Page 15 of The Trouble with True Love

He raised a brow, and no wonder. From alittle lamblike her, such words were bound to be unexpected.

“Oh, me, definitely,” he answered. “I’m far more dangerous to you than a mere quadrille. If this were a mazurka, now, that might be different.”

She laughed, disarmed by that bit of wit in spite of herself. “I doubt I’m in any danger from you.”

“You’re in my arms.” He pulled her a fraction closer. “Make no mistake, my lamb. You are in very great danger.”

Clara’s throat went dry, and as they turned slowly on the ballroom floor, staring at each other through the circle of their upraised arms, she felt her newfound sense of power slipping.

He seemed to perceive the change. His smile faded away, his gaze roamed over her face, and her heart began thudding hard in her chest. She feared the sensations he evoked in her were due not to her fear of recognition, but to something else entirely, something she’d never experienced in her life before. Worse, she knew what it was.

This was what Elsie Clark had felt that afternoon in the tea shop. This was how it felt to be caught in the sights of a devastatingly handsome man. He was looking at her as if she was the only thing in the world that existed, as if nothing that had come before or would ever come after was more important than she was. A rake’s version of the siren song.

It wasn’t real, and yet, even as she reminded herself of that, heat curled in her belly.

Thankfully, the steps of the dance again forced them apart, and by the time they came together for the last figure of the quadrille, Clara had regained her composure. “I thought you said you don’t flirt with young ladies. You make it a rule, you said.”

“So I did. But rules...” He paused, a faint smile on his lips. “Rules, they say, are made to be broken.”

“You have certainly broken a few.”

He laughed as he lifted their hands overhead. “I have indeed,” he said, studying her through the circle of their arms. “But you haven’t, I suspect.”

She thought of what she’d done with Lady Truelove. “You’d be surprised,” she muttered.

“Would I? You intrigue me, Miss Deverill.” He pulled her closer, his fingers tightening around hers, his knuckles brushing against her belly. “Perhaps we should break some rules together?”

“Which ones did you have in mind?”

That provocative question came tumbling out of her mouth without any thought, but thankfully, the music stopped before he could reply, and Clara was profoundly relieved. She pulled back, expected he would let her hands go and offer his arm to escort her back to her place, but to her astonishment, he didn’t free her. He didn’t even move.

“Several ideas are going through my head, I confess,” he murmured, answering her question. His vivid blue gaze lowered to her mouth. “A kiss during a dance would break quite a few rules, wouldn’t it?”

Clara imagined it, his arms around her and his mouth claiming hers, but though it was just a flash through her mind, her knees suddenly felt like jelly, even as her feminine pride railed against the notion that she could be conquered so easily.

“Many rules, I should think,” she agreed, pulling her hands free and heaving a sigh of feigned disappointment. “But kissing me during the dance is impossible.”

“Is it?” He stirred, moving closer. His head bent down a fraction. “Why?”

She began to laugh. “Because the dance is over.”

He blinked as if that were the last thing he’d expected. “What?”

Noting his blank expression, she realized he’d been so caught up in her that he hadn’t even noticed the end of the dance. She laughed, exhilaration rising inside her like a sudden burst of fireworks, overriding everything else this man had made her feel. She had her own siren song, it seemed. Who’d ever have thought that?

He glanced about as if working to come to his senses, and she took that opportunity to turn away and start for the nearest door. It was a breach of good manners, for it deprived him of the opportunity to return her to her place, but Clara didn’t care. For the first time in her life, she’d said the perfect thing at the perfect moment, and she didn’t want to spoil such an unexpected triumph by talking with him any further.

But when she glanced over her shoulder, she found that her escape was not to be so easy. He was in pursuit. Why he should be, she couldn’t imagine, but there was an unmistakable half smile on his lips and a determined cast to his countenance that made Clara quicken her steps.

She had the advantage on him, for his momentary daze had enabled her to put a good twenty feet of distance and half a dozen couples between them. But once she left the ballroom, those advantages would evaporate. Her vague, half-formed intent had been to duck into the ladies’ withdrawing room, but only now did she realize she’d never ascertained where it was and she had no time to go looking, for he was on her very heels. And even if she could spare a moment to find out that information, there was no one to whom she could put the question because when she stepped into the corridor, she found it was empty.

Cursing her sudden and most uncharacteristic impulse to be a flirt, Clara glanced around. Ahead of her was the main corridor that led to the foyer, a vast expanse with no side doors and no hiding places. To her left and right, the ballroom wall was flanked by large marble statues, and she saw only one possible means to evade him.

She turned to the right, running for all she was worth down the corridor, but she’d barely managed a dozen steps before she heard the door to the ballroom open, and she veered sideways, catching the glint of his tawny hair out of the corner of her eye just before she slid between two statues. She drew in her breath and stiffened her spine, hoping her body was slender enough and her skirt narrow enough to sufficiently conceal her from view.

Voices and music floated to her down the corridor, and then the door closed again, muffling the sounds of the ball going on in the room behind her. She didn’t know if he’d gone back inside or not, but there was no way to find out, for she didn’t dare move. She waited, listening, hardly daring to breathe.

“What the devil?” she heard him mutter. “How does a girl just vanish into thin air?”

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