Chapter 18 #3
Rafe caught her wrist and swung her around to face him. “It’s not Anne Dinsmore that I want.”
Alix stared into the green and gold of his eyes. Seared by their intensity, she dropped hers, fixing her gaze instead on the silver embroidery on his waistcoat. “We should forget that we ever met...”
“Can you do that, Alix?” Rafe tilted her chin up. “Can you forget?” He stroked her lower lip with his thumb. “Because I cannot.”
“I can.”
“Liar,” he murmured as his lips descended and consumed hers.
She shuddered as his tongue plunged into her mouth, seeming to draw her resistance as it withdrew, then thrust again.
Her body cried out for his, for the heated caresses it had only begun to know and had so desperately missed these last weeks.
She closed her eyes and felt his mouth move against her eyelids, her cheeks, the length of her nose.
He took her mouth again and Alix wondered distractedly if bones could melt.
“Anne Dinsmore was right,” he whispered, as he drew his hand down her satin-covered breast, his thumb trailing behind to tease the hardened nipple. “Your neckline is too low.”
“Anne Dinsmore was right,” the words spread like ice on her flaming senses.
He’d discussed her with Anne Dinsmore. They’d discussed her décolletage, no less.
What else had he said about her to his fiancée?
Had they laughed at what a fool she’d been, how easily she’d succumbed to his seduction?
And here she was, about to give way again.
Alix stiffened. She didn’t know what Rafe Harcrest wanted from her, but she knew she didn’t trust him.
“I can forget you, Rafe Harcrest,” she gasped, thrusting him away. “I can, because you lied to me and you deceived me. You gave me your word and then you broke it.”
Rafe stepped back as if he had been slapped. “I never lied to you Alix... I saved your life.”
“But that doesn’t mean you own it.”
But she was his, Rafe thought distractedly. Didn’t she realize that? Didn’t she feel it when they touched? “Alix, be reasonable I...”
But Alix already had her hand on the doorknob. “This talk is over my Lord Moreham. Go back to your blonde duke’s daughter.”
She slipped out the door, resisting the urge to run.
She’d jeopardized her reputation enough without bolting through Lord Kensington’s portrait gallery.
She walked swiftly toward the marble staircase, not daring to look back.
She couldn’t face Rafe. She didn’t want to see him or talk to him, or think about him.
It was too confusing and too painful. And though she could think of a dozen reasons not to stay married to him, when he touched her they melted into a meaningless slush.
Descending the stairs and melding into the crowd, Alix searched the sea of feathers and lace for her mother’s black ostrich plumes, feeling as desperate to find Madeleine as she had in France.
Rafe stood in the silence of the empty room, inhaling the lingering fragrance of Alix’s perfume.
The evening had not gone at all as he had planned.
He had imagined they would talk. She would see reason and come home with him.
How could he have known she would believe he was engaged to Anne Dinsmore?
Lady Anne. She would never have left him.
He would never have had to stalk her through London ballrooms, stealing moments with her like an illicit lover.
But then Anne would never have melted in his arms as Alix did.
A smile played across his lips. He wondered if Alix had seen the motto engraved on the ring she wore around her neck: WHAT I CLAIM IS MINE.
Anne Dinsmore stood in the portrait gallery concealed behind the bust of a long-dead cavalier.
She watched as Rafe stepped through the curtained door, then disappeared quickly down the stairs.
Her eyes narrowed. So the rumors were true, Moreham did have taste for things French.
The earl had made quite the direct line for the girl once she’d pointed her out.
She wondered if there was a connection between this slut in silver and the harlot her friend Edina Silverton had seen him with in Dover.
Whether there was or not, it made no difference, she still needed to handle the situation.
Moreham could pursue all the French pastries that he liked, but only after they were married.
She’d been so certain he was going to come up to scratch when he’d invited her to Moreham Hall.
Yet now, since his trip to France, he seemed to be slipping farther and farther from her grasp.
That just would not do.
Anne Mary Frances Dinsmore was not going to spend another season entertaining the ton and pretending she was unmarried because she chose to be.
She wanted a husband and Moreham met all the requirements: wealthy, not too old, and perfectly respectable.
As she descended the stairs to the ballroom, she considered the indiscretion she had just seen.
She could noise it about that the French girl was of questionable virtue and encourage people to cut her.
But that ran the risk of offending Lady Melbourne and encouraging Moreham to step forward to protect the girl’s reputation.
No, she’d have to save this juicy morsel of scandal and see what else developed.
Noticing Elizabeth Harcrest dancing with Lord Portsmouth, a smile flickered across her thin lips.
Heaven only knew what pitfalls might lie before a na?ve young girl in her first season.
Anne’s smile widened as she caught sight of her brother leaning lazily against a column in the ballroom sipping champagne.
Perhaps it was time for Elizabeth to become better acquainted with James and his... interesting... circle of friends.