The song ended and melded into another, slower rhythm.
“Come, I think you’ve seen enough to take on a dance. Let’s give it a try.”
“I couldn’t possibly.”
“Lass, we’re going to have to remove those words from your vocabulary.”
James didn’t give her the option of refusing, but tugged her onto her feet and into his arms. He led her in a sedate one-step variation as she clung to his shoulder and beamed up at him.
“Who was he?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The blond gentleman I saw you kiss at the Gould soiree.”
Prim frowned, offended. “Why, I would never!”
“You were in one of the alcoves at the end of the ballroom,” he said. “Almost out of sight, but I saw you clearly. You were certainly happy to see him.”
“Oh, that…” She giggled and stumbled a bit. “That was just my brother Dennis. I told you he’d been abroad. Iwashappy to see him.”
James bit back his surprise…and relief. That was where doing naught but wondering had gotten him. Not a lover at all.
“Did you think…?” She gaped at him, slack in the jaw. “You did! Is that why you pursued me? Did you think I had taken a paramour?”
“I have not pursued you, lass, but merely offered my assistance as requested.”
Prim nodded gravely. “That’s right. Why pursue me when you’ve so many other lovely ladies to chase?”
“There are none I’d rather chase but you,” he whispered in her ear, the flirtatious rejoinder holding more truth than he’d imagined. “You are worthy of dozens of suitors. None of them would be worthy of you.”
She glowed with pleasure, her hand sliding up his shoulder. Her gloved finger trailed down the side of his neck, both tickling and tantalizing.
She must be foxed to do so, he thought.
“Do you tease me, Mrs. Eames?” James slipped his hand farther around her tiny waist and pulled her closer.
Her lips twitched. “Won’t you call me Prim?” she asked again. “I don’t want you calling me by another man’s name.”
No, he didn’t either. And more and more, he longed to call her something else altogether. Mrs. MacKintosh. Wife.
Lover.
Savior.
His breath arrested beneath a crushing weight against his chest. Longing. Hope.
“I told ye, lass. Prim simply doesn’t fit ye in my mind any longer,” he choked out, trying to sound flippant. “I could call you Primrose, I suppose. Or Rose.”
“Or lass.” She sighed, resting her cheek against his chest. “Just lass.”
“Lass,” he whispered into her hair, his lips grazing her cheek. “I’ve the urge to ask you to come home with me tonight.”
“If you asked, I’d probably say yes,” she baited flirtatiously, surprising him.
From any other widow, James would have taken the offer without questioning the motivation behind it. Coming from Prim, it had him questioning her motives and her lucidity. It was too impetus a move for Prim, too impulsive. What he knew of her told him she was neither.
“Are you turning the tables on me, lass? Trying to shock me?”
