He flexed his hands, his fingertips aching to brush her curls aside so he could press his lips to the warm, scented place at the back of her neck. She’d sigh and gasp for him then, and twine her arms around his neck, her fingers sinking into his hair.
“Grantham? Are you all right?” Montford frowned. “You’ve got the oddest expression on your face.”
No, he wasn’t all right. He was bewitched, beguiled, his soul burning for the only lady in England who’d somehow, when he least expected it, found her way into his heart.
It had mattered to him at first, hadn’t it, that she was the daughter of his worst enemy? It seemed like a lifetime had passed since then. He no longer cared about it. Not about Ambrose, his father, or the feud between them. Not about Hammond Court or his plans of vengeance.
All the ugliness that had passed between him and the St. Claire family faded away as he gazed at Rose St. Claire.
Come to Fairford, and seize your treasure . . .
“Grantham?”
Rose was still lingering at the door with her two stalwart chaperones, her hands folded in front of her, but she was glancing about, her gaze roving the ballroom as if she were looking for someone.
Him? Could she be looking for him? He sucked in a breath and held it, waiting.
More than one head had turned when the three ladies entered the ballroom, and more than one admiring male gaze lingered on Rose, but she didn’t seem aware of it. One gloved hand came up to clasp her neck as she continued her study of the ballroom, until at last, her eyes found his, and she stilled.
The other guests passed between them, laughing and chatting, all of them making their way to the floor to form the sets as the musicians struck up another song, but it didn’t matter how many people stood between them.
Nothing in the world could have torn his gaze from hers.
She washis, and he was going to take her out onto the floor. He was going to dance his first dance of the evening with her, everyone else be damned.
* * *
“Grantham’s coming this way, and . . . my goodness, Rose!” Prue squeezed her arm, a gasp on her lips. “He’s staring right at you! Dear me, I’ve never seen Grantham look at any lady the way he’s looking at you.”
Rose’s heart fluttered against her rib cage as Max broke away from his friends and began to make his way toward her, his gaze still holding hers. It wasn’t prudent, his singling her out in this way, but she couldn’t have stirred a single step. Her every limb was still, waiting for him.
Heads turned as he passed, whispers rising in his wake.
There was no mistaking his destination.
“My, he looks as if he’d like to gobble you up, does he not?” Francesca’s voice was vibrating with quiet satisfaction. “I think we can safely conclude the duke admires you in green, Rose.”
Without looking away from Max, Rose fingered a fold of her green silk skirts. If ever there was a gown fit for a duchess, it was this one. It was the first silk gown she’d ever worn. When Francesca and Prue had slipped it over her head, she’d thought she couldn’t feel any more beautiful than she did the moment the cool, soft silk caressed her skin.
Until now, with Max’s heated gaze on her, taking in every inch of her, from the top of her head to the tips of the green silk slippers peeking out from under her skirts.
It seemed to take forever for him to cross the ballroom, and she had to resist squirming under the curious gazes darting back and forth between the two of them, but she would have waited forever for him to reach her.
By the time he stopped in front of her, her entire body was quivering with . . . anticipation? Excitement? Nervousness? Yes, it was all of those at once, yet more than that, too. Sheachedfor him, the fine hairs on the back of her neck rising at his nearness, clamoring for his touch.
“Miss St. Claire.” He bowed and held out his hand. “May I have this dance?”
Goodness, he was so handsome, so elegant in his severe black evening dress and his elegant white cravat, his eyes more silver than gray tonight, and his dark hair brushed back from his face.
All but that one dark wave that insisted upon falling over his forehead.
She’d become obsessed with that wayward wave. It gave him away, that disobedient lock of hair. It told anyone who cared to look that Max wasn’t the tightly controlled, stern gentleman they all believed him to be.
But no one elsehadcared to look, and so it had become hers alone, a precious secret only she knew, that underneath the ruthless Duke of Grantham, there was another man, a softer man—the man with a wayward curl, who touched her with so much tenderness.
“Rose?” Prue gave her a gentle nudge. “The duke has asked you to dance. Will you oblige him?”
Had she not answered him? No, he was still standing before her, his hand held out, a small, private smile on his lips as if he knew what she’d been thinking. “Yes, of course, I will.” She seized his hand with a bit more eagerness than was appropriate, and a hot flush bloomed on her cheeks. “That is, I’d be delighted to dance with you, Your Grace.”
