Page 9 of Earl for the Summer
She tilted her head, studying him with a kind of deliberate scrutiny that made the air between them feel charged. At the intense perusal, his skin heated beneath the fine cloth of his evening suit.
The lady had eyes of rich blue, the color shifting with flecks of gold. It reminded him of watching sunlight glitter on a churningsea. Her hair shimmered like a polished gold sovereign under the chandeliers, and her lips—he couldn’t help but notice—were a perfect bow, the lower fuller and faintly flushed.
Julian had mentioned a close friend of Lady Selina’s that it would behoove him to win over. A Miss Bridewell. Could this be her?
“I’m sorry to hear it, my lord,” she said, though her tone hinted at more suspicion than sympathy. “Two weeks to recover. Mercy, it must have been quite a dire illness.”
“A fiendish cold indeed,” he said, matching her tone with a bit of playfulness.
“I see.”
The ballroom’s many lights caught shades of honey in her golden hair, and after looking longer than was polite, Cassian watched as matching flecks in her eyes took on a flash of fire.
“Poor you.” Her voice dipped into a softer tone. “But, of course, I do understand. After all, you’ll recall our discussion about my father.”
“Your father,” Cassian repeated like the fool he was for ever agreeing to this scheme.
“William Bridewell.”
So she was Daphne Bridewell.
“You said your uncle knew him,” she continued. “He was a physician. So I do understand how ailments can keep one down far longer than expected.” She took him in from his brow to the tips of his boots. He stole the moment to note the faintest blush at the edges of her cheeks.
When she caught him studying the shape of her lips again, her gaze narrowed, but not unkindly.
“You seem different somehow,” she murmured, almost as if to herself.
“Do I?”
“Yes.” Miss Bridewell’s voice had gone quiet, slightly breathy. “You’ve changed.”
“For better or for worse?” The question was out before he could temper it, and he was suddenly both wary of and eager for the answer he might receive.
Though he could quickly catalog some of the ways he fell short of Julian’s amiability and charm, it fascinated him that this young lady should note a difference immediately.
Her breath caught. Her pink lips parted slightly, and something flickered across her face. “I wouldn’t presume...” she began, then faltered.
For the first time in years, his desire to taste a woman’s lips nearly overwhelmed him, and his own breath tangled in his lungs.
Miss Bridewell blinked and the color deepened in her cheeks as if she could read this thoughts.
“Perhaps the question was rude.” Good grief, he genuinely didn’t know how to make polite conversation anymore. “Do forgive me.”
“You’re forgiven, my lord.” She said the words a little too quickly. Then she cast a look over her shoulder at the woman he’d been bent on approaching before their collision. “I imagine you’re here to seek her out.”
“That was the plan,” he admitted, though his attention remained stubbornly fixed on the lady in front of him. Her jasmine scent wrapped around him like a tether, and he was intrigued by how she looked at him with all the suspicion of a Scotland Yard detective.
“You should hurry, Lord Windham. Her dance card will soon be filled.” The petite beauty stepped back, clearing his path toward Lady Selina, and he felt the loss of her nearness like a snapped thread.
But the diamond was no longer in the spot where she’d been. Lady Selina had taken to the dance floor with Lord Knowles, one of the lordlings who’d greeted him.
Without thinking, Cassian turned back to his blonde inquisitor.
“Will you add me toyourdance card, Miss Bridewell?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, I don’t...” She looked as undone as he’d felt beneath her gaze. “I do not dance.”
“Not ever?”
