And then she said: “It’s brown? The smoking room?”
He grinned fleetingly. “It’s brown. So in a word, Lord Bankham was jealous. And if he was a woman, even now a concerned friend would be urging him to sit down before he faints. I suspect this friend, assuming he has friends, got a look at his face and is pressing a whiskey on him. Perhaps his life is passing before his eyes. All because of the sudden, shocking appearance of your fiancé, an eventuality he probably had not considered, given that his life has heretofore been so very predictable and you were always about.”
Her lips parted as if to say something. She closed them again. Sat a moment.
And then finally she swiftly pivoted her entire body toward him.
“How did you notice all of that?”
It wasn’t the question he expected. “Habit of a lifetime. It often means the difference between life or death, the difference between hearing a yes or no, the difference between winning a hand or losing one. If you are not born with a title and a heap of money and a map to your future, you learn to pay attention to everything, because everything—everything—can be useful if you know what to do with it. It’s instinct. Exactly like an animal, Lady Vaughn.”
Something in her intent expression made his heart contract. And then her face was faceted by shadows; a wispy shawl of a cloud had wrapped itself around the moon.
Hoots of inebriated laughter floated to them from the balcony. They’d need to return to the ballroom soon to avoid additional layers of scandal.
“So...” She cleared her throat, and said almost lightly, “Do you think he... he cares for me?”
He was quiet a moment. Then gave a soft laugh.
“Yes,” he said, quietly. “I think he does.”
And if this answered more than one question, one spoken and one not, neither of them acknowledged it.
“How do you envision this ‘persuasion’ taking place, as you call it?”
He drew in a breath. Sighed it out. “Oh . . . I believe the trick would be to arouse his spirit of competition. If together we can persuade Giles that life without you is unthinkable, if I can honorably release you from your obligation to me andhe can . . .” he was awfully tempted to say, “be a man,” because it struck him as simply the truth “. . . make the decision to be happy rather than merely content.”
“He’d have to be a simpleton for that to work.”
He laughed. “Well, he’s a man. It seems we’re all simpletons when it comes to women.”
“Surely not you, with all that wisdom you have to impart.”
“Probably more simple than simpleton. But I have my moments. Look at me here, in my not quite right evening coat, and consigned to English shores forever, because you, Lillias, are...” He shook his head slowly.
She smiled.
This moment of ease and accord with Lillias Vaughn was yet another of the strangest moments in his life.
She cleared her throat. “It occurs to me that I haven’t thanked you for... rising to the occasion on the stage, Hugh.”
“No need to thank me. What else would I do?”
“Run in the opposite direction at a great clip.”
He gave a soft laugh. “Firstly, I would never leave any woman to face that alone. It never occurred to me to do anything else. Not that I’ve ever been in that position before. And secondly... Lillias, I cannot imagine ever running in the opposite direction from you.”
She looked up at him, eyes widening. Then she smiled wistfully, and sighed.
“It’s just . . . I so very much wanted to feel something that wasn’t . . . what I was already feeling.Which was a bit empty, and lost, and miserable. And all I do when I’m with you . . . Hugh . . . all I do is feel things with my body that are so loud that everything else is muted.”
The words were like a blow to the head, as if lust was delivered the way whiskey was. He half laughed, half groaned.
“Lillias, you’ve described seduction right there.” He picked up her hand, lightly, in jest. “Sometimes I think that’s the entire point of it. It’s why it works at all. It mutes everything else.”
He’d meant to release her hand at once.
He couldn’t seem to.
