He turned her and they reached the end of the line where the couples all bowed to each other as the music ended. He took her hand and guided her away from the dancefloor, but he didn’t part from her, nor release her. “If I were to meet you at my carriage in a few moments, would you go somewhere with me?”
She caught her breath. He was so entirely focused on her and he looked so…earnest. Had she ever seen Sebastian seem so earnest before? Perhaps about cakes, but never a person. Never her. It was intoxicating.
“Where? When?” she whispered.
“Now. Please?” He squeezed her hand gently and she bent her head. What he was asking was entirely inappropriate and could lead to even more problems for them both. Finn had clearly forgiven her transgression and hadn’t called Sebastian out, but that didn’t mean he would allow them to flout his rules in front of the world.
And yet, in spite of all that, she found herself nodding. “Yes. I’ll meet you at your carriage.”
“Good. I’ll depart now with some excuse. You find your aunt and say you are not well and having a ride home with a friend so she may stay.”
“I’m sure she’ll believe that, if only because she wants to soak in all of Lady Wilmington’s ostentatious wealth.”
“Oh Lord, did you see her ridiculous sconces?”
Marianne couldn’t stifle a laugh. “They were everything my aunt could have hoped for when she waxed poetic about them. Bejeweled, you know.”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” Sebastian said, leaning closer so that his warm breath tickled her ear and made her body ache with wanting him so. “They’re nothing but glass, not a real gem in the lot.”
“I knew it!” she said with a giggle, and for a moment everything felt right as she stared up into his handsome face and they laughed together.
His smile fell and he cleared his throat. “I’ll meet you with the carriage shortly.”
With that he released her and disappeared back into the growing crowd. She shook her head, for she knew she was doing something that could cause trouble. She ought to try to move forward from her affair with Sebastian, because she knew it had no good end. But he looked at her and all she felt was love, an emotion that kept her from being prudent. If she could have one more night with him, whatever that meant, then she would take it.
Consequences be damned.
Sebastian could hardly breathe when Marianne appeared at the carriage door less than half an hour after they parted. He opened it and helped her in. What he wanted to do was tug her across the gap between them and kiss her until she moaned his name.
But instead he kept his hands clenched in his lap. If this all worked out, he would have plenty of time to do exactly what his body ached to do. Right now he had to focus on the plan. On the risk.
“Did you have any trouble?” he asked.
She shook her head. “My aunt was having too good a time to even consider departing early. I think she was even dancing.”
“Good for Aunt Beulah,” Sebastian said with a laugh. “I’ve always liked her.”
“She likes you,” Marianne said.
“You think she still would if she knew I utterly ruined her lovely niece?”
She swallowed and he tracked the way her throat moved, marked the flutter of her pulse there. “Perhaps my aunt has deeper waters than anyone knows. Perhaps she would whisper to me about her own illicit affairs of her youth.”
“That would be something remarkable,” he said softly, and finally reached out to take her hand. She was still wearing gloves and he frowned because he wanted to feel her skin against his. Her cheeks flamed and she tugged her hand away.
His heart sank. Perhaps she was finished with him. Perhaps the humiliation of being caught by her brother had ended any attraction she had toward him and?—
His thoughts faded for she met his eyes and unbuttoned her glove slowly. She tugged the silk away and then placed her hand back into his own, which was bare after he’d removed his own gloves the moment he’d entered the carriage.
Her breath hissed out when their skin touched. He realized it met with his own ragged breath.
“I missed touching you,” he whispered in the quiet of the carriage.
She nodded. “I missed it too.”
They stared at each other, the tension thickening in the air. Then she dropped her gaze. “Where are you taking me?”
He pushed thoughts of touching her away once again and cleared his throat. Here came the moment. The moment when he would reveal what he knew. Where he would take the first risk in a future he was beginning to want to build with a desperation that overpowered him.
