And yet.
She watched Lady Catherine lean closer to whisper in his ear. She watched his face soften with what looked like genuine affection, and she wanted to march across the ballroom and tear them apart with her bare hands. It was madness. She barely recognized the woman she’d become.
The dance ended. Dominic escorted Lady Catherine to the edge of the floor. He bent and kissed her gloved hand. Then he released her. Nell could not bear to watch. She looked away. She tried to steady her breath.
She was still standing there, still seething, when a shadow fell across her. He had moved beside her with the silence of a predator, his first words warm against the top of her ear.
“Mrs. Ashford.” The greeting landed flat, stripped of warmth.
She spun around, her heart lurching into her throat. He was suddenly there. He was close enough to touch, and his steely eyes were fixed intently on her face. He’d crossed the entire ballroom without her noticing, and now he stood before her with one hand extended, his palm up.
“May I have this dance?” His expression was carefully neutral, giving nothing of his thoughts away. He remained perfectly still.
She should refuse. She should claim exhaustion, or a twisted ankle, or any of a dozen excuses that would keep her away from the heat of him. She should protect herself from the wanting that clawed at her chest every time he came near.
“Shouldn’t you be dancing with Lady Catherine?” The words came out sharp and bitter before she could stop them. She gestured toward the golden haired girl with a jerky movement of her fan. “She seemed to be enjoying your company quite thoroughly.”
A glint surfaced in his ashen eyes. It might have been surprise, or perhaps a dark satisfaction, but his expressionremained bland. “Lady Catherine is dancing with Sir Richard Wentworth. I believe she finds him amusing.”
“How fortunate for Sir Richard.” She snapped her fan open, using the rhythmic motion to hide the flush creeping up her neck.
“One dance.” He kept his hand extended toward her, as patient as stone. “The host should attend to all his guests. I am merely being attentive.”
People were watching. Nell could feel their eyes on her like a physical weight, and she could hear the whispers rising like the hum of a disturbed hive. She could well imagine what they were saying about the baker who had dared to show her face at a viscount’s ball.
She placed her hand in his, her jaw tight and her posture rigid. “Very well.”
He led her to the floor, his grip firm but not possessive, his every movement controlled. The music began. It was a waltz, slow and intimate, and his hand settled on her waist—he was warm through the silk of her gown, his palm large and steady.
They moved together like they had been dancing their entire lives, perfectly matched in rhythm and step. He was taller than her by more than a foot, and she had to crane her neck to see his face, but somehow the geometry of it worked. Her body fitted against his like it remembered exactly where it belonged.
She hated that. She hated how right it felt, and she hated herself for the betrayal of noticing.
“Lady Catherine is very beautiful.” Nell fixed her focus on the neat knot of his cravat. Her smile stayed sweet with a bite beneath it. “Young, too. What is she? Twenty? Twenty-three?”
His hand tightened almost imperceptibly on her waist, the sudden pressure pulling her a fraction of an inch closer. “Nineteen actually.”
“Ah.” Nell looked up at him then, her expression razor-sharp. “Still. She is practically a child, and I am sure the ton approves. It’s much more appropriate than a thirty-four-year-old baker.”
His mouth went rigid as he stared down at her. “Nell.”
“Mrs. Ashford.” She corrected him, her words short and clinical. She shifted her gaze toward the other dancers, effectively shutting him out while they moved in perfect, agonizing rhythm. “We agreed on propriety, did we not?”
“You agreed on propriety.” He finally looked at her, and she saw a dark frustration simmering in their depths. He guided her through a turn with effortless strength. “I agreed to nothing.”
“How quickly you’ve moved on.” She continued, ignoring his protest, her fan dangling from her wrist as they turned. “Not even a week after proposing to me, and you’ve already found a replacement. I suppose I should be flattered that you waited even that long.”
“Is that what you think?” He leaned in until his forehead nearly brushed hers, his words vibrating with a dangerous, low-thrumming intensity. “That I have moved on?”
“What else am I supposed to think?” She tilted her chin back, meeting his stare with eyes that burned. For a fleeting moment, she let the mask slip, allowing him to see the raw, jagged jealousy she could no longer suppress. “You are hosting a ball in her honor. You are walking arm in arm through your gardens. You are smiling at her the way she hung the moon in the sky.”
“You are jealous.” The realization seemed to please him. His stare sharpened, and his hand moved instinctively, pressing more firmly against the small of her back to pull her a fraction closer.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The denial snapped between them, far too fast to be believed. She jerked her gaze away, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
“You are.” A sense of wonder smoothed out the rough edges of his expression. He didn’t look away, tracking the way the flush deepened across her cheeks and down the curve of her neck. “You are jealous of Catherine.”
“I am not.” She held herself perfectly still, daring him to argue.
