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“Did you enjoy the display?” His voice wasn’t smooth. The words crisp in a demanding way, his low tone spoke of an accent she couldn’t quite place.
Heaven help her, she was acting like a ninny. Her head stopped gyrating and she managed to slip a steely façade of self-assurance back into place. “I was just observing. That’s what you were seeking, was it not? To gain an audience with whatever you thought to do with Lady Frantole?”
His head angled slightly to the side, his penetrating eyes not shifting off her. “What I wanted was to veer Lady Frantole’s attentions off of me.”
Interesting.
Victoria leaned forward, resting her forearms on the chilled stone of the white balustrade as she looked down at him. “You don’t care for her? She is quite beautiful.”
“She’s that. But it takes more than beauty to turn my head, and I knew upon threat of getting caught, she’d eventually turn her attentions off of me.”
Now that she could see his face fully and had a moment to take it in, she recognized exactly what had drawn Lady Frantole to this man. He looked like he was carved from stone. Cheekbones and jawline that were forged from the hardest steel. A patrician nose with the slightest twist in the middle that must have come from being broken, but it only added interest to his features. His mouth proportioned well to the width to his face, his bottom lip slightly plumper than his top. Eyes that were too keen, like they easily read everything deep in her soul.The angles of his face knew their purpose.
Beautiful danger.
She’d grown up with men like this—her uncles. Dangerous. Powerful. Handsome.
It wasn’t new to her.
But that sense that the ground could shift beneath her feet, upending her entire life if he merely flicked his hand, sat in the air between them. Power like this, dripping with raw carnality, was never directed at her.
It wasn’t allowed.
She was suddenly very glad that he stood fourteen feet below her.
“Who are you?”
“Lord Winfred.”
“If LadyFrantoledoes not turn your head, what does, Lord Winfred?” At least her voice had returned to a casually disinterested tone, even if her thumping heart had not.
The smallest uptick of the right side of his mouth appeared. She would have missed it had she not been studying him so closely.
“That is better kept a secret.”
She chuckled. “You think to keep it a secret?”
“I wouldn’t want you to use it against me.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You think I would even try?”
He nodded, his eyes still serious even if the uptick on the side of his mouth lifted higher. “You would.”
She exhaled a breathless laugh, leaning farther forward. If he had been standing at her level, this would be highly inappropriate as her breasts were pushed together, her cleavage plumping. But he wasn’t, and it came oddly easy, this relaxed banter between them.
Her smile quirked. “Your pomposity reaches heights most of the gentlemen inside can’t even imagine to achieve. And between all the dukes and earls and marquesses swarming the ballroom, that is a lofty achievement.”
A sharp chuckle came from deep in his chest. “If you don’t care for their level of achievement, then you might want to consider mingling with people outside of your class on occasion.”
Her face lifted up to the night sky for a long breath. Long wispy clouds skirted in front of the plump full moon. He wasn’t wrong. But it also wasn’t a possibility.
“Honestly?” Her gaze dropped down to him. “I’m not allowed. Just like I’m not allowed to move down to your level during these balls.”
His brow crinkled, his gloved left hand curled into a fist at his side, but oddly, his pinky didn’t fold with his other fingers. Broken?
No. Not moving at all.
There was no pinky. The glove had to be stuffed with something.
