Her fingers, trapped between their bodies, convulsed in the fabric of his coat. As if they could tether her against him, a port in the increasingly vicious storm of her emotions.
Though she feared that he was in truth the eye of the storm, the center of it all.
His mouth hovered above her own, his breath fanning warm over her face, drugging her senses until she could hardly see straight. She felt the mad urge to rise up on her toes, to press her lips to his…
He swallowed hard, his throat working. “Perhaps,” he said, his voice quieter, more strangled than she had ever heard it, “it’s time you returned to your painting.”
Mortification reared up, blocking out the maelstrom of feelings that had momentarily overtaken her. She pushed away from him and stepped back. Feeling the loss of his arms as they fell away from her like a blow.
“Yes,” she managed. “Of course.”
Turning from him, she walked back to her easel. Forcing the doors closed once again on the Pandora’s box of desire and tenderness—and mayhap something much more—that was churning inside her. Though she feared the lid no longer fit, and she would never be able to lock it again.
Chapter 14
My dear Peter,” Lady Tesh said several evenings later as they sat in her sitting room after dinner, “You’re scheduled to revisit the tailor’s tomorrow, correct?”
Lenora looked up from her embroidery quite against her will. Since the disturbing episode at the Elven Pools, she’d attempted to put some distance between herself and Mr. Ashford. For she couldn’t shake the knowledge that she’d wanted to kiss him. If he hadn’t spoken, she would have wrapped her arms around his neck, would have pressed her lips to his. Even now she felt the flush of need deep in her belly to do just that. She squirmed in her seat, praying not for the first time that her thoughts weren’t written over her furiously heated face.
Mr. Ashford, too, seemed to be keeping his distance, seating himself far from her when possible, making sure they were never alone. A fact that should not have hurt as it did. But to her surprise, she found she missed the confidences they’d shared, the closeness they’d begun to have. The barriers he’d put up between himself and everyone else in the household seemed insurmountable.
Until now.
The man blanched. He dropped the book he had been perusing, his hands going to his cravat, his long, calloused fingers mangling the fabric. “Er, yes. Yes, I am.”
“Splendid,” Lady Tesh said with a smile, her jeweled rings flashing in the candlelight as she scratched Freya behind the ear. “I look forward to seeing you in full formal wear.”
Mr. Ashford’s mouth tightened. It was plain as day he didn’t feel the same.
Lenora frowned, looking down at her embroidery. She had forgotten about his trip to the tailor. It had been obvious that he’d been no more pleased than she by the prospect of buying clothing for the upcoming subscription ball. She recalled the night of Lady Tesh’s dinner party, his discomfort in such a setting, his explanation that he left the socializing to Mr. Nesbitt. It occurred to her in that moment that he may have never attended a dance in his life.
Was it possible that he was nervous about having to attend such an event?
She glanced at him. Sure enough, a kind of panic had taken root in his typically cool eyes. His cravat hung limp now, but that didn’t stop him from attempting to destroy it even further.
Forgetting her determination to stay as far from him as possible, she rose and went to him in his solitary corner. “Mr. Ashford, how are you liking your book? I’m looking for something new to read.”
He jerked his gaze to her, no doubt startled by her sudden interest in a book he wasn’t even holding any longer. “You’re welcome to it,” he said as she took a seat on the settee beside him, retrieving the book from his lap and handing it to her.
She looked it over as if it were the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. In a soft aside, however, she said, “Do you know how to dance?”
“What?”
His voice was loud enough to carry. The other members of the group, all quietly immersed in their own pursuits, cast curious glances their way. Even Freya, who had been napping beside Lady Tesh on a plush pillow, opened one eye and gave them a censorious look.
“Please keep your voice down, Mr. Ashford,” Lenora whispered, opening the book and holding it before them as if intrigued by the words on the page. “I don’t want to inadvertently embarrass you. Do you know how to dance?”
Finally seeming to understand what she was about, he leaned close, his gaze fastened to the book she had brandished before them, and said out of the corner of his mouth, with obvious reluctance, “I do not.”
“Would you like to learn?”
His eyes swung to her in shock. She indicated the book before them again with her eyes. He caught on, looking again to the open page. “I don’t see that I have time to learn all the dances necessary. The ball is in three days.”
“You don’t need to learn them all, only one or two to get you by.”
He snorted. “And who would we find to teach me at such a late date? You?”
“And why not?”
