Page 49 of To Woo and to Wed
This was likely true; Risedale and his new countess were known to be a love match, and while Sophie actually liked the earl quite a bit—he was a perfect gentleman, and also a genuinely interesting conversationalist, a skill that was in short supply among many of his peers—she did not think she needed to feel too guilty at skipping their dance.
“Did you have a suggestion as to what I ought to do instead, if I am not to dance this set?” she asked. She considered carefully, and then batted her eyelashes at him.
His gaze flicked to her neckline.
Men, she thought, were awfully predictable.
“I find myself desiring a bit of air, and wondered if you, too, mightlike a chance to cool off—you look flushed.” His tone was all solicitous inquiry, and his gaze was all wicked knowing.
Sophie hesitated for only the briefest second, before taking Jeremy’s proffered arm. She did not allow her eyes to drift to either side as he escorted her onto the terrace—but later, after a quarter of an hour of rather heated kissing and a murmured invitation in Jeremy’s ear, as she returned to the ballroom, hoping her hair wasn’t too badly mussed, she glanced to the left, and locked eyes with West.
She counted it as a small victory when he looked away first.
Chapter Seventeen
God save him from musicales.
“Stop grimacing,” Sophie said under her breath from the seat next to him.
West cast her a mildly exasperated look. “I’m hardlygrimacing.” He thought he’d perfected the look of polite interest he was currently directing toward the front of Lady Worthington’s music room, where several of the countess’s nieces—Violet’s cousins—were sawing away at the violin.
Sawingwas probably a bit unfair; it was just that, having repeatedly experienced the trauma of Lady Holyoak’s musicales—he felt honor-bound to put in a brief appearance every couple of years or so, once the memory of the last one he’d attended had faded enough to make him think this was a remotely good idea—he rather thought that something within his ears had gone slightly wrong, because he was no longer capable of enjoying the sound of a string instrument. Even when he heard one played by a skilled practitioner, he was on edge, as though the screeching were about to commence at any moment.
Sophie rested a hand on his arm, then immediately removed it. “Why is your arm so tense?” she hissed. “You’re behaving as though you’re about to face the guillotine.”
“A tempting prospect,” he murmured; at that moment, the young ladies finished playing, and he joined in the enthusiastic applause. He suspected, gauging from the looks of genuine appreciation on the faces of people around him, that the ladies had actually been quite good, but he was unable to confirm this with any degree of certainty from his own experience.
The room filled with chatter as everyone rose from their seats; he spotted Violet and James near the front of the room. They were speaking with the youngest of her cousins, who appeared to be barely out of the schoolroom and seemed a bit overawed by the experience. He reached for his walking stick, then glanced down at Sophie and offered her his arm.
“Care to get some air?”
They skirted the edges of the chattering crowd as they made their way toward the French doors set against one wall, leading out to the terrace.
It was a warm evening, and the scent of roses wafting up from Lady Worthington’s extensive gardens engulfed them as soon as they stepped through the doors. The music room was ablaze with light, which spilled out onto the deserted terrace; Sophie dropped his arm, and drifted slowly from the doors, past the first set of windows, until she found a pocket of shadows. She was wearing a pink gown that barely hugged her shoulders, her hair piled high atop her head. As West followed her, his gaze lingered on the creamy skin of her shoulders, on the single golden curl resting tantalizingly against the side of her neck. She leaned carefully against the wall and tilted her head up to gaze consideringly at the sky; West, however, could not tear his eyes from her face.
“Do you miss the stars, when you are in town?”
He blinked. It was a romantic, fanciful sort of question from a woman not given to those tendencies. “I suppose so,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “But more than that, I think I miss the way the darkness feels less ominous in the countryside.”
She turned her head sideways to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“There’s less light, so you become accustomed to the darkness, if you need to go anywhere after sunset. The shadows seem darker in London, since they’re right at the edges of all that light.”
“That was dangerously close to metaphor for a man who I believe once told me he didn’t believe in such a device.” There was a hint of a smile playing at her lips, and everything about this conversation was making West feel acutely conscious of the darkness, of her proximity, of the warmth of her skin that he could feel under his palm, if he simply extended his hand.
“Ibelievein it,” he objected mildly. “I just think it should be applied sparingly.”
Her mouth curved into a proper smile, and he looked away, swallowing. The sight of her smile was like a physical blow.
She reached out a gloved hand, to take his hand again. “You know,” she said, “if we’re worried about our ruse not being convincing enough, all we need do is spend another ten minutes out here.”
“Perhaps we can muss your hair a bit, before we go back indoors,” West suggested. “To lend the proceedings a bit of…” He considered.
“Licentious credibility?” Sophie suggested.
“Something like that.”
“Or…” The word was long, slow, drawn-out. It contained an improbable number of syllables for its two letters.
