Page 3 of Cocky August Rake

A cold knot tightened beneath her ribs.

The Domus was her livelihood. Her home.

She would not let some stranger decide its fate without a fight.

Rose lifted her chin, her expression smoothing once more into serene amusement. Very well. If Lord Reginald Preston would not be found here tonight, she would craft another route to him.

She had not survived this long by allowing one inconvenience to defeat her.

With a last glance over the glittering ballroom, Rose turned toward the arched entrance.

And walked directly into the broad, unyielding chest of a gentleman.

His hand closed around her elbow before she could lose her balance, the contact perfectly proper. He did not pull her close or take advantage of the collision in the way so many men would have done.

And yet a shiver ran down her spine.

She had known hundreds of men. Some carried rank, wealth, or looks striking enough to charm a lady from across a ballroom.

But this man⁠—

He might be the finest gentleman she had ever met.

Which was saying something. His black coat fitted his broad frame perfectly, yet there was something… He seemed too untamed for such formal clothes. Lean at the waist. Long-limbed. And his mouth⁠—

Rose’s attention caught there before she could stop it.

It was a beautiful mouth. Firm at rest, almost stern, though when he smiled—briefly, as if he had found something unexpectedly amusing—clean white teeth flashed beneath the edge of his mask.

He was a good ten inches taller than Rose, forcing her to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. Dark hair fell across his forehead, and the simple mask did little to hide the warmth of his complexion. Nor did it conceal the chiseled lines of his face.

But those eyes.

Silver. Sharp.

They nearly stole her breath.

“Forgive me,” Rose said, easing back a fraction. “I was not watching where I was going.”

“No harm done. And it was my fault anyway.”

It wasn’t.

His voice was low. Not rough exactly, but with a quiet force she felt rather than heard—and carrying none of the lazy amusement most gentlemen would show when an unaccompanied woman had quite literally fallen into their hands.

Rose glanced at the hand still lightly resting at her elbow.

He followed her gaze at once and released her. Not reluctantly. Not with the faint, proprietary squeeze another man might have given before doing so.

Which, in itself was… interesting.

“It is somethin’ of a crush,” she said. And immediately rushed to cover her lapse in speech. She’d not slipped like that in ages. “Lady Westcott has quite outdone herself this evening.” Rose had never met her hostess. And as this was the first ball she’d ever attended, she had no idea if the decorations surpassed those of other ton festivities.

There was that brief flash of white teeth again. “So they say.”

But he wasn’t looking at the room, he was looking at her. And not at the parts of her a man usually noticed first.

He looked almost surprised. As though he had been waiting for someone. As though he had stopped expecting her to come.