Priscilla laughed as she and Westray promenaded down the center of the set, and Charles had to force his fingers to unclench once again.
This was Priscilla, for goodness sake! He could not remember a time when they had not been friends. She and Mary and him, the three of them together, and then Priscilla and he against the world when all he wanted to do was rage against it for taking his sister.
He was engaged to Miss Lloyd. That fact had slipped his mind for a moment, and he clung to it like flotsam in a storm.
Still, the memory of his betrothed did nothing to prevent him from watching Westray and Priscilla closely as they spun closer and closer, weaving with others in the dance, and the tension in his temples had doubled by the time the dance ended.
“What a shame it was such a short dance,” Westray was saying as they returned, both a little out of breath. “Can I persuade you to step up with me again, Miss Seton?”
Priscilla opened her mouth to reply, eyes shining, but before she spoke a word, Charles interrupted.
“She cannot.”
Both Priscilla and Westray stared, the latter in great surprise.
“Why on earth not, Charles?” Priscilla asked innocently.
“Because you are going to dance with me. Come on.”
Without waiting for a response, he stepped forward and took her hand – and that was when it all came undone. She was warm, warmer than she should be after a simple dance, and his whole body reacted in tune with that heat.
Did she feel it, too? Did she just gasp? Was that the sound he heard?
Charles tried not to look at her as they stepped to the set, but he could feel every pair of eyes in the room, watching him as they did so. The Duke of Orrinshire and Miss Seton. Why did those names feel so right together?
He was forced to release her hand to permit her to join her side of the set, and it was a loss he had never known before. Impatience flowed through him as he glared at the musicians. The sooner they played, the sooner Priscilla could be in his arms again.
Where were these thoughts coming from? What did they mean? Nothing seemed to make sense, and they made even less sense as the music began, and Priscilla stepped forward to take his hands. Sparks flew from their touch, his own body crackled with the energy between them. Surely everyone in the room could see the connection between them.
Charles could barely concentrate on the dance, and when Priscilla spoke, he had to ask her to repeat herself.
“I said, you are unusually quiet.”
He barely knew how to reply. “When dancing with you, I do not know what to say,” he admitted honestly.
They twirled around the pair beside them and came together once more.
Priscilla laughed. “I will take that as a compliment.”
“You should,” Charles said, the words escaping his mouth before he could stop them.
This was not the Priscilla he knew, and yet it was. She had not changed but had somehow come into focus as never before.
He tried not to think too much about her, but it was impossible. She was beautiful, witty, radiant. She was his friend, but today, somehow, she was more.
He swallowed as he took her hands and circled the pair on their other side. He knew what that strange tug in his stomach was now, and thought back guiltily to their walk through the village, their encounter at his engagement picnic.
It was all the same feeling, for he wanted her.
He wanted Priscilla, wanted her in a way he had never wanted her before. He wanted her tight in his arms, quivering with desire, her lip on his. He wanted that, and so much more.
An image flashed through his mind, Priscilla in his arms but with significantly fewer clothes…
Charles turned his face away as he encircled her. How had he never seen her like this before?
Now it was too late. His damned pride and his sense of honor had led him to an arranged marriage, and Priscilla did not see him in that way. How could she?
He returned to his space in the set. She smiled, and guilt washed over him. What was he doing, thinking of Priscilla in such a scandalous way when engaged to another?
The music ended, and the room applauded. Neither Charles nor Priscilla moved.
“I…” Charles swallowed, his voice jagged, unable to take his eyes from her. “I could have kept dancing with you forever.”
Priscilla’s eyes never left his. “I wish you would.”
“Now, I have been more than patient, Miss Seton, and I demand this next dance!”
Jolted from the connection between them, Charles blinked at Westray, who was grinning.
Priscilla curtseyed. “Yes, of course, Lord Westray.”
She moved to place her hand in his, turning her back on Charles.
His breathing was coarse, his body raging. What had just happened? Had he realized, for the first time and far too late, that he was…in love with Priscilla Seton?
Chapter Six
Priscilla blew her nose for the third time and finally felt air rush into her nose. Her handkerchief was sopping wet, and she threw it into the wastepaper bin with a snotty sigh.
“Ugggh,” she moaned, sinking further into the settee and closing her eyes. Had she ever felt more pathetic than this? Had anyone suffered as she was? There was nothing in the world that could help her, nothing. “Ugggghhhh…”
The sound of her mother tutting forced her bleary eyes to open.
“Well, what did you think you were doing, staying out until two in the morning – two o’clock in the morning!” Mrs. Seton chided, fussing around her like a mother hen, plumping up her cushion and offering a clean, dry handkerchief. “The early hours are no time for a lady to be out in this cold weather!”
Priscilla raised a hand to her throbbing temple and tried to nod without moving her head. The pain would go away
