Page 9 of Dallying with the Diamond
“I’m having far too much fun watching you finally have qualms about seducing a woman.”
“I’ve never been one to trifle with those in service and you know it.” Ath put his empty glass next to a monstrous urn of flowers on the other side of the column where he and CB stood. His blood ran cold and then hot. “You know why, dammit.”
“I wasn’t talking about the maid. I was talking about the duke’s daughter. And if you don’t plan to seduce her or her maid, how do you propose to retrieve the journal pages from her?”
Ath turned back to study the lady once more. “I could simply explain that the pages ended up in the shop by accident and that I’d like them back. I doubt she’s had the chance to read them yet so she might be inclined…” His eyes locked with Lady Honoria’s across the seething kaleidoscope of dancers on the ballroom floor. He forgot what he was saying.
Lady Honoria fairly scorched him with her gaze. She looked him up and down slowly, a slight smile playing about her lips. Her eyes seemed to strip away his clothes. He nearly looked down to see if he stood naked in the middle of atonballroom. His cock was certainly ready to get naked. With the Duke of Avonlea’s daughter, no less. She was looking at him like his cats looked at a bowl of cream. The idea of her lapping him up sent a shiver through his body.
“Oh, she’s read the pages,” CB said.
He and Ath looked at each other and then back at the lady in question.
“A lot.”
“Then I shall have to come up with a better plan to divest her of those pages,” Ath mused. He did not have the ability to look away from her. Something in her expression reached out to him in ways he’d never imagined.
“As I suspect this plan will involve divesting the lady of her clothes as well, among other things, let me introduce you. After that you are on your own.” They made their way slowly around the edge of the ballroom, doing all they could not to appear on a specific path.
Ath tried not to grin at those who stared at him so intently only to turn their heads or their backs in order to announce to all in attendance they’d given him the cut direct just as he deserved. Their ability to hurt him had dissipated long ago. Now they only amused him. Their reaction to CB was a mix, also a source of amusement to the four friends any time they attended a social or sporting event together. Half of society shunned him because of the quiet, unspoken rumors about his taste in bed partners. The other half deferred to him due to his enormous wealth and the powerful position his great aunt held in theton.
As they drew close to Lady Honoria and her friends Ath fought the sensation of falling that suddenly suffused his body. The breath he drew in to steady himself only set his every nerve to humming as that scent of a spring garden struck him like a blow. All of the lady’s companions save one suddenly disappeared into the crowded ballroom. Ath often had that effect. Though CB addressed her, she trained her incredible blue eyes on Ath like a chain and refused to let him go.
“Lady Honoria. Mrs. Seaforth.” CB bowed smartly and kissed each lady’s hand in turn. “You are both resplendent, as usual. Society has missed you during your year of mourning, Mrs. Seaforth.”
Ath stood there and forced himself not to snort or roll his eyes at CB’s customary finesse with the ladies.
“You are too kind, Mr. Carrington-Bowles. How is your aunt?”
“She is well, thank you.”
Ath elbowed his friend in the side, not subtle, but he had little patience for the niceties of the ballroom.
“Lady Honoria. Mrs. Seaforth. Might I be allowed to make known to you, one of my oldest friends, Captain Leonidas Atherton.” He elbowed Ath in the back which made the bow he offered the ladies look like some sort of seizure. “Ath, I have the honor of presenting to you Lady Honoria Eveleigh and her very great friend, Mrs. Julia Seaforth.” The ladies each gave Ath an abbreviated curtsy. He bowed over Mrs. Seaforth’s hand. He pressed a lingering kiss to the back of Lady Honoria’s hand, gloved in delicate thin white silk.
“I am honored, ladies. It is not often a gentleman such as myself is introduced to the two most lovely examples of feminine beauty in London.” He saw the amusement in Lady Honoria’s eyes at once.Idiot!
“Is your friend always so…”
“Effusive?” CB offered.
“Utterly gauche?” Ath said.
Lady Honoria threw her head back and laughed, a throaty genuinely amused sound.
“Frequently,” CB conceded. “Mrs. Seaforth, the orchestra is beginning anallemande. Will you do me the honor?” The lady smiled and placed her hand in CB’s who winked as he led her onto the ballroom floor.
Inside Ath winced. He’d not been on a ballroom floor in years. “Lady Honoria, would you—”
“We have business to conduct, Captain Atherton.” She looped her arm through his and steered him towards the French windows that opened onto the back terrace of the Duke of Aldwych’s town mansion. “I suggest a turn about the gardens so we might negotiate in private.”
“Lead on, my lady.” Ath barely managed not to stammer. His mind turned to mush. That tended to happen when all of the blood rushed to a man’s cock. This was supposed to be his negotiation or seduction, whichever was necessary. Somehow, he wasn’t in charge, and his body had already surrendered. As tame as a lapdog, he walked into the torchlit gardens.
4
Awoman didn’t survive from childhood to a marriageable age with a father like the Duke of Avonlea without acquiring the ability to read a man’s wordless reactions and to read them quickly. Failure to do so resulted in anything from a brutal slap, to days without food, to the loss of those things one valued most.
The gentleman’s eyes had widened. He’d swallowed hard and licked his very enticing lips. She hadn’t been able to resist a quick glance down at the falls of his white silk knee breeches. She had not only surprised him, she’d gained his undivided interest. Well at least part of his interest. And he’d allowed her to lead him out the French windows, across the terrace, and down the steps into the Aldwych’s glorious and quite dimly lit gardens.