Page 20 of The Devil in Her Bed
She looked up at him and found the lure of an adventure she hadn’t yet enjoyed. A flirtation she’d never allowed herself to have. When one chased a singular goal, all other idle pursuits seemed to just disappear. Her every interaction had been calculated, save for those with Alexander and Cecil. Her every desire stashed on a shelf deep within herself, deep enough to have gathered dust and been forgotten.
“My lady?” The man held out his hand, and Francesca was suddenly aware of everyone looking.
Cripes. These Scots. They certainly did breed a specific sort of man. Sensual and arrogant. Bold to the point of impertinent.
And this one wielded a smile that would disarm the most protected of hearts.
Francesca doubled the guard on hers, throwing in a few ramparts and spikes… maybe a moat for good measure.
She took his hand and led him to the dance floor, where the musicians had struck up “Blue Danube.”
Often while dancing, Francesca found herself leading. This time, she had no choice but to follow along as the strong arms clamped around her might have liftedher feet off the floor had she allowed it. The circle of his embrace was unlike any space Francesca had occupied. Here she had no need of her control, which was just as well because he quartered her none. The muscles beneath his jacket bunched and flexed as he led her through a flawless waltz. Her body responded to his slightest lead, deftly gliding through the motions with a grace she’d never possessed before. One his sinuous guidance lent to her.
Just who did this man he think he was?
“I’m Lord Preston Bellamy. Marquess Drake.”
Francesca blinked up at him, reassuring herself she hadn’t spoken aloud.
“I’m—”
“Oh, I ken who ye are.”
“Not enough to know I detest being interrupted.” She’d intended to sound coy, but a sharp edge bladed her voice, conjured by her discomfiture.
“My apologies,” he murmured.
She caught it then, a flash of uncertainty—no, something else—something stronger. Anger perhaps? Men didn’t like to be corrected by a woman. A spinster, no less. Most especially a marquess, her social superior.
The instantaneous flare of emotion smoothed back into a more pleasant expression of interest and charming curiosity.
A facade, to be sure. Francesca had donned enough of her own to recognize one. So, what did the intrepid Drake want with her? Being the unattached Countess of Mont Claire came with the occasional nuisance ofa penniless, titled, fortune-hunting suitor. However, she prided herself on detecting their desperation from across a crowded room like this.
No, her awareness of Preston Bellamy, Lord Drake had nothing to do with desperation. He’d the power to arrest her attention from across the room, without her even looking at him. His smile was open but his eyes as mercurial as the cosmos, and possibly just as fathomless. He’d the title of a lord and the trapezius of an ironworker.
So she had his name and knew nothing more than before. “Are you a friend of Lord Ramsay’s?”
“Ramsay is a man famously without friends,” he replied.
Francesca’s brow twitched. “That isn’t an answer.”
If he was surprised that she didn’t allow him to be coy, he didn’t show it. Turning his head, he found Ramsay in the crowd. “I would say Lord Ramsay knows me better than anyone else in this room.”
If a man could sound duplicitous and truthful at the same time, he did.
“What part of Scotland do you hie from?” she pressed.
His hand slid down her back in a barely perceptible caress, sending a thrill through her spine. “The part that worships strong, crimson-haired women as goddesses in scandalous pagan rites.”
Another non-answer. Though one that evoked all manner of delicious and dangerous images.
Trouble.This man with his whiskey and moss eyes and winsome wickedness would cause her no end of trouble. She should walk away from the dance floor this instant. She opened her mouth to claim a twisted ankle, or an overheated headache, and make her escape.
“How would you describe these rites, my lord Drake?” The question slid out of her before she could call it back.
His head dipped toward her. “My vocabulary almost fails me.”
“Do try.”
