“The best I can do for you, Your Grace, is polite attention.”
The look on his face got darker, and the challenge she issued was gladly accepted. Prim realized that perhaps she was poking around the lion’s den far too freely. She would hate to see what happened when the Duke was thoroughly provoked. Hisresponse was to drag her closer to his body with one fluid motion.
“Perhaps take a step back, Your Grace,” Prim panicked.
“You may have a reputation of being sensible, but I am not known to be one, Miss P.J.”
“Your Grace.”
“Am I not the besotted suitor?”
“You are most definitely not.”
“But I do pretend to be one,” he leaned closer. “That means holding you close.”
Prim felt his hand on her waist tighten, and now she could feel each individual finger through the layers of fabric. She got so startled that she looked up to him. A capital mistake.
Under the bright light of the great chandelier, there was nowhere to hide from him. The Duke was infuriatingly built to be looked at. And he was almost lethal in such proximity. It was a good thing that the Duke avoided dancing with the ladies of the ton. There would have been a barrage of ladies losing their senses.
Prim noticed his cheekbones first. It was as if a sculptor thought of the most dangerous thing in existence and then got carried away. Right before he decided to create those fleshy lips to soften the blow. This close, Prim could see that his lips were slightly too big for his symmetrical face, but the effect was equally scandalous.
“You are staring, Miss Jenkins.”
Prim lost a step from the sheer embarrassment. He caught her studying him, and his smug expression told her that he knew what the outcome of her assessment was. Prim regrouped as best as she could. The Duke was not beneath weaponizing the slightest slip of her composure.
“You provide little else entertainment, Your Grace.”
Another bout of laughter, only this time, their proximity echoed that sinful sound all over her body, his chest drawing nearer, his exposed neck a newfound land of fascination. Prim’s first response back when she found out about the cursed sheet was correct. It could have been anyone but him. Any other gentleman who was not this much… him.
“A scalding review, Miss Jenkins,” he sounded deliciously amused. “Let me see if I can change that.”
He swirled with her in his arms with determined grace. Prim swallowed a gasp. She was watching Abigail dancing with her Duke, and she found him so elegant and fluid, a dancer that she envied. Leo had a deceptive laziness in the way he moved.But Prim, in his arms, knew that it was only relaxed confidence. He knew where he was each moment, where she was, where his hands touched. It was disorienting.
“Propriety, Your Grace,” she warned.
“Trust me, Miss Jenkins,” he said with a dangerous shine in his eyes. “I am being very proper.”
“I am so happy you are amused,” Prim tried to sound harsh.
The Duke merely tilted his head and tightened his grip on her fingers. He was so close that his breath fanned her face, and Prim inhaled him. His eyes were now entirely focused on her. Those oceanic blue eyes drowned her with their intensity, and she was lost in a sea of confusion.
Prim knew what she had to do. She had to push back, she had to say something scathing, she had to stop her heart from racing, her breath from catching in her throat. She did none of these things. For one simple reason. She didn’t want to.
Thankfully, the music ended. Prim took a step back, too fast, too startled, as if her life depended on it. She wanted to run away, scream into a pillow, anything to release that knot that had her soul upside down.
A new dance started, and as if prompted by their almost scandalous dance, the dance floor was filled with couples, pushing a stunned Prim around.
“Second corridor to the right, past the refreshments,” Leo whispered in her ear as he helped her away from the crowd.
“Excuse me?”
“At the end, behind the red drape, you will find a glass door to a terrace.”
“Are you reciting random layouts out of boredom, or should someone be worried about your health?”
“I am absolutely healthy and sane. Meet me at the terrace.”
“Absolutely not.”
