She nodded, her racing heart calmed, and gradually her tension flowed away. “I saved all my dances for you.”
He stiffened, and she lifted her head from his chest.
His eyes blazed with hunger. “I feared you would no longer want to marry me.”
“I have always been the dutiful daughter and Phillipa the rebellious one,” Payton said with a small smile. “But in this I will not bow to their dictates.”
A warm sensual smile curved his lips. “I will call on you tomorrow.”
“You will be met with staunch resistance.”
He exuded confidence. “Yet I will prevail.”
“And I will be glad.”
Shadows darkened his eyes. “There are things you do not know about me, that I must tell you.”
“I do like secrets,” she said softly. “But I can see yours have caused you pain. I will be here when you are ready to unburden.”
His eyebrow arched in evident surprise. “I thought you would have insisted on traversing through my history.”
She tipped onto her toes and brushed her lips across his in the lightest caress. “I, too, have secrets, and I promise you I will not divulge them after a mere five days of acquaintance,” she said teasingly.
He pulled her even closer to him, holding her face in his hand. Then he dipped his head. The first soft touch of his lips to hers was a question, not a demand, and she responded with a moan of surrender. He slid one of his hands down her neck, resting his thumb against the beat of her pulse, and deepened their kiss.
He pulled his lips from hers. “I am embarrassingly wealthy.”
“How droll,” she teased, uncaring of his income. She prayed he did not believe it mattered to her.
“Hmm.” He pressed another kiss to her lips. “My grandmother left me the majority of her wealth, and I have tripled it over the years. I rival Calydon’s holdings.”
Shock sliced through her. Calydon’s dukedom was one of the richest in the realm.
“I do not think your assertions are possible.”
Mikhail’s eyes remained guarded. “They are.”
“I do not care,” she said. “I will worry less when my father disinherits me if I run away with you. But it is a wonder with such wealth, you are not able to purchase a title.”
“I may have several hidden somewhere I can pull out for you,” he said with humor, and something undecipherable glittered in his gaze.
Payton chuckled. A shadow shifted in his eyes, and she hesitated. Concern curled through her. What was he saying? “Are you titled?” she asked with a burst of nervous laughter.
“It is abhorrent you say the words with such dread. A title does not define a man.”
“But it defines the world he lives in,” she snapped, her heart thundering.
A soft laugh floated on the air, and footsteps drew close to where they stood in the shadows. She pressed a quick but hard kiss on his lips. “I must go before my aunt and mother descend on us.”
Then she withdrew and entered the crush of the ballroom. It took Payton a few seconds to realize how rattled she was. The shadows in Mikhail’s eyes troubled her. Could it be that he was titled? The possibility of it was too much to contemplate. What would a nobleman be doing working in the Calydon stables?
“Payton!” Her aunt’s sharp but low call tried to pull her from her furious thoughts.
Mikhail had never said he worked in the stables. But he’d said he worked for Calydon as his advisor. From her experience, a lord would not be working. Then she recalled the tempered sense of power and grace that seemed to emanate from him so effortlessly, his confidence in the face of confronting her father and Lord Jensen in the cottage, his assurance her parents would accept him.
Uncertainty clawed at her stomach, and she wanted to return to the gallery and question him.
A possessive hand settled on her elbow. She lurched around to spy Lord Jensen, his mother, and Aunt Florence.
“Miss Peppiwell, you remember my mother, the Viscountess of Kenilworth,” he said with a toadying and self-satisfied smile.
Payton pulled from him, none too subtly, and he narrowed his gaze in warning.
She allowed a smile to grace her lips and dipped into a curtsy. “Lady Kenilworth.”
The viscountess barely nodded, gray eyes a replica of her son’s, shooting distaste. “The execution of your curtsy was decidedly inelegant and shallow,” she said, and Payton’s palm itched to slap the smugness from her face.
“I believe this waltz was promised to me, Miss Peppiwell,” Lord Jensen said, holding out his arm.
No, it was not. She could not suffer the thought of dancing with the lying arse. Denial hovered on her lips.
“This dance is mine,” Mikhail’s voice drawled from behind her. He looked to the viscountess and Lord Jensen, and greeted them with a small smile.
His veiled gaze settled on her aunt. “Lady Merryweather.” Mikhail was chillingly polite, and arrogance was evident in every line of his bearing.
An awkward silence fell and spread.
“I did promise you all of my dances,” Payton murmured, ignoring the shocked gasp of those close enough to hear.
Placing her hand on his arm, she strolled with serene grace to the ballroom floor.
It is the horse breeder, a voice close by hissed.
She felt as if his tall frame drew every female eye in the room.
How shocking, another thrilled, are you sure?
He is very handsome; I can see what tempted her scandalous behavior.
Murmurs rose from the people inside the ballroom, and Payton fought the blush heating her cheeks. There was nothing but amusement dancing in Mikhail’s eyes.
Payton lowered her gaze, a smile pulling at her lips. “I feel as if the eyes of the entire haute monde are upon us.” And the feeling increased, knotting her stomach with anxiety, for she knew how fast and vicious whatever gossips they bred tonight would spread.
“Then let them watch. Every man here envies my arms, for you are within them.”
She chuckled. The waltz started, and Payton soared with Mikhail. She buried the fear that he might belong to the world she deplored, basking in the strength and assurance of being in his arms, baring all emotions she felt in her eyes, trusting him to be her wall if she crumbled.
“Would you like to leave?”
“No.”
Something unfathomable shifted in his eyes. “I do not like that you are subjected to gossip.
I promise you to change it.”
She assessed the power rolling from him. Oh God, please do not be a lord. “The only whispers I can hear are the sighs of envy from all the young ladies. You are shockingly handsome,” she teased.
His lips twitched, then he sobered. “Payton, I—”
Her heart lurched. “Yes?”
“Meet me tomorrow in our cottage.”
“Yes.” Reckless. Bold. But she did not care.
“Promise to hear me out.”
Oh, are you a baron, a viscount? She wanted to ask the questions but held them in. They exchanged no words, and the intensity of his unwavering stare as he twirled with her was a comfort, a protective blanket from the malicious glares she could feel prickling along her skin. Questions hovered on her lips and in her heart, and she ruthlessly buried them and basked in the moment, for she could truly not tolerate the idea that the man she was falling hopelessly in love with may forever be taken from her grasp if he proved to be a lord.
No. She would enjoy this moment and then face her doubts in the light of day.
Chapter Thirteen
A procession of carriages and coaches drew into the Calydons’ driveway. Cossack outriders flanked the procession, two to the front and two to the rear.
What is happening?
Payton closed the volume of the Grimm’s Fairy Tale, the story of the Elves and the Shoemaker she had been reading, and strolled to the windows. She frowned as one of the most richly dressed women she had ever seen was helped down from a large and elegantly designed carriage pulled by Arabian horses. She was slender and graceful with her golden hair piled high in a riot of fashionable curls. Oh, she is a beauty.
Payton frowned as Vladimir appeared and bowed deeply over the woman’s hand.
It was then she noted the duchess waiting at the doorstep, a frown on her lovely face. The procession moved toward the duchess, and Payton wished she were able to hear the conversation. The women greeted each other with curtsies, and the frown melted from Lady Calydon’s face as she laughed at something the ravishing woman said.