Chapter 6 #2
And he was even tall enough. Joan was determined to enjoy the dance, so she kept her eyes fixed straight ahead—not, as it usually happened, on her partner’s forehead, but this time on the silver pin stuck through his cravat.
It was a crouching leopard with an emerald eye that seemed to gleam at her in predatory promise.
Joan smiled at the leopard. Not only was she dancing, it was with a man taller than she was, who could waltz—glory be—so beautifully she barely felt the floor beneath her feet.
She didn’t even need to hear his apology now.
She would have been content to glide around the floor like this in perfect silence.
He, of course, didn’t allow that. “Are you contemplating your future reading hours, or plotting my demise?”
Mention of 50 Ways to Sin made her face warm. “Neither,” she said tartly. “I was merely saying a quiet prayer of thanks that you know the steps. I worried, you see.”
“Ah yes, it is quite challenging. One must count one, two . . . two . . . What comes next? Dear me, I seem to have forgotten already.” For emphasis he turned more sharply than ever, without losing his light yet confident hold on her.
It felt like flying. Good heavens—Monsieur Berthold had never made it feel like this.
“I could tell,” she said, sounding sadly breathless once again.
From the corner of her eye she caught sight of Douglas, who was dancing with Felicity Drummond again and staring at them with mingled shock and anger.
It made her think of her mother, and what her mother would say when she heard about this waltz with Lord Burke.
Joan sighed softly, her delight deflated.
Everything she enjoyed seemed to be inappropriate for ladies.
“You had better make your apology before the music ends.”
His faint smirk faded. Unfortunately, he was even more devastatingly handsome when serious.
Joan was beginning to think God hated her, to keep thrusting Tristan Burke in her path.
He was obnoxious and rude and yet so bloody attractive.
“Yes. I am deeply, humbly sorry for saying you look like an umbrella tonight.”
Joan stiffened. She would rather have never heard that again.
“It strikes me as foolish for women to wear fashions that don’t suit them, but of course it’s none of my concern how you want to dress.”
“It really isn’t,” she muttered.
His glinting gaze ranged over her face. “How long did it take to make all those ringlets?”
“An hour. Why? Are you thinking of trying it yourself?”
He grinned. Joan tried not to look at the dimple. “Not particularly.”
“Well, it probably wouldn’t suit you.” Although with her luck, he would try it to annoy her, and end up looking like a romantic cavalier of old, elegant and fine in brocade and lace.
“Was it your mother’s idea?”
She flushed. “Why would you think that?”
“You mentioned her the other day, when listing every color unflattering to your looks.”
Joan knew she never managed to look elegant, not even in the most fashionable creations to be found in London.
She agreed that light blue wasn’t her favorite color, no matter how appropriate it was for unmarried ladies.
But she’d wear green and orange stripes through Hyde Park before she admitted it to him.
“If you must know,” she said airily, “it was in the latest copy of Ackermann’s.
I expect it will be all the rage soon, and every woman in town will be wearing it. ”
“That will hardly make it suit you any better.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Really, sir,” she trilled. “You take such an interest in my clothing and my hair! One might begin to wonder what your intentions are!”
He didn’t seem concerned; if anything, her words brought a faint grin to his lips.
Staring up at his mouth, so near her own, Joan felt her stomach turn itself into another twist. Why the devil had he asked her to dance?
With his one hand spread over her back, holding her close, and his other hand holding hers, it was all too easy for her wretched imagination to take flight and pretend he wasn’t the biggest boor in London, but someone who had once told her he liked impertinent girls.
“You’re safe with me,” he said. “My intentions are to apologize, return your book, and then go do something I actually enjoy.”
Joan almost rolled her eyes. Safe from ravishment, obviously, but not from irritation.
“I accept your apology, halfhearted and weak though it was. I think I feel a pain in my ankle, you may escort me back to my friends now.” Most gentlemen usually accepted the excuse gratefully.
She hoped Lord Burke would do something decent for once.
His steps didn’t falter. “Oh, no. Not yet. I’m not through with you.” And before she could ask what that meant, he twirled her with a little extra vigor and sent them both around a nearby pillar and into the alcove a few feet behind it that held a stand of potted palms.
