As elegantly as any debutante, she swept along the side of the room until she reached Miss Huntingdon’s side. The two chatted while the violinists warmed up their strings. In moments, the first dance would commence, and he’d be damned if he let her stand alone at the side of the room all evening.
He began striding toward her. This time she’d say yes. If her yearning for him was half of his for her, she had to say yes.
“Lord Lindsay, have you come to claim your dance?” Miss Parker called to him as he passed her. When he glanced toward the young lady, she lifted a little cream-colored slip of paper. “Lady Forsythe has assured me you requested the first dance.”
At the mention of his aunt’s name, he caught her watching him and she tilted up her chin in an expression of triumph.
“Forgive me, Miss Parker, I—” He scanned the room to find Felicity. She was no longer in the corner where she’d stood chatting with her cousin. A vision in beaded silk and crushed velvet, she stood in the center of the ballroom, her hand in Mr. Buckham’s, his arm hooked round her waist.
“We must hurry, my lord.” Miss Parker took Alex’s hand and tugged him into the fray.
Before he could agree or protest or manage to swallow where his throat had gone painfully dry, the diminutive miss had him shuffling across the dance floor, moving through the steps by rote. Keeping his gaze on his partner proved impossible when Felicity spun nearby in another man’s arms, just out of reach.
Alex was so eager for the set to end, he maneuvered Miss Parker to the edge of the room, close to where Felicity and her partner were completing the final steps of the dance.
He’d ask her for the next dance the moment she was free.
Before he could bow and release the young lady in his arms, a man cried out behind him. Alex spun around to see what had caused the outburst and found a circle of ladies and gentlemen gathered to titter at some spectacle. Despite his height, he couldn’t discern Felicity’s pale blond head among the crowd. Her partner, however, was unmistakable. The man stood grumbling to another about his foot.
“Thomas, come away from her!”
Alex recognized Louisa’s shout and cut through the group huddled in front of him to find Felicity on her backside. Lord Kenniston had his hands on her, attempting to help her up, despite how determinedly she slapped his hand away.
“Allow me, Kenniston.” His hand on the baron’s shoulder wasn’t a request. He made that clear with a decisive shove.
When Louisa clasped the man’s arm and pulled the baron away, Felicity allowed Alex to take her hand.
“Are you all right, Miss Beckett?” He asked the proper, polite question for all the guests to hear, then whispered in her ear as he steered her to the ballroom’s edge. “This wasn’t quite how I hoped to get you back in my arms, but I’ll take it.”
“Is everyone still staring?”
“Not at all.” Some were, but most couples had begun dancing the next set. “Don’t worry about the rest of them. Tell me what happened.”
“There’s little to tell. I’m a terrible dancer.” She quirked a miserable grin that made him smile.
“And prefer to end every dance on your backside?” In a very ungentlemanly part of his rogue’s brain, that didn’t sound bad. Provided that she landed on something soft. Like their shared bed.
She grumbled something under her breath and he tipped his head to hear. “Pardon?”
“I stepped on his toes. He’s not the first man to suffer such a fate.”
Across the room, her partner was still carrying on about his abused foot. “I suspect he’ll live. He’s barely hobbling.”
“At least he won’t ask me to dance with him again.”
“There, you see. A fact both of us can celebrate.” If he had his way, the man would never dare to glance her way again.
The blush of embarrassment had almost cooled in her cheeks, tempting Alex to ask if she’d stand up with him for the next set. He was willing to risk his toes to hold her and prove to every gaping onlooker that she was still the most desirable woman in the room, poor dancer or not.
“Your aunt won’t be pleased. She arranged for me to partner with Mr. Buckham.”
“Dance with me instead.” There, he’d said it. Not nearly all he wished to say to her this night, but a start.
Rising from her chair, she turned to face him, her lovely eyes wide with shock. “You truly are a reckless man, aren’t you?”
