“You are rarely wounded,” Ravenwood returned in a dry tone.
Vivy’s pulse quickened…not with fear, but irritation. “I am standing directly here, my lord,” she said, her voice sweet enough to curdle cream. “You might consider speaking to me rather than about me as if I am a piece of furniture.”
Ravenwood went very still. Thornhill’s eyes widened a fraction, as if he had not expected her to draw blood so neatly. Ravenwood’s gaze held hers, and the ballroom around them seemed to blur. “You are in danger,” he said quietly, the words meant only for her. “This is not…”
Lavinia lifted her chin. “Then perhaps you should have thought to tell me sooner,” she murmured, equally low. “Instead of hovering and scowling like a man who believes he has the right to dictate my acquaintances.” She narrowed her gaze. “Or ask me cryptic questions while we waltz.”
His jaw tightened. “I have no desire to dictate anything.”
“Excellent,” Lavinia said. “Then you will allow me to finish my conversation.”
Ravenwood’s eyes flashed from gold to green as he seemed to battle with some internal emotions. “Lady Lavinia…”
She turned back to Thornhill before Ravenwood could continue, refusing to let him steal her composure. “Lord Thornhill,” she said, voice calm again, “you were saying?”
Thornhill’s gaze slid between them, his impish charm sharpening into interest. “Was I?” he drawled. “I confess, I have forgotten. Ravenwood has such a talent for…distraction.”
“So, I have noticed,” Vivy returned, without looking at Ravenwood again.
But she felt him there by her side. He was far too close as he watched her. His happiness pouring off of him in cold waves of disapproval.
Somewhere beneath her irritation, a colder truth pressed into her. He had come to protect her. Perhaps she should be kinder to him, but she couldn’t find it in her. Not tonight and not when her whole world was turning upside down.
For reasons she did not yet understand, he had decided she was worth stepping into the trap to protect. Whether she permitted it…or not, and that made her mind whirl in ways she did not like. She had been privately in love with the man for years. How was she supposed to handle having him in her life this way? Not as someone who loved her in return, but as a man determined to protect her, nothing more, and nothing less.
Four
Dash held his features in a composed mask that had carried him unscathed through far more perilous rooms than this. On the Continent, he had stood in rooms where a single misstep cost far more than his pride. His hard-earned composure served him now, though it did nothing to ease the sharp, uncooperative twist in his chest as Lady Lavinia turned her back upon him with the coolness of a woman who had been thwarted too often and too recently.
Dash could not help recalling the easily embarrassed girl she had been. That girl did not exist now. She had tenacity and courage that he admired even while it irritated him. He would rather she used all that fortitude against someone other than him.
Thornhill said in a lazy drawl that was as smooth as silk, “Perhaps we ought to begin again, Lady Lavinia. I had been complimenting you on your wit and...”
“What he means,” Dash cut in, his tone mild enough to seem nothing more than a simple social interjection, “is that he has nothing of consequence to add.”
Thornhill’s smile did not fade. If anything, it brightened and became all impish and knowing. “If memory serves...consequences are rather your specialty, Ravenwood.”
Dash met the other man’s gaze and held it, letting silence speak for itself. Thornhill, for all his charm, was not a fool. He understood a warning when it was directed at him. “It’s good that you do remember,” Dash replied, quietly.
Lady Lavinia tightened her shoulders. It was the only sign she gave that she had disliked what she’d heard. “Lord Ravenwood,” she said in an irritated tone, “you cannot simply insert yourself into every conversation I happen to be having.”
Dash flexed his jaw. He kept his voice low to prevent his words from being overheard by anyone else, though the music and laughter would swallow most of it regardless. “When you are speaking to a man who can charm a bishop into treason, I can and I will.”
She paused, but only briefly before she met his gaze. She lifted her head and stared directly into his eyes, and the flare in her bright blue eyes was unmistakable. She turned her head slightly as if she were studying something beneath her notice. “How very dramatic,” she murmured. “and exhilarating.”
Dash had spent his life among men who pretended fear had no hold on them. He had learned, early, that bravery often looked like insolence. He could not help but wonder if that was what Lavinia was presenting to them now. What had happened to her since the last time he had seen her? What had made her suddenly afraid? He couldn’t very well ask her that now.
Thornhill lifted his glass as if offering a toast. “You wound me, Ravenwood. I have never charmed a bishop into treason. A curate, perhaps. But never a bishop.”
“You haven’t?” Lavinia said. “And here I had begun to believe your persuasive skills were unparalleled.” Lady Lavinia’s mouth curved faintly despite herself—an unwilling smile, quick as a candle-flame.
He hated Thornhill for his ability to charm anyone. Hated the ease with which the man could coax laughter from a room or that he could soften a woman’s guard with nothing more than a glance and a turn of phrase. It was a skill that had kept Thornhill alive. It was also a skill that made him dangerous in ways a pistol never could.
Tonight, with Lavinia’s safety balanced on unseen threads, Dash could not afford to indulge any man’s talent for drawing her attention. Especially not Thornhill’s. He had to ensure no one harmed her or he might very well lose his mind.
“Lord Thornhill,” Dash said, the civility in his tone honed to a fine edge, “you will excuse us.”
Thornhill’s brows rose. “Will I?”
