Easing his boot on his injured ankle, he winced. “Shall I lay my cards on the table, sweetness? It appears I must, my pride fading with the morning mist.” Rising to his full height, he made sure she was looking at him when he said, “I made my decision long ago, foolish or not, and my heart hasn’t forgotten. Not for one moment. Your independence may mean more to you than any man could. Maybe it should. I’m no prize, Alex. I’m a tangle, broken in part, my head full of equations. My nights often fractured by a war long over, comrades who left this world before they should’ve been forced to.”
Searching the room, he located his coat and cape. Shrugging into them while his heart stayed across the distance. He didn’t want to leave her, not even for a moment.
And that was why he must.
“Cort,” she whispered, starting to rise.
“Don’t. I’ll never know if you come to me now, not with lust in your eyes.” His gaze strayed to the bed, the tangled sheets. “I want more than being your safe bet. And maybe, just maybe, I deserve it.”
Unable to restrain himself, he strode across the room, went painfully to his knee, cradled her jaw and took her lips in a consuming kiss. Her hands plunged into his hair, tugging him closer. Chest to chest, they breathed each other in.
It was magic.
Somehow, he had the power to pull away, leave her.
Knowing full well that his heart stayed behind.
CHAPTER 7
WHERE LOVE MAKES A STATEMENT
She’d fallen for one of the Trio and there was no going back.
Alexandra nudged the palm frond aside and gazed across the ballroom. Nerves danced in her stomach, matching the cadence of the swirling couples gracing the floor. Her gown was from the finest modiste scant notice could buy, her coiffure so impeccably stiff her head ached. She wore her mother’s sapphire earbobs and a pearl necklace in her family for centuries that was rumored to be a gift from a long-dead prince. Topping off the outfit was an empty dance card dangling from her wrist by a length of crimson velvet.
If she wished to look presentable, this was as good as it was going to get.
To appear as if she fit in with these vultures when she’d never fit in. But for him—kind, generous, tortured, exquisite, skilled-at-many-things Cortland DeWitt—she would play the game. Come to him. Admit her infatuation in front of society because her declaration was what he needed to believe he wasn’t the only one in this thing.
She let the leaf glide from her fingers, where it quivered before settling back into place before her face.
Her feelings were much stronger than infatuation. She was in love with him.
It hadn’t come about without intense deliberation. Nights of ceiling-staring. Scribbled lists of pros and cons about a union such as the one he’d demand of her. He wasn’t a man to accept half measures.
And there was the outright spying.
People who did not want to see what was before them often didn’t. Cort hadn’t noticed the bedraggled domestic trailing him on his morning strolls through Hyde Park, a tattered cloak and bonnet from another era providing her adequate concealment. Nor had he seen the chit shadowing him down Bond, where he’d glanced in shop windows with a forlorn expression, not speaking when spoken to or purchasing so much as a sweet. She’d longed to halt his progress—and his angst—throw her arms around him and tell him she loved him, too.
But she’d wanted to see him again to confirm her two weeks of moping wasn’t misplaced affection. Craving for his body when he was offering his soul.
It had been clear from the first second she saw him striding into the park.
She’d merely had to wait on her modiste to deliver a gown worthy of a declaration. Even if he didn’t care, and she knew he didn’t, she wasn’t going to have him shamed for choosing to love her.
Tears pricked her eyes. She thanked the heavens he’d chosen to love her.
A footman at the top of the ballroom stairs announced Cort’s name in dulcet tones and her fan tumbled to the marble floor. He was dressed in formal black except for his snowy white shirt and cravat. He’d worn his spectacles, perhaps to better see her. He leaned elegantly on a gold-tipped cane in lieu of the scuffed wooden crutch, the ideal accoutrement for the most handsome man in the room.
Alexandra watched him survey the crowd, his gaze keen, his stride pausing when he caught sight of her hiding behind a plant. His smile grew as he descended the staircase, his step sure. Certain.
A lifetime of loneliness evaporated like fog dissipated by a sharp blast of sunlight.
Flashes of remembrance battered her. His mouth at her ear, gasping his pleasure as he thrust. Riding astride his beautiful body while he whispered, “This, exactly this, Alex.” His knuckles paling as he braced his fist on the headboard, his hips pressed to hers. All leading back to that mischievous boy, emotion she now appreciated shining in his eyes.
Halting at the bottom, his lips lifted in a half-smile.
Stepping free of her concealment, she gave a tiny shrug. I’m here. Come and get me.
