A Compromised Lady (12 page)

And not for anything would he employ Dunhaven’s strategy of forcing Thea into a position where she must either dance or deal him a set-down. They had not agreed on which dances, but if she wished it…

Over the top of that lethal fan, blue eyes questioned him.

He smiled.

‘Perhaps another time, my lord,’ she said, stepping away from Dunhaven. ‘I have indeed promised this dance to Mr Blakehurst.’

Dunhaven’s eyes narrowed in dislike as he swung to look at Richard. ‘Oh? I didn’t realise you danced, Blakehurst. How very singular!’

The indrawn hiss of Thea’s breath was balm to his cold fury.

‘Of course my nephew dances, sir!’ snapped Almeria.

‘No, my lord?’ Richard looked his lordship up and down with mild curiosity, and the earl reddened with annoyance. ‘Ah, well, there’s plenty of time yet for you to acquaint yourself with all manner of things you don’t know. I do dance. Upon occasion. When I consider the effort worthwhile.’ He flicked a glance at Thea. ‘It’s a little like culping wafers at Manton’s, you know. I only bother to engage in matches with those I know can give me a halfway decent match.’

Over the peacock feather fan Thea’s blue eyes glimmered with silent laughter.

She turned, saying coolly to Dunhaven, ‘Perhaps a country dance, my lord. I have promised both waltzes to Mr Blakehurst.’

Richard uttered a mental malediction. He doubted that his leg would survive two waltzes in one evening.

Dunhaven nodded curtly. ‘Servant, Miss Winslow.’ He nodded even more curtly to Richard, turned on his heel and stalked away. Thea knew a moment’s fear. Richard might be the son, and brother, of earls, but Dunhaven was a powerful man—what if he—?

‘Shall we, my dear?’ said Richard, offering his arm. As she permitted him to steer her through the crowd, he gave a deep laugh. ‘Pompous ass,’ he said.

‘Richard! It’s not funny!’ she whispered fiercely. ‘What if he—?’

‘If he tries anything with you,’ said Richard, in deadly quiet tones, ‘I will take great pleasure in dealing with him.’ All vestiges of amusement had vanished.

‘I’m not worried about me!’ she snapped. ‘I’m worried about you!’

He blinked, patently surprised. And then a quite different sort of smile crept across his face. A tender smile, a smile that spoke of things she had long considered lost to her. Despite the warning bell clanging deep within her, a glowing sensation spread through her, and for a moment there hung between them something almost tangible. She caught her breath…if only—oh, if only!

‘Where shall we sit out?’ she asked.

‘Sit out?’ He stared at her. ‘We’re going to dance.’

‘Dance?’

‘Well, of course! Unless—’An odd look came into his eyes. ‘Unless you would prefer to sit out?’

Shock slammed into her. He wanted to dance? Actually dance? She hadn’t really believed that he could mean it.

It would be safer not to dance. This shattering awareness of him unsettled her as it was. Dancing, being held in his arms, with music a shimmering web around them, would be twice as dizzying.

Like the sudden blaze in the dark eyes as he stared at her.

She had never intended to dance—she had not thought he would want it.

And yet, why should she not? What harm could there be in dancing with Richard? Of all men, he was the one she would feel most comfortable with. She summoned a smile, swallowed the last of her champagne and said, ‘I would be honoured to dance with you, Richard.’

He took her empty champagne glass and handed it, along with his own, to a footman. Then, with another devastating smile, he offered her his arm. ‘Our dance, I believe,’ he said. He steered her on to the dance floor and swept her into the waltz.

She didn’t know what she had expected. Not fear. Certainly not that. And not revulsion. Not with Richard. Never with him. But…the chill…the sense of distance she had learnt to place mentally between herself and anyone who came too close…she had felt it all evening as people jostled around her and she had held them at bay with her fan. Especially with Lord Dunhaven. And now…

Now, in Richard’s arms, adjusting her steps to his uneven strides, the fan dangled unneeded from her wrist, and she felt only warmth, and an enveloping closeness. Whatever she had expected, it had not been this.

Held safely by his arms in the surging rhythm of the dance, she was wildly conscious of his strength, his sheer maleness. It brought only pleasure, a purring, purely feminine delight that he had thought her worth the effort. She felt alive, as she had not in years.