“Oh yes.” He reached for her hand. Being near without touching her was too much propriety to expect of him. “I can’t wait to show you all my reckless ways.”
“Alexander, let me send a maid to tend to Miss Beckett.” His aunt marched up, fairly planting herself between him and Felicity, and nudged a young lady in his direction. “Have you forgotten that you’re to partner Lady Eleanor for the next dance?”
In the time it took to put his aunt and Lady Eleanor off with an excuse, Felicity had made her escape. He considered searching the house for her. With most guests occupied at the dance, they would at least have a moment alone. But before he could make his way from one end of the ballroom to the doors leading to the rest of the house, she reentered the room wearing a simple, dark gown and planted herself in a chair near the other chaperones.
He could ask her again. Yet as he made his way toward her, a strange emotion slowed his steps. A foreign feeling. One he’d rarely entertained, and certainly one his father had accused him of being incapable. It was a good deal like selflessness.
Felicity appealed to him as no woman ever had, and he wanted her with a maddeningly persistent desire. Yet she’d already passed a difficult evening, and approaching her while she was guarded on all sides by fellow chaperones seemed a foolhardy prospect, even for a reckless man. Most of all, he couldn’t bear the thought of bringing her further embarrassment. Some of the rudest guests were still pointing at her, no doubt recounting her ballroom faux pas. Could he add to those whispers by insisting she dance with him?
There was nothing for it. He would have to wait to confess his feelings until they could have a private moment. Slipping his pocket watch from his waistcoat, he calculated how long he’d have to wait.
His plan was simple one. When everyone had retired for the evening, he’d sneak into her bedchamber again.
He was a rogue, after all.
***
Three more days. Felicity ticked off another night on her makeshift bookmark and slid it back into the etiquette book. After her ballroom debacle, she was giving herself a reprieve from reading another chapter about how to be a perfect woman. Instead she planned to finish Jane Eyre.
Her mind was too scattered for sleep. Beyond replaying that awful moment when she’d trod on Mr. Buckham’s toes and he’d squealed like a stuck pig before pushing her to the floor, she couldn’t stop thinking about Alex. When everyone else stood about laughing at her and only Thomas made an awkward, pawing attempt at assisting her, Alex swept in and rescued her. Somehow he’d known to distract her with conversation and make light of the whole incident. Just the scent of him, the sound of his voice, had soothed her. And then he’d done the most extraordinary thing of all. He’d asked her to dance. The woman who’d just trounced on another man’s toes and made a spectacle of herself.
In that moment she’d seen beyond his blinding male beauty to a thoughtful man, despite his infamy and whichever parts were true. And then, when she’d returned to the ballroom, he’d begun to approach her and stopped. Her heartbeat had stuttered for a moment too. The battle had been clear on his face, the same skirmish she’d waged the first time he’d asked her to dance. The war between desire and duty, what he wanted and what he should do. In the end, he hadn’t asked her to dance, but he’d watched her protectively for the remainder of the evening. Every so often, he’d position himself near enough that they might have spoken, if half a dozen chaperones’ ears weren’t waiting for any bit of juicy gossip to enliven their evening.
The man might call himself a rogue a
nd bear it when others called him much worse, but he knew how to behave like a gentleman.
I’m falling in love with a gentleman rogue. Not the immature infatuation she’d felt for Thomas, but bone deep emotion. Admiration and attraction, surely, but more too. A sense that they were alike, she a spinster chaperone and he a gorgeous viscount, for they were both struggling to play their roles.
Lost in thoughts of Alex, Felicity barely registered the knock on her bedchamber door until it came again, louder.
If it was Lady Forsythe chastising her for wounding Mr. Buckham, she was apt to say something rude. No one seemed to notice that the man pushed her away so forcefully she ended up on the floor. Perhaps someone should visit Mr. Buckham’s room and give him a setting down.
She yanked the door open and glowered at the man on the threshold before her mouth went slack. “Alex.”
