room. Had she seen him coming? Lucas did not know. All he knew was that he was beside her in the quiet dimmed space and that her warmth beat at his coldness, living flame in her pale blue eyes. He could no longer be circumspect.
‘Your aunt has just warned me away from you. She thinks I may be a corrupting influence.’
‘And are you, Lucas? Are you that?’
He shook his head, her very question biting at certainty. He wanted to say more, but found himself stymied; after all, there had been much he had done in his life that she would not like. As if she could read his mind she faced him directly.
‘I do not understand what this thing is between us, but how I wish that it would just stop.’ She laid her hand across her chest as if her heartbeat was worrying her, and the sensation building inside him wound tighter, dangerously complete. There was no room left for compromise or bargain.
‘I want you.’ Sense and logic deserted him as his thumb traced a line down the side of her arm, the silver of her hair falling like mist across the blackness of his clothes.
Fragile. Easily ruined.
Even that thought did not have him pulling away, not tonight with this small chance of possibility all that was left to him. Now. Here. Only this minute lost in the luck of a provident encounter and a hundred-and-one reasons why he should just let her go. Her fingers joined his thumb and he chided himself, the thin daintiness of white silk sleeves falling over his fist like a shroud. Hidden.
‘Lord.’ He pulled back as he closed his eyes and swore, a softer feeling tugging at lust and settling wildness.
‘Lilly.’ Her name. Just that. He could not even whisper what it was he desired because even the saying of it would take away the beauty of imagination and, if memory was all he was to be left with, he would not spoil even a second of it by a careless entreaty.
He had both power and restraint. The disparity suited him, she thought, as the heat inside her crumbled any true resistance and the incomprehensible fragment of time between separation and togetherness ended. Like a dream, close as breath. Melding simply by touch into one being. She heard the echo of his heartbeat, fast and strong, felt the tremble of his fingers as they trailed down silk and met flesh beneath the lace at her elbows. Her own breath shallowed, roughly taken, the very start of something she could no longer fight, no words to deny him. Anything. She had had enough of denial and of pretending that everything she felt for him was a ruse.
Tears welled as she swallowed. ‘If you kiss me here, I shall be ruined.’
There was no choice left though, for already her body leaned across, breasts grazing his shirt beneath an opened jacket, nipples hardened with pure and simple desire. He was her only point of connection in the room, her north to his south, balanced and equal. Even facing havoc she wanted him, wanted him to touch her, to kiss her as he had before and show her what it was that could exist between a man and a woman when everything was exactly as it should be.
Before it was all too late. She did not dare to fight it any longer for fear of a loss that would be more than she could bear! A single tear dropped on to her cheek and she felt its passage like a hot iron, wrenching right from wrong, and changing before to after. No will of her own left. Just what would be between them, here in this room, fifteen feet from her father and fiance and from three hundred prying eyes.
‘Ah, Lilly, if only this were the way of it.’ His voice was sad with a hint of resignation in the message as he lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. She felt his tongue lave between the base of her fingers, warm and wet with promise. When he moved back she tried to hold him, tried to catch on to what she knew was lost already. But he did not stay, did not turn as he left the alcove, light swallowing up both shadow and boldness.
Gone.
Alone she trembled, her fists clenched before her, the words of a childhood prayer murmured in a bid for composure, and her nails biting into the heated flesh of her palms.
Here. Without him!
She looked out into the night, a myriad of stars above shifting bands of lower cloud. The weather had changed just as she had. She could feel it in her blood and in the rising welling joy that recognised honour.
Lucas Clairmont’s honour just to leave her, safe. Taking a deep breath for confidence, she turned and almost bumped into the Parker sisters, cold horror on their faces. The beat of her heart rose so markedly that she felt her throat catch in fear. Coughing, she tried to find speech. Had they seen? Could they know?
‘It is a lovely evening.’ Even to her ears the words sounded forced, the tremble in them pointing at all that she tried so hard to hide.
But they did not answer back, did not smile or speak. No, they stood there watching her for a good few minutes until the youngest girl burst into copious tears and she knew that the game was up.
A woman she presumed to be a relative hurried quickly to their side and then another woman and another, watching and pitying.
‘Miss Davenport let Mr Clairmont kiss her hand and she was standing close. Too close. She is after all betrothed to Lord Wilcox-Rice and I am certain that he would not like this.’
‘Hush, Miriam, hush.’ Another woman now came to their side, and the voice of reason and restraint might have swayed resolve had the older sister not also begun to sniff.
The whispers of interest began quietly at first, spreading across the ballroom floor like the ripples in a still summer pond after a large stone was thrown in carelessly. Wider and wider the curiosity spread, the fascination of intrigue shifting the weight of anger away from sympathy.
Her father’s face was pale as he came towards her and there was a violent distaste on John’s as he did not. Lillian saw her Aunt Jean frown in worry and heard the music of the orchestra wind into nothingness.
The sounds of ruin were not loud!
The colours of ruin were not lurid!
They were bleached and faded and gentle like the touch of her father’s arm against her own, his fingers over hers, protective and safe.
‘Come, Lillian,’ he said softly, ‘I shall take you home.’
Chapter Twelve
Luc left the Billinghurst town house and walked through the night, deep in his own thoughts as to what he should now do.
Lord, what might have happened had he stayed? He would have kissed her probably, kissed her well and good, and be damned with the whole effort of crying off.
‘God help me.’ The strain of it all made him breathe out heavily as he turned into a darkened alley affording a quick way back to his rooms.
Would Lillian have slapped his face and demanded an apology?
He could not risk it. Not yet. Not before she had had a chance to know his character and make her own choice as to whether she might want something more.
He swore again. He had always been a man who had carefully planned his life and made certain that the framework of his next moves were in place before he ventured on.
But here…he did not know what had just happened. How had he lost control so badly that he would risk her reputation on a whim?
In retrospect the full stupidity and consequences of his actions were blatantly obvious.
Lillian had not looked happy. She had not caught at his hand to hold him back, glancing instead towards the others in the room, towards her fiance and her father, as her eyes had filled with tears.
How could he have got the whole thing so very, very wrong? Why the hell had he risked it all, anyway? Anger began to build. He was a colonial stranger with little to recommend him and a woman who sat at the very pinnacle of a society making much of material possessions would hardly welcome his advances in such a very public place.