“What—?” she began in a furious whisper, but he put one gloved fingertip on her lips as he reached inside his evening jacket and withdrew 50 Ways to Sin—which, she couldn’t help noticing, was now unwrapped, exposing the title to full view.
“I also apologize for reducing you to tears in the bookshop,” he said, holding it out.
She stared at it in frustrated longing. So near, and yet so impossible for her to take. “I cannot walk back into the ballroom with it in my hand! Where will I put it?”
He wagged it back and forth, the evil gleam in his eyes completely undermining the solemn innocence of his expression. “You don’t mean to say you purchased something inappropriate, do you, Miss Bennet?”
“If anyone sees this, I shall swear on my grandmother’s grave you were trying to tempt me into debauchery with that piece of filth—not that I have any idea what it is.”
Now he was beginning to grin. “Debauchery! You strike fear into my heart—and yet a small amount of curiosity as well. What sort of debauchery do you think I had planned, some ten feet from Lady Malcolm’s guests? I prefer more privacy than a pair of potted palms offers.”
“Lady Elliot would be astonished to hear that.”
He laughed, a low, lazy sound unafflicted by any of the nerves that gripped Joan.
“She’s the one who left the door open—not that I was debauching her in any way.
But enough teasing. I did mean to apologize and return your little story.
” He leaned closer, still smiling. “Here,” he said softly—almost tauntingly. “Take it.”
Joan squeezed her hands together. Under no circumstances could she slip it under her garter in front of him. “I can’t. You have to keep it.”
He sighed. “Spare me women of no imagination. Turn around.”
“Why?” Before she could protest further, he had taken her by the shoulders and spun her around to face the wall, then crowded up against her until she must be quite invisible to anyone passing by.
Joan braced her hands against the plaster, struggling to keep enough space to breath.
Great heavens—she could feel him behind her.
His foot had slid between hers, and his chest was right at her back.
She shuffled her feet, trying vainly to inch closer to the wall, and felt the brush of his knee on the back of her leg.
And then she felt his fingers at the fastenings of her bodice, plucking loose the lacing that held it closed.
She was as stricken as Lot’s wife, immobile at the wickedness before her. Or, rather, behind her. The most notorious rake in London was unlacing her gown.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured next to her ear. “Your virtue is safe with me tonight.”
Her virtue, perhaps, but not her imagination.
She gulped for air as her bodice grew loose.
Joan closed her eyes, trying not to wish he did have designs on her virtue.
Not because she wanted him, of course, but because she had never been the object of anyone’s uncontrollable desires, and had certainly never been pressed up against a wall by any halfway desirable man.
And however boorish Tristan Burke might be, even Joan couldn’t deny he was desirable.
“Good Lord—how tightly did you lace this corset?”
A flush of humiliation burned up her throat at his murmur. Trust him to notice that. “Never mind,” she said through her teeth. “Just hurry . . .”
He stopped her wriggling with one hand on her waist, his fingers splayed over her hip.
“If you’re going to lace it up tightly to display your bosom, you ought to forgo all this.
” With his other hand he flicked the elegant fall of lace that frothed over her gown’s neckline.
“What good is a delectable display of bosom if no one can enjoy it?”
“My bosom is none of your concern!”
There was a pause before he replied. “Of course not.” She felt his fingers sliding along the loosened back of her gown, and then a crinkle of paper. He was putting 50 Ways to Sin down the back of her bodice. “I hope you trust your maid.”
“I don’t have any choice now, do I? Lace me up!” she hissed.
He laughed very quietly, his nimble fingers tugging at her laces again.
Joan glared at a thin crack running down the wall in front of her, wishing she didn’t feel every stroke of his fingers on her back, even through her stays, which seemed to be growing tighter with every moment.
She tried to think of what fantastical story she would tell if someone burst upon them; it seemed they had been in this alcove for an hour or more.
She spun around as soon as his fingers lifted away from her. “Thank you, now let me by.”
Instead of moving aside, he only propped one elbow beside her head, blocking her in. “Why are you so controlled by your mother?”