Already a part of her was crying,Why not? Why not? You could lie together with him tonight!Deep muscles clenched at the thought.
She often lay in the quiet night remembering a man’s body on hers, in hers. She didn’t wish Maurice back, but memory of hot intimacy always left her feeling aching and hollow.
She was staring at him. Carefully, slowly, she turned her head to look past, unfurling her fan. She couldn’t afford to give him a weapon like that, and it would be wrong to use him. She must remember her purpose—to heal him and set him free with the money Maurice had stolen.
“The next dance is starting,” he said. “Shall we be partners again? It will create just the storm you want.”
Storm. An apt name for the tumult inside her, but she agreed. She had set her course and would pursue it, even through a storm of embarrassment, scandal, and yes—frustration.
She was no blushing ingenue. She could control herself and her demon. She went calmly with him to form an eight.
She completed the dance almost hectic with emotion. Beneath dissipation, dark memories, and that nasty scar, was a young man, a devastatingly attractive young man, who was doing his best to bewitch her.
And his best was very good.
She’d struggled to pin her mind to higher thoughts—to his experiences in the war and his need of gentle nurturing at home. Beneath that logical and noble mind, however, quivered a body that wanted to tear his clothes off, press to his heat, inhale andtaste him, and bring him nurture and release of another kind entirely. His very youth, his pain, his sensitivity, his leashed resistance to her rule, were all exciting her more than she could have believed possible.
Before he even suggested an outrageous third dance, she accepted an invitation from another man. It didn’t matter who, but it was Mr. Fanshawe, a pleasant gentleman who doubtless would like to marry her money, but who didn’t make a nuisance of himself about it.
As they strolled, waiting for the next set to start, she made herself seriously consider Mr. Fanshawe as a husband. She did want to marry again, and he was comfortable, undemanding, and her own age. He was the sort of man she had expected to choose, but now the prospect made her want to yawn.
She knew why, but that was only a temporary insanity.
The music started and she let the dance sweep her up, enjoying as always the neatness of fluid movements up and down the line. When she extended her hand to dance round and past the next gentleman, she almost faltered.
Vandeimen!
She recovered, smiled, and danced on. Idiot! Nothing to stop him joining the same line. If he was playing the part of ardent suitor, of course he would. Her hand still tingled from his touch, however.
It must not be.
She wove back down the line, approached him again, joined hands, stepped around, and onward.
That was how it would be. Swirled together by fate, six weeks of linked hands, and then onward and apart. He would have a new chance at life, and she would have a clear conscience.
She did wish it had been possible to do it impersonally, but while she’d been coming up with elaborate schemes, he’d plunged suddenly into darkness and she’d known she had to act.She’d been right, too. Frighteningly right. She still shuddered at the thought of being moments too late.
When it was his turn to dance down the middle of the long line with his partner she saw that he was partnering a flushed and dazzled young thing burdened by a pudding face and frizzy mousy hair. He’d either chosen or been dragooned into partnering a wallflower, but his smile for her was bright and warm, and he was creating a brief heaven for her.
Beneath the wastrel lay a good man. She shouldn’t be surprised, and she certainly shouldn’t feel a proprietary pride. He wasn’t hers, and that was exactly where he should look for a bride. Among the innocent and fertile young.
Fertile. She grasped that painful thorn. In ten years of active marriage she had not conceived, and it hadn’t been Maurice’s fault. He had four bastards that she knew about.
Vandeimen needed children to rebuild his line.
What a betrayal that she even needed to remind herself of that! Beneath the dark and the scars, however, Vandeimen was a good man, and she was glad of it.
Women teasingly divided potential husbands into three groups—heaven, purgatory, and hell. Maurice had promised heaven but turned out to be purgatory, which she gathered was all too common. Vandeimen, she suspected, was a purgatory who would turn out to be heaven for the right woman.
But not for her.
For supper partner, she chose Lord Warren. He was a widower with two sons, so the fact that she was unlikely to have children didn’t matter to him. He was sensible, honest, and persistent in pursuit, but would make an excellent husband. He held a minor position in the government. Perhaps being a political hostess would amuse her.
She concentrated on his interesting conversation, and that of the other people at her table, but then a burst of laughter madeher glance across the room. Vandeimen was at a table with a group that glittered with youth, life, and high spirits.
His natural milieu.
“Noisy, aren’t they?” Lord Warren said.