She lifted her gaze to his face. It was as if she had never truly seen him before. Strongly chiselled planes, the deep brown eyes set under dark brows. So familiar. And yet new. New lines, graven she thought, by pain. And he was simply older. More mature. To some his face might look forbidding, yet his smile denied that. And he was smiling now. At her. As though having her in his arms was a pleasure. Her breath hitched and she found herself smiling back.

It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Not as far as he could recall, anyway. And it was quite some time since he had danced at all, let alone waltzed. In fact, Thea was one of the very few women he had ever waltzed with.

His stride was as awkward and uneven as ever. That wasn’t different. What shocked him was the sheer delight in having Thea’s slender, supple body in his arms completely overrode the increasing ache in his leg. Worse, the delight of looking down into her soft blue eyes, seeing the delicate colour fanned on the pale cheeks, and her slightly parted lips nearly made him forget which leg ached.

And then she smiled up at him. A tentative smile, uncertain, as though unsure of its welcome. His breath caught. Never before in his life had he been conscious of an urge to sweep a dance partner out of sight and kiss her, and himself, senseless. With a shock he realised that if he gave in to the urge, he might forget all about sweeping them out of sight.

The music was like a drug, its rhythm one with their shifting bodies. Never had he been so wildly aware of a woman—as a woman. Never had every sense clamoured for more. To be closer, to breathe her soft flowery scent, to hear the soft hush of her breathing. Never had he known the urge to pull a woman closer in the dance so that her thighs shifted against his, so that her breasts touched his coat. Every muscle hardened savagely in the effort not to just do it.

He knew at once when she felt the change in him. The sudden tension in his arms as he fought not to haul her closer, the added clumsiness in his stride, which owed nothing to the ache in his leg.

‘Richard?’

Somehow he met her concerned gaze.

‘I knew this would hurt your leg! Do you wish to stop?’

‘Not in the least,’ he informed her. It wasn’t his leg that was causing the problem.

‘You are sure it doesn’t hurt?’

‘Quite sure,’ he lied. ‘It’s, er, just a kink. Moving will ease it.’ Only not the sort of moving he was doing at the moment. Or at any other moment in the foreseeable future for that matter.

By the end of the dance they were at the far end of the dance floor from the chaperons. Richard was violently aware that Thea was flushed, glowing and radiant. And that he was heated in an odd tingling way that had nothing to do with the heat of the ballroom and everything to do with the slow heat consuming him. Aware that although the dance had finished, music still sang and ached to every heavy beat of the blood in his veins.

He fought for control, reminding himself that it had been a while since he had been with a woman.

Casual liaisons with discreet widows had lost their savour some time ago. Apparently with the inevitable result that desire had conducted an ambush in the most impossible, and unexpected, place imaginable. All perfectly logical, if potentially embarrassing.

She looked up at him and his breath caught as their eyes met.

Good lord! What a place to realise that he desired a woman! Especially a woman as untouchable as his aunt’s protégée and goddaughter. Unthinkable.

Well, no, not unthinkable precisely, since he was thinking about it. But definitely inappropriate.

Carefully he stepped back, his mind reeling at the wave of tenderness that poured over him. At the sight of her smiling up at him, all shadows fled, just as he had wanted. This was different, somehow—more than desire. Oh, he’d always liked his partners—what was the point in going to bed and being intimate with someone you didn’t like? But this shattering ache?

‘More champagne, Thea?’ he suggested, in as light a tone as he could muster. He’d known Thea for so long—not surprising if he felt protective towards her. She was lovely—desire was not surprising either. But this tenderness, this welling up of delight merely to see her smile…to see her smile in his arms—this was different.

‘Good evening, Mr Blakehurst.’

Chill disapproval splintered in the voice.

Richard turned slowly to find Lord Aberfield watching them, his face expressionless. ‘Lord Aberfield.’ He acknowledged the older man with a bow. Beside him, Thea stood motionless. Silent.

The moment stretched as Richard felt the tension sing between the pair of them. He flicked a glance at Thea. No shadows, but the woman he had been dancing with was gone. In her place stood a marble statue, blue eyes frozen to arctic winter.

Then, in a voice that cut like a polar wind, she spoke. ‘Good evening, my lord.’

A perfectly correct form of address…for a perfect stranger. As a young woman’s greeting to her father, it was the ultimate snub. And in that icily correct voice, it was a snub with a sting in the tail.

Not surprisingly Aberfield’s face turned slightly purple.

Thea continued, ‘You are well again, my lord?’

‘Very well,’ he grated. ‘A word with you, Dorothea! In private.’

Her brows lifted. ‘Oh? Yes, I think that is possible.’

Aberfield’s teeth grated audibly at the implication that Thea might have, if she had chosen, refused his request. ‘Perhaps, daughter,’ he said with silky emphasis, ‘you would come with me, then.

There is much that I wish to discuss with you. Privately.’

‘Now?’ Her fan flickered open with a swish, and she disappeared behind it. ‘I assumed you meant to call tomorrow at Arnsworth House. Yes, that would be better. Far more scope for privacy there.

What time will suit you?’

‘Now would suit me!’ snapped Aberfield.

Thea’s smile was a naked blade. ‘I am afraid, dear sir, that Lady Arnsworth would be sadly inconvenienced were I to steal her carriage and return home now. But I am perfectly happy to hold myself at your disposal tomorrow. Call at whatever time suits you. I promise you shall find me home.’

For a moment it looked as though Aberfield might explode, but he nodded and stalked away.

To say that Lady Arnsworth was unimpressed the following morning to hear that her protégée had undertaken to remain at home all day awaiting her father’s convenience, would have been an understatement.

‘You were to drive with Lady Chasewater, you remember?’ said Lady Arnsworth.

‘I sent her a note explaining,’ said Thea. A very convenient added benefit she had not thought of at the time. ‘I felt my father’s request must take precedence.’

There was no answer to that, and Lady Arnsworth didn’t attempt one, only saying, ‘But he gave no indication of when he might call?’

Thea contrived to look repentant. ‘No, ma’am. He wished to speak to me privately, and at a ball—’

She spread her hands. No need to tell Lady Arnsworth that it had been her strategy to avoid leaving the safety of a crowd with Aberfield. She didn’t trust him an inch.

Lady Arnsworth pursed her lips. ‘Very well, my dear. There is nothing to be done. I must pay some calls this afternoon, and I shall drive in the park afterwards. Naturally I shall give instructions to Myles that he must admit only your father, and any female visitors you might have. No gentlemen, of course, unless your brother were to call.’ A very faint smile played about her lips.

‘Oh, of course,’ agreed Thea.

Lady Arnsworth nodded. ‘Yes. And, dear, if you play chess with Richard again, it might be for the best if you were to leave the door open.’

Thea’s jaw dropped, as her ladyship continued, ‘You may trust Richard, of course, as you would your own brother, but it doesn’t do to give the gossips the least bit of encouragement, you know.

If anyone were to call and find you together—well!’ She patted Thea’s hand. ‘Your father wouldn’t like it at all.’

‘L ord Aberfield is here to see you, miss,’ said Myles. ‘Shall I show him in here?’

Thea laid down her pen and considered the alternatives. She was in the back parlour, writing a note to accept an invitation to attend a picnic with Diana Fox-Heaton the following week. While being received in there would sting his pride, she hesitated. Somehow the back parlour of Arnsworth House was associated with happy times, with her childhood visiting the house, with Richard teaching her to play chess, with his slightly crooked smile. She did not want Aberfield anywhere within spitting distance of those memories.

‘No. Show his lordship into the drawing room, please, Myles. And, Myles—?’ An inner demon suggested another way she might infuriate Aberfield. ‘Tell his lordship that I will be with him very shortly.’

She heard Aberfield being ushered into the next room, heard Myles offer refreshment, and heard it refused. Deliberately she completed her letter to Diana. And read it over. Then she sealed it, addressed it, rang the bell and waited for Myles.

When he came, she smiled and handed him the note with instructions to have it delivered at once.

‘And bring tea to the drawing room in fifteen minutes, please, Myles.’

Then, feeling that she had made her point, Thea settled her elegant morning gown, tucked a stray curl back into place under her lace cap, assumed an indifferent expression, and strolled through the door connecting the back parlour and drawing room.

‘Good afternoon, my lord. I’ve kept you waiting.’ It could be construed as an apology. Just.

Aberfield turned and glared at her. ‘Where the devil have you been, miss?’ His colour was high, and the faded blue eyes glittered at her.