Although the orchestra kept playing, the music now had a tinny, street-corner quality, as if the melody were being strained through a battered ear horn. The dancers did not falter, but their steps became disjointed and mechanical, as if they were marionettes painted to resemble aristocracy, rather than the pleasure-seeking lords and ladies they’d been just moments ago.
Ellie’s senses became overwhelmingly acute. Miss Breckenridge’s breathing seemed to echo about the chamber, her perfume suddenly noxious. Ellie’s pulse thundered with such force, she fancied she felt the heat of her blood coursing recklessly through her veins. For the first time in her life, she had the inexplicable desire to flee the premises whilst her heart still beat.
Then there he was.
A leather thong tied thick chestnut hair at the nape of his neck. Seventeen stone of solid muscle sculpted effortlessly into ebony breeches and bone-white muslin. His skin was just as pale, yet managed to convey the strength of marble rather than the fragility of fine china. Impossibly bright sea-green eyes gazed knowingly from beneath dark lashes. Blunt cheekbones accentuated a wide, firm mouth set in a smirk above a strong jaw.
He was too big, too pale, too predatory.
He should not have been beautiful, but he was.
The music bobbled in his wake, losing its rhythm, then tumbled forth at twice the tempo. The sharp-edged lords and ladies loosened their joints until they too were fluid and swirling about the ballroom once again. Widows and debutantes alike spun in and out of his path, inventing steps where there should be none, dipping to expose both cleavage and bared necks, twirling ever closer even when the music ceased.
A giddy countess lost her equilibrium when she could not keep her eyes from him. Without facing in her direction, the alleged vampire righted the countess with a mere touch of his palm against the small of her back. She fainted into her husband’s arms.
The remaining ladies were too entranced by Mártainn Macane to take notice.
Ellie swallowed hard.
Lord Lovenip, indeed. For there could be no other man capable of stirring a stately crowd into such a frenzy with nothing more than a moment of his presence.
With what was surely superhuman strength, Ellie cut her gaze from the man sucking all the air out of the previously well-ventilated ballroom and forced her eyes to her benefactress.
The act of severing the inexplicable connection to the rakish Highlander made Ellie think the unreality of the moment had been entirely in her mind. Once the arresting Scotsman no longer filled her vision, the rest of her senses shifted back to normal. Her pulse no longer clogged her ears, her blood no longer simmered beneath her flesh, and Miss Breckenridge was no longer breathing like?—
All right, yes. Miss Breckenridge was still breathing like a broodmare in labor. If her bosom heaved any more vehemently, it would fling itself right out of its fashionably low bodice. Ellie uncurled fingers she didn’t recall clenching and pressed a trembling hand to her own bosom to assure herself she was in no danger of exposing any womanly curves.
None of the other ladies seemed afflicted with such spinsterish sensibilities.
He could have his pick of anyone in the room, Ellie realized with a start. Could and, most likely, did. Young, old, married, widowed—they were all shamelessly, shockingly available if he but wished it.
The well-favored Scot seemed indifferent to the tiny dramas of gentlemen clinging desperately to their negligent wives and turned instead to the buffet of virginal misses fairly leaping from their duennas’ custody and into his arms.
The steps of country-dances led him to one, then another, then yet another, leaving them all flushed and breathless and smitten, panting and clawing for the chance to tumble into his embrace once again, as if addicted to his scent.
It was horrifying and appalling and... more than a little exciting.
Every time he chose a pastel angel from the adoring crowd, Ellie’s flesh tingled as if it had been her hand he had touched. Every time he spun an enraptured young miss out of his arms for a beat or two, Ellie felt the loss of contact down to her bones.
It was as if she could feel what they felt, both the delicious sense of vulnerability as one wide-eyed innocent after another let herself be trapped in his arms, as well as the darker thrill of possession, of mastery, of control over everyone who fell within his line of vision.
Although, as expected, Ellie had seen no signs whatsoever of the handsome Lord Lovenip’s being tempted by blood rather than by the ladies themselves, he was certainly dangerous in his own right, and a volatile addition to any throng. Not to mention provocative.
“Miss Breckenridge—” Ellie sucked in a breath, shocked to have heard a stammer in her voice. One would think this man had cast a spell over the ballroom. “Miss Breckenridge,” she began again, once she had regained her command over both voice and body. “Presumably, the man who has enraptured the entire party without uttering a single word is the infamous Lord Lovenip. I see him dancing with those he should and those he should not, but nothing more untoward than that. I thought you said he... bites?”
“Not all of them.” With obvious difficulty, Miss Breckenridge tore her eyes from the man in question. She turned toward Ellie, her movements sluggish, as if she yearned to tilt back toward Macane. “And not all the time. That’s what makes him harder to catch.” Her shoulders lifted with a sigh. “And it’s why nobody believes me.” Miss Breckenridge’s voice lowered. “He’s not playacting, Miss Ramsay. He’s a predator.”
Unconvinced of dark magic afoot, Ellie pursed her lips and considered. “What is he waiting for, then? A solicitation?”
“A temptation, rather.” Miss Breckenridge lifted one of her slender arms and gave a flick of the wrist at the teeming crush. “He’s bored. He’s danced with these women before, many times. Such is the burden of the Beau Monde—there are a limited set of us at any given party.”
“A trial, to be sure,” Ellie murmured.
“I have had a devil of a time catching him in the act,” Miss Breckenridge continued. “My own sister doesn’t acknowledge the truth, which is what prompted me to hire a professional. Nothing short of impartial corroboration will gain me her ear.” She gave a sharp nod. “I shall now step aside and allow you your head.”
“Very well.” Ellie returned her gaze to the riveting Highlander who somehow made six-plus feet of controlled muscle seem elegant and graceful. She strongly suspected the virginal misses swarming about were in danger of losing something far more irreplaceable than a ration of blood, but how on earth could Ellie prove it?
“Dance,” she suggested to her client. “Dance with him, and I promise to watch closely. I shan’t even blink.”
