Page 26 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)
Lady Ophelia was seated on his other side, and Deverill was across the way beside Lady Jersey, who was flirting shamelessly with him.
Not that he minded. Daintry, her attention straying from her dinner partner’s cheerful discourse, could see that much easily enough.
Turning back, she batted her lashes at her dinner partner, who was describing a newly purchased horse to her.
The young gentleman swallowed wrong, and for several moments was unable to speak.
Finally, however, after being vigorously pounded on the back by the footman behind his chair, he recovered sufficiently to say, “Dashed if I hadn’t thought I must have offended you in some way, my lady, by talking of horses at the dinner table.
Glad to know I haven’t. Beg you will honor me with a dance later. A waltz, perhaps?”
A little startled by the result of her casual flirtation, Daintry agreed at once, then glanced back at Deverill to see to her chagrin that he was amused. Lifting her chin, she shifted her gaze down the table toward her sister.
Susan looked up from her plate, and Daintry, thinking she was looking at her, smiled, but her sister stared straight ahead, her gaze unfocused.
Sir Geoffrey, farther down the table, was talking with Lady Catherine, but there was nothing in that, for husbands and wives rarely were seated next to each other at such parties.
Charles was flirting outrageously with Miss Haversham, whom Daintry had met in London, and Davina was behaving in much the same way with a dandified gentleman whom she also recognized but whose name she could not at the moment recall.
After dinner, the ladies retired with Albinia Edgcumbe to the crimson drawing room, leaving the gentlemen to enjoy their port and what Daintry knew they would describe as intelligent conversation.
The crimson drawing room was warm and comfortable with a cheerful fire blazing in its white-marble fireplace, and Albinia Edgcumbe was a comfortable woman of Lady Ophelia’s generation who knew precisely how to involve her guests in amusing conversation.
Nonetheless, Daintry noted that she was not the only one who glanced frequently at the door through which the gentlemen would come after they had imbibed enough port.
Lady Ophelia murmured under cover of the general chatter, “Do not look so impatient, my love. Sally is looking this way and is bound to misconstrue your lack of interest in this chitchat. Albinia will have made it clear to Mount Edgcumbe that he must not allow the gentlemen to linger over their wine.”
Daintry, deciding that her great-aunt knew perfectly well she was on the watch for Deverill, collected her wits and said, “I do not know what it is about that man, ma’am, but I confess, he affects me in a way that no other gentleman has ever done.”
“So I have noticed,” Lady Ophelia said dryly. “Do not distress yourself, however, for I daresay it is nothing more than the lure of forbidden fruit, which will soon pass.”
Much struck by the suggestion, Daintry wondered if it were possible that the strong attraction she felt for Deverill had its beginnings in nothing more than that.
A second, even less palatable thought followed the first. “Is that why he pays heed to me, Aunt Ophelia, because I am forbidden fruit to him?”
“Very likely,” was the placid response, “though it may be no more than habit with him, you know. He was, I am told, actually a member of Lord Hill’s staff before Bonaparte escaped, and you know the sort of things they said about those young men.”
“I do,” Daintry said, her spirits sinking even more.
Thus, when the gentlemen entered a quarter-hour later, she had herself so well in hand that not even Lady Jersey, who was no doubt still watching closely, could have read anything untoward in her expression.
The party adjourned soon after that for dancing in the large saloon at the rear of the house, and Daintry gladly accepted the invitation of her dinner partner for the opening set of country dances.
She had seen Deverill approaching, but she did not think he could accuse her of breaking her word to him, since she had said only that she would allow him a dance. She had not promised him any one in particular.
Susan was dancing with Lord Alvanley, a plump, rather witty member of the dandy set and a particular friend of Mr. Brummell, the man who had for a number of years fixed the standard for that set.
Alvanley was a favorite of Daintry’s, and she was glad to see him with Susan, for he would be certain to cheer her up.
When Sir Geoffrey claimed Daintry’s hand for a cotillion, complimenting her on her lavender, lace-trimmed gown and generally behaving with all his customary gallantry and charm, she took advantage of a pause in the pattern to ask him if anything was amiss with his wife.
