Page 5 of A Private Wager
It was true that Mr. Warfield had never done anything to her. Not personally, at any rate. But she knew from a trusted friend that he’d behaved dishonorably with several young ladies. And,yet, in all her many seasons avoiding the fortune hunters, she’d never heard a single negative thing about Viscount Harcourt. Was Mr. Barton truly the bad seed of the family? Or was the viscount simply better at hiding his faults? Either way, it was too late to question his character now that she’d agreed to a false courtship with him. It had been an impulse; a decision made in haste because she was discomfited in his presence. Every time they had met, he’d made her unaccountably nervous. It was unlike her to be so affected by any gentleman. In truth, most of them annoyed her. Their false compliments and obvious nefarious schemes had never appealed to her. So why did he? Was she so shallow that his handsomeness truly swayed her?
There was no more time to consider it. He was approaching her quickly. Attempting to scroll her features into an expression of impassivity and disinterest, she looked away, scanning the gathered crowd in a casual manner. And yet, inside her gloves, her palms were sweating, and it felt as if hundreds of butterflies were taking flight in her stomach.
“Good evening, Miss Dawes,” he said quietly as he came to stand near her. “I would offer to get some refreshment for you, but I see that someone else has already beaten me to it.”
“I retrieved my own refreshment, my lord. Like most ladies, I am oddly self sufficient when gentlemen are not present,” she replied.
His lips curved upward in a slightly crooked (and all the more charming for it) smile. “A sad fact for us, Miss Dawes. You all can do quite well without us, but we are utterly lost without you.”
“You seem to have been doing particularly well on your own, Viscount Harcourt,” she observed. At her comment, his smile broadened into an actual grin. It was positively devastating. So devastating that she had to look away.
“Nothing more than a brave front,” he denied. The dinner gong sounded then. He offered her his arm. “We are not seated near one another, but may I escort you in to dinner?”
With trepidation, she placed her gloved hand on his proffered arm. It rocked her to her core. She could feel the heat of him—and the firmness of his muscles—through the layers of cloth. Nothing had ever unsettled her so.
As she seated herself at the dinner table, her shawl slipped from one shoulder. He stooped to retrieve it, draping it over her arm once more. She turned to thank him, but their faces were terribly close together. Only inches apart, in fact. Her breath caught. Their gazes collided. And she saw something in his eyes, an awareness—a hunger, even—that she had not anticipated.
“Might we take a walk after dinner?” he asked. “A stroll in the garden. Well within sight of the house and with an appropriate chaperone, of course.”
She couldn’t form an answer. Literally, she was robbed of the ability to speak. Instead, she offered up a simple nod for her answer.
“Until then, Miss Dawes.” Then he was gone, striding along the length of the table to his position near the head, as a privilege of his rank.
Around her, the other young ladies were all looking at her with a mixture of envy and curiosity. She focused on the place setting before her, trying desperately to calm her racing pulse.
CHAPTER FOUR
He found himself shockingly eager for the dinner to be at an end. That moment, after he’d assisted her with her shawl, he’d been charged with a kind of sensual promise that had him wondering exactly what it would be like to kiss Miss Lucy Dawes’s cupid’s-bow lips. When the last course was cleared away, and the ladies and gentleman separated to go to their respective gathering spots, he rose quickly. Rather than retreating to the billiard room or the library with the other gentlemen, he made straight for the drawing room. Miss Dawes was already there with her aunt.
Moving toward them purposefully, he halted before them. “Our walk, Miss Dawes?”
“I’m not certain this is proper, young man,” her aunt stated.
“I assure you, Mrs. Wilson, it will be all that’s proper. We will stay in full view of the terrace at all times,” he promised. That was a disappointing prospect for him, of course. Havingan opportunity to steal a kiss, assuming such an act would be permitted by Miss Dawes, would help him to sway her into viewing him as an actual suitor rather than merely a pretend suitor.
“It’s fine, Aunt,” Miss Dawes offered.
The aunt was still clearly not convinced. She was shaking her head, hem-hawing with uncertainty. “What would your mother have said?”
“If my mother, during her too-short life, had known any eligible young man wished to spend time with me, she would always have said yes,” Miss Dawes replied with dry humor. “And if you look, Aunt, there are other couples taking walks in the garden, even without the benefit of a chaperone.”
The elderly woman glanced in the direction of the terrace doors, where several couples were making their way out for evening walks in the moonlight. “I suppose it will not be too risqué, then.”
“There are comfortable chairs on the terrace and lap robes as well to ward off any chill,” he explained, proffering his arm once more. When Miss Dawes placed her hand on his forearm, he felt that same strange tingle of awareness that he’d experienced in the dining room.
Immediately, he felt the thrill of her touch—that little spark of awareness, the first stirrings of desire that took him slightly be surprise. Was it just because the wager had suddenly made him view Miss Dawes in a different light? No. When he’d danced with her before, he’d been just as taken with her then. He’d thought her charming and remarkably pretty, and he’d even, for just a moment, wished that she wasn’t a perfectly respectable young woman and that he was not a gentleman bound by honor. He’d put that from his mind, for obvious reasons. With no intent to marry, such thoughts would have been pointless. Now, hecould indulge in them freely—assuming he could persuade her to accept his courtship genuinely rather than simply as a charade.
War led her to the terrace doors, open to the unseasonably warm evening air, with her aunt following close behind. Once he had seen to the elderly woman’s comfort, getting her settled into one of the chairs with a lap robe, he led Miss Dawes down the steps and onto the graveled path that would wind its way through the garden.
When they were far enough away that their conversation would not be overheard, Miss Dawes broke the silence. “What are we really doing out here, my lord? A fake courtship does not necessitate engaging in very real courtship rituals.”
“A fake courtship must still be a convincing courtship, Miss Dawes, and I have not given up on the idea of courting you, in truth. After all, you were supposed to entertain the notion of permitting it, were you not?” He uttered the reminder gently, keeping his voice pitched low enough that it necessitated leaning in to speak to her. Because he was leaning in so closely, and because one of the many torches lining the garden path was directly beside them, he could see the gooseflesh rise on her skin. And he caught the unmistakable shiver that afflicted her. Neither was from the cold. A slow smile spread across his lips. “You are attracted to me, Miss Dawes. You need not deny it.”
“Your vanity and conceit, my lord, are beyond measure,” she snapped.
“It is not vanity, Miss Dawes. No is it conceit. It is simply awareness. And that awareness is borne of the fact that I, Miss Dawes, am also very attracted to you.”
She stopped walking so abruptly that she nearly stumbled. Grasping her arm to steady her, once she was no longer in danger of falling, he realized that they were now standing face to face and very, very close to one another. So much so that he spared a quick glance at the terrace and noted that Miss Dawes’saunt had already nodded off. Tucked beneath the lap robe, she had her head laid back, and the elderly woman appeared to be snoring. So much for chaperonage.
