Page 19 of The Devil in Her Bed
Strangely discomfited, Francesca affected an air of nonchalance. When others would have retreated, she lifted her glass in a slight toast.
I see you. I see you watching.
Her next thought was to wonder how on earth she’d missed him before.
He had harsh-hewn features that contrasted with his immaculate, elegant attire, and a commanding brow. His nose was bold rather than broad, and his mouth defied description. It shouldn’t have tempted her. Not as hard as it was.
Hard like his gaze.
He was a hard man all over, it appeared, and extraordinarily fit. Not as monstrously big as Ramsay, or as tall and rangy as Redmayne, but a man of medium height, bred to stand in a crowd not above it.
The pallor of his skin, the perfection of his slick auburn hair, and the sartorial grace of his stance seemed incongruous with the rest of him, somehow. Like he’donce been a wild thing only recently tamed. A sportsman, maybe?
The man was, in a word, striking.
In response to her gesture, his lip quirked, and his angular chin dipped in a nod. He drifted forward with faultless poise, exuding an overabundance of authority and such inadvertent menace that people melted aside before he took a step. Both repelled and entranced, the crowd moved away from the force of his dynamic presence, and only then did they look to see what had prompted them to instinctually do so.
Some of them seemed to know him, and he murmured a returned greeting to a few as he passed.
But he didn’t stop for anyone until he’d reached Francesca.
No, he didn’t tower like Ramsay, but he hadn’t the need. Everything about him bespoke domination. Power. Unequivocal strength.
Something deep, deep within Francesca trembled. Not with fear, per se. It was more feminine than that. Abruptly,ridiculously, she wanted to purr at him. To do all the things she’d done before to attract a man.
To see if she could cast a spell as powerful as his.
Francesca abandoned her glass of wine so he wouldn’t see it quiver.
Here was a man who would smell her weakness, and at the moment that weakness began in her knees and worked its way into all sorts of alarming places.
“Dance with me,” he ordered.
Francesca rarely responded to commands, and this one was no different. The issuer didn’t have to know, however, that her lack of response was an involuntarymutism caused by his astoundingly seductive Scottish brogue. His voice was smooth and dangerous and beautiful, like molten ore hardening into weaponized steel.
“Dance with me,” he said with an air of someone unused to repeating himself.
Francesca adopted a demeanor of disinterest to cover his effect on her. “You’re not on my card, sir.” She turned away from him, stepping toward Murphy, but the ghost stayed with her as if he’d anticipated her move.
“Do ye care about any of those men on yer card?” He reached out and flicked his thumb over the ribbon tied at the wrist of her glove on which the filigreed card dangled.
“Not particularly.” Dear Lord, had her voice ever sounded that breathy before?
“Then forget them, and dance with me.”
He stood close, too close. Awareness of his proximity threatened to overwhelm her. Instead of retreating, as her instinct bade her to, she stepped in.
“And just who are you, that you’re so impertinent?” she demanded. “Surely you’re aware it is against protocol to dance with a man to whom I’ve never been formally introduced. You do us both a dishonor.”
The dark and wicked shadows in his eyes jangled her nerves, but an impish charm almost concealed those shadows enough to convince her they hadn’t really existed at all. “Since when have ye cared about protocol, Lady Francesca?”
He had her there. Since never, that was when. She did what she liked when she liked, and the devil may take the consequences.
She was at a disadvantage, here. He knew such things about her when she didn’t even know his name. In fact, she couldn’t decide what unsettled her most: That she had been waylaid from her private mission. That he was asking her to dance in this impolite way…
Or that she was tempted to say yes.
More than anything she’d been tempted to do in years.