He smiled. “She is tired, I think. Traveling always exhausts her, and although we had only a short distance to come, and in a well-sprung carriage, she insisted upon taking the forward seat so my cousin would not be forced to ride with her back to the horses. It was generous of Susan, but I think that may be the reason she seems a trifle out of spirits now.”
“Does Lady Catherine make a long stay with you, Geoffrey?” Daintry asked bluntly. “I thought she intended to go on to St. Ives, to visit other relations of hers.”
“Oh, yes, she will certainly do so after Christmas,” he said, “but Susan prevailed upon her to extend her visit to us. My poor little wife was not looking forward to being the lone adult female in the house again, as you might guess, after first enjoying the gaiety of a London Season and then a lengthy visit to Tuscombe Park. I am sure you must understand how she feels.”
Daintry thought she did understand, and since, when Geoffrey escorted her back to Lady Ophelia, Deverill was standing beside her with a look of definite purpose in his eyes, she put Susan out of her mind altogether for the time being.
“My dance, I believe,” he said as the band struck up the first waltz.
“Is it, sir?”
“It is,” he said firmly, taking her hand in his.
His hands were large. Indeed, she thought, looking up at him, all of him seemed larger than she remembered. As he drew her onto the floor, she experienced a sudden, not unpleasant thrill of danger, and looking up at him, said, “Ought you not to have asked me first if I am permitted to waltz, sir?”
“I was under the impression that you do not seek permission for anything you wish to do. Was I mistaken?”
Twinkling, she said, “I am quite capable of making my own decisions, certainly, if that is your meaning, sir.”
“It wasn’t.” But he smiled as he took her right hand in his left and, placing his right firmly in the small of her back, drew her closer.
The commanding way he held her made her aware of his strength, not just of body but also of personality, and although she had danced the waltz many times in the few years since its acceptance in fashionable ballrooms, she had never before been so conscious of the vitality and penetrating warmth of her partner’s touch.
When her body responded with a spreading warmth of its own, she understood for the first time exactly why so many people still disapproved so strongly of the controversial dance.
As Deverill whirled her into the pattern of dancers, he murmured provocatively, “In my opinion, you simply have not yet been broken to bridle, but that day cannot be far off now.”
Forcing herself to ignore the delicious sensations stirred by his touch and the sensual warmth of his voice, she looked up at him in what she hoped was a challenging manner and said, “Do you think I can be so easily mastered, sir? I warn you, I have yet to meet a man to whom I would willingly submit.”
“Not yet?” He was looking directly into her eyes, his gaze holding hers hypnotically, daring her to look away. “Are you so certain of that, my lady?”
She swallowed, unable to look away, following his lead as automatically as Tender Lady followed Charley’s Victor over a leap, without conscious awareness of her surroundings, her attention focused on her partner’s face, not trusting her traitorous emotions any more than she trusted those she saw written on the countenance so disconcertingly near her own.
He chuckled, and discerning satisfaction in the sound, Daintry pulled away, the spell broken. “You hold me too closely, sir. It is not seemly and will be remarked upon.”
“Very well,” he murmured, relaxing his hold, “but you will not so easily escape your feelings, my dear, for you have met your match. You may believe that if you believe nothing else.”
She could think of nothing worth replying to such an impudent statement, and decided to leave it to the future to prove his error to him.
He was certainly more fascinating than the three other young men who had so fleetingly attached her interest, but he was entirely too sure of himself and deserved a sharp lesson for daring to challenge her in such a manner.
It would serve him right if she flirted with him for a time, merely to amuse herself, and then snapped her fingers under his nose.
When he returned her to Lady Ophelia’s side, she thanked him politely and turned away at once to look for Susan, having still had no opportunity to speak with her since her arrival.
She spotted her at last nearby, talking with a friend, and to Daintry’s fond eye, she appeared still tired and out of spirits.
Excusing herself to her great-aunt, Daintry moved to join them.
Hugging her sister, she waited only until Susan’s friend had moved away to speak to someone else before she said, “I have not even had a chance to say hello to you, and you did not so much as tell us you were coming to Mount Edgcumbe, you silly goose.”