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Violet Goodwin stilled at the top of the long staircase above the ballroom.

She watched the ladies dressed in brilliant colors swirl by on the dance floor beneath her, looking for all the world like the brightly plumed birds of the Hudson River Valley back home.

The thought made her slightly wistful; she missed home.

This evening’s fête was magnificent, with glittering candlelight and overflowing flower arrangements, diamonds that glimmered at throats and rubies that sparkled on wrists, but Violet’s heart wasn’t in it.

She’d rather be outside exploring the various back alleys of Lower Manhattan with her twin brother James than inside a ballroom in England, dancing.

Violet was here for a practice season, to “smooth out the rough edges” as her mother called it before she returned to New York for her debut next year. She dutifully stayed by her mother’s side as the majordomo announced them, then descended the steps into the fray.

But as soon as her mother’s back was turned, Violet stole off.

She was used to exercising a certain amount of freedom in her comings and goings—her parents were too busy running one of America’s largest and most profitable timber companies to keep the hawk-like view over her behavior as other parents of their social set did—and tonight, Violet wanted to be outside.

She headed straight for the patio, diverted first by the stars twinkling above and then by a cat stalking through the gardens below.

“Psst, kitty kitty,” she called, but the cat only turned its bright gold eyes to her, twitched its ears provocatively, and walked away.

“Asshead,” she murmured to its swishing backside and then shivered, her nerve endings prickling from the cold. It was early April, and she was dressed in only a ball gown.

“Excuse me?”

Violet turned at the sound of the voice, startled. The tendrils of unruly blonde hair that spilled out of her coiffure tickled the back of her neck, causing another prickle to vault up her spine.

She peered into the shadows, just making out a masculine profile leaning against the wall.

Man or boy?

She couldn’t quite tell. His voice was deep, commanding. It sent a little thrill through her, though he didn’t seem that much older than she was.

Twenty, perhaps. Or twenty-one?

She hugged her arms around her chest for warmth but didn’t go back inside the ballroom where she should be; she liked the sharp, electric feeling that pulsed through her too much to relinquish it now.

“Oh,” Violet said. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

A smile tugged her lips upward. “I’m not.” She shook her head and her mass of curls threatened to come crashing down altogether. “It’s you who should be sorry.” He was the one who had startled her, after all.

He laughed, a low rumble that did something funny to her belly, producing heat where it ought not to be.

“Should I?” He took another step out of the shadows toward her. “Then, pray tell, what should I be sorry for?”

Violet tipped up her chin and narrowed her eyes, despite the sparks of electricity racing through her. “For lurking,” she replied. “Where I cannot see you.”

He sauntered forward until he was bathed in the wavering light emitted from the ballroom.

“Better?” he asked, one sardonic eyebrow raised as if he already knew the answer; that the figure he cut was a great deal more than handsome and he should spend all of his time awash in candlelight so others could admire him for it.

Delicious was the word that came to her mind.

He was uncommonly tall but slim, as if he’d not yet filled out his frame, with broad shoulders and lean hips, chestnut curls and a fringe of dark, lush lashes surrounding eyes that were so deeply brown they looked almost black.

He stepped closer and Violet swallowed. “Now you’re prowling,” she managed to say, wishing her heart hadn’t begun to clang so loudly against her chest cavity she was certain he could hear it.

“Are you my prey?” he asked, his grin wide and wolfish.

“Asshead,” Violet replied.

She had spent enough time with her brother to know how to handle the youthful arrogance of men. It was best countered head on, no matter the weakness she seemed to be feeling in her knees at the sight of that grin.

His eyes widened in surprise, a flash of humor dancing across them. “Asshead is not a word,” he said, leaning against the balcony rail and crossing his long legs at the ankles. “I believe you mean arsehead.”

His eyes moved up and down her frame as he spoke, seeming to luxuriate in what he saw there. She shivered again under his perusal. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

Violet pursed her lips. He wasn’t as easily cowed as other young men of her acquaintance, and his self-assurance delighted her.

She wanted to stay outside on this balcony and trade barbs with him, relishing the excitement and cold and something else she couldn’t quite identify that shimmied across her skin.

She couldn’t do that, of course. She shouldn’t be out here alone with him, whoever he was. She should definitely go back inside the ballroom.

But she definitely wasn’t going to.

She leaned forward instead, and her nose twitched, picking up his scent of balsam wood and sea wind and adventure. He watched her move, his dark eyes intently focused, causing the newfound warmth in her belly to spread through her limbs and core.

“Is the arsehead still lurking about? I don’t see him.” He looked around then, as if ascertaining they really were alone. “Presuming, of course, it’s a him.”

“Assheads usually are. But if you must know, this one was a cat. He heard me call and instead of coming to me, he turned tail and walked away.”

“I see.” His long legs moved, poised to prowl even closer still. “And you?” he asked, holding out his hand at the last moment instead, as if extending to her an invitation. “What will you do?”

