Page 46 of Scandalous Nights With the Earl

He brought her in, an action which chased away amusement. Had he meant to do that or was she imagining it?

But sometimes words were not needed at all. Sometimes spaces and heartbeats and breaths were all that were required to pass through the world. She imagined that she was standing at some sort of threshold in her life, a place of change should she choose it, a simple movement of consent, an invitation for more, a quiet, invisible sanction to all that might come after.

He’d said that he could not imagine her hiding from anything but she did hide her reaction towards him. She hid both disappointment and desire.

If she did not come straight to the point she knew she was lost. Her fingers tightened across his and he looked at her, a question burning in the blue.

‘I am going to be thirty-one this year, my lord. I would like to know “delight” before I get to the age of no return. I have no expectations of more.’

‘Delight?’

‘When you kissed me in the carriage the other day I did not think it was wrong.’

There, she had said it, here in a public room full of others under the light of the chandeliers, but she would not take it back.

‘Lord.’

The hardness of the word was also translated into his body, stiff against her own, and even through the material of his jacket she could feel his heartbeat pounding.

‘I do not expect you to change your mind, Lord Elmsworth. I am just giving you my point of view.’

He grimaced and it looked nothing like a happy gesture as he turned her in the dance, the music playing, the noise of talking, the turning colour wheel of dresses, the sounds of gaiety.

He could not believe she had just said that, here in this crowded ballroom. He wanted to take her hand and lead her away, out to his carriage, where they could talk properly and he could show her that he did not think that a kiss was wrong either.

But they were stuck here, glued to this charade, and he could not be seen leaving with her alone when every single eye was upon them. Surely she understood that?

‘I agree with your point of view. I did not think it was wrong either.’

He said the words without looking at her, keeping the tone of them even, willing his body not to react in the way that it was wanting to. It was as though they were dancing in the middle of nothing, borne on only feeling, their bodies cocooning them in, and shutting every other single thing out.

He’d never known this with Gretel, this lustfulness, this sizzling sensual tension that had nothing to do with being in love. He’d always been so measured, so restrained, so careful tokeep his distance. It was the one certain thing he knew about himself.

‘Can you define what you mean by delight?’ His voice was husky.

‘I have never had sexual relations outside of a small bedroom in the darkness with my husband. I have always kept my nightclothes on and I have never enjoyed it.’

His eyes widened this time but she kept going.

‘Lionel thought the sins of the flesh were just that and once he knew I could not produce children he lost interest completely, which suited me, though three days after Lionel died I did have one short and foolish dalliance with a man I trusted. I think I was not of a sound mind and it was dreadful and never again repeated.’

‘So there was no “delight?”’

‘No.’

‘But you would like it?’

‘I think with you I would.’

The music was coming to an end now and he carefully guided her over to one side of the room where they were sheltered by a pillar draped in tangled greenery.

Reaching over for two glasses of wine carried on a silver tray by a passing servant, he handed her one.

‘What of the repercussions of this choice? Things like ruin or scandal?’

‘I told you I don’t want marriage ever again, but if we were careful in our relations, who would truly need to know?’ She took a long sip of wine and then another one. ‘As for scandal, well, I don’t want to walk into old age unfulfilled even more than I don’t want to be ruined.’

At this logic he laughed because right then and there he saw the utter magic in Wilhelmina St Claire. She was so unlike anyone else he had ever met, and though he had always seenhints of it, tonight the alchemy was fully present. She was not afraid of life or choice or passion and she had let him know it.