“Once. Five years ago. I’d hoped she had improved.” He paused as Mrs Fortescue hit a particularly discordant note. “I was tragically optimistic.”
Marianne bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Surely it’s notthatbad.”
“It’s worse. I’ve heard dying animals make more harmonious sounds.” He shifted in his chair, and this time the contact between their thighs was deliberate, sustained. “In truth, I am convinced this borders on cruelty.”
“Your Grace,” she breathed, acutely aware that her mother sat beside her and that dozens of eyes were upon them. “You’re being inappropriate.”
“Am I?” He leaned even closer, his lips a whisper from her ear. “How shocking. Although, if we’re discussing inappropriate things, we should mention that dress.”
“What’s wrong with my dress?”
“Absolutely nothing. That’s the problem.” His voice dropped to a register that seemed to resonate in her bones. “Do you have any idea what that colour does to your complexion? You glow like moonlight. Every man in this room is imagining how you would feel beneath his hand.”
Heat flooded through her, pooling low in her belly. “You cannot know what they’re thinking.”
“Can’t I? I know whatIam thinking.”
“And what is that?”
For a moment, he was silent, and she feared he would not answer. Then, just as Mrs Fortescue reached an especially vigorous flourish, he leaned close enough that his lips brushed her ear.
“I am thinking,” he murmured, his voice dark with temptation itself, “that you would fare far better in my lap than on that fragile chair.”
Marianne’s entire body went rigid. Heat surged through her—her face, her chest, places she dared not think about in a crowded salon. She ought to be outraged. Should slap him, or rise and leave, or at the very least move away.
Instead, she tilted her head slightly towards him, her own voice barely a whisper. “Be careful, Your Grace. I might accept.”
He froze—completely, utterly still. For a heartbeat, two, three, he didn’t seem even to breathe.
Then he laughed.
It was soft, scarcely more than an exhale, but it was perhaps the most genuine sound she’d ever heard from him. Dark and rich and thrilling, it arrowed straight through her, leaving her trembling in its wake.
“You,” he said quietly, “are going to be the death of me.”
“What a tragedy that would be. However would society survive without its favourite beast to gossip about?”
“They’d manage. They always do.” His thigh pressed more firmly against hers, a deliberate, steady pressure that made her breath catch. “The question is—would you?”
“Would I what?”
“Survive without me.”
The arrogance of it should have infuriated her. Instead, she found herself fighting a smile. “Your confidence is staggering.”
“My confidence is earned.” He shifted slightly, and somehow his hand ended up on the arm of his chair, his fingertips just barely brushing her elbow. “Tell me you haven’t thought about me since the opera.
“Your Grace—”
“Tell me,” he continued, his voice dropping even lower, “that you haven’t touched your neck where I breathed against it, trying to recapture that feeling.”
Marianne’s breath caught. Because she had. Of course she had. Every night since, she’d pressed her fingers to that spot, remembering the way his breath had stirred her skin, circling the rapid beat of her pulse.
“You are being presumptuous,” she managed.
“I am being honest. There’s a difference.”
“Is there? Because from where I’m sitting, they seem remarkably similar.”
