“And yet, the man whom I would suppose to be most inclined to notice my appearance mentioned nothing of it.”
“You…” He frowned. “That matters to you?”
“Of course it matters to me! Do you think your opinion means nothing?”
He opened his mouth, and shut it again. In truth, it had not occurred to him that his opinion mattered much at all. He was her husband, certainly—but he was only a man, and he had just watched half the men of Yorkshire trample their own dignity tonight for the favour of a quarter-hour at her side.
“Then I’m sorry,” he mumbled like a sheepish schoolboy. “I hadn’t meant to offend you.”
She sniffed and looked away, and he gathered her closer until there was no daylight left between them. His hand slid to the small of her back. She stiffened, and her chin came up. “What are you doing?”
“Making certain every man here knows who you belong to.” It came out lower than he’d meant it, closer to a warning, and her pupils dilated.
“Are you jealous?”
No. The word sat on his tongue, but he stopped himself before he could say it, the denial ringing hollow in his mind.
“I want everyone to know you’re mine,” he said eventually. “That is a husband’s prerogative, is it not?”
“Then it is a wife’s prerogative that everyone know you are mine as well,” she murmured.
That was a new thought. He blinked down at her, wondering, but she met him without flinching. “I belong to no one else.”
“But youdobelong to me. Which means you can’t abandon me in the middle of a ballroom and only dance with me when it suitsyou. You cannot have it both ways, Nicholas.”
“Very well.” He whirled her off the dance floor and to a quiet corner, ignoring the gazes that turned their way. Amid the shadow of a pillar, her back pressed against the wall, and her chin tilted up to look at him. Somewhere behind him the fiddles thinned to nothing and the ballroom guttered out at its edges, and there was only this: her throat, her breath, the damask at her waist under his gloved hand.
Time seemed to slow as he gazed down at her, his heart pounding in his chest, and want climbing around him. He hadn’t meant to put them in this position, but he was tired of being stuck in the middle of the room having this conversation when he wanted a modicum of privacy.
Her eyes went limpid in the taper-light. The anger had drained out of them and left something dark and unguarded in its place, and her breath flowered warm across his jaw, and he understood he had already leaned in.
He could no more stop than he could count all the stars in the sky.
Her lips parted, as though by invitation, and her fist closed in his lapel. “Nicholas?” she whispered.
Orange blossom. Soap. The thrum of his own pulse in his ears, and he thought if he kissed her here in front of half of Yorkshire he would not stop, would not know how. Ifonlythey were alone… Then he might have a chance of doing all the things to her he had been craving. He could push her skirts up her thighs, learn all the things she liked. He could make her beg.
Yes, he would like that—very much.
Her fist tightened on his coat, drawing him closer. She smelled so good, and—
“Excuse me, Your Grace?” The voice came from behind, and Nicholas could have struck the man for daring to interrupt him now. With one final glance at Isadora, he stepped back from her and glared at the intruder.
“What is it?”
The fellow quivered, plainly wishing himself elsewhere, and Nicholas would have been glad to assist him. “My apologies, Your Grace. But you dropped this.” He held out both Nicholas’s card and the roll of notes accompanying it. For a second, Nicholas just stared.
How had he come to drop such a thing?
But he would rather have yielded that money than have to stop their private moment.
Then again, perhaps it was a good thing someone interrupted. He glanced back at Isadora, flushed and pretty and indescribably tempting. Kissing her here and now would be a veritable mistake.
“Thank you,” he said to the man, and tucked the roll of money back into his pocket. He had considered going to the tavern cellar after this, and it was always worth having some spare change on hand for that. After all, when he ventured out as Will, the pugilist, he could not have his fob, rings, or diamond neckcloth pin as potential payment held in lieu.
Isadora appeared to gather herself, brushing down her skirts, flushed to the collarbone and looking anywhere but at him. “I think I’ve had enough for tonight,” she murmured. “Might I return home?”
Across the other side of the room, her aunt and uncle were approaching, clearly hoping to gain her time or attention or something of a rather more material gain.
