“One needs a trusty navigator upon such a perilous voyage,” he said.
“And you are such a navigator?” she asked him. It seemed far more likely that he was the perilous voyage. She did not know whether she should take his arm or not. She felt breathless for no discernible reason.
“Assuredly I am,” he said. “I will steer you safely to harbor, Miss Huxtable. It is a solemn promise.”
He smiled, and his eyes beamed good humor. He looked safe and reliable. He was behaving like a perfect gentleman, offering her protection from the reveling crowds. And she found that she wanted to take his arm.
“In that case,” she said, smiling back at him, “I accept. Thank you, my lord.”
And she slid one hand through his arm and felt-foolishly-as though she had never done anything nearly so daring and reckless and plain exciting in her whole life. It was a rock-solid arm. It was also warm. Well, of course it was warm. What had she expected? That he was the walking dead? She could smell his shaving soap or his cologne-a subtle, musky scent that was unfamiliar to her. It was very… masculine.
So was he. He was masculinity incarnate. She felt surrounded by it, enclosed in it.
Someone had robbed her of breathable air.
And here she was, behaving like a very green girl indeed just because a handsome, charming gentleman with a shady reputation had paid her some attention and offered his arm to steer her past the crowds. She was being ridiculous. Silly might be a better word.
“You must be missing young Merton and your sisters and Lyngate now that they have gone into the country,” he said pleasantly, drawing her a little closer to his side. But she took no alarm from that fact. The crowds were very dense, and he was protecting her from them with some success. Indeed, she felt very safe indeed.
With a little thread of danger that caused her heart to thump away in her chest.
But-he knew her? He knew who she was, who her family members were? He knew that Meg and Stephen had returned to Warren Hall, that Vanessa and Lord Lyngate had gone with them to spend a few days at Finchley Park? She turned her head to look into his face. It was startlingly close to hers.
“But is it with sadness that you miss them?” he asked her. “Or is it with relief at being free to kick up your heels in their absence?”
That very safe smile in his eyes had developed an edge of wickedness.
This presumably was kicking up her heels. He must know that her family would not knowingly allow her within fifty yards of him unescorted. Not that she needed their escort. Good heavens, the very idea! She was twenty years old.
“I hope I do not need my brother and sisters to ensure that I behave as I ought, my lord,” she said, hearing the primness in her voice.
He laughed softly. It was enough to send shivers up her spine.
“Or Con either?” he said. “I have teased him so mercilessly about turning himself into a prim nursemaid since your advent in town, and Miss Wallace’s, that he has turned tail and fled into the country to hide his mortification.”
“He has not fled anywhere. He has gone into the country to see his new estate,” Katherine told him. “It is in Gloucestershire.”
“However it is,” he said, moving his head a little closer to hers, “he is gone, and so are your brother and sisters and your brother-in-law.”
He made it sound as if she had plotted long and hard to be rid of them in order to be free to allow this forbidden tryst. It was not a tryst. She had not even known he was going to be here. She had not-
But suddenly it felt like a tryst.
“I am staying at Moreland House,” she explained to him, “with the dowager Lady Lyngate as my chaperone.”
“Ah,” he said. “The lady who is conspicuous in her absence this evening?”
“I am here-” she began indignantly, but she stopped when he laughed softly again.
“-under the chaperonage of Lady Beaton,” he said, “who does not even appear to have noticed that we have fallen behind the group.”
And so they had. Several people had passed them and were between them and their own party. She could see Lady Beaton’s royal-blue hair plumes nodding above other heads in the middle distance.
“Miss Huxtable,” he said, moving his head even closer to hers and turning it so that he could look into her face, “do you never feel even the smallest urge to live adventurously? Even dangerously?”
She licked her lips and found that even her tongue was rather dry. Had he been reading her mind this evening?
“No, of course not,” she said. “Never.”
“Liar.” His eyes laughed.
“What?” She felt the beginnings of outrage.
“Everyone wants some adventure in life,” he said. “Everyone wants to flirt with danger on occasion. Even ladies who have had a sheltered, very proper upbringing.”
“That is outrageous,” she said-but without conviction. She could not look away from his eyes, which gazed keenly back into hers as if he could read every thought, every yearning, every desire, she had ever had.
He laughed again and lifted his head a little away from hers.
“Yes, of course it is outrageous,” he agreed. “I exaggerated. I can think of any number of people, both men and women, who are staid by nature and would sooner die than risk stubbing a toe against even the smallest of adventures. You are not, however, one of those people.”
“How do you know?” she asked him, and wondered why she was arguing with him.
“Because you have asked the question,” he said, “instead of pokering up and staring at me in blank incomprehension. You have become defensive. You know that I speak the truth but are afraid to admit it.”
“Really?” she said, injecting as much frost into the one word as she could muster. “And what adventure is it that I crave, pray? And with what danger is it that I wish to flirt?”
Too late she wished she had used a different word.
His head dipped closer to hers again.
“Me,” he said softly. “In answer to both questions.”
A shiver of horrified excitement convulsed her whole body, though she hoped it was not visible. Everyone, she realized, had been perfectly right about him. Constantine had been right. Her own instincts had been right.
He was a very dangerous man indeed. She ought to pull her arm free of his right this moment and go dashing after the others as fast as her legs and the crowds would allow.
“That is… preposterous,” she said, staying instead to argue.
Because danger really was enticing. And not so very dangerous in reality. They were on the grand avenue at Vauxhall, surrounded by people even if their own party was proceeding farther ahead with every passing minute. Danger was only an illusion.
“I speak of your deepest, darkest desires, Miss Huxtable,” he continued when she did not reply. “No true lady, of course, ever acts upon those, more is the pity. I believe any number of ladies would be far more interesting-and interested-if they did.”
She stared at him. She glared at him-at least, she hoped she did. Her cheeks were uncomfortably hot. So was all the rest of her. Her heart was pounding so hard she could almost hear it.
“You most of all,” he said. “I wonder if it has ever occurred to you, Miss Huxtable, that you are a woman of great passion. But probably not-it would not be a genteel admission to make, and I daresay you have not met anyone before now who was capable of challenging you to admit the truth. I assure you that you are.”
“I am not,” she whispered indignantly.
He did not answer. His eyelids drooped farther over his eyes instead, and those eyes laughed. The devil’s eyes. Sin incarnate.
Suddenly and so unexpectedly that she almost jumped with alarm, she laughed. Out loud.