“May I—”
Before he could finish whispering the question, she grasped his hand and pulled him inside, latching her door and planting herself against it.
For a moment, they stared at one another. His gaze trailed down her body, taking her in from unbound hair to bare toes. He opened his mouth as if to speak but said nothing.
“You shouldn’t be in my bedroom again.” The words were frightfully difficult to manage when all she could think was how she wished to kiss him, to run her finger along the bare patch of his neck where the top buttons of his evening shirt were undone.
“Yes.” He nodded and one burnished lock of hair settled on his forehead. “That is precisely what I came to discuss.”
Discussion? He expected a discussion when he was standing so near she could feel the heat from his body? When he could reach out a hand and touch her where only the sheer fabric of her night rail would separate his flesh from hers?
“Kiss me first.” She tried for a practical tone. It seemed a practical solution. If he kissed her, he’d melt away a bit of the tension pulling her body taut, and then she could think and talk and be reasonable.
He titled his head and narrowed one eye as if she’d laid a trap for him. But when she said nothing more, he took two steps forward, gripped her waist in one hand, cupped her cheek with the other, and claimed her mouth with his. No gentle tutelage this time, no teasing her with licks and nips. He took the lead and she followed, their lips dancing against each other as if they’d kissed a thousand times, knew each other’s rhythms.
Braced between the flat of the door and the muscled heat of his body, Felicity moaned when he pressed into her, allowing her to feel how much he wanted her. She reached for his hand and lifted it to her breast, needing him to know she ached for him too.
“If we don’t stop,” he whispered against her mouth, “I won’t have the wits left to tell you what I’ve come to say.”
He was right. Her notion of kissing first might not have been her best idea.
“Shall we sit?”
Though he nodded in agreement, he offered her one more lingering kiss before pulling away and striding toward one of the two chairs in the sitting nook. Like a gentleman, he waited until she was seated before taking a chair himself.
After leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees, he opened his mouth and then closed it again. His gaze held hers for a long silent moment.
“When I have something difficult to say,” she began in the same soothing voice she used with the Huntingdon girls, “I find that if I just blurt it—”
“Marry me, Felicity.” He smiled and slapped a hand against his leg. “There, I said it.”
“I…” It was gone. Whatever she’d started to say, whatever she was supposed to say. Gone. Her mind had turned to steam and was surely puffing out through her ears. Her heart was still there. She knew because it was thrashing in her ribs so hard she feared it was trying to escape. “I…” The single syllable, that one sound, was all she could manage.
“You’d love to?” Alex asked hopefully. “You’ve never heard a better idea in your life?”
“You’re a viscount,” Felicity finally managed.
“So they keep telling me.” He was still grinning. He hadn’t stopped smiling since asking her to marry him.
“I’m a chaperone.”
“Why not be a viscountess instead? You can pretend you’re chaperoning me if you like. Follow me around. Keep me out of trouble.” Finally his grin fell into a frown. “No, that won’t do. I was rather hoping you’d join me in getting into trouble.”
“I don’t know the first thing about being a viscountess.” Her head knew she should protest, keep throwing out reasons that this extraordinary gift he was offering her could not be hers. But inside, her heart was too full of joy to believe any of her own reasons.
“Then we are well matched, because I know next to nothing about being a viscount. We can muddle through together.” When he reached for her hand, slipping hers into his felt right, as if she’d found a place where she belonged. With him. Wherever he was, that was where she wished to be.
“You’re trembling, love.” Alex gently chafed her hands, though she wasn’t cold. She’d simply remembered. Recalled that she was not a fresh young debutante, but a woman who’d given herself to another man.
“I’m not a maid.”
That tempered his grin. His brow furrowed as he gazed at her, confusion shadowing his eyes.
“I’m not an innocent.” Her voice broke on the confession
Alex clasped her hands, stood, and pulled her to her feet.
“Ssh, love.” Lifting a hand to her face, he carefully swept away a tear. “I want you just as you are, Felicity. I love you just as you are.”
