CHAPTER 12

He shook his head slowly. He had been seduced by his own seduction. He had assumed he could outwit Clara and steal a kiss. But he wanted so much more from her; he could not pretend otherwise. He felt trapped between a rock and a very hard place.

“Are you all right, old fellow?”

Fleet straightened up. His host, Lord Cardace, had come out of the library further down the passage and was looking at him with concern and no little curiosity. He realized he must have looked very odd, half-slumped against the wall.

“I am very well, thank you, Cardace,” Fleet said.

“Just a trifle winded. The gout, you know. In my toes. Damnably painful when I try to dance.”

Lord Cardace grimaced sympathetically. “The trials of age, eh, Fleet?”

“And of the bottle,” Fleet agreed.

Cardace clapped him on the shoulders. “Then I’d find a seat if I were you. My wife has arranged for the mummers to entertain us. Can’t abide all that old-fashioned singing and dancing myself and it’s not for the old and infirm.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Fleet said with suitable gratitude.

He allowed Cardace to escort him with solicitude into the ballroom, then slipped away to the shelter of an alcove not, as his host assumed, to sit down and rest his aging bones, but to observe Clara without being observed. She was sitting between her brother and Lady Juliana in the demure pose of the perfect debutante. Fleet’s lips twitched. She looked entirely composed. There was no hint that a few minutes before she had been within an ace of being ravished in a corridor by an out-and-out rake. The suitors were swarming around her again and Fleet felt he the familiar wave of primitive possessiveness swamp him at the way the men were fawning, kissing her hand, whispering in her ear, smiling, toadying.

Until that moment, he had promised himself he would walk away. Clara Davencourt was not for him and well he knew it. He was full of good intentions. Then she gave her hand to Lord Elton to lead her into the dance, and a powerful wash of jealousy swept through Fleet. He started toward her.

One kiss. He would take one kiss and then he would leave her alone forever. He promised himself that.

He noted the precise moment she saw his approach. Her blue eyes narrowed with a disbelief she could not quite conceal. She caught her full lower lip between her teeth for a second before she turned aside to respond to something Elton was saying. The same honey-colored curl he had touched earlier in the darkness now curled in the hollow of her throat. She looked both fragile and determined. He could sense defiance.

Elton was no lady’s champion. He saw Fleet approaching, turned pale, babbled something to Clara and shot away across the floor as though his coat were on fire. Clara turned on Fleet, ignoring the set that was forming around them, the curious ladies and gentlemen who had seen her abandoned before the dance even started.

“What on earth did you do to Lord Elton?” She hissed.

“I did nothing.” Fleet was all innocence as he gained her side and took her arm.

“You know what I mean!” Clara’s face was flushed with annoyance. “You spoke to him earlier! What did you say?”

“I warned him not to pester you with his false protestations of affection.”

Clara snorted. “So that you could pester me instead?”

“You injure me.”

“And you infuriate me!” Clara’s blue eyes flashed.”Twice now I have bid you good night.”

”I am sorry. I never retire early from a ball.”

”Oh!” Clara let go of her breath on an angry sigh. “Your high-handed interference first left me without partners and now has me standing alone in the middle of a set.”

“I would offer to dance with you,” Fleet said, “but you have already refused me and I do not wish to put my fate to the touch again.”

Clara gave him a dark look and turned to stride off the floor. Her back was ramrod straight, her entire figure stiff with outrage. She ignored the raised brows and titters of amusement.

Fleet followed. Clara was standing with her back to him. He put a hand on her arm, leaned closer and spoke for her ears only.

”Do not be too complacent about escaping me earlier. I shall kiss you before the night is out. I swear it.”

He felt her tremble. She spun around to face him. Her gaze was uncertain now, but behind her eyes he saw the flicker of something else: she was intrigued against her will, unwillingly fascinated, tempted... His blood fired at the thought.

“I do not believe you,” she said, summoning all her will to steady herself.

“Believe me,” Fleet said.

He had timed the matter to perfection. There was a shout that the mummers were coming and then a tide of people swept them to the edges of the ballroom as the dance broke up. The door was flung wide and the mummers marched in to the beat of the drum. The orchestra took up the tune with gusto and the crowd shifted and split as the dancing started again. Gone was the decorous elegance of the waltz. This music was fast and wild and, for a moment in the flickering fire and candlelight, amid the boughs of holly and mistletoe, it seemed as though they were in a medieval hall surrounded by all the pageantry and joy of Christmas.

Fleet grabbed Clara’s wrist and drew her into his arms. Her body was soft against his and she came to him without demur. Perhaps she imagined they were to dance, for the strains of the music filled the air, mingled with laughter and voices.

Instead he drew her into the shadowed darkness of the window recess. It was colder here. Snow brushed the panes and the reflection of the candlelight shone in the glass. Without another moment’s delay he bent his head and covered her mouth with his.

She stiffened with shock, but only for a moment. He felt her body soften against his, felt the instinctive response she could not hide. Her mouth opened beneath his and his mind spun even as a vise closed about his body, the desire he could barely control rampaging through him like wildfire.

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