Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Where a Forlorn Viscount Ponders the Rules of Attraction
Chance hated balls. They made him feel like he was standing outside his body, watching the proceedings from an ambiguous vantage point. As if his clothing was two sizes too small or his skin covered in hives.
As if he was playing a role and doing a bloody pitiable job of it.
Although this event was smaller than most, sold as a winter celebration in case the melted snow mucked across the marble floor, the pine branches tacked to every ready surface, it wasn’t a clear reminder of the season.
Winter simply meant it was too frigid to open the veranda doors to invite even the suggestion of fresh air.
So here he stood, the scent of sweat mixing unpleasantly with lemon verbena and pine.
Every starving mama in the room giving him a jaundiced eye because he’d yet to sign so much as one dance card.
He dragged the toe of his Wellington, not boots meant for dancing, mind you, through a layer of chalk on the floor.
In use so one didn’t go careening across marble, landing on one’s bum.
An occurrence which would have made the festivities a bit more interesting at least.
“You’re going to have to dance with someone, mate.
Your role as a nobleman, innit? Give the unattached ladies some hope for the future?
Their mother’s stares are starting to torch my skin,” Xander Macauley said, shoving a beverage that Chance prayed was stronger than champagne in his hand.
“Glad they don’t want anything to do with me. ”
Macauley was Tobias Streeter’s partner, London’s finest smuggler since Streeter had stepped down when he’d gotten married and started a family.
Both men had grown up in the slums and now ruled parts of the city most had never visited or wanted to visit.
Macauley owned a shipping company, a distillery, and half a dozen other incredibly profitable ventures.
Rumor was, a gaming hell was next. Chance’s partnership with Streeter, Macauley he’d give her that.
Smiled at the baron. Made a feminine show of offering her dance card, which Hillsdale signed twice with a flourish.
When everyone knew two signified intent.
She took a glass of champagne and sipped carefully.
Only Chance noted her stiff posture, overly precise.
The uncomfortable stretch of her lower back.
The charcoal stain on the tip of her glove. The wrinkle on her bodice.
No one in this bloody country had any idea she was real beneath the posturing.
The most unique woman in the room.
Somehow, it had settled in his mind that Hillsdale was marrying her for her money. And he’d accepted this. But when the baron gazed down her bodice, his face getting the look only an aroused man’s did, Chance realized he was entering virgin territory.
He’d never been jealous of any woman. Not once, ever.
“Drink this,” Macauley muttered and bounced a tumbler off Chance’s clenched fist. “We’re not brawling tonight, at least until his babe is born.
Streeter made me promise. No more. He’ll be here any second with a wife glued to his side, a chit who has little tolerance for our antics.
That gives us six months or so to exercise our wisdom.
Hildy told me I had it in me to be better if I’d only try.
Fetching simple, innit? But for me, nothing about women seems simple. ”
Chance took the glass and sipped, his gaze fastened on Miss Shaw, who had begun to waltz with the baron. Her step was sure, almost athletic, impressive for a girl he imagined hadn’t grown up waltzing. Chance had learned from a pitiless French instructor when he was twelve, at his father’s command.
It had been harrowing and unpleasant, like much of his childhood.
Finally, on a swift turn, Franny caught his gaze.
Her cheeks were rosy from exertion, but the bloom on them increased when she looked at him.
Her silky smile reminded him of a gold- and-pink dusted dawn, brightening everything it touched.
A buoyant sense of wonder stole through him.
It was seconds that they stared, no more, but it was enough to confirm that Chance wasn’t the only entranced soul.
Somehow, this knowledge bound him to her with invisible threads of need.
It was easy, so easy, to imagine what he’d do to her if given the opportunity.
He’d start by unfastening the buttons of her bodice.
Sliding the silken bundle from her shoulders to pile at her feet.
Chemise ties loosened. Lace swept aside.
Breasts straining for attention. Nipples pebbling as he tugged them between his lips.
He wanted to mark her, change her. Turn them inside out.
Situate himself between her thighs and stay there until she screamed.
He was very good at persuading without saying a word.
And he wanted to persuade Francine Shaw more than any woman of his acquaintance.
Without tearing his gaze from her, he asked, “Macauley, can you get something here by Christmas?”