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Something about the perfectly tied cravat made her fingers itch to pull it apart. Not that he did not strike her as the most handsome man in the room. No. In fact, she saw several women rake their gaze over him. But she did miss the scruffy, unkempt version of him that had been, well, all hers in a way.
“Why are you smiling?” Valentine asked.
“You shaved.” She gestured to his jaw.
“It had to be done,” he muttered.
“You said you would not.”
“I could not go showing you up, could I?”
“This isn’t even my ball. How would you be showing me up?”
The creases between his brow deepened. “Just be grateful I am here,” he snapped.
“Oh I am.”
“Do you tease?”
“No!” She pressed her lips together to smother a smile. “I would never tease you. Ever.”
“Liar,” he murmured and looked around. “Where is this Reynolds and how soon can I get out of here?”
“I have yet to see him.”
He groaned. “So I have to stay longer then?”
“Balls are not so terrible you know.”
“Yes, they are. They are hot and tiring and there’s never enough to eat, and, oh yes, it’s full of gossiping people trying their best to appear better than their peers.”
“They can be fun too,” she protested. “Let us at least enjoy it a little. Maybe we could share a dance.”
He lifted her dance card, his expression souring. “It looks like you are already taken.”
“Not yet,” she said softly. She met his gaze, her heart skipping against her chest.
His gaze darkened. If there were people and music playing about her, she could not see nor hear them. The world existed of only the two of them. Could he hear it? Hear how her heart pounded and stretched out toward him? For any scrap or hint of something—desire, need....love?
Lord, what a fool she was. Love had hurt her once before. Why was she opening herself up to it again? Had she learned nothing from her first husband?
“Oh!” A group of gentlemen making their way into the ballroom caught her eye. She rose onto her tiptoes and looked over his shoulder. “Reynolds has arrived.”
Valentine blinked, straightened slightly, and followed her gaze. He gave her one last look that somehow told her this was not over. But what was not over? Their desire for one another? Or something more?
∞∞∞
Valentine could count on one hand the amount of times he’d danced since Anne died. He was sorely tempted to tear up Chastity’s dance card and add at least one more occasion to that. How would it feel to have her in his arms? To pretend for just a moment she was his?
He didn’t need to pretend. He knew. Every man in the room would envy him, every woman would know what had been niggling at him since she’d left. Even now, when he was finally able to take an active role in this investigation, he could not keep his gaze from her.
His jaw hurt from clenching it and he had to unfurl his fingers as he strode over to Reynolds lest the man think his anger was directed at him. Jealousy was the single most useless emotion, and he did not like feeling it one jot, especially when Chastity’s latest dance partner was a whelp whose breeches were obviously stuffed at the calves. The boy could hardly keep his gaze from Chastity’s breasts either and from her amused smile, she had noticed.
Reynolds stood with two other man Valentine vaguely knew—Captain Marshall and a baron whose name he could not recall. The last time he had spoken with either of them might well have been years ago. Same with Reynolds.
A few years his senior, the man came from old money but that was about all Valentine knew. Chastity said he’d been linked with a few women in the scandal sheets at one time or another but nothing about him stood out and screamed murderer.
Of course, he doubted any murderer would make themselves known, but he had to wonder what sort of a man would kill two people then attend a ball with as much nonchalance as this man. He also had to wonder why the devil he might have harmed Julian. From everything Chastity had gleaned from the servants, he lived a simple life and was using the opportunity Valentine gave him well. It relieved him a little that his nephew had not sunk to sordid depths of which Valentine had been unaware.
