Page 23 of One Night for Seduction
Diana’s eyes immediately flicked to the duke’s precise location. She had been aware of him from the moment she and her cousin had entered the ballroom.
It was more than merely being the most handsome man present. It was as if every inch of her body was attuned to his every move. A flash of a smile warmed her insides. A rumble of a laugh set her heart aflutter.
Nerves, Diana told herself. Nothing more. A duke was dangerous on general principle, but a lord who appeared to be close personal friends with every person he passed was even more so. His interest in her was predicated solely on a dare. Likely he was canvassing his peers to determine which poor cretin was the one he could foist her off on.
Oh, why did he have to make that wager? A member of the House of Lords acknowledging the passionate opinions of an unwed, untitled, unimportant young lady was a long shot in the best of circumstances. With the duke’s attention consumed with winning a bet, he would be even less open to long discussions of politics or the painstaking research she’d charted by hand in her journals.
“I’ll wave him over,” Lady Felicity said, and immediately lifted her fan to catch her brother’s eye.
Colehaven’s gaze snapped not to his sister, but to Diana.
“Excuse me,” Diana blurted. “I have to go.”
She handed back the sherry and fled the ballroom before the young ladies could ask any questions. Diana hated to be rude, but nor could she risk the duke and his sister and her friends joining forces in a mission to force her to the dance floor in hopes of meeting her future betrothed.
That was someone else’s dream. Not Diana’s.
Blindly, she passed the corridor leading to the terrace, the ladies’ retiring room, several closed doors, and then caught sight of a dimly lit library. The door was barely ajar, and the only light seemed to emanate from a dwindling fire behind a far grate.
Perfect.
She ducked inside, slipped past the shelves of books to the remains of the fire, and settled on a worn Chesterfield to jot her latest observations in her journal.
Before her fingers could wrest the small volume from her reticule, movement caught the corner of her eye as a certain handsome gentleman penetrated her sanctuary. The duke had found her in the darkness.
“Are you so afraid that someone might dare request your dance card?”
Diana shivered as the low rumble of his voice enveloped her like a caress. Just knowing he shared the firelight with her made her skin flush with heat.
She leapt to her feet, determined to ignore such flights of fancy.
“I don’t carry a dance card,” she shot back. Or meant to shoot. Now that she saw how little space separated them, she wasn’t certain sound had escaped her throat at all.
His body was so close, she could nearly feel his heat against her skin. His dark curls seemed invitingly touchable, his mouth a decadent promise. A risk she dare not take.
Diana swallowed hard. Five years ago, when she’d first decided to serve her country rather than a husband, a tiny part of her had thrilled at the idea of a future filled with undreamed of freedoms.
At the spinster-adjacent advanced age of five-and-twenty, her marriage prospects were already grim. By dispensing with the notion of saving herself for a husband, the exciting possibility ofnotsaving anything at all had occurred to her. A woman could sow wild oats as well as any man, could she not? Independence did not imply a life devoid of pleasure.
The fantasy, of course, had been short-lived. Inviting rakes and rogues into her boudoir would have put her too much in the eye of the ton. Eschewing high society dandies for working men wouldn’t do either. Not when she needed to present the picture of a professional, unmemorable measures inspectress.
Diana’s liaisons with strapping, virile men would remain as fictional as the stories told in the leather-bound novels upon the library shelves.
All of which put her at a distinct disadvantage. She knew everything there was to know about weights and measures and volumes and scales. The one thing she didn’t know was what to do with Colehaven.
Or the way the mere sight of him set her pulse aflutter.
She smoothed her gown, grateful for the limited firelight. “If you’ve come hoping to haul me back to the ballroom to simper at suitors, I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time.”
“I suspected as much,” he admitted. “I came anyway.”
“Why?” she asked, expecting him to perhaps gently explain why her hopes and thoughts and dreams were completely wrong and how she should let him dictate when and who she should marry.
“Sometimes I’d rather be anywhere but a dance floor, too,” he replied.
Diana blinked in surprise. “But you’re a duke!”
“Dukes are known for dancing?” he asked with obvious amusement. “Most of them are twice my age and wouldn’t be able to find the orchestra with a quizzing glass.”
