Richard released him and melted away into the dark.
…
The festivities continued in grand style. Evie had indulged in a few dances, chatted with Adel, deflected two proposals, and somehow avoided Lord Ponsby, though not by her efforts. The man had seemingly slipped from the ball, despite securing her hand for two dances earlier. She would not regret her good fortune, but she was curious as to where he had absconded. Her mother’s events were well sought after and tonight was a successful crush.
Though all the windows were opened, the heat and the jostle of the crowd were overwhelming. Feeling in need of a breath of fresh air, she moved toward the tall French doors that led outside and climbed the steps to one of the narrow balconies overlooking the grand ballroom. The cool air touched on her bare shoulder, sending shivers along her flesh, but nothing would induce her to return to the crush. A hollow feeling lingered in her heart that ached to be filled.
There was a deliberate rustle behind her, and she whirled around. A figure stepped from the shadows, and her breath caught. Richard. Her cheeks grew suddenly hot with embarrassment. Despite missing him, she felt utterly unprepared to see him after their startling intimacy.
“I…I thought you had left. I saw you earlier with Wolverton and then…” She stopped, not wanting to ramble and appear so gauche and uncertain. Be daring. “I thought it unusual you would leave without a lesson.”
His gaze dropped to her lips and her whole being throbbed with an awareness of him and his blatant sensuality. His dark jacket fit his shoulders well, and his stance was insolently casual, making her want to rattle him. He was beautiful, in a way that was uniquely male.
“No kissing,” he said flatly.
“Do not blame me for your errant thoughts, I said lessons. That includes dancing and suggestions on how to capture my gentleman’s interest, if I recall properly.”
He grunted and strolled closer but still maintained a respectable distance. She was excruciatingly conscious of his masculinity.
“Is he here?”
“Oh yes.”
A muscle tensed in his cheek at her enthused response. Those golden eyes slashed to the crowd below, skipping over dozens of gentlemen, analyzing and dissecting them in that calculating way of his. What is he thinking?
A soft, misting rain began to fall, and she tilted her face to the sky briefly. “We should return inside,” she said softly.
He made no answer, only leaned with casual elegance against a column covered with flowering vines. Richard’s gaze glided leisurely over her, taking in every detail of her appearance.
She flushed under his unwavering perusal. “You are staring.”
Was he remembering how she had cried against his lips, begging for more as he pleasured her? How did anyone keep such a liaison a secret? If any of her friends or families saw them together now, they would know unequivocally they had been intimate. He was staring in that piercing, disturbing way of his, and carnal knowledge of her gleamed in his eyes. She felt hot and achy and couldn’t break the magnetism of his lingering gaze.
“You look beautiful,” he said, his voice filled with bemusement. “I’d meant to leave just now, but then I saw you standing here watching the gaiety inside. Why are you out here?”
Forcing her tongue to unknot and hoