One gentleman, suitably drawn and a touch bolder than his fellows, broke from the circle surrounding two ladies and languidly stepped into her path.
Halting, she haughtily arched a brow.
He smiled and bowed, fluidly graceful. “Miss Cynster, I believe?”
“Indeed, sir. And you are?”
“Miles Furlough, my dear.” His eyes met hers as he straightened. “Is this your first time here?”
“Yes.” She glanced around, determinedly projecting confident assurance. She intended to pick her man, not allow him or any other to pick her. “The company appears quite animated.” The noise of untold conversations was steadily rising. Returning her gaze to Miles Furlough, she asked, “Are her ladyship’s gatherings customarily so lively?”
Furlough’s lips curved in a smile Heather wasn’t sure she liked.
“I think you’ll discover—” Furlough broke off, his gaze going past her.
She had an instant’s warning — a primitive prickling over her nape — then long, steely fingers closed about her elbow.
Heat washed over her, emanating from the contact, supplanted almost instantly by a disorientating giddiness. She caught her breath. She didn’t need to look to know that Timothy Danvers, Viscount Breckenridge — her nemesis — had elected not to be sensible.
“Furlough.” The deep voice issuing from above her head and to the side had its usual disconcerting effect.
Ignoring the frisson of awareness streaking down her spine — a susceptibility she positively despised — she slowly turned her head and directed a reined glare at its cause. “Breckenridge.”
There was nothing in her tone to suggest she welcomed his arrival — quite the opposite.
He ignored her attempt to depress his pretensions; indeed, she wasn’t even sure he registered it. His gaze hadn’t shifted from Furlough.
“If you’ll excuse us, old man, there’s a matter I need to discuss with Miss Cynster.” Breckenridge held Furlough’s gaze. “I’m sure you understand.”
Furlough’s expression suggested that he did yet wished he didn’t feel obliged to give way. But in this milieu, Breckenridge — the hostesses’ and the ladies’ darling — was well nigh impossible to gainsay. Reluctantly, Furlough inclined his head. “Of course.”
Shifting his gaze to Heather, Furlough smiled — more sincerely, a tad ruefully. “Miss Cynster. Would we had met in less crowded surrounds. Perhaps next time.” With a parting nod, he sauntered off into the crowd.
Heather let free an exasperated huff. But before she could even gather her arguments and turn them on Breckenridge, he tightened his grip on her elbow and started propelling her through the crowd.
Startled, she tried to halt. “What—”
“If you have the slightest sense of self-preservation you will walk to the front door without any fuss.”
He was steering her, surreptitiously pushing her, in that direction, and it wasn’t all that far. “Let. Me. Go.” She uttered the command, low and delivered with considerable feeling, through clenched teeth.
He urged her up the salon steps. Used the moment when she was on the step above him to bend his head and breathe in her ear,
His clenched teeth trumped her clenched teeth. The words, his tone, slid through her, evoking — as he’d no doubt intended — a nebulous, purely instinctive fear.
By the time she shook free of it, he was smoothly, apparently unhurriedly, steering her through the guests thronging the foyer.
“No — don’t bother answering.” He didn’t look down; he had the open front door in his sights. “I don’t care what ninnyhammerish notion you’ve taken into your head. You’re leaving. Now.”
“There is no reason whatever for you to interfere.” Her voice vibrated with barely suppressed fury.
He recognized her mood well enough — her customary one whenever he was near. Normally he would respond by giving her a wide berth, but here and now he had no choice. “Do you have any idea what your cousins would do to me — let alone your brothers — if they discovered I’d seen you in this den of iniquity and turned a blind eye?”
She snorted and tried, surreptitiously but unsuccessfully, to free her elbow. “You’re as large as any of them — and demonstrably just as much of a bully. You could see them off.”
“One, perhaps, but all six? I think not. Let alone Luc and Martin, and Gyles Chillingworth — and what about Michael? No, wait — what about Caro, and your aunts, and. . the list goes on. Flaying would be preferable — much less pain.”
“You’re overreacting. Lady Herford’s house hardly qualifies as a den of iniquity.” She glanced back. “There’s nothing the least objectionable going on in that salon.”
“Not in the salon, perhaps — at least, not yet. But you didn’t go further into the house — trust me, a den of iniquity it most definitely is.”
“But—”
“No.” Reaching the front porch — thankfully deserted — he halted, released her, and finally let himself look down at her. Let himself look into her face, a perfect oval hosting delicate features and a pair of stormy gray-blue eyes lushly fringed with dark brown lashes. Despite those eyes having turned hard and flinty, even though her luscious lips were presently compressed into a thin line, that face was the sort that had launched armadas and incited wars since the dawn of time. It was a face full of life. Full of sensual promise and barely restrained vitality.
And that was before adding the effect of a slender figure, sleek rather than curvaceous, yet invested with such fluid grace that her every movement evoked thoughts that, at least in his case, were better left unexplored.
The only reason she hadn’t been mobbed in the salon was because none but Furlough had shaken free of the arrestation the first sight of her generally caused quickly enough to get to her before he had.
He felt his face harden, fought not to clench his fists and tower over her in a sure-to-be-vain attempt to intimidate her. “You’re going home, and that’s all there is to it.”
Her eyes narrowed to shards. “If you try to force me, I’ll scream.”
He lost the battle; his fists clenched at his sides. Holding her gaze, he evenly stated, “If you do, I’ll tap you under that pretty little chin, knock you unconscious, tell everyone you fainted, toss you in a carriage, and send you home.”
Her eyes widened. She considered him but didn’t back down. “You wouldn’t.”
He didn’t blink. “Try me.”
Heather inwardly dithered. This was the trouble with Breckenridge — one simply couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His face, that of a Greek god, all clean planes and sharp angles, lean cheeks below high cheekbones and a strong, square jaw, remained aristocratically impassive and utterly unreadable no matter what was going through his mind. Not even his heavy-lidded hazel eyes gave any clue; his expression was perennially that of an elegantly rakish gentleman who cared for little beyond his immediate pleasure.
Every element of his appearance, from his exquisitely understated attire, the severe cut of his clothes making the lean strength they concealed only more apparent, to the languid drawl he habitually affected, supported that image — one she was fairly certain was a comprehensive facade.
She searched his eyes — and detected not the smallest sign that he wouldn’t do precisely as he said. Which would be simply too embarrassing.
“How did you get here?”
Reluctantly, she waved at the line of carriages stretching along the curving pavement of Wadham Gardens as far as they could see. “My parents’ carriage — and before you lecture me on the impropriety of traveling across London alone at night, both the coachman and groom have been with my family for decades.”
Tight-lipped, he nodded. “I’ll walk you to it.”
He reached for her elbow again.
She whisked back. “Don’t bother.” Frustration erupted; she felt sure he would inform her brothers that he’d found her at Lady Herford’s, which would spell an end to her plan — one which, until he’d interfered, had held real promise. She gave vent to her temper with an infuriated glare. “I can walk twenty yards by myself.”
