This time, she backed away in fear. His gaze fell, just for a moment, to the faint tremor in her hand where it clenched at her skirts.
“I confess… “You are testing my limits.” his voice was dangerously low.
He heard her breath hitch, deliciously audible in the small room. Blaise skimmed his knuckles down the air an inch from her arm, not quite touching her but knowing that her skin would feel that phantom sensation all the same. He did not wish to ruin her, not in the way society imagined.
“You should go,” he eventually said very quietly.
She blinked. “What?”
His lips pulled into a devilish smirk. “If you stay another minute, I am going to show you the true use of this room. And you, Little Blossom, are not ready for that.”
Blaise watched the shudder pass through her. Her fingers curled tighter in her skirts. For a heartbeat, she did not move, but he waited and watched pride war with curiosity. He was tempted to taste her, but he could not risk the dukedom on a fleeting moment of lust with the viscountess. Despite the warning bells,he leaned closer to her until their noses touched. Her breathing grew heavier, and he drank in her shallow breaths.
“Run,” he whispered against her lips, letting a thread of command coil through his tone. “Before you find yourself asking me not to let you.”
Her eyes darted to his, outraged, until she finally remembered she had legs. She turned suddenly, blue skirts whispering, and walked to the door with as much dignity as she could summon. Her hand fumbled on the latch before finding it, and she yanked the door open. She disappeared into the corridor, leaving the room’s air thrumming behind her.
Blaise exhaled, sensing the tension in his body and the ache she had left behind without even touching him. He had one month to find a duchess, and none of those plans had included a woman with eyes like molten amber and a spine of steel. He chuckled as he tossed the sketchbook and shut the drawer with a sharp snap.
“There is no time to mess around,” he lectured himself as he left the library and re-entered the ballroom.
* * *
“Would you like me to draw you as well?”
“Damn him!”
The blush refused to leave Iris’s skin even as she sat in the small breakfast parlor.
Thank heavens, I need never see the Duke of Knoxford again.
She clung to that as she rose. The silence of Hentley house pressed around her, broken only by the faint rattle of crockery as Mrs. Henkings swept in with the tea.
“Good morning, my lady,” Mrs. Henkings said, setting the pot down and giving Iris a searching look.
The elderly woman was too dear to her to keep her around as a mere maid, so Iris promoted her to housekeeper of Hentley House. And what a fine job she had done. Iris never lacked for anything, and her motherly kindness was sorely needed over the years.
“You were back very late, my lady. I hear the ball was enjoyable,” Mrs. Henkings continued, pulling Iris out of her past.
Iris almost laughed.
“Enjoyable is one word for it. It was…crowded,” she said instead, reaching for her cup of tea. Her hand was steadier than she anticipated. “And noisy. You know how I am about noise.”
Mrs. Henkings sniffed, equally as unimpressed as her lady. “You look flushed, my lady; are you unwell?”
“I am well; I just danced too much last night,” Iris said too quickly.
“A gentleman has asked you to dance?” Mrs. Henkings’ kind face lit up with anticipation, and it broke Iris’s heart to lie to her.
“Yes,” she replied simply.
Iris could not bear to tell her that she had stood to the side and watched others whirl around her. It was another night of being the invisible widow. Or so she believed until she had gone wandering where she should not.
“What is that bundle?” She pointed at the stack of paper in Mrs.Henking’s apron.
“Post, my lady.” She drew several letters from her apron. “Two notes from your sisters, and one from Mr. Earnest.” She paused, lips thinning. “The solicitor.”
The nice illusion of an ordinary morning dissolved as Iris set down her cup with care.
