He eased her skirts up, exposing her inch by inch to the candlelight, to his hungry gaze.
She shivered, but not from cold. He looked up at her, and for a moment, he looked as if she was the only thing tethering him to the ground.
Then he dropped to his knees.
He kissed the inside of her knee, then the soft, sensitive skin of her thigh. One hand braced her leg over his shoulder, the other curled around her hip, holding her steady.
She whimpered when he finally reached her throbbing core, and then again when his mouth claimed her with a slow, deliberate stroke.
He groaned like the taste of her was something he’d never forget.
Heath worked her with his tongue and lips and the kind of devotion usually reserved for prayers. He didn’t rush. He didn’t tease. He worshiped—utterly, unrelentingly—until she was breathless, writhing against his mouth, clutching the back of his head with shaking fingers.
“Heath—” she gasped, her voice high and strangled.
His mouth vibrated in response, pressing deeper, and when she shattered, she did so in silence—her lips parted, eyes wide, body trembling around him.
He stayed there until the tremors eased, until her hands loosened, until her breath came slow and shallow.
Only then did he rise, his mouth glistening, and his gaze locked with hers.
He looked like sin in candlelight, and she just wanted him to thrust into her without remorse. Without a second thought. Without begging. Just with untampered need.
He leaned over her and brushed a kiss against her lips, this one soft and nearly chaste. “You are mine, Blanche. Say it.”
But she only arched a brow, the barest trace of a smirk ghosting her lips. “You are insufferable.”
He grinned. “And you’re still trembling.”
She slid from the table slowly, her knees a little unsteady. “I’ll recover.”
He caught her wrist gently, and even though she was immediately cross with him, she was thankful for his calculated assistance.
“Are you stable enough to walk?” he asked slyly.
Her glare met his before it turned into a smile. “Stable enough to dance.”
The guests started to arrive at the first sign of night—first in measured steps along the garden paths, then in clusters beneath the lanterns that glowed against the bluing sky. Laughter andthe delicate clink of glasses threaded through the hedges like a melody that had not yet reached its crescendo.
Blanche stood near the floral archway flanking the central lawn, her gloved fingers brushing idly along the embroidered hem of her gown. The fabric felt heavier than usual tonight—perhaps from the expectation stitched into it.
“You’ve truly outdone yourself, my darling,” Lady Gooldwer declared, adjusting the folds of her own gown as if she’d been personally responsible for the guest list. “Even the Ashbrookes arrived early, and that simply never happens. They’re always late enough to signal disdain.”
“I think they were curious,” Blanche said, allowing a smile. “New duchesses don’t bloom every Season.”
Fanny leaned in on tiptoe to whisper conspiratorially. “Or perhaps they’ve heard of your incredible taste in musicians. Mama nearly trampled a footman to rearrange the harpsichord.”
Lady Gooldwer gave her youngest daughter a narrowed glance.
“If the harpsichord was injured, it had it coming,” Fanny muttered, feigning innocence as she plucked a canape from a passing tray.
Blanche laughed, the sound unguarded. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed this—being surrounded by family, bymovement, by color and life and voices rising in the air like warm drafts beneath her ribs.
And yet, she hadn’t seen Heath since dusk settled over the gravel path outside the corridor. Not since he’d said those quiet words—“You’ve made this place yours”—with a look in his eyes that had lingered long after he disappeared into the west wing.
I wonder… would he ask me to dance tonight?
The thought startled her, but there it was. Clear and unruly.
