“Truly?”
“Truly.”
“Hmm.” Comerford clucked his tongue. “She’s coming this way.”
“What?” Henry turned so fast his neck cricked, and his friend laughed.
“You see? I was right.”
Henry scowled. “She’s a complication.”
“And you are old before your time,” Comerford said. “Live a little, if only for tonight. This is perhaps the safest place to do so.”
“Even if we were not in one of the most respectable establishments in London, I would hardly be in danger of dragging her into a secluded room,” Henry said dryly, even if what he recalled of the girl suggested she would not be wholly against the idea.
The thought ought to disgust him.
“She’s coming this way,” Comerford said, gaze behind him.
Henry snorted. “You can hardly deceive me with that twice.”
“Gentlemen,” a disarmingly musical voice said. “Would you object terribly to introducing yourselves? Once we are officially introduced, my mother can have no reason to disapprove.”
Henry turned slowly, willing his expression to remain stern. She was a complication and a temptation, and there was absolutely no reason for him to like her.
In the light of the ballroom, she was pretty in an entirely unholy way, as though she had been crafted to be his very downfall. Wicked hazel eyes that brimmed with mischief, full lips with a soft cupid’s bow, soft curls that hung around her heart-shaped face. And below, a dress that hugged her curves to an almost indecent degree, displaying her figure to magnificent advantage.
A hot, entirely unprecedented emotion surged through him, and for a moment he was incapable of speech, fighting this newfound urge to press closer to her.
She tilted that pretty, pointed chin as she looked at him, and the corner of her luscious mouth curved into a slow, lopsided smile. “Do you know, I believe we have met before.”
There was no reason for her to remember him; he had surely not turned her life upside down the way that one encounter had turned him inside out. Yet she was regarding him as though she did indeed know who he was.
“This,” Comerford said, stepping forward and clapping Henry on the back, “is Lord Eynsham, my lady.”
“Lord Eynsham,” she repeated, and Henry felt as though another crucial part of him had been delivered into her dubious care. “How charming. I am Miss Louisa Picard. And you, sir?”
“Mr George Comerford,” he said promptly, giving an elegant bow. “Son of a viscount.”
Louisa’s smile widened, and she fluttered her eyelashes at him. “A rich viscount?”
“Rich enough, I think.”
“Ah, then my mother can have no objections to me conversing with you.”
It transpired that watching her engage in a flirtation at close quarters was much more excruciating than knowing she was flirting from a distance.
“You,” she said, swinging her gaze back to Henry, “my mother does not approve of.”
“No?” He raised both eyebrows. “Though I am the son of an earl?”
“An impoverished earl,” she stressed. “My mother has grand plans for me. Which is why you would make an excellent candidate for a dance partner if you would be so good as to ask me.”
The unexpected request jolted through him, but he did his best to hold his ground. “You are not tempted by the son of a rich viscount?”
She shot Comerford a sidelong glance and leaned in a little closer. “Perhaps I could be.”
Henry knew fine well that he should let it be and allow events to play out as they would. Which was, naturally, why he took her arm and led her out to where couples were assembling. “Must you always be so forward?” he demanded, irritated at himself for commanding her to dance with him; irritated at her for having wanted him to.
