Rouvier went away.
Dain turned back to Miss Trent and, still smiling, broke each stick, one by one. Then he thrust the demolished fan into the fern pot.
He held out his hand. “My dance, I believe.”
It was a primitive display, Jessica told herself. On the scale of social development it was about one notch above hitting her over the head with a club and dragging her away by her hair.
Only Dain could get away with it, just as only he could clear the field of rivals simply by telling them, without the smallest self-consciousness or subtlety, to go away.
And only she, besotted lunatic that she was, would find it all dizzyingly romantic.
She took his hand.
They both wore gloves. She felt it all the same: a thrill of contact sharp as an electrical shock. It darted through her limbs and turned her knees into jelly. Looking up, she saw the startled expression in his eyes and wondered, as his knowing smile faded, whether he felt it, too.
But if he did, it caused him no hesitation, for he boldly grasped her waist and, on the next upbeat, whirled her out.
With a gasp, she caught hold of his shoulder.
Then the world swung away, out of focus, out of existence, as he swept her into a waltz unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.
His wasn’t the sedate English mode of waltzing, but a surging, blatantly sensuous Continental style, popular, she supposed, at gatherings of the demimonde. It was the way, she guessed, he danced with his whores.
But Dain wouldn’t change his ways merely to accommodate a lot of Society prudes. He would dance as he chose, and she, delirious, could only be happy he’d chosen her.
He moved with inherent grace: strong, powerful, and utterly sure. She never had to think, only let herself be swept endlessly round the ballroom while her body tingled with consciousness of him and only him: the broad shoulder under her hand…the massive, muscular frame inches from her own…the tantalizing scent of smoke and cologne and Male…the warm hand at her waist, drawing her nearer by degrees, so that her skirts swirled round his legs…and nearer still and into a swift turn…her thigh grazing his…
She looked up into glittering, coal black eyes.
“You’re not putting up much of a struggle,” he said.
“As though it would do any good,” she said, swallowing a sigh.
“Don’t you even want to try?”
“No,” she said. “And there’s the hell of it.”
He studied her face for a long moment. Then his mouth curved into that aggravatingly mocking smile. “I see. You find me irresistible.”
“I’ll get over it,” she said. “I’m going home tomorrow.”
His hand tightened on her waist, but he made no answer.
The music was faltering to a close. In a moment, he’d laugh and walk away, and she could return to reality…and to a life in which he couldn’t, mustn’t, be a part, or else she’d have no life at all.
“I’m sorry I tarnished your reputation,” she said. “But I didn’t do it all by myself. You could have ignored me. You certainly didn’t have to come tonight. Still, all you have to do now is laugh and walk away, and they’ll see I mean nothing to you, and they had it all wrong.”
He spun her into a last, sweeping turn as the music ended, and held her one hammering moment longer than he should have. Even when he released her at last, he didn’t release her altogether, but kept her hand imprisoned in his.
“And what happens, Jess,” he said, his voice deepening, “if it turns out they had it right?”
The throbbing undercurrent in the low baritone made her look up again. Then she wished she hadn’t, because she thought she saw turmoil in the black depths of his eyes. It must be her own turmoil reflected there, she told herself. It couldn’t be his, and so there was no reason her heart should ache to ease it.
“It doesn’t turn out that way,” she said shakily. “You only came to make fools of them—and of me, especially. You marched in and took over and made everyone kowtow to you, like it or not. You made me dance to your tune as well.”
“You seemed to like it,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean I likeyou,” she said. “You had better let go of my hand before people start thinking you likeme.”
