“Am I?” His eyes darkened, the emerald turning to forest-shadow.
“Yes,” she insisted, though her voice was a ghost of its usual strength.
He leaned in, his lips brushing the sensitive shell of her ear, his hot breath making her entire body shudder.
“If I were overplaying it, Diana,” he murmured, “I would kiss you until you forgot your own name. I would do it right here, in front of every vulture in the building.”
Her breath caught, violent and jagged. “You would not dare.”
“Would I not?” he smirked.
The music swelled toward its final, soaring measures. Diana felt suspended over a precipice, the air thick with the scent of him.
“You forget yourself,” she whispered.
“No,” he said softly, his gaze dropping to her lips again. “I am finally discovering myself.”
The admission hit her harder than any tease. The dance slowed, drawing them into the final rotation. He pulled her closer for the final turn, her silk skirts tangling between his boots, before he stepped back just a fraction.
The orchestra ended on a triumphant, crashing chord. Applause rippled through the room, but it sounded distant, like the sound of surf from a distant shore. He did not release her hand.
“You are trembling,” he said quietly.
She forced her spine to snap straight. “I am not.”
His thumb brushed once, agonizingly slow, over her knuckles. “You are,” he insisted, a flash of dark amusement in his eyes. “But do not worry. I have every intention of ensuring that you tremble for the right reasons.”
CHAPTER 8
“Iwas not trembling,” Diana muttered to herself as she lay on her back in the great bedchamber at Rosewood House, staring at the intricate, carved canopy above her.
Usually, the soaring height of this room brought her peace, a sense of grand, cool space where her thoughts could breathe. But tonight, the shadows felt thick, heavy, and charged with a presence that wasn’t there.
She lay perfectly still, her heart a drum against the mattress, yet her skin was screaming. It was as if his touch had stripped away her top layer of protection, leaving every nerve ending raw and expectant.
She could still feel the heavy, solid weight of his hand at her waist, grounding her even as her mind spun. The heat of his palm remained a searing, invisible brand against the center of her spine, a focal point of fire that radiated outward until her blood felt like liquid gold.
And then there was his thumb. That rhythmic, slow-motion pressure at the hollow of her hip haunted her most of all.
She closed her eyes, and the darkness only made it worse. She feltawakened. And the realization was terrifying because it meant that the cold, safe Duchess she had spent a year becoming was dying. And the woman who replaced her was starving for a touch that was only a wall away.
She turned sharply onto her side, twisting the fine linen sheets around her legs, and pressed her face into the cool pillow. She tried to smother the memory of his mouth near her ear, but his voice was trapped in her mind—low, dark, and heavy with a promise that felt like an ultimatum.
I have every intention of ensuring that you tremble for the right reasons.
This was absurd. It was dangerous. She had survived a year of glacial silence and a year of being unwanted with her head held high. But tonight—in the span of one waltz—he had dismantled it all.
She threw the covers aside with a frustrated groan. The bed was too soft, the room was too warm, and the air was too still. If she stayed there another moment, she would start to imagine the mattress dipping under his weight. She would start to imagine him crossing the threshold of the connecting door.
Diana rose, her movements frantic as she wrapped a silk robe over her nightdress. She slipped from her chamber into thedim, silver-lit corridor, seeking the cold air of the library or the terrace.
Anywhere she could breathe without feeling his shadow over her.
The house was quiet at this hour. The footmen long dismissed. The candles lowered to a subdued glow. Her slippers made almost no sound against the carpet.
The library door stood slightly ajar. She placed her hand on the heavy oak, her pulse jumping at the cool touch of the wood, and pushed. The door swung open on silent hinges, revealing a room steeped in the scent of old leather, beeswax, and the dying embers of a fire.
She moved toward the shelves with the instinct of a creature seeking shelter, her fingers skimming the spines. She told herself she was seeking a distraction, something dry and sensible, a historical text to cool the fever in her blood.
