Finally the evening had taken a turn toward the interesting.
She casually glanced over her shoulder at him, as if he were simply another one of the men flocking around her tonight, when in reality his appearance at her side sent her pulse spiking. “I’m terribly sorry, but Lord Gregory was in the middle of a story about horses.” She turned her attention back to the dandy and smiled at him to continue. After all, if Carlisle was set on subjecting her to such dull conversations this season, then he could suffer right along with her. “Lord Gregory, you were saying?”
“I’d asked if you—”
“A turn about the room.” His hand clasped her elbow from behind. “Please.”
“Come now, Carlisle,” Lawton interjected good-naturedly, but with a prick of annoyance in his voice. “You’ve already had Miss Winslow to yourself enough this season. The rest of us would like more time in her delightful company.”
She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see a dark look flash across Carlisle’s face.
Her heart skipped. Oh, that was not a happy mood! Good. The blasted devil deserved every prick he received for parading her through society like this.
He ignored the men around her and fixed her beneath his gaze. “Now.”
The anger seething behind the single word sent an ice-cold warning slithering through her, and she knew not to press her luck by refusing. She might be willing to cast caution to the winds, but she was no fool.
“Of course, Lord Robert.” She placed her hand on his arm, ignoring his narrowed eyes as she pretended that nothing was wrong. “I’d be honored to take a turn with you.” With an apologetic smile for the group, she slowly dropped into a curtsy. “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me.”
Carlisle nodded coldly to the others and led her away, ostensibly for a slow stroll around the room. He steered her toward the open French doors that let in the cool night air and eased the stifling heat of the crush of bodies and lamps blazing throughout the room.
When they were just out of earshot of the other guests, she muttered, “So our truce is over, then?” A part of her was sad to see it go. A very small part, because the rest of her burned to give him the thrashing he deserved.
He slid a sideways glance at her. “Oh, I think that truce ended the moment you decided to serve me champagne, don’t you?”
A pang of remorse pinged inside her, but she’d never acknowledge it in front of him. “Come now, Carlisle. Surely, you’ve had women spill drinks on you before.”
His jaw tightened as he drawled sarcastically, “Never with such targeted aim.”
“Thank you.” She beamed brightly, as if he’d truly meant that as a compliment. To her delight, that only irritated him more.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to let that barb pass unanswered and smiled coldly. “Quite a dress you’re wearing.”
“Why, this old thing?” she asked with mock innocence.
“Yes, that old thing,” he drawled. Then, with all the conservative pomposity of an octogenarian, he added, “Which belongs on a French courtesan.”
She sighed in aggravation, although she couldn’t help the thrill that sped through her that he’d noticed how she looked tonight. That he thought she was attractive enough in this dress to cause a stir, even though there was nothing improper at all about it. His mother would never have allowed her to wear it if there were.
No. What upset him about the dress was that she was in it. She could have donned a nun’s habit, and he would have found fault.
Deciding the aggravating scoundrel deserved to be irritated even more, she trailed her hand over her neckline and asked with false artlessness, “Whatever do you mean?”
“You know damned well,” he ground out. “Any man who gets close enough to you has a view all the way down to your navel.”
She stifled a victorious laugh at raising his hackles and tossed out recklessly, “If that’s only as far as he can see, then he isn’t standing close enough.”
His eyes flared at her bold innuendo. Then he murmured, “Oh, I’m standing pretty close.”
He took the invitation she’d so thoughtlessly delivered and lowered his gaze to her breasts.
A shivering heat prickled beneath her skin, and her nipples puckered against the bodice. Something tightened low in her belly, something hot and intense. And it stunned the breath from her.
So did the compelling urge to whisper, “So how’s the view?”
His eyes snapped up to hers, and she saw a desire in their sapphire depths so raw that she gasped.
Impossible. Carlisle couldn’t desire her. Would never—
Yet the way he stared at her triggered a dull throbbing inside her, when the other gentlemen tonight had barely raised enough interest from her to garner a second glance. But then, Carlisle wasn’t looking at her the same way the other men did.
No, behind his gaze simmered a ravenous hunger that was simply predacious. As if he wanted to drape her across the dining table and feast on her.
For one breathless heartbeat, she wanted to let him do just that. Something dark and wild inside her wanted to lay herself bare to this man who titillated her so wickedly and continuously kept her dancing on the razor’s edge.
Then his hand tightened on her arm to lead her on, and the moment vanished.
As she fell into step beside him as they continued their turn about the room, she stole a surreptitious glance at him. He kept his gaze straight ahead, an inscrutable expression on his handsome face.
Where was the amiable man he seemed to be with everyone but her? When Carlisle wasn’t being a beast, he could be quite charming. She’d seen it herself tonight when he’d talked with his mother, in the way he’d laughed so easily with his sister and charmingly chatted with the opera singer. And heaven knew Mariah had experienced his passion herself and knew all too well the appealing charms of that side of his character.
No, it was this side of him that aggravated her to no end. The cold, arrogant man who brought out her ire. His mother was certain that he needed to be distracted this season, and perhaps he did. Perhaps he was still suffering from the loss of his father and feeling adrift, needing purpose.
But why did his lack of purpose have to result in suffering for her?
“Be assured that there is only one man’s attention I’m interested in gaining,” she declared. “Tonight and any other.”
His face hardened with a strange expression she couldn’t place, and he ground out through a clenched jaw, “Who?”
Was that jealousy she saw in him? No, certainly she was mistaken. The only emotion Carlisle would feel about such a declaration would be relief.
“My father,” she emphasized, “and doing so by behaving exactly as your mother has asked of me.”
When they reached the French doors, he released her and stepped away. Far enough to quell any gossip that might arise about them by stopping to speak privately, yet close enough that she could still smell the masculine scent of him swirling around her like fog on the cool night air that seeped in from the garden.
Then the blasted devil had the audacity to lean his hip casually against the doorway, in a pose so wickedly rakish that her belly clenched.
“Whatever game you’re playing at,” he warned in a low voice, “you won’t win.”
“But I will,” she countered, her own voice just as soft. “It’s going perfectly, in fact.”
“For me.” He shrugged, which only drew her attention to the fine cut of his cashmere jacket across his broad shoulders. “By the end of the week, gentlemen will be calling on you in droves.”