“But I’m not a virgin.” Loved her? A ruined woman?
He kissed the tip of her hose. “Nor, sweetheart, am I.”
Felicity never expected that he was, but she suddenly wondered to what extent, precisely, he wasn’t. “Your aunt said you only wrote The Rogue’s Rulebook, that none of the exploits in the book are yours.”
“Ah.” He stroked down her back, then shaped her waist with his hands. Without a corset on, only her light evening chemise between them, the slide of his fingers felt erotic, possessive. “It’s fair to say most of the incidents are not my own.”
“I see.” Felicity settled her hands on his chest, toying with a button at the top of his shirt before slipping it free. “Perhaps I should read this book of yours after all.”
“We can read it together.” He bent his head to nuzzle her neck, sliding his lips up to her ear. “Better yet,” he whispered, hot breath against her skin. “I’ll show you.”
“Yes.” He kissed behind her ear, and it was as if he’d found a secret spot that turned her insides to warm syrup. Her knees began to quiver, and he wrapped his arms around her to take her weight.
Then he stopped kissing her, stopped stroking his lips against her skin, and she whimpered in protest.
He’d pulled back to stare at her. “Is that the yes? Did you just agree to be my wife?”
“Yes.” It had been a yes of need, but only for Alex. The power of her desire for him frightened and thrilled her. This, she knew, was a love from which there was no going back. She was willing to risk her heart again, but only for a gentleman rogue. Only for Alex. “Yes.”
CHAPTER TEN
Touching a woman had never mattered this much. Never felt so fraught and fragile. Female companionship came easy. He’d been practicing seduction for years, but this felt different. Felicity was different. In a few short days, she’d changed everything, and he wanted to show her how she’d transformed him with every touch, remind her with every word that passed between them.
“You’re so lovely.” He caught a honey tress of her hair around his finger. Achingly soft, just like her skin. If purple was her favorite color, the warm golden shade of her hair would become his. Or perhaps the light violet-gray of her eyes. Or maybe the carnation blush of her lower lip. He stroked the pad of his thumb across the spot before taking her mouth in a kiss.
“Su
rely you’ve known lovelier women.” She whispered the words against his lips, her voice deliciously husky.
“I can’t recall any other woman when I have you in my arms.”
She chuckled, but kept her hand braced against his chest. When he bent to kiss her again, she pushed at him gently.
“Does that mean you will remember them when I’m not in your arms?” Her lips were reddened from his kisses, her silken hair disheveled from his touch. But it was the little line of worry between her tawny brows that forced him to temper the raging need inside.
Every impulse urged him to draw her toward the bed and show her precisely how much he wanted her. Only her.
But Felicity was a woman who valued words. She always had a book nearby. And he’d written a book full of words and salacious stories that would make any lady wonder whether she could trust him with her heart.
“You’re worried because of the Rogues’ Rulebook.” For the first time, Alex regretted his involvement with the book. “I will never let its infamy touch you, Felicity. I can withdraw from the project if you wish.”
She grinned, and he wondered what else he could offer to nudge her grin into a smile.
“I’m not afraid of infamy.” She lifted her palm from his chest and unfastened another of his shirt buttons. “Nor am I in a position to judge anyone’s reputation.”
A hiss emerged through his teeth when her cool fingers stroked his heated skin. Somewhere between a few kisses and her gentle explorations, the lady had set him on fire. He eyed the bed, wondering how quickly he could have her undressed and laid out before him so he could—
“Alex?” She frowned when he met her gaze. “I never expected to feel as I do about you.”
He chuckled. “Yes, I distinctly recall how much you loathed me the first time we met.”
“I never loathed you.” She sighed and he relished the way it caused her body to melt further against his. “I tried, I must admit. And failed spectacularly.”
“Thank God you found me irresistible.” Tucking her closer, Alex savored how perfectly her curves fit against his body.
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