Page 51 of The Earl's Christmas Deal
“You’re staring.”
Emilia tried to drag her gaze away, but she was frozen in place by an invisible connection hanging in the air between them as Adam began scanning the crowds.
When his eyes alighted upon her, he walked immediately in her direction. Lionel walked behind him sporting a dark red waistcoat and looking very handsome indeed.
They were by far the most attractive men at the ball and walked through the crowd with many women looking their way as they did so. Having warned her friend not to stare, Charlottecould not take her eyes off Lord Spencer and was utterly speechless as he bowed, holding out his hand and leading her to the dancefloor without a word.
Emilia curtsied to Adam, who carefully ran his eyes over her figure and cleared his throat.
“You look very beautiful this evening,” he said softly, and Emilia blushed up to her hairline.
“Thank you, my Lord,” she said happily. “As do you.”
Adam offered her his hand. “Will you do me the honour of the first dance?”
Despite her nerves, Emilia took his hand, her gaze furtive and flitting about the room as butterflies swirled in her stomach.
“Everyone is staring at us,” she said with concern. Emilia had always known that they had planned and were orchestrating a deception but now the realities of it made her worry all the more.
“Try to focus on me,” he said gently. “The fact that they are noticing us is a good thing. What has you so concerned tonight?’
“I suppose I did not think of what I was doing to my parents,” she said as they took their positions on the floor. The rest of the dance floor was filled with people, the room a sea of faces, and Emilia swallowed around the lump in her throat.“I am not being honest with them.”
Adam gripped her fingers tightly, his steady gaze meeting her own.
“My Lady… Emilia,” he said hesitantly as Emilia’s heart beat loudly in her chest. “You are not being dishonest. You are choosing the direction your life will move in. There is not yet an understanding between you and the duke. I will speak with your father in two days and make my intentions known. Try to focus on that. You have done nothing wrong.”
Emilia was not certain she agreed with him, but she was grateful for his support and guidance. As the music began all around them, the band playing a lively seasonal tune that filled the room, they began the gentle pace of the dance.
Emilia sucked in a sharp breath as the dance continued. Emilia could feel Adam’s eyes on her throughout.
Although he had instructed her to focus on him, it was as though she was unable to look anywhere else at that moment.
She would never have dreamt that their connection would feel so real to her in so short a time, but now it did. The fact that he understood how she felt about the duke, understood her scandal, and still wanted to spend the rest of his life with her was a seductive reality that she could no longer deny.
He was an eligible, impossibly handsome man who had made his interest in her clear. As Emilia watched him move about the floor with grace and experience, he was no longer the stranger she had met at the winter ball; he was herbetrothed, and she was alarmed at how happy she felt in his presence.
The dance continued as they circled the room together, and by and by, there seemed to be no one else around them. Emiliafelt lighter on her feet, her breath coming quicker in her chest as she looked into Adam’s unwavering gaze.
Adam kept his back straight, his arms taut, trying to process all the emotions flooding through him as he held Emilia in his arms.
Even when he had courted Anastasia, he had never felt this intense need to protect and nurture someone. Just holding her against him was wonderful, a joy like nothing else flooding through him. He could feel the many eyes in the room upon them, but somehow, all he could see was her.
The hazel gaze he had grown to know so well punctured through his defences so that he felt raw and vulnerable again. Adam had promised himself long ago that he did not need another companion in his life, that hecouldnot find someone else to love, and now all those certainties had been scattered to the winds in place of Emilia Sterling.
He stared into her eyes as they danced, the music blurring into nothing, the sounds around them fading. She feltrightin his arms, and when he had called her Emilia, she had not blanched from him. The terrifying truth was that he could see a new path laid out ahead of him. Where before there had been nothing but empty, barren desert stretching as far as his eye could see, now there was a forest of colour ready for him to explore.
She has brought colour back into my world, which has been nothing but grey for years.
As the waltz ended, Adam and Emilia stood together for a fraction longer than the other couples, their gazes still locked as they slowly lowered their arms.
Adam’s hand lingered on the small of her back for seconds only, but it felt like a lifetime to them both. It seemed that the pretence they had affected to convince the world of their affections was more than that now. Out of the ashes of theirpasts, something real and true had begun to burn, too bright and fierce to deny.
Lionel and Charlotte were also standing at the edge of the floor, his fingers loosely brushing hers as they watched their friends gaze into each other’s eyes.
Charlotte looked to Lord Spencer, who did not say a word, but his lips quirked as though with a secret he would not disclose. As she took his arm, the room seemed to vibrate with whispers as the couples walked back into the crowd.
***
