Chapter Four #3
“Your family is taking the news well.”
“What the hell do you—you don’t propose to tell them what we did?” he hissed, hoping to goodness no one could hear him.
The absolute last thing he needed…
“‘What we did’?” Captain Seaton blinked with an innocence that was absolutely false. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Michael did, and the worst of it was, he wanted to do it again. Oh, God, she had tasted so sweet, had been so giving in her pleasure, hearing her little mewls of ecstasy…
Dear God, man, don’t get rock hard here, in the middle of Almack’s!
“I do think it’s brave of them, though,” continued the captain sweetly. “Supporting you in your immigration plans.”
This time, Michael did stand still. The rest of the waltzers continued on their merry way around them, but he and Captain Seaton stayed stock-still, staring into each other’s eyes—almost, he could not help but think in a wild sort of way, as though they were in love.
The truth could not have been more different.
“‘Immigration plans’?” he said thickly.
“You are planning to immigrate, aren’t you? That’s what you said in that alley,” said the captain brightly. “Although I cannot recall now where you said you’d be going.”
This is not good. “I didn’t. I mean, I haven’t definitely decided—”
“But you are immigrating. I assume you have told them,” said Captain Seaton in an undertone, her voice low and urgent, her gaze not meandering from his own for an instant.
“It would be a great shock to them, I suppose, to learn that the heir to the viscountcy—yes, I thought you would be—was not only about to abandon them, but disappear from the country entirely.”
Michael’s throat worked, but no sound came out. There was a knot in it, a dry, crackling knot that made words absolutely impossible.
“You… You wouldn’t.”
Those were the only two words capable of leaving his mouth, and for a moment, Michael wasn’t sure whether he had whispered them or dreamed them.
The slow, satisfied smile that crept across Captain Seaton’s face told him the answer. “You haven’t told them, have you?”
Although they were standing still, his hand was still at her waist, his other hand holding one of hers. They were close, far closer than they would have been if there’d been merely discussing this over a glass of the disgusting Almack’s lemonade.
And he could not breathe.
She wasn’t going to tell them. She couldn’t. Michael had wrestled for days with what, if anything, to say to his family about the whole thing and had decided eventually that it would be kinder if they never knew. Not beforehand, anyway.
And now this minx was standing before him, threatening—because there was no doubt in his mind that this was a threat—to tell the people he loved that he was going to break their hearts.
Michael swallowed. “You wouldn’t.”
It was a pathetic repetition of what he had already said, but in the moment, he could not think of what else to say. The music around them had stopped and there was gentle applause, but still they stood, arm in arm, as though there were going to rejoin the waltz at any moment.
“I suppose that is the sort of thing that you would wish to keep a secret,” Captain Seaton said slowly, as though weighing up her options.
Damn and blast the woman. “Please.”
“‘Please’?” The woman with fiery hair tilted her head, the picture of playful innocence. “You know, I rather like it when you beg.”
“I rather liked it when you did,” Michael said in a hoarse voice. Damn it, man, keep your head out of her skirts and fixed on the immediate problem!
“So you don’t mind if I tell them, then?”
Just behind her but perhaps ten yards back stood his sisters. Michael’s gaze flickered to them. They would be miffed, indeed, if it were revealed that he planned to immigrate without telling a soul in the family…and that was ignoring the pain he would cause his parents.
Oh, God, he should have told them. But it was too late now; he knew full well that if the truth were laid bare, they would do all in their power to stop him from leaving.
And he had to leave. He had to make a new life for himself.
When his gaze returned to Captain Seaton, it was to see her grinning.
“What precisely is this information worth to you, Mr. Chance?” she asked.
‘Worth’ to him?
Michael stared, utterly lost. ‘Worth’? It was worth a great deal, undeniably, and that was why he…
Oh, no.
His groan was drowned out by the light laugh Captain Seaton gave as she released his hand, removed her other hand from his shoulder, and took a half-step back.
Which was probably only right, seeing as the dancing had ended. It was such a shame that a pang clawed through Michael at the sudden loss of her presence.
“Captain Seaton,” he said quietly, hoping to goodness no one was about to overhear him. “Are you going to blackmail me?”
“‘Blackmail’?” Captain Seaton examined him, considering his face before raking her gaze down his body in a way that should absolutely not have made his chest tingle and his loins tighten. “‘Blackmail’? Why, yes, Mr. Chance. I actually think I might.”