Page 41 of Dare to be Wicked

“Cass,” Hart said with a grim smile, looking very much as if he was being escorted up the scaffold to have his neck stretched. Balls were really not his idea of fun. His father wasn’t enamoured of them either.

“Mother has a laid a selection of titles that may interest you in the library,” Cassius whispered to Hart’s father, Inigo. The man brightened perceptibly at this prospect until his wife scolded him.

“Don’t you dare disappear yet. You promised me two dances at the absolute minimum,” she said, tapping his arm playfully with her fan.

“Oh, how you torment me, wife. How shall I endure the tedium?”

From the glittering look in his eyes, Cassius felt certain the man would manage with no problem at all.

Cassius laughed and was about to greet Baron and Lady Rothborn and their son, Larkin, when something made him turn. His breath snagged in his throat as he saw Lottie come down the stairs, and all the rest of their guests faded into a dull, murmuring blur of sound and movement behind him.

Oh, God.

Oh God, how could he endure another second of hiding his feelings? Yet he wasn’t hiding them, not in this moment. He could not. His breath was short and his mouth was dry, his heart thudding erratically in his chest. Intelligent thought of any variety held up a white flag and surrendered to feelings. There were too many of them—love and lust and pride and guilt—playing havoc with his equilibrium, sending jolts of desire lancing through him with the burn of a thousand lightning strikes, melting what little remained of his brain to a thick syrup, like sugar poured into hot water.

She was dressed in pink. Her gown and bodice, which exposed her shoulders and a teasing glimpse of décolletage, was a lush pink satin. The waist was tight, revealing her curves, and the open robe revealed a madly flounced lace petticoat that fluttered enticingly as she moved. She looked edible: the prettiest confection that ever was, just waiting for him to unwrap her.

Cassius swallowed.

She must have correctly identified the look in his eyes for colour rose in her cheeks.

“Good evening, Cassius,” she said, and then lowered her voice. “Don’t look at me so.”

“Can’t help it,” he rasped. “You look…. You’re…. That dress….”

She glanced down at herself and smoothed a pink silk glove over the ruffles with a sigh of pleasure that didn’t help him a whit. “It is lovely, isn’t it?”

“It’s wicked,” he said helplessly. “You’ve done it to torment me.”

She looked up at him, a quizzical expression in her eyes.

“I would never….” she protested and then laughed as she realised he was teasing.

“How shall I bear it, watching you dance with all those other fellows whilst I must stay away?”

Her bright expression dimmed, and he cursed himself for diminishing her enjoyment of the evening.

“It’s all right,” he said quickly. “I shall bear it. I want you to have fun.”

“We can’t keep on like this. I can’t. I must tell her,” she said, her lovely face determined though there was fear in her eyes.

Cassius experienced a flood of relief as he realised he’d not have to persuade her into it. “I know. Me either. Tomorrow. We’ll do it together, though, love. Not you alone.”

She let out a breath and nodded.

“Run along, then,” he told her, though it ate at him to send her away. “Go and have fun.”

“Will you dance with me?” she asked, pleading in her eyes. “It will look odd if you don’t dance with me once, at least.”

Cassius nodded. “Yes. Save me the last waltz.”

She flashed him a brilliant smile that made him feel dazed and light-headed and was gone with a flurry of beckoning pink lace and ribbons.

Lottie waved up at the balcony where her younger siblings and Cat were gathered, leaning over and watching the fine ladies in their lovely gowns and the men in dramatic black-and-white eveningwear as they danced. She turned to smile at Cat’s oldest sister, Phoebe, as she joined her, waving at the viewers above. Phoebe had children of her own now, not much younger than Cat, who had come as something of a surprise to her parents.

“Heaven help us when she comes of age,” Phoebe said with amusement dancing in her blue eyes. “I believe Papa is more alarmed by the prospect than he was about my come out and that’s no small thing. She’s got some dreadfully dangerous ideas about love and romance and redeeming wicked men. It quite terrifies me to consider it.”

Lottie laughed, though she suspected Phoebe’s concerns were valid enough. Everyone knew Cat had a thirst for romantic novels and would hunt them down, no matter how her parents scolded her. Their own story was legend, though, immortalised by Lottie’s mother in her romantic novel, The Eagle and The Lamb. The book had caused a sensation and was never out of print. Was it any wonder the girl had ideas?