Page 57 of The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

“What about you, Sedgecroft?” she asked in hesitation.

He regarded her with a puzzled smile. “What do you mean?”

“No regrets over Helene?” she asked gently.

“You must be joking.”

“No, I’m not. She must have wounded your feelings.”

“Not in the least.”

“Are you being honest with me, or is this pride?”

“I find the situation altogether too amusing and enlightening.”

“Hmm. Someone is putting on a good front.”

“Now who would that be?”

She gave him a skeptical smile. “Let’s just say one of us is a brave little soldier, and it isn’t me. The woman who was supposed to be your next mistress is parading around with another man.”

“Darling Jane, if Helene had meant anything at all to me, do you think you and I would have been alone together in that maze?”

She wavered, rescued from a reply by the sight of her brother walking toward them. She had not even begun herself to make sense of that magical interlude in the maze. One complication seemed to lead to another until her life had become a veritable Gordian knot. “Ah,” she said. “Simon finally appears, and only twenty minutes too late to investigate what we were doing in the dark.”

Grayson laughed. “Oh, Jane, that sensible side is showing again.”

“Yes,” she said, moving past him at a brisk walk. “And only twenty minutes too late to do me any good.”

Jane felt awash in misery, dancing with young men who were either too stupid to realize she was a scandal, or too socially disconnected to care. How could she concentrate on a proper conversation when her heart was still racing from that encounter with Sedgecroft? How could she engage in a game that there was no hope at all of winning? The more she knew of Grayson, the more she was enthralled by him. And the way he had touched her. Oh, her body still quaked from it.

“Oh, just look at him,” she muttered. “Standing there like a lion.”

“I beg your pardon,” her dance partner said as the final steps brought them back together. “What did you say?”

She snapped open her fan. “I said that I was tired of standing in line.”

“Oh, yes. Silly dance, isn’t it? Would you care for a lemonade?”

“If you don’t mind. I’m parched.”

She wended her way across the dance floor to talk to Cecily, who held court before a cluster of aristocratic friends. Jane could hardly ignore Sedgecroft, so she gave him a covert wave. The smile he gave her in return was positively smug and infuriating, a reminder that he would never let her forget what had just happened between them.

She wondered why she had been so accepting of what they had done. Why she wasn’t more shocked and repentant instead of basking in the afterglow of her glorious sin. She knew all about his reputation with women. But then no one had explained how wonderful it was to be the object of his notorious attention either. No one had explained that while she could deviously plot out her life, what happened to her heart was another matter altogether.

Grayson watched as Jane danced with two or three young gallants, all of whom were undoubtedly drawn to her radiant pink glow. Well, he thought cynically, leaning his shoulder against one of the ballroom’s four enormous pillars, he could claim responsibility for putting that blush on her cheeks. He ought to have apologized to her instead of teasing. But he was more sorry at the moment that he hadn’t been in a position to take their encounter a little further. The truth was, he had probably done enough damage for one night, and he could not possibly continue their relationship. Damn it, what had he been thinking? Away from her, his ability to reason had returned.

He would dearly love to lure her to his bed. He wanted to take Jane in every way known to man. Yet that pleasure would never be his. Family obligations, he reminded himself, were his priority. Which also reminded him that Chloe had been openly scornful of his threat to pack her off to the country should she give him one more reason to mistrust her. Her unhappiness, her rebellion, troubled him deeply. It was only a matter of time before her defiance would force his hand.

His thoughts returned to Jane. The scent of her, the creamy texture of her skin. The shy-aggressive exploration of her hands over his body. That awkward touch of hers had brought him to the boiling point. He didn’t know what to do with himself except stand here, shaking inside, like an adolescent.

“Coming to play cards?” a friend called behind him.

He shrugged, welcoming the reprieve from this exercise in self-torture. “Why not?” And as he turned, he noticed a tall dark-haired young man break from Cecily’s group to gaze at Jane with a look Grayson recognized only too well.

“Denville, who is that man there, the one watching Jane like a hawk?”

“Oh. Baron Brentford, isn’t he?”