Violet’s fingers lifted of their own accord and settled themselves into his palm. The ridges of her fingertips hummed at his touch, even through her kidskin gloves.

His hand closed around hers and he tugged lightly, stepping backward into the shadow of the wall. She followed, pulled closer, until they were mere inches away from each other and swathed in darkness.

Violet’s heart raced as she stared at him, his features softened by the shadows, taking on the diffuse, unreal quality of a charcoal drawing. She placed her other hand on his chest, wanting, needing , to know if his heart was beating as wildly as hers.

It was; she could feel its frantic thumping in harmony with her own.

At that moment, she understood the need for proper introductions.

They were a safety net, carefully cradling a stranger within the social order so one could know how they related to one’s friends and family and self.

Without an introduction, a stranger could be anyone.

They could do anything. And one might become unmoored by the possibilities.

She was unmoored.

“I am,” she whispered, scrambling to ground herself again, “Violet. From New York.”

“You are,” he held her gaze, “intoxicating.”

Violet could feel her pulse reverberating in the thin skin of her wrists and neck. Her chest, amply displayed at her mother’s urging, heaved, and she was sure he heard the small gasp she made as she forced air back into her lungs.

She would not, she scolded herself, forget to breathe. She blinked instead, pulling her eyes down and away.

She wasn’t trying to be coy or seductive; she only wanted a moment to catch her breath.

But too late she understood it was the most seductive thing she could have done, that slow drag of their eyes coming apart and then the quick snap as they looked back to each other.

The impact when their gazes met again was explosive, causing some basic failure of her spine.

Her body felt soft and languid, incapable of properly holding her up.

A cool breeze lifted a single dark lock of wavy hair from his head and dropped it into his eyes. She reached toward him without thinking and swept it away, her fingers brushing along the skin of his temple.

He stilled at her touch for a long moment. When she dropped her hand back down to her side he reached for it again, as if loathe to let it go.

He was going to kiss her. She’d never been kissed before, but she knew what was about to happen with certainty, nonetheless. And she wanted, quite desperately and against all reason, for him to kiss her. She closed her eyes and waited.

But instead of his lips, she felt him release her hand and step away. Her eyes opened at the sound of rustling fabric and departing footsteps, leaving in their wake a sudden chill where his body had just been.

She watched his retreating figure, feeling a strange mix of disappointment and relief only a moment before the loud creak of the balcony doors opening ricocheted through the night.

“Violet?” she heard her mother call into the darkness.

“Hello, Mama,” Violet said, stepping back into view to greet her mother’s approaching figure.

“What are you doing out here, Violet? It’s so cold!”

“Just looking at the stars.”

“You shouldn’t be out here alone. This isn’t New York.”

Violet sighed deeply and with an unusual compliance agreed. “You’re right,” she said. This was definitely not New York.

She looked behind her one last time but saw nothing except shadows and stars. “Let’s go back inside.”

Alistair Crawford pressed himself further into the darkness below the balcony and shook his head.

What in the blazes just happened?

If he’d been caught with her— Violet, she said her name was Violet —with her hand on his chest, where he could still feel it burning through his linen shirt and silk waistcoat, his lips only moments away from hers, he’d be on his way to the altar right now instead of to port.

It had been only luck, or some finely-honed instinct of self-preservation, that caused him to glance away from her upturned face and toward the French doors in time to see a silhouetted figure about to open them. If he hadn’t, he’d have kissed her.

Hell’s teeth, the urge to touch her had been fierce.

He’d felt like one of those opium users he’d seen so often in the Navy, with the same hazy, faint smile of oblivion painted across his face.

That same inexorable pull toward destruction, with no regard for the consequences of his actions.

Consequences he’d blithely ignored at every opportunity.

Why hadn’t he stayed where he was in the shadows and quietly watched her?

She was worth watching, with big blue eyes and a delectable bosom. Why hadn’t he waited for her exit and then discreetly followed her back into the ballroom to find his mother and his brother?

Which I should do right now.

He was only home for a few short days between his stint with Her Majesty’s Navy and his departure tomorrow as a newly minted captain with the East India Company.

Thank Christ he’d managed to press himself against the wall and disappear into the gardens, but it was far too close a call for his comfort.

His plan for the future had nearly been ruined before it even began.

He needed that plan. As the second son of the Marquess of Timsbury, and persona non grata of his small, four-person family, he had nothing else.

His elder brother Darius would have the family fortune, title, and lands by right of his inheritance. Whatever Alistair would have was up to him. He couldn’t be distracted by blue eyes and delectable bosoms and a compelling recklessness that mirrored his own.

No, he’d set sail tomorrow as planned and never think of Violet again. Except perhaps, as the rush of blood still pumping through his nether regions reminded him, when he was alone in his cabin at night. Then he might think of her often.