“Yes. She’s said nothing more about it?”
“Nothing.”
“God only knows what she meant. Then again, it sounds as if T.O.E.’s rules about fraternization are not so different than society’s.”
“I had the same thought,” she said. “Imogene has a world of frustration ahead of her if she intends to challenge what it means for a girl to be ‘ruined.’ I cannot think of a more unyielding law of social order.”
“Unyielding,” he repeated lowly. He was staring at her lips.
Drew’s mouth watered. She held her breath. She dropped her own gaze to his mouth.
“You’re very pretty, Miss Trelayne,” he said. This came out slowly, as if he realized each word as he said it.
“Your Grace,” she whispered. Her heartbeat was a peck in her throat; a fast, sharp, relentless peck. Her cheeks were on fire. She couldn’t breathe, and yet she no longer seemed to require breath. She subsisted on whatever he would say next.
“Cleverandpretty,” he said. “What insect jewelry have you worn tonight?”
Her gown was aquamarine; a favorite of her evening frocks. She’d hoped to show off another of Mrs. Tavertine’s creations to the girls. She’d also hoped, foolishly, that he would notice that it matched the color of her eyes.
“I wear butterflies,” she rasped, “with this gown.”
“Where?” he wanted to know, leaning back to study her throat, ears, and wrists. She felt a burning sort of buzz everywhere his gaze fell.
“They are pins,” she said. “In my hair.”
He leaned in, searching the top of her head.
She laughed. Only the Duke of Lachlan was tall enough to study the top of her head.
“At the nape,” she whispered, gently touching the spot where she coiled her coronet braids into a bun behind her head.
The duke stooped and leaned in, following her hand.
He was close, so very close. She felt his breath on her neck. The smell of him was all she knew, soap, and wine, and the musky scent of him. It blotted out the acrid smell of the cavernous room. The thick barrier of his body was warm against the draft.
“Miss Trelayne?” he whispered; his words slid across her skin like a foot sliding into a slipper. The perfect fit.
“Your Grace,” she whispered back.
“I... want.” It was all he said.
She waited. His eyes left her mouth, darted to her eyes—a question—and then looked back to her mouth.
Drew tried very hard to assign some reasonable excuse for him to look at her this way.
His hearing had gone off and he needed to read her lips?
Some piece of her meal was stuck in her teeth?
He’d suffered a dizzy spell and needed to keep his eyes on a fixed point in the room?
He was...
She’d run out of possibilities.
“‘You want...’” she repeated, a breathless prompt.
There was no air to be had in the world. She existed in that underwater moment when your lungs needed air, but the surface of the water seemed leagues away. She was consumed by a little bit of panic and a great amount of need.
