All's Fair in Love and Seduction

Chapter Ten

Elizabeth’s mother stayed, taking up the role of her chaperone until the family returned from Devon where Lady Armstrong had given birth to a baby girl.

They attended two balls, one excessively stuffy supper party and saw a comedy at Drury Lane. Derek had been notably absent from all.

Elizabeth didn’t see him anywhere.

He hadn’t been with Lord Alex when he’d come to visit James. And from the idle talk she’d heard at the balls, it appeared he’d suddenly and completely dropped out of society.

Elizabeth tried very hard not to think on it too much. Unfortunately, trying did not guarantee success. Her heart literally ached and an indescribable feeling of loss swamped her.

Her cousin’s twins, two-year-old Jason and Jessica took to her mother immediately. And who wouldn’t? She spoiled them terribly buying them toys and sneaking them treats from the dessert cart after they’d already been put to bed.

On the fifth day of her visit, her mother announced she’d be returning home the following day. She claimed she must to ensure her husband—who had trouble discerning green from blue—didn’t instruct Mr. Birch, the house decorator, to paint the guest chamber a perfectly objectionable color.

With a promise to return to escort Elizabeth home, which was little over a week away, she was off and everyone was genuinely sad to see her go.

The evening following her mother’s departure, Elizabeth went to Lady Templeton’s ball with Charlotte, Catherine, Missy and James, determined to enjoy herself. It was looking more likely than naught, that this ball would be the last of the few to which she would be invited.

They were there a full half-hour when Derek strode through the towering ornate doors of the ballroom.

Elizabeth inhaled sharply and released it on a prolonged sigh. Relief, anxiety, anticipation and heartbreak mingled in one breath.

She ate him up with her eyes; with the sort of gluttony that brought her both pain and pleasure. She watched the way his loose limbed strides covered the floor. She devoured his fine form. Things she ought not to be doing if she possessed any sort of restraint or self-preservation.

He stopped to greet their hostess, and something in that greeting gave the impression of warm familiarity. It was in the way Lady Templeton touched his arm and his amused laugh when the marchioness whispered something in his ear.

Lady Templeton was incredibly lovely, blond and quite buxom, but she was old enough to be his mother. And she was married.

Jealousy pecked with woodpecker glee at her insides. Elizabeth quickly averted her gaze from the sight of the two together, forcing herself to concentrate on Catherine, who currently carried on a conversation with Miss Dawn Hawkins.

But try as she might, Elizabeth found it impossible to follow their conversation. Her thoughts and gaze kept drifting to a Lord Creswell, who was devastatingly handsome clad in his white cravat and black tails.

He turned, his gaze searching the room until he found her, and there it settled. He said something to the countess and started toward Elizabeth, his long purposeful strides closing the distance between them rapidly. All this he did without once removing his gaze from her.

Elizabeth’s heart felt as if it had scrambled into her throat. Breathing became a ridiculous chore requiring too much thought and coordination. As he drew closer, she didn’t blink fearing she’d discover this was naught but a dream.

When he was finally standing in front of her, he bowed a formal, elegant bow and spoke her name, which came out more a verbal caress.

“Good evening, ladies.” He dipped his head in a bow toward Catherine and Miss Hawkins. Catherine responded with a shallow curtsy and Dawn Hawkins preened.

“Miss Smith, may I have the next dance?”

He was requesting a dance. Or was this another game?

Elizabeth shook her head. “My lord—”

“I refuse to take no for an answer.” He advanced a step and now stood entirely too close.

Elizabeth tore her gaze from his and darted a glance around. They were being watched with unabashed interest by far too many guests. Catherine nodded, a barely discernible forward tip of her head, silently communicating that a refusal would be most unadvisable.

Not if Elizabeth didn’t want to cause a scene. And she refused to enter into another game of who would blink first with the viscount.

Her acceptance came silently, a white, silk gloved hand on his proffered arm. With that contact, instant heat coursed through her, jolting her. She might have pulled off her glove—appropriately white in color—and waved it over her head to signal her surrender had her surrender been wholly complete. This was a dance, nothing more.

Much in the same way Buckingham was merely a house and Victoria a simple woman who happily took up residence there.

The viscount kept his gaze fixed on her as he escorted her to the center of the dance floor where they joined the couples lined up to commence a quadrille.

The music rang out, setting more than three dozen couples into synchronized motion. They moved smoothly and in such harmony one would think they’d danced together for years. But the act of making love, was that not its own lusty, hip pounding, heart thudding dance?

His fingers curled around hers, possessive and firm. Their eyes met, his smoldering with an intensity that shortened her breaths and set her heart a pounding. She blinked and looked away.

After several minutes, when her curiosity would go unappeased a moment longer, she asked, “What are you doing?”

His mouth quirked to one side. “I am dancing. Is my technique so poor?”

They came apart. He twirled her twice. He circled her wide and then drew her close. His dancing was impeccable, as well he knew.

“Are you forgetting you don’t like me? You believe I’m one of those lying conniving Smiths.” She forced a smile but spoke with a soft savageness she hoped would wound him the same way he’d wounded her.

“Believe me…I like you more than well enough.” He regarded her mouth as his thumb furtively stroked the top of hers.

She felt the intimacy of his touch through her glove. Needles of pleasure spread throughout her like heat on flesh numb from cold. The resurgence of feeling relief, joy and pain.

Before she embarrassed herself by doing something as silly as wilting to the floor, the dying strains of the cello signaled the end of the dance. Saved.

“Shall we?” Derek proffered his right arm. She accepted, momentarily grateful to have something solid to keep her upright.

Her crutch proved to be the very thing she required a crutch for. But she didn’t remove her hand. More of that gluttony she suffered from.

For the area skirting the dance floor, standing room was at a premium. Derek handled the swell of guests with ease, maneuvering them expertly until the press of bodies thinned, where one could breathe.

They passed a surprisingly well-dressed Lady Danvers, who refused to meet her gaze, which was odd as Elizabeth had never seen the dowager looking so ill at ease. Since the evening in the garden, the dowager had cornered her at several events slyly inquiring about the upcoming announcement. The dowager had been like a cat toying with a mouse certain that one of her swipes would draw blood.

Elizabeth wasn’t quite certain when she realized Derek was leading her farther and farther away. Where guests no longer surrounded them but were now voices at their backs, and the surroundings weren’t so brightly lit. But once she realized, she halted.

She’d once tread this perilous path before. It had landed her behind a hedgerow with a charming lord. The same path had had her giving away her innocence, the consequences, hers and hers alone to bear. This was the path her sister had taken and forever lived to regret. She’d be three times the fool to tread down it again.