miserable liar and they should hold him down and beat the truth out of him, but there she was, looking quite acceptable except for those breasts of hers that would make a man swallow his tongue and want to dive his hands into her bodice.
He walked up to her, flicked his fingertip over her cheek, and said, “The cream has done wonders. I do believe this is soft skin I feel.”
He smiled and turned to Lady Maybella, who was wearing a blue silk gown that James wanted to tell her needed to have at least three flounces sheared off.
“You’re here to dance with Corrie? You’re in luck. I’ve scarce had her to myself this evening, so many young gentlemen wanting to dance with her.”
“Please don’t exaggerate, Aunt Maybella. There’s not been more than a dozen or so,” Corrie said, making James grin.
Maybella said, tapping him on the arm with her fan, “Not more than two dances, James. We don’t want people to get the wrong idea. Besides, look at that hoard of young men coming this way.”
James didn’t see a hoard, but there were two gentlemen, one of them old enough to be Corrie’s father, on a march toward her.
James gave Maybella a charming smile and led Corrie to the dance floor, aware of her fingers tapping against his arm, and eased her into the throng of dancers. “You’re going to wear a hole in my sleeve. Whatever is the matter with you?”
“I want to help you,” she said.
An eyebrow arched up.
“Your father. I can’t bear the thought of anyone hurting him, James. Whatever would I do without him to tell me what to wear? Come, don’t get all stiff on me. I’ve known your father all my life. I want to help find out who’s trying to kill him. I’m smart. I’m fast. Let me help.”
James sighed. He didn’t even wonder how she’d found out. What with all their friends investigating, it was bound to be all over London in fifteen minutes. Fact was, he was willing to wager that everyone in the ballroom was speaking about it. And mayhap that was good. He wanted to tell her that there was absolutely no chance he was going to allow her to get within one hundred yards of any danger, and so he said, “You’ve always been able to tell me and Jason apart.” That distracted her, but good. She scoffed. She sneered. “I’ve always told you that you are yourself, very different from your brother.”
“Miss Lorimer can’t tell us apart, evidently.”
“There, you see, you can’t marry her, James. She doesn’t even know who you are.”
She had a point there.
Then the devil stuck his elbow in James’s ribs and said words right out of his mouth. “Speaking of the Angel, Miss Lorimer looks so heavenly this evening, don’t you think? She’s wearing lilac, not purple.”
“Angel?”
James nodded. “That’s the name selected for her.”
“By whom?”
He shrugged. “By the gentlemen, I suppose.”
“Maybe she started the name herself.”
“Who cares if she did? Don’t you think it’s accurate?”
“If you like perfection, then yes, I suppose so. I wonder what name I should select for myself. I know, how about calling me Miss Cream?”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Miss Cream? That’s rich, Corrie.”
“And that was a bad pun.”
“How about Devil?”
“No, I’m not wicked enough, at least not yet.”
“You will never be wicked,” he said, stiff now, looking down at her breasts. “Well, you won’t be if you’d just hoist up your gown a good two inches.”
“This is the style, James. If I can get used to heaving myself out there, then so can you. Stop dwelling on it. Now, if I can’t be wicked, then you can call me the Ice Princess. I heard that a Miss Franks was called that some five seasons ago. She married a duke who was eighty years old and almost dead. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Heavenly Lord Jesus,” James said, and whirled her about, making her laugh, distracting her yet again. “You’re getting better at this. Forget this Ice Princess. That will make the gentlemen want to teach you all sorts of things you’re not going to learn for a very long time. Now, you’ve obeyed me, haven’t you?”
“Obeyed you? About what?”
“You haven’t danced with Devlin Monroe, have you? You haven’t offered him your neck at midnight, have you?”
She laughed, a lovely rich laugh that made him smile. “I gave him a little nibble, nothing more.” She turned her head about. “Can you see the mark, there, right below my left ear?”
He wanted to kick himself when he actually looked. “Remind me to beat you again.”
“Ha. That first time you caught me by surprise.”
His eyebrow arched up a good inch. “You think so, do you? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you whine so much as you did that day.”
Before she could answer, he danced faster and faster, until she was panting and laughing, barely able to catch her breath, hating her damned corset. When he slowed, she gasped out, “Oh, James, that is so lovely. When I want to smack you in the head, you have only to dance me into the ground and I’m ready to forgive you anything at all.”
“You’re getting more competent moving your feet. Stay away from Devlin, I mean it, Corrie.”
“He took me to the Pantheon Bazaar yesterday,” she said. “He wanted to buy me a lovely ribbon to thread through my hair-he thinks my hair is lovely, by the way, all sorts of interesting autumn shades all mixed together- but I’m a proper girl, and thus I didn’t let him do it. It seemed rather intimate, particularly since he wanted to do the threading. Do you know he got so close with that ribbon that I could feel his breath on my nose?” She gave a delicious little shudder that nearly had him ready to kill.
He saw the glint in her eye, and got control. “Your aunt should never have allowed you to go off with him. I will have to speak to her about that. He isn’t good husband material, Corrie.”
“Husband material? Do you want to know the truth, James? I’ve been thinking about it, and I truly cannot imagine attaching myself to a man and changing my name. Goodness, I would be Corrie Tybourne-Barrett Monroe. As for a husband, he would order me about and expect me to do whatever he wants whenever he wants it.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, her eyes narrowed. “On the other hand, I must be honest about this. I have passed Aunt Maybella and Uncle Simon’s bedchamber before, and do you know what?”
James was certain that his eyes were going to roll back in his head. He didn’t want to hear this. He wanted to go to China before he heard this. He said, “What?”
She leaned close. “I heard them laughing. Yes, laughing, and then Uncle Simon said, quite clearly, ‘I shall nibble on your lovely self for a while now, Bella.’ What do you think of that, James?”
Well, he had asked. He wondered if Aunt Maybella wore a blue nightgown. No, he had to turn his mind away from that. He said, “Stay away from Devlin Monroe.”
“We’ll have to see, won’t we?” She gave him a sunny smile, then looked like she’d burst into tears. “Oh drat, the waltz is ending. It was too short. Someone stopped it before its time. I’ll bet that Juliette Lorimer bribed them to stop. I think someone should go speak to them. Perhaps-” She gave him a hopeful look, but he shook his head.
“No, I have to leave now, Corrie. I like your hair nice and simple, all braided on the top. You wouldn’t look good with an army of ringlets marching over your head. Or any ribbons. Forget ribbons, particularly those bought for you by a man.”
Corrie supposed it was a compliment. She wanted another waltz and so she said, “I believe Devlin is beyond that very fat lady, speaking to another young man who looks remarkably wicked himself. Hmmm. Let me see if I can get his attention.” She went up on her tiptoes and whispered against his ear, “I think I shall tell him my name is the Ice Princess. I wonder what he will have to say about that?”
But her performance was wasted because James wasn’t listening. He’d turned at the tug at his sleeve. It was one of the waiters hired for this evening, and he pressed a note into James’s hand. “A gentleman said you was to
