Chapter 2
Victor watched the lady’s curtsy like a general studying the first move of a mysterious opponent.
She had the look of a woman prepared to fight and flee. He required that she not do either. A whisper of what she had witnessed in the dark was survivable. However, a shriek in the ballroom would be ruin, or at least inconvenience. And he disliked inconvenience.
“Stay a moment,” he said, light as idle talk on a promenade. “You came out for air. Take it.”
She inclined her head, neither meek nor bold. Her fan tapped once against her wrist. “I have already taken the air, Your Grace, but I commend you on how considerate you are.”
“I try,” he replied.
In reality, he most certainly did not try.
Silence fell between them, filled with the chirp of insects and the distant sweep of violins.
“How long have you been watching, little voyeur?”
He thought of Lady Bradburn disappearing tonight after they had been caught and felt only relief. Clean endings were a courtesy to which he had accustomed himself. On second thought, this interruption was quite welcome.
“Only a moment. Honest,” she said quickly.
For some reason, he believed her.
“Well, you have chosen the wrong part of the garden,” he remarked. “There are roses on the southern path that would better suit a lady’s sensibilities.”
“Those are crowded,” she pointed out. “I prefer quiet paths.”
“Curious,” he murmured. “So do I.”
Her laugh was soft and disbelieving as she waved towards the bushes she had found him in. “I had gathered as much.”
Victor kept his breathing even. He did not enjoy being laughed at. “We should understand each other, then,” he said rather curtly. “You will tell me your name.”
“No, I don’t think that I will, Your Grace.”
He let the word hang between them. “Bold.”
“Prudent,” she corrected, cool as porcelain. “And practical. What would you do with a name? Announce it at dinner? Have it engraved on a card? Exact revenge on my family?”
His interest was piqued. Most women gave him what he asked for when he asked for it. This one measured her replies, then offered them like coins to a beggar—one coin at a time.
“A name allows me to return a courtesy.”
“What courtesy was on offer, precisely?”
“My discretion,” he replied. “And my gratitude.”
She looked past him at the yews. “I doubt you are ever grateful for anything, Your Grace. Men like you are accustomed to the world picking itself up and moving out of your path.”
The neat accuracy of it tipped a small smile to his mouth. He did not allow it to show. “Men like me. You speak as if you had catalogued a series.”
“I listen.” Her fan breathed open. “You are not the only subject that interests the ton.”
Ahh, a little liar.
For he knew the ton had no ammunition against him, save for what he had allowed them to see and know.
“The ton is often wrong.”
“So I am told.”
He felt a small bite of irritation. No rise, not even at that. No flush. No stammer. She had seen his mouth within a whisper of another woman’s, and the closest she had come to outrage was a small, poisoned joke about a rehearsal.
It was a performance.
A lady’s composure, arranged like pearls, was practiced in front of a mirror until every bead lay smooth. Yet why did he wish to yank the string and watch the pearls scatter?
“You should not have wandered here,” he chided. “It is careless.”
“I am not careless,” she said in that mild tone. “I am bored.”
The word pricked him. “There are a hundred gentlemen inside who could… cure your boredom.”
“I find that highly unlikely.”
“Then you have not tried them all.”
“I have no interest in collecting sets,” she quipped, flicking her fan shut. “Nor in being added to anyone’s collection.”
He stood very still. That had landed, which meant she was not as unaffected as she wished him to believe.
Good. A breath of heat.
He followed it.
“Return to the ballroom, then. Forget what you saw.”
“Ah. We reach the thing itself at last.” She looked up, lace shadowing her eyes. “Shameless, is it not, to do such things in a public garden?”
“Public. That is an interesting word for it. These paths belong to the Millingtons. The Millingtons belong to their whims. Their whims apparently favor shadows.”
“It’s still public to me,” she said. “I am not your hostess. I am a passerby. And you, Your Grace, are a man who has been careless with his privacy tonight.”
He felt the bite of irritation again. Sharper now, and seasoned with interest. “You say shameless as if you disapprove. Yet you are not morally inflamed. One would expect heat in your voice, a tender quiver of outrage, perhaps a lecture on virtue.”
“Virtue rarely improves when lectured on,” she argued. “As for heat, I reserve it for matters that merit it.”
“And my conduct does not merit it?”
“No. Is that what irritates you?”
His eyebrow rose. She was perceptive, and it annoyed him that he liked it.
