She couldn’t refuse. To do so would cause even more speculation. Some genius would inevitably color the rejection as some sort of proof of a lover’s spat. And then their names would become even more tangled in whispers and murmurs.
Perhaps she should just walk away from him after all. Let the gossips have their scandal. Let everyone wonder what happened between them.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she forced a smile and took his offered hand. “I’d be delighted, my lord.”
She was not delighted.
She wanted to be furious. But she didn’t quite have the strength after expending so much energy in the last days tryingnotto think of the man.
She walked beside him to the dance floor as the musicians started up a waltz. When he fit his large hand against her back and took her fingers in his other hand, she acknowledged that for now, she was his.
So be it.
With a small shake of her head, she tipped her chin and met his stare with more assurance than she felt. Then she took a half step closer to him just as he eased them into the first step. It was bold and brash and totally worth it when he drew a swift breath and his eyes flashed in a way that lit her body afire.
For whatever purpose, he’d forced her into this scenario, but neither of them were going to make it to the end of the dance unscathed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ralston forced hisgaze over her head and tried to even the erratic thundering of his heart.
He had not sought her out tonight to indulge in the undeniable attraction between them. He wanted answers. And he expected to get them.
The woman made a soft humming noise, bringing his attention back to her upturned face. Her eyes were half-shielded by the sweep of her lashes.
“You have a very determined set to your jaw, mon grand,” she murmured.
Her use of the intimate endearment was clearly an attempt to regain some control in the current situation. All the same, it still sent a sharp arc of fire through him. As she’d no doubt intended.
“I know who you are,” he stated.
“Do you?”
Ralston met her guarded stare as he tilted his head. “Your father was James Dickson, a Scottish baron and the Countess of Henmere’s older brother.”
Her brows arched. “You sound as if you’ve made some sort of rare discovery,” she drawled with a sideways shift of her gaze. “I’ve never attempted to conceal who I am.”
He lowered his voice. “Your father died in Edinburgh when you were still a small child.”
“Two years old.”
Her tone was dry and flat. As though the details held very little value. But her body fairly hummed with tension and she carefully avoided making eye contact with him. He was balancing at the edge of something. There was more to her past—to the story of who she was—and it was going to be a challenge to understand all the pieces. But he was determined.
“What I don’t understand,” he continued gruffly, “is why you haven’t been affianced before now. As a woman of noble birth, you should’ve had your debut years ago at eighteen like your peers.”
Charlotte chuckled with genuine humor. “At eighteen, I was the personal assistant and devoted companion to the most celebrated actress in Paris.”
Ralston stared at her, trying to assess the truthfulness of her words. The declaration did align with her earlier claim to have come to London from France. And it explained her fluency with the language.
Though she didn’t look at him, she must have sensed his confusion because her lips quirked and a hint of a challenge entered her tone. “Did your little investigation into my history tell you nothing else? Nothing at all about my mother?”
“I assumed she’d become reclusive in widowhood.”
Charlotte laughed in earnest then, the deep, rich sound drawing the attention of those dancing nearby. “My mother never had a reclusive bone in her body.”
She flicked her eyes to his. As the amusement fled her expression, her features twisted with some dark emotion as she murmured roughly, “I suppose I’m not surprised. No doubt any whisper of thescandalhad been swiftly and carefully buried.As if none of it had ever happened,” she whispered. “As if she’d never existed.”
