“Yes,” she agreed, understandably in no frame of mind to let him off the hook. “It was.”
“Again, I apologize.” He turned, nodding to a man on the other side of the room. “I thought,” he said, sliding her a sideways glance, “you’d be dancing with Rycroft.”
Her profile remained impassive. “No,” she said without looking at him. “Wilson doesn’t really like to dance. He’ll take a turn once in a while, but he really prefers to talk business.” She lifted her glass of champagne, gesturing to the subject of their conversation. “As you see.”
“Not very romantic of him.”
For some reason, that made her laugh. “Says the man whose fiancée is dancing with someone else right now.”
He laughed, too. “Fair point. Pam adores dancing, so she latched on to the best dancer in the room immediately, and I was happy to let her.”
She tilted her head, studying him. “And you’re not the least bit jealous?”
That, he almost blurted out, would imply passion. “Over a dance?” he said instead. “Hardly. I’m not that sort of man.”
“Unlike Wilson.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you were thinking it. The truth is,” she added before he could admit or try to deny her accusation, “I don’t much like dancing, either. So, you see?” She lifted her chin, and a hint of defianceshimmered in her eyes. “Wilson not dancing with me doesn’t bother me in the least.”
“You don’t like to dance?” he said in surprise. “You seemed…” He paused, self-preservation warring with curiosity. “You seemed so keen on it whenever we danced.”
“That was diff—” She broke off, but not before an odd sensation struck him—a feeling of triumph, and pleasure, and something else, something he couldn’t quite define, something sweet and painful that he hadn’t felt in about fourteen years.
“That was a long time ago,” she said after a moment.
“Not so very long.” He drew a deep breath. “I still vividly remember that night at Lady Rowland’s ball.”
“Devlin,” she began, but he cut her off.
“I remember thinking how much I hate balls. And then,” he added, clearly determined to be a glutton for punishment, “I saw you.”
Her lips parted as if his words surprised her. He didn’t know why they should, for with her, he always felt as transparent as glass. He stared at her mouth, and before he knew it, he was thinking of another ball from that London season.
It had been at the Marquess of Harrington’s villa in Chiswick, he remembered, down by the river. He’d found her on the terrace, catching a bit of air, and when she’d turned, looking at him in the moonlight, he’d felt the earth shift beneath him. Without a word, without even a conscious thought, he’d taken her hand and led her down the terrace steps and into the garden. There, beside a fountain in the center of the boxwood maze, the gardenia scent of her hair filling his senses, he’d kissed her for the first time, and his fate had been sealed.
“Aw, hell,” he muttered helplessly. “Kay.”
She stiffened, pokering up at once. “You talk as if you don’t like dancing,” she said, a slight hint of desperation entering in her voice that told him she was feeling, at least a little, what he felt.
He forced himself to reply. “I don’t, usually. It depends.”
“On what?”
He stared at her lips, parted, full, and pale pink in the candle glow, and a slow burn began in his body. “On the partner.”
“And Lady Pamela is not that partner?”
He lifted his gaze to hers. “No.”
The moment the word was out of his mouth, he wanted to take it back, but it was too late for regrets on that score. “Pam and I are not madly in love, if that’s what you’re thinking. To quote you,” he added, “I’m very fond of Pam, and she’s very fond of me.”
If he had hoped she’d display some hint of feeling—relief or pleasure or something like that—he was disappointed.
Her expression remained impassive. “I see.”
“The truth is,” he said slowly, thinking how to explain when he didn’t quite understand it himself, “Pamela and I are both in this marriage for reasons that don’t have anything to do with true love.”
