Of their own accord, his hands found her waist, but she was already pulling back.
For the briefest moment, her real face appeared before the actress’s mask slipped back over it, glittering and bursting into a wide smile.
“Points for us!” she declared, giving an excited bounce on her toes, as though oblivious to everyone staring at what she’d just done. “And a kiss for my consort-to-be, hm?”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Rath, brows high on his face.
Libba beamed at him and nodded, then turned back to Jasper and gave him a playful shove back toward his seat. “Now, go sit, Mr. Townsend. It is my turn. Perhaps now we will win!”
He opened his mouth to respond but couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
So he simply obeyed.
And wondered what exactly they were trying to win tonight, after all.
Part V
The Lady Doth Protest Too Much
Chapter Seventeen
They had enduredanother half dozen rounds of charades before the evening was called to a close, yawns starting to pop up between the Templeton-Raths and Raths one at a time.
After Jasper’s mistake and her ridiculous improvisation to solve it, Libba had found that she no longer cared whether they won or lost at charades. She was wholly distracted and only able to perform in little, bursting pockets of Xandine when she could recall that she was supposed to do so.
He’d almost ruined everything.
Not just by calling her ‘Lib.’ No, and that had been bad enough.
He had kissed her back. He had slid those warm fingers of his around her waist, touching the bare skin exposed at her hip in the process.
It had only been a peck. Only a quick, cursory thing. It had been meant to be a muzzle, not a declaration.
And everyone had seen it.
She was still numb in her extremities, still tingling and sparking under her skin at the absurdity of it. The first and most obvious rule of a stage kiss was that both parties knew it was an act. Jasper wasn’t an actor.
Was he?
That hadn’tfeltlike an act.
She was itching to dress him down the instant they were alone again.
“Shall we give you a ride back to your home, Mr. Townsend?” she suggested pointedly as they were exiting the manor and saying their goodbyes. “We would be happy to do so.”
He turned to her, his eyes narrowing. “I am heading into town, actually,” he said. “I promised to meet a friend for a pint after this.”
She hesitated, pressing her lips together.
He meant Malcolm, didn’t he? They had talked about this some time ago, about ensuring that Mal was out of the house, distracted at the gaming tables when she had to go in or out of the Rest in costume.
And he had remembered to set it up, even without being spoken to for the last week by Libba herself.
“Of course,” she said. “A ride to town, then?”
“No, thank you,” he said curtly, turning to the other women to say his goodbyes. “Mrs. Templeton-Rath, ladies, I must thank you most heartily for such a wonderful evening.”
She felt a flash of hot, itchy annoyance, and decided to meet his strike and do the same with the gentlemen, fluttering her lashes and letting them kiss her knuckles as she excused herself from their company.
