The next step deserted her. Jasper caught it, of course. He covered the mistake with a turn so smooth that no one would have noticed, had anyone been there to notice. His hand steadied her at the waist; his eyes did not leave hers.
She said nothing, for her tongue was caught between a dozen biting retorts, and her heart had done something most inconvenient. It had softened—only a little, of course, but enough to recognise that, beneath all his wickedness, there wasa line he would not cross unless she stepped over it first. Horrid man.
Jasper’s smile deepened. “How extraordinary. Have I discovered a method of silencing you?”
“Do not congratulate yourself,” she managed. “It is a temporary affliction.”
“I shall enjoy it while it lasts.”
He kept them moving, slow and unhurried. It was really very lovely, and so Lottie did what she tended to do when she felt vulnerable. She attacked.
“I wonder,” she said, “whether you shall remember this as the day you bested me, or the day you did not have the courage to claim what you truly wanted.”
His steps faltered for a moment and then resumed more slowly. “I shall remember it,” he said, “as the day I survived a skilled opponent.”
Oh, how tiresome. He would not rise. Well, if one thrust failed, one changed the line of attack.
“You hide very well behind all of it, Mr Deverell.”
“Do I?”
“Oh yes. Your fancy cravats and waistcoats. Your wicked smiles. All that lazy, pretty nonsense.”
He only kept them turning, his hand steady at her waist, his face all smooth amusement.
“Adandy’sarmour, don’t you think?” she said, watching his face carefully. It was gone almost before she saw it: the faintest tightening at the corner of his mouth, a little darkening behind the eyes.
“My dear Miss Tolliver,” he said, guiding her neatly through a final turn, “if this is your attempt to wound me, I must warn you—it does nothing of the sort.”
But it had wounded him. She knew it to be true, though she could not have saidwhyshe had wished to hurt him. It feltrather like kicking a dog that had offered its paw. Indeed, dear reader, it is a sad truth that wounded people do not always become soft in the places they have been struck. Very often, they become sharp, and when they find another creature with a hidden bruise, they may press it before they understand why.
When Mr Deverell bowed, he did not kiss her hand, but simply looked down at her, long enough that the silence felt louder than any ballroom quartet. “I shall see you at our next engagement, Miss Tolliver,” he said softly. “You may expect a note.”
He offered the barest smile, turned on his heel, and crossed the sun-drenched gallery in long, unhurried strides. Then he was gone.
Lottie reached up absently and adjusted her collar, though it was not the collar that was the problem. She needed air, or brandy, or more likely both—poured liberally and administered in quick succession while she lay flat on the drawing room carpet with a maid fanning her like an ailing heiress.
Good God, she sounded just like her mother.
Chapter 18
Jasper Deverell was, quite frankly, in a state.
Not dramatically, of course—he had not yet thrown a glass into the fire—but he felt very close to it. He had spent the better part of the evening in his rooms. He had dismissed his valet, poured a brandy, and selected the dullest book on the nearest shelf, trusting that agricultural improvement might succeed where moral fortitude had failed.
It had not.
The book might have contained the secrets of eternal life for all he knew. He had read three pages and retained nothing before finding himself staring at the fire while the word dandy lodged in his side like a very small knife.
Miss Tolliver, damn her, had struck nearer than she knew.
To many, meant no more than silk waistcoats, polished boots, and an unfortunate devotion to one’s own reflection. Jasper could have borne that easily enough. Indeed, he had gone to considerable expense to invite the charge, for he adored beautiful things.
But there were implications beneath the word, which he knew too well.
He liked women, certainly—their softness, their laughter, their sharp little cruelties—but his eye had never been so well-disciplined as other men pretended theirs to be. It strayed often—to a gentleman’s mouth, or the line of a shoulder beneath a coat. Perhaps it was the pleasure of wanting what one ought not to want.
In the circles where Jasper moved most freely—those over-perfumed, half-mad little worlds of actors, artists, rakes, widows and poets—such appetites could be indulged, provided one did so carefully and quietly.