He should have ignored her and let her walk away. Instead, he had spoken, and now he could not quite stop.
“I could summon the master of ceremonies and request the name that matches your gown. I could send a note to your chaperone. I could turn what you believe to be power into embarrassment with a few words.”
“You could,” she relented. “And in so doing, you would declare that there was something to hide.”
He drew a slow breath. Clever. “Who are you?”
“A woman who prefers quiet paths.”
His patience thinned. He did not like being denied. “You will not speak of what you saw.”
She tilted her head. “I was not intending to, and I will make good on it, provided that you stop pestering me.”
“Pestering?”
“It is the only right word for it,” she said politely. “If you persist, I cannot promise to be quiet. Quiet women are ignored. Irritated women are discussed.”
He stared at her. Her gall should have amused him. It did, slightly. It also rubbed against his desire to command like salt on a wound.
“You provoke me,” he grunted.
“You started it, Your Grace.”
“These games have rules.”
“Do they?” Her voice held the faintest thread of derision. “Then we shall see who knows them best.”
He stepped the smallest fraction closer.
The garden held its breath. She did not retreat.
He was conflicted, two voices hissing at once in the back of his head.
This is not a good idea. End it.
Break her calm. Just once. See what lies beneath.
Victor had always preferred certainty. He managed his estates with precision. He ended affairs neatly after seven nights. He gave no one the chance to imagine that his heart might be loaned along with his body. He did not chase women in hedged paths to see how their mouths shaped a gasp.
But at that moment, he remained where he stood, one step nearer than was wise.
“You should go in,” he urged, though the words lacked conviction.
“You should, Your Grace,” she returned. “I am not the one who will be missed.”
The rebuke sat neatly on the cool curve of her lips.
Instead of responding, he adjusted his gloves, a habit learned in boyhood when he had been required to hold still under a lash of words. The movement steadied him.
“You enjoy provoking,” he noted. “Perhaps because you think it keeps you safe.”
“Safe is a relative term.” She looked toward the orangery. “Is that orange blossom I smell?”
“It is.”
“I thought so.”
Victor knew that he should have encouraged her to go to the orangery. But for some reason that he had not yet rationalized, he did not.
He advanced the smallest step—not looming, not threatening, merely present. Tension thrummed like a string from the depths of his torso to the soft place beneath her ear.
For a heartbeat, her eyes widened. Triumph, clean as a knife, slid through him. Then, she composed herself, as if she had remembered who exactly she was arguing with.
“Good,” he said softly. “You are not easily shocked, but you are easily startled.”
“I am not.”
“You are,” he insisted, moving a finger’s breadth closer. He could see the lace of her mask, could see the sheen on her lower lip. “Allow me to warn you; curiosity will lead you into trouble.”
“Curiosity keeps me from stupidity,” she countered. “Trouble is often instructive.”
“Not this variety,” he said.
He knew that he should have left it there.
He did not.
Instead, without really thinking about it, he reached out, took one blonde strand of hair that had strayed from its pins, and lifted it with two fingers as if considering a specimen. “Hold still.”
“Do not touch me.” The words were crisp, yet the breath that carried them trembled.
Victor’s eyes held hers as he replaced the strand against the smooth coil at the nape of her neck. He had not meant to touch her again, but he did.
His fingertips traced the line where hair gave way to skin—a small, deliberate sweep. Gooseflesh rose in their wake, and she drew in a sharp breath.
“There,” he said. “Better.”
He should have stopped.
He did not.
His hand rose of its own accord, learning the shape of her face through the veil of night and her mask.
He touched the shell of her ear. He touched the line of her jaw. His thumb skimmed the corner of her mouth, just enough to map it.
She had a stubborn mouth. He liked stubborn mouths. They learned quickly.
“You will forget what you saw,” he said, almost conversationally.
“And if I don’t?”
He rested the pad of his thumb on her lower lip and pressed gently, as one might test a ripe fruit. “There will be consequences.”
“Consequences,” she echoed breathily.
Victor’s blood answered with a slow, dark heat that he kept under a tight leash. He did not intimidate women. He did not coerce them. And yet he wanted to witness something here.
Not submission. Not even a kiss. He wanted the calm to break. He wanted the mask to slip to see the honest expression beneath.
Her lashes fluttered. A flush crept up her neck, faint as dawn along a pale horizon.
Satisfaction unfurled within him.
There it is.
“Stop,” she demanded, the slightest strain beneath the smoothness.