He turned over the possibilities and his options for learning more while the mantelpiece clock ticked on. When it chimed the hour, he glanced up, drained his glass, then headed upstairs to dress for the evening.
Chapter 8
Deverell ran Phoebe to earth in Lady Camberley’s ballroom. Rather than standing near where Edith sat chatting with a group of older ladies, she was strolling through the crowd, stopping here and there to exchange greetings and observations, but rarely lingering.
As she quit Lady Fitzmartin’s side, she swiftly scanned her surroundings before deciding on her direction. Deverell hid a smile. He’d told her he’d see her tonight, and this was the last event on her evening’s schedule.
She was watching for him—whether to avoid him or gird her loins before he got too near he didn’t know. But if he knew anything of her, by now she would have grown impatient. As he’d planned.
Just as he planned his approach.
She was skirting the edge of the crowd when he came up behind her. She didn’t sense him until he was too near, and then it was too late.
Too late to prevent him placing a palm on her back, to one side of her waist, through two thin layers of silk, feeling the warmth of her skin.
Letting her feel the weight of his hand.
As he’d expected, she didn’t jump at his touch—she froze. Smoothly turning her at right angles to him, halting them both so her back was to the wall and no one could detect his impropriety, he met her wide eyes as they lifted to his.
Reaching across her, he took her hand, enfolded it in his; raising it, holding her violet gaze, he brushed his lips across the sensitive backs of her fingers. “I said I would come for you.”
His tone was deep, dark—private. Phoebe dragged in a too-tight breath and struggled to focus her wits on him—on his eyes and the message therein, on his words and their meaning. Tried to wrench her senses free of his hold, of their immediate lock on the strength and heat of the hard male hand at the back of her waist. He wasn’t touching her any more intimately than he would in a waltz. Why, then, was that simple touch registering as so much more?
It took effort to tilt her chin and coolly state, “I had hoped you’d find something else to amuse you.”
His lips curved. He was standing close; he hadn’t moved his hand. His eyes, a heated green, continued to hold hers, watching. “Learning your secrets—all your secrets—consumes me.”
Studying his eyes, she felt her own widen. All?
As if she’d uttered the word, his gaze dropped to her lips and he reiterated, “All.” His low tone sent the word resonating through her, a verbal caress as well as a promise.
A promise of what, she didn’t want to imagine.
Her lips felt hot and dry; under his gaze, she licked them, and was instantly aware of the flare of heat in his eyes.
She’d noticed before how long and lush his dark lashes were, but when they veiled his eyes, they were a distracting screen. One she could do without; she wanted to see his eyes, wanted to examine that reaction—
No, she didn’t.
With an effort she mentally jerked her wits back and remembered what she’d been about to say. “My secrets are my own, and no concern of yours.”
The curve of his lips only deepened. “On the contrary, every secret you have commands my attention.”
“Why?”
His lids rose; his eyes met hers. Trapped hers, held hers. Then the hand on her back shifted, sliding slowly, heavily over the silk, down to unhurriedly caress her bottom.
She sucked in a sharp breath, then couldn’t breathe out. His gaze sharpened.
Without pause, let alone hesitation, he continued his artful stroking, every move languidly explicit, invested with an absolute cold-blooded certainty not only that he could do as he was, but of what his touch was doing to her.
Inwardly she shuddered, but forced herself to hold his eyes and not lower hers. Forced herself to let the sensations his touch evoked roll through her, sending a flush spreading under her skin, warming and weakening. She continued to meet his heated gaze, continued to witness that indefinable hardening of his features without wavering.
Without breaking and running, something she knew he wouldn’t permit.
Then his hand left her curves and rose, smoothly, unhurriedly, up her spine. His fingers brushed the curls screening her nape, slid beneath and caressed, then the pads of his fingertips lightly gripped.
The caress made her shiver; the evocative grip made her shudder.