Page 12

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Catherine whispered to Violet as they exited the carriage and viewed the scene in front of the townhouse where the Waverly Ball was being held. Gaslights illuminated the entrance, and the steps were crowded with the lords and ladies of the ton .

The crush of attendees thickened as more partygoers arrived—women who preened and posed on the arms of gentlemen in stark, black evening clothes, and shy young debutantes excited for their seasons, accompanied by ever-vigilant chaperones.

Around the side door spilled the gentlemen, who preferred smoking cheroots and a hand of cards to the formality of the dance floor. It seemed as if the entirety of London’s aristocracy had turned out for the evening’s festivities.

“It is lovely,” Violet said and meant it.

She could easily see how exciting it must be for a young lady in her season to enter a fête such as this.

How one might get swept away by the romantic notion of it all and lose one’s head.

It was, she supposed, the purpose of the chaperones.

To keep the romance in the air from arousing foolish choices in the young men and women in attendance.

Violet had certainly made a foolish choice at her last ball in New York, the night that James had died.

She shook her head and plastered a too bright smile on her face at the remembrance.

She would not dash her cousin’s enjoyment of the evening just because it brought back memories she’d rather not dwell upon.

“So, what now?” she asked, although she knew very well what to expect.

“We make our way over to have some lemonade, and then we fill our dance cards,” Catherine said. “And we dance!”

“I’ll take you to the lemonade. But I leave the dancing to you.”

“They might also,” Catherine lowered her voice to a whisper, “have ratafia. I know how you like ratafia.”

“Hush,” Violet said. She’d made no secret of her distaste for the sickly-sweet beverage during her mini season. “I’d rather eat my own tongue.”

“I’d love,” Catherine whispered back, her eyes twinkling, “to see how you might try to manage that.”

Heads turned as the two cousins passed, arm in arm, and Violet was glad. Her cousin, the diamond of her first season and triumphantly returned to the marriage mart, would have no trouble making a match. And whether Violet liked it or not, a match was needed.

She’d already been in London for three weeks, and the season only lasted until Parliament was out of session in August. The new Earl of Chester could return in as little as a month, and he’d made it clear that Catherine was to marry.

There would be no access to funds for her until a marriage contract was signed.

She could be a pauper, or she could be a wife.

Violet and Catherine had barely made it to the lemonade stand when the first swain found them and requested Catherine’s dance card for the lively reel the orchestra had begun.

Violet watched Catherine happily depart for the dance floor and poured her own cup of lemonade, before making her way to the potted palms to drink it in solitude.

A few gentlemen managed to find her there, but she refused their attempts at conversation and dancing.

“I’ve hurt my ankle,” she said politely to each one that asked for her card.

She knew it was rude to refuse a dance when it was requested unless she had an injury, and although she cared little for the ton’s restrictive rules of engagement for females, she did not wish to be rude. She just didn’t want to dance.

“If you sit down,” a voice whispered into her ear from behind the palms, “it will make your lie more convincing.”

She knew who it was immediately from the way his voice thrilled her, and his presence felt like a tangible thing at her back. His breath caressed her ear and sent a little trill of excitement up her spine. She arched toward him before she remembered herself and stilled her body.

“I’m not lying,” she replied, which drew a chuckle from the man standing behind her.

She turned her head slightly to confirm that it was indeed Alistair Crawford making her nerve endings prickle. It was. All six muscled feet of him.

“Come now,” he said. “We both know there is nothing wrong with your ankle. You’re putting weight on it. For your lie to be convincing, you must sit.”

“I’m not lying,” Violet insisted again, without much conviction. The idea that he’d been watching her made her heart beat a little faster. “My ankle is sore.”

“Oh, my apologies then.” He edged closer, and she could feel the heat of his nearness. “What has made your ankle sore? Ought you to have wrapped it? I am only a medical dilettante, unlike you, but it seems to me it would be wise to take the appropriate measures.”

“I—well. Never mind.” She gave up the ridiculous lie.

“You should dance, Miss Goodwin,” he said again. “You might find it entertaining.”

“No.” Violet shook her head. “I wouldn’t. I don’t want to dance.”

“I thought all beautiful young misses liked to dance.”

“I am not a young miss,” she whispered, “in case you’d forgotten.”

“All beautiful women then. I stand corrected.”

“And all women are not the same.” She’d said the words to deter him, but they seemed to have the opposite effect and drew him closer to her instead.

“No,” he whispered. “You are definitely not the same.”

The hot breath on her ear from his whisper made her tremble slightly and when she thought of how close his lips were to the tender skin of her neck, her cheeks began to flush.

And then he placed one large hand on the small of her back, and the ballroom was suddenly several degrees warmer.

“Is it,” he asked in a low whisper, his nearness igniting an exquisite pulsing in her body, “that you don’t dance, or is it that you don’t dance at balls?”

Violet froze.

How does he know that?

She’d once loved to dance, before James had died.

But not now.

The heat from his hand burned its way through the layers of her gown, her corset, her stays, her petticoat, and her drawers. Layer upon layer of muslin and silk and lace did nothing to quell it.

“Wait five minutes,” he said, “and meet me outside.”

“No.” She shook her head, trying and failing to control her breath and the wild beating of her heart. “I’m only here as a companion. Nothing more.”

But it was so hard to think with his hand on her body. A small, secret touch that made her throb in places she knew it shouldn’t. She closed her eyes and inhaled his rich scent of balsam and masculinity and adventure. And then she felt her body strain toward him again.

“Come with me,” he whispered once more. “Please. Catherine is happily dancing the quadrille. She is not in need of a companion at the moment, while I am much in need of one.”

Violet looked up to see it was true. Catherine was engaged in yet another dance with yet another gentleman.

She nodded once and Alistair slipped away.

Alistair had no idea what he was doing, inviting Violet out into the gardens.

He wasn’t here to spend time with Miss Goodwin.

He was here to make sure McGann did. And yet, he couldn’t help himself.

He’d caught sight of her at once, hidden between the potted palms by the wall, and all but shoved McGann onto the dance floor with the nearest possible partner.

And then he made a beeline for her, as he always did.

He wasn’t one of those men of the beaumonde who called themselves a gentleman during the day but acted like an unprincipled cad at night.

He acted like an unprincipled cad whenever he wanted, if the measuring stick was the ton’s principles and not his own.

He stayed strictly true to his own, which included a swearing off of any activity that would tie him to the aristocracy , and especially, repeat dalliances with women of the beaumonde or their cousins from America.

What’s more, they of a certainty included holding up his end of a partnership he’d agreed to not two weeks before with a fellow captain.

Yet here he was, luring Violet out into the dark again.

You didn’t lure her the first time, he reminded himself. You found her. Already on that balcony in the dark.

Though you did almost kiss her.

Don’t kiss her now.

Alistair shook his head and tried to settle his mind as he anxiously paced.

He felt like he’d been traversing this small section of the garden for an interminable amount of time, although in all likelihood it had been only a few minutes.

The few minutes he knew she had to wait before she followed him outdoors. He circled again, impatient.

Where is she ?

Perhaps she wasn’t coming. Perhaps she was inside now, drinking her lemonade in the corner and laughing at him.

Or worse, McGann had spotted her and was talking to her, his hand on the small of her back where Alistair’s ought to be.

It had been more difficult than he’d imagined removing his fingers once he’d placed them there.

They’d desperately wanted to stay and explore that new territory of silk and heat and skin.

To continue their foray up along her spine.

No .

His fist clenched at his side.

You’re to introduce her to McGann. It’s the whole point of the evening.

She was to marry him, in fact, if all went well. Which meant that Alistair had to keep his hands to himself. He paced in a circle once more, this time counting out his breaths and steps to regain his equanimity.

By the time Violet made it outside, he had convinced himself he could and would simply dance a step or two with her to make her feel more comfortable. He’d somehow known the ballroom had put her on edge; he could see it in the way she held her shoulders tense and tight.

It reminded him of how he’d felt when faced with the Koh-I-Noor exhibit; something about this environment was gnawing at her.

He wondered what it was. And then why he felt such a strong urge to put her at ease.

All he could reason was that it felt good to him to be able to recognize something in her that was the same in himself.

And Alistair, as a general rule, did what felt good to him.

He paced his small circle once more. And then he saw her coming down the steps toward him, her blue eyes peering into the darkness, and all other thoughts were lost. He rushed to Violet and grasped her gloved hand to lead her into the quiet behind the house.

“Miss Goodwin,” he whispered and put his hand back where it belonged, in the small sway of her spine. Moonlight illuminated her honey-colored curls, and those blue, blue eyes turned to look up at him as he spoke.

“Yes?” she asked in a whisper that made his cock stand at attention in his trousers.

“Will you dance with me?” he asked.

“No.” She stepped toward him instead.

Not ten minutes before, Violet had stood inside the ballroom, heat rushing her thighs and thoughts of copulation strumming her lurid imagination. Her body was quivering, trembling with a wanting unknown to her until he had placed his thumb along the sway of her back and pressed.

She understood what was happening to her, from a scientific perspective at least. What she felt in his presence—the way her nerve endings were alight in shivering prickles and her skin felt flushed with heat—was nothing more than the urge to mate. A natural, corporeal reaction she could control.

That I will control.

After all, she reminded herself as she stood, wavering between following him outside and staying exactly where she was, she did not eat every slice of cake nor every biscuit she laid eyes upon that looked delicious.

Giving into such inclinations would be a poor decision for her digestion, her teeth, and her health.

Just as giving in to her body’s cravings for Alistair Crawford would be a poor decision for her heart and her future. He was erratic and inconsistent, swinging from one action to the next. From one desire to the next.

Stay, leave, confide, hide. She couldn’t keep up.

She would, she promised herself, control her body’s appetite for him as much as she controlled her appetite for anything else in her life.

Violet was good at control; she’d spent the three years since James’s death perfecting it.

She’d not let herself even think of flirting or kissing or touching since James.

She had scuttled even the idea of those desires from her life with an iron will.

And yet here she was, considering following this man—this erratic, handsome, nonsensical man—out into the dark gardens only two weeks after they’d met again. Because her body wanted her to.

Her feet began to walk toward the ballroom doors, and her mind fought valiantly to stop them. Her mind knew that if she let this one man breach her defenses, any number of other breaches could follow.

She was already rescinding her promises to herself: first this silly ball gown with its too tight corset and too low décolletage, and next a dalliance outside with Alistair Crawford… and then what? Marriage, loss of control of her time, of her fortune?

Loss of my goals.

Yet, her feet still moved. Her body wanted what it wanted. And it wanted Alistair Crawford.

Just this once , her mind conceded as she stepped out of the stuffy ballroom and into the dark garden. Just one dance.

One dance that would mean nothing because as soon as it was over, the pendulum of Alistair Crawford was sure to swing in the opposite direction, and he’d disappear from her once more.

Her eyes found him in the shadows, and her heart thrilled as he rushed to her and took her by the hand. Her feet followed as he led her to a shadowed, private place and asked if she’d dance with him. But when she opened her mouth to reply, her lips rebelled.

“No,” she said, surprising herself and him. Her lips had a better idea.

She stepped toward that huge wall of man and closed her eyes, inhaling his scent. She put her arms around his neck and drew him toward her. And then she kissed him.