“How do you know unless you try?” he pressed.
They faced each other again, her color heightened. “I beg your pardon? What was your question, Mr. Decker? I am sure I misheard.”
“And I am equally certain you did not. What I asked was how do you know, unless you give me the same chance you would give a rotter like Quenington?” he repeated, as he inwardly kicked himself in the arse.
What was he doing? What was he thinking? Of all the bad ideas he had ever entertained, surely proposing to kiss the innocent friend of Sin’s countess was the worst.
And yet, as he gazed down upon Lady Jo Danvers now, he could not deny it also was the most intriguing. The most tempting, too.
Just as she was. She truly was a little gem, so much fire hiding beneath her quiet exterior. Before, he had always supposed her prudish. Cold-blooded. Her list had proven otherwise. There was much she hid, simmering beneath her surface. Was it wrong of him to want a taste?
His cock told him no.
His conscience told him yes.
Unfortunately, his cock was winning.
“I would be an utter fool if I did something so reckless,” she said, at last finding her tongue as they approached the final steps of the waltz.
He twirled them about fast, faster than necessary. He spun her one final time before the dance ended. He bowed. She curtseyed.
“Meet me in the blue salon in half an hour,” he dared, offering her his arm.
“You are wasting your time, sir,” she said quietly as he escorted her from the dance floor.
“If you are too frightened, of course, I understand.” He led her to the periphery of thefête, where he had found her.
“Of course I am not afraid.”
“Oh?” He gave her a look that clearly said he did not believe her.
Lady Jo’s cheeks were still flushed from a combination of exertion and charming embarrassment. Her honey-brown eyes were glossy, her pink lips parted. He wanted to drag her from the ballroom and kiss her not just breathless but mindless as well.
“I am not afraid,” she asserted. “You do not frighten me.”
He bloody well ought to frighten her. Indeed, if she had an inkling of the thoughts churning through his mind right now—all the things he could do to her, teach her—she would flee like an outnumbered flank of infantry facing a cavalry charge.
He sketched a bow. “Prove it, then. The blue salon. Half an hour.”
Without awaiting her response, Decker walked away from her. He would be lying if he said he did not feel her stare upon him like a caress as he walked away.
Jo told herselfshe was not going to the blue salon.
She was not going to meet Mr. Elijah Decker.
Not in half an hour.
Not ever.
No, indeed. She wanted to be wicked, but not with a man likehim. In truth, her list had not been drafted completely or with attention to what she was writing down. Compelled by yet another dinner during which she watched the nauseatingly in-love couples around her and had consumed far too many glasses of claret, she had begun her silly catalog before bed one night.
Upon a wine-soaked whim, it was true.
But even a novice like Jo could see that there were gentlemen with whom one could safely dally, and then there was Mr. Elijah Decker. The vexing, maddeningly handsome man was in a class all his own.
“Have you tired of the dancing and the fawning and the nonsense yet?” her sister, Lady Alexandra Marlow, asked abruptly at Jo’s side, barely stifling a yawn.
Alexandra was a science-minded lady. She detested balls. But she and her husband, Lord Harry Marlow, had agreed to escort Jo to her friend Callie’s ball this evening. Jo did not particularly enjoy balls either, but she would not have missed Callie’s first ball as the Countess of Sinclair for anything.
