close … she had felt it all evening as people jostled around her and she had held them at bay with her fan. Especially with Lord Dunhaven. And now …
Now, in Richard’s arms, adjusting her steps to his uneven strides, the fan dangled unneeded from her wrist, and she felt only warmth, and an enveloping closeness. Whatever she had expected, it had not been this.
Held safely by his arms in the surging rhythm of the dance, she was wildly conscious of his strength, his sheer maleness. It brought only pleasure, a purring, purely feminine delight that he had thought her worth the effort. She felt alive, as she had not in years.
She lifted her gaze to his face. It was as if she had never truly seen him before. Strongly chiselled planes, the deep brown eyes set under dark brows. So familiar. And yet new. New lines, graven she thought, by pain. And he was simply older. More mature. To some his face might look forbidding, yet his smile denied that. And he was smiling now. At her. As though having her in his arms was a pleasure. Her breath hitched and she found herself smiling back.
It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Not as far as he could recall, anyway. And it was quite some time since he had danced at all, let alone waltzed. In fact, Thea was one of the very few women he had ever waltzed with.
His stride was as awkward and uneven as ever. That wasn’t different. What shocked him was the sheer delight in having Thea’s slender, supple body in his arms completely overrode the increasing ache in his leg. Worse, the delight of looking down into her soft blue eyes, seeing the delicate colour fanned on the pale cheeks, and her slightly parted lips nearly made him forget which leg ached.
And then she smiled up at him. A tentative smile, uncertain, as though unsure of its welcome. His breath caught. Never before in his life had he been conscious of an urge to sweep a dance partner out of sight and kiss her, and himself, senseless. With a shock he realised that if he gave in to the urge, he might forget all about sweeping them out of sight.
The music was like a drug, its rhythm one with their shifting bodies. Never had he been so wildly aware of a woman—as a woman. Never had every sense clamoured for more. To be closer, to breathe her soft flowery scent, to hear the soft hush of her breathing. Never had he known the urge to pull a woman closer in the dance so that her thighs shifted against his, so that her breasts touched his coat. Every muscle hardened savagely in the effort not to just do it.
He knew at once when she felt the change in him. The sudden tension in his arms as he fought not to haul her closer, the added clumsiness in his stride, which owed nothing to the ache in his leg.
‘Richard?’
Somehow he met her concerned gaze.
‘I knew this would hurt your leg! Do you wish to stop?’
‘Not in the least,’ he informed her. It wasn’t his leg that was causing the problem.
‘You are sure it doesn’t hurt?’
‘Quite sure,’ he lied. ‘It’s, er, just a kink. Moving will ease it.’ Only not the sort of moving he was doing at the moment. Or at any other moment in the foreseeable future for that matter.
By the end of the dance they were at the far end of the dance floor from the chaperons. Richard was violently aware that Thea was flushed, glowing and radiant. And that he was heated in an odd tingling way that had nothing to do with the heat of the ballroom and everything to do with the slow heat consuming him. Aware that although the dance had finished, music still sang and ached to every heavy beat of the blood in his veins.
He fought for control, reminding himself that it had been a while since he had been with a woman. Casual liaisons with discreet widows had lost their savour some time ago. Apparently with the inevitable result that desire had conducted an ambush in the most impossible, and unexpected, place imaginable. All perfectly logical, if potentially embarrassing.
She looked up at him and his breath caught as their eyes met.
Good lord! What a place to realise that he desired a woman! Especially a woman as untouchable as his aunt’s protégée and goddaughter. Unthinkable.
Well, no, not unthinkable precisely, since he was thinking about it. But definitely inappropriate.
Carefully he stepped back, his mind reeling at the wave of tenderness that poured over him. At the sight of her smiling up at him, all shadows fled, just as he had wanted. This was different, somehow—more than desire. Oh, he’d always liked his partners—what was the point in going to bed and being intimate with someone you didn’t like? But this shattering ache?
‘More champagne, Thea?’ he suggested, in as light a tone as he could muster. He’d known Thea for so long—not surprising if he felt protective towards her. She was lovely—desire was not surprising either. But this tenderness, this welling up of delight merely to see her smile … to see her
