Page 14 of A Rogue's Downfall
“Sarah!” Amy said, hurrying forward, both hands extended. “And Mr. Carstairs. What a lovely surprise.Have you come to play for us? We are privileged,indeed.” She kissed Miss Williams’s cheek and shookthe cousin by the hand.
“We certainly are,” the earl said, bowing to his guests and noting with some satisfaction that the mutinous expression on his wife’s face had been replacedby a glowing smile. “Perhaps you would treat us to aprivate concert for half an hour or so?” He seated hiswife at some distance from the pianoforte and drew achair up beside hers. She looked at him curiously andsilently as he sat down.
The earl felt privileged long before the half hour was over. Mr. Carstairs was indeed a talented violinist,and Miss Williams’s accompaniment was in no wayinferior. Although he was paying the two of them asizable sum for the evening’s work, he felt humbledby the beauty of the music they played.
Amy sat watching and listening with glowing eyes and parted lips. He smiled at her between pieces and,feeling his eyes on her, she looked up at him and halfsmiled back. He took her hand and set it on his sleeve,covering it with his own. With her other hand, sheheld the rosebud on her lap.
“And now,” he said at the end of the concert, getting to his feet after applauding the players and praising them, “to begin the ball.” He reached out a hand toward Amy.
“Ball?” she said.
“Ball.” He drew her to her feet. “We will dance on an uncluttered floor with no danger of being moweddown by an enthusiastic dancer and without the necessity of changing partners between sets or of having avariety of different dances. Waltzes, if you please,” hesaid, turning his head toward Miss Williams and hercousin.
“We are going to waltz?” Amy said. “Here? Now? Alone?”.
“Last year,” he said, taking her rose and setting it on the chair, “you asked no questions. Last year I feltalone with you once we began to dance. Did you notfeel alone with me?”
She was gazing into his eyes as if mesmerized. Miss Williams’s cousin was tuning his violin again. “Yes,”she said almost in a whisper.
“It was this time last year,” he said, “that things began to go wrong. That we began to make someunwise choices. Let us see if we can do better thisyear, shall we?”
Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. Her hand reached up to his shoulder as his arm circled her waistand drew her closer. “Yes.” He saw her mouth formthe word, though he did not hear it.
“It was a pretty mask,” he said as the music began, and he moved with her to its rhythm. “But you lookfar prettier without it.”
“And you,” she said.
He grinned at her. “Prettier?” he said. “Ouch!”
She smiled fleetingly. “More handsome,” she said.
“I whispered improprieties in your ear last year,” he said. “What shall I whisper this year? That yourbeauty has outshone each of the roses I have givenyou today or all three of them combined? That youwere at your most beautiful early this afternoon whenyour dress was down to your waist on one side andmy son was at your breast? That the envy I felt ofhim amounted almost to jealousy? That today I havenot been able to regret the events of last year? Whatshall I whisper that will have you melting against meas you did then?”
She moaned.
Steady,he told himself.Careful.He had ruined things utterly last year. Let him not compound theerrors this year.
“Or shall I just be quiet?” he said against her ear. “Shall we enjoy the music and the dance, Amy? Myvalentine?”
“Yes.” Her face looked somewhat distressed. “Yes.”
He stopped talking.
My valentine. It is my turn, Amy. There are two men in your life, not just one.His words rang in her ears,seducing her with every passing minute. And his whispered words, lavish and expert in their flattery. Hewould only have to whisper the suggestion in her ear,and she would go with him as she had gone last year.She would allow him his pleasure again and be hisdupe again.
But the music and his closeness and the heady masculine musk of his cologne weaved their inexorable spell about her. The drink had been in no way toblame after all, she thought. This year she had notdrunk one mouthful of alcohol. Yet this year she feltas light-headed as she had then, as unwilling to forceher head to rule her heart.
The game was almost at an end, she thought. He would take her to bed—she had no doubt that heintended to do so, and now she knew that she wouldnot refuse him—and tomorrow he would leave again.Perhaps he would return at the end of October againto await the birth of his second child. The game wouldbe at an end, and she would be the bitter loser again.And she was as powerless this year as she had beenlast year.
She tipped her head back to look up into his face. He was looking back at her, his dark eyes steady andintent. She felt the seductive rhythm of the music andof their dancing bodies, far too close for propriety—asthey had been last year.
“Hugh.” She heard his name, spoken with her voice. She had never even thought of him by name. But shehad spoken it now. “Please,” she said, and did notknow for what she pleaded. She did not know if hewould know for what she asked. “Please.”
His eyes smiled at her. Not just his lips, she thought, gazing up at him. His eyes smiled. He stopped dancingand signaled to the musicians. The music drew to aclose. “Perhaps,” he said, “Miss Williams and Mr.Carstairs will join us for cake and punch.”
The spell was broken. Amy chatted gratefully with their guests for the following half hour or so. Perhapsby the time they left, she thought, she would have thestrength to bid her husband good night and to put anend to a day that could only lead to another year ofmisery if she tried to prolong it or allowed him to doso.
Perhaps she would have the strength. He set an arm loosely about her waist as he talked. It was a gestureof careless—or carefully calculated—possessiveness.
