“Yes, quite charming,” Celine agreed brightly. “It is astonishing what occurs when one meets someone who renders every sensible plan irrelevant. Someone worth any risk, anyscandal, any consequence.” She fixed Ashworth with a pleasant smile that held the lethal accuracy of an arrow. “Of course, not everyone has such an experience. Some must remain perpetually on the outside, forever proposing to women who find them inadequate, forever bitter about rejections they can’t accept, forever trying to create drama in others’ lives because their own are so painfully dull.”
Ashworth’s face flushed red. Miss Grayson looked between them with dawning comprehension and took a small step back.
“You always did possess a sharp tongue,” he bit out.
“And you always did write indifferent verse,” Celine replied.
Someone nearby snorted, and Ashworth’s flush deepened.
“Come, wife,” the Duke said, amusement and pride threading his voice. “Our dance begins.”
He led her toward the floor, his hand firm at her waist.
“That was merciless,” he murmured.
“That was deserved. And Miss Grayson was eyeing you as though you were the main course.”
“Were you jealous?”
“Fiercely. Did it show?”
“Delightfully.” His hand tightened. “Though you have no cause. I could not look at another woman if I wished.”
“Good.”
The orchestra struck up a waltz. The Duke drew her into position—closer than propriety allowed, closer than sanity permitted.
“Everyone is watching,” she whispered.
“Let them. If they want a spectacle, we shall give them one worth retelling.”
He pulled her close enough that her breath caught. The dance became a conversation of bodies, of longing held at bay, of promises deferred but not denied.
“You are holding me too near,” she breathed—though she did not step back.
“I hold you precisely as near as I wish. In truth, it is not nearly near enough.”
“People will talk.”
“People are already talking. Might as well give them something worth discussing.” He spun her, and her skirts wrapped around his legs. When he pulled her back, they were even closer than before. “Besides, in but a few hours, I shall hold youfarcloser than this.”
“Still counting?”
“Every heartbeat.” His thumb moved against her waist, finding the sensitive spot between corset and hip. “Do you knowwhat you do to me?” he murmured. “How entirely you undo me?”
“Tell me.”
“I used to have perfect control. Perfect discipline. Twenty years of carefully maintained walls and rigid schedules, and predictable patterns. Then you walked into my life with your sharp tongue and sharper mind, and suddenly control became torture. Every rule I’d made for myself became a chain. Every wall became a prison. And every locked door became a mockery of what I really wanted.”
“Which is?”
“You. All of you. Not just your body, though goodness knows I want that too. But your thoughts, your dreams, your fears, your fury. I want to know what makes you laugh and what makes you cry. I want to be the first person you think of when you wake and the last before you sleep. I want to possess you so completely that you forget there was ever a time we were apart.”
“Elias—”
“But more than that,” he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that only she could hear, “I want to be possessed by you. I want to surrender all this careful control and let you remake me into something better, something worthy of the way you look at me when you think I’m not watching.”
The music swelled around them, but Celine could hear only his words, feel only his touch, see only the raw honesty in his eyes.
