He shook his head. “No, just forget everything they’ve taught you. I had better take you back inside.”
“Oh, must you?” She could not mask her disappointment. “I did not mean to make you stop.”
“I know, but it is best we do.” He took her hand in his to lead her back inside. “To answer your question, it is you who brings out the wicked in me. No one else. This is why we had better go back inside. You look too delicious. I would not have stopped at mere kisses.”
She smiled at him. “Truly?”
He nodded. “Truly, Adela. You are bewitching.”
She shook her head and laughed. “Well, isn’t that something? I have never been called that before.”
“I shall have to correct this oversight.”
She stared up at him, very much liking how they fit together as a couple. He was much taller and handsomely broad in the shoulders. She was not nearly as tall. In fact, she felt quite small beside him, but in a very nice way. Despite these differences, she could not get over feeling they were perfect for each other. “You are quite bewitching yourself.”
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it as they returned to the ballroom, a gesture noticed by everyone within close proximity of the doorway. “Men are not bewitching. That compliment is reserved for women.”
“Then what are you?”
He grinned. “Magnificent will suffice.”
She could not hold back her lilt of laughter. “Modest fellow, aren’t you?”
“Never said I was. In fact, I am probably insufferably arrogant. But I am also happy, Adela,” he said with a serious turn to his voice, now taking her for a stroll about the large ballroom under the watchful eye of curious onlookers. “I want others to know it.”
“Is this why you have been so demonstrative tonight? You certainly have been behaving like the gushing bridegroom. But I know it is all calculated to play to our audience.”
“The feelings are real. The only difference is that I choose to reveal them to others at this time. I suppose it could be construed as manipulative.”
“Which got us into this trouble in the first place,” she interjected.
“It is for a good cause in this instance. I am staking my claim on you, something made necessary because of that malicious bit of gossip about you fed to the scandal rags. Everyone needs to know the insinuations were ridiculous, that we dote on each other and have eyes for no one else.”
“That is easy for me to do. I cannot stop looking at you because you are so handsome.”
“I appreciate the compliment.” When they reached the long table where the punch bowls were set out, he paused a moment to scan the room. “As for you…Felicity Rose and Brynmore have not taken their beady eyes off you the entire evening.”
She glanced up in surprise. “You’ve been watching them?”
“Yes, of course. It bothers me they have not moved on at this point in the evening. This tells me they are plotting mischief, so I am not leaving your side at all tonight. One would think they would know better than to cross me, but those two are so full of bile, who knows what they will do? Come, let’s keep walking. Brynmore is heading toward us and I think he will have the effrontery to ask you to dance.”
“Ugh, I would refuse him.”
“Let’s not give him the opportunity to cause a scene.” The supper dance was about to start. “Dance with me, Adela?”
“All right.” She knew it was important for them to be mingling and looking happy, not to mention this was an easy way to avoid Brynmore’s unwanted attention. Besides, she knew this reel and would not completely mess up the steps.
To her dismay, Felicity Rose and Brynmore also joined in the dance.
Ambrose had steered her far enough away from the troublesome pair that they might never encounter them as couples twirled and shifted forward in their positions as part of the reel.
However, it was not long before she noticed the pair skipping forward and cutting off other dancers to reach them.
Ambrose noticed it, too. “Botheration. What is wrong with them?”
“Brynmore would not be so stupid as to try something, would he?”
“The man is an idiot. Any man who grovels the way he does over Felicity Rose has to be a witless buffoon.”
