Page 98 of An Affair with a Notorious Heiress
“She’s purchased her passage back to New York.”
So soon? He stopped whirling her over the floor as though she’d placed a brick wall in front of him. He’d known Tillie was going to leave—but now that the moment was upon him—
“When?”
“End of the week.”
There wasn’t much time. “Are you going with her?” he asked.
“No. She’s planning to hire a chaperone for me, which will leave her with no one.” Her brow was furrowed. All the joy she’d exhibited earlier had dissipated.
Lifting her gloved hand, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Don’t worry, Little One, she won’t be going alone.”
“What are you going to do?”
What he should have done all along.
“Mathilda Paget! Countess of Landsdowne!” The majordomo’s voice boomed through the room. Rexton could have sworn he felt it shimmering around him.
“What did he say?” He looked toward the top of the stairs. He wasn’t the only one. The music ended and the murmurings began, but he didn’t care about any of that. None of it mattered.
“She came,” Gina breathed out on a rush, clutching his arm. “She came. She told me she wouldn’t.”
Standing there in lilac, looking out over the ballroom. Bold, gorgeous, defiant.
And then the woman he loved more than life began her descent.
She had never been more nervous and terrified in her entire life.
After her name was announced, she swore the room became so quiet she could have heard a pin drop. It also became incredibly still. People no longer danced. The music ceased to play. She told herself it was because she had arrived unfashionably late, and people were surprised by a guest’s tardiness.
But then she became aware of the quiet murmuring, the whispers. This was no doubt a mistake, a huge mistake. But she’d recently made a much larger one: she had let him go without a fight.
With a deep, shaky breath she began her descent into the ballroom. She’d managed only a half dozen steps when she saw Rexton charging up them, his long legs taking them three at a time, his devilish smile making her smile.
Dear God, she’d never been so glad to see anyone in her life, and not because it meant she wasn’t going to have to face the crowd alone, but because he was simply there and looked so bloody marvelous. And so glad to see her. Perhaps she hadn’t lost him completely.
But then he stopped, one step below her, within reach. All she had to do was extend her fingers to cradle his jaw, flick them through his hair, curl them over his shoulder to steady herself.
“You’re here,” he said quietly as his gaze drifted over her face, before settling on her eyes, holding them as though if he claimed them he could claim her.
“It seems so, yes.”
“Why?”
Such a short word, a simple word, for an incredibly complex question with an even more complex answer. But in the end, there was too much to explain and she suddenly realized this wasn’t the place or the moment. “Because I wanted a memory of sharing a waltz with you.”
“Do you think there will be but one?”
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure there will be that one.”
“Where men are concerned, it seems you continually misjudge. I promise as long as you are willing, you will have a good many waltzes with me.”
He was the one who misunderstood: why she was here and the point she was striving to make so she could leave England behind with fewer regrets, but she realized even they would forever haunt her.
She shook her head. “Do you not feel the stares?”
“Because they are unaccustomed to gazing on one so beautiful.”
