Page 41 of The Bridal Quest

"I am sorry. No doubt it is more of my poor upbringing," he responded without the slightest trace of regret in his voice. "It is probably also impolite of me to point out that there is something different about you."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Different? Different from what?"

"From the way you looked when I first met you. Your hair, I think. It is not the same."

"A woman often chooses different hairstyles, my lord," she retorted.

"I like the one you chose last night and today," he told her. His voice deepened a little huskily as he went on. "It is softer, a little less ... tightly bound. It makes a man think ..."

Heat spread in her at his words. She knew she should not ask, should not permit him to go on in this way. It was not at all the thing. It was dangerous.

Yet she heard herself saying, "Think of what, my lord?"

"Of taking it down," he answered, and the huskiness of his voice sent a thrill through her. "Of seeing all that glory unbound and spilling over your shoulders."

This time it was Irene who stumbled a little, and his hand tightened on her waist, keeping her steady. She looked away. "This is not the sort of conversation we should be having. Your speech is far too warm, sir. Far too familiar."

"It is not polite?" he asked sardonically.

"It is not proper," she corrected. "A gentleman does not speak to a young unmarried lady in this manner." She raised her eyes to his face a little defiantly, thinking that she must not let him see how his words had affected her.

"Ah, but we both know that I am not a gentleman." His eyes were on her, and she could not mistake the heat in them any more than she could mistake the meaning of his words.

His low voice was like a caress across her skin, making her tremble.

"You must not say such things to the girls you will be courting," she said firmly, struggling to ignore the response she felt inside her.

"I am not saying this to any of them," he pointed out, adding, "I don't have any interest in any of them."

"You have not met them yet."

"I do not have to meet them to know that they will be by and large giggling and foolish, or proud and disdainful. And that none of them will have anything to say that is not what they have been trained to say since they were born. And not one of them will be as interesting to me as you are."

Irene drew a sharp breath. "I told you that I was not interested in marriage, Lord Radbourne."

"Do you not think, since you are engaged in correcting my every word and move, that you could at least call me by my name?"

"That is your name," Irene protested.

"No. It is not. The Earl of Radbourne is not me. It is some entity that has nothing to do with who I am at all." His voice turned hard as he spoke, his face drawing into its usual severe lines and angles. "I have been Gideon all my life."

It was not proper, she knew, to call him by his given name; they had known each other only a few days, after all. To call him Gideon would indicate an intimacy between them that was not right. And yet, after a long moment, she said, "All right. Gideon."

His face relaxed, and his hand tightened slightly around hers. Irene glanced away. She felt as if she were sliding down a rather slippery slope. How had this situation gotten away from her? She had started out correcting Gideon, quite rightly, for speaking to her in a most improper way, and somehow she had wound up agreeing to call him by his first name, something she did not do even with men she had known her entire life.

She was simply not accustomed to this—the man, the situation, the feelings that boiled within her, seeming to bubble up to the surface at inopportune moments. Irene knew that she had a certain reputation for prickliness; there were those who proclaimed that it was more her disagreeable nature than her lack of dowry that had kept her from receiving an offer when she was younger. However, she did not mind that people thought her difficult and sharp-tongued. She would rather be that than a spineless chit who giggled and simpered and looked up with awe at a man, no matter how idiotic the fellow might be.

Lady Irene Wyngate, she thought, was the sort who knew her own mind. She was not easily swayed, and she rarely felt mystified or confused—in particular, she was not confused about herself. Yet ever since she had met the Earl of Radbourne, she had surprised herself. She had felt things she had never felt before, had acted in ways that she would never have thought she could, and she had been pushed this way and that by a tumult of sensations and emotions. She felt, quite frankly, a loss of control that she had never experienced before, and the feeling left her a little shaken.

When the waltz ended and they stepped apart, Irene moved a few steps away from him. She turned toward Francesca, who was paging through her music, looking for another waltz to play while the dancers took a short rest.

Irene took a breath and said, "Lady Francesca, I think that I would like to—to stop now, if we may."

"Of course." Francesca looked over at her in surprise. "I am sorry. Are you tired? I was not thinking, I should not have kept on playing."

Gideon frowned, starting toward Irene. "Yes, we should take a few minutes. Perhaps we should have some tea."

"No, I'm not—" Irene started to dispute the idea that the dancing had wearied her, but she stopped, seeing the easy opportunity. "That is, yes, perhaps you are right. But I don't need any tea. I think that I should go upstairs to my room. I—I have a bit of a headache, I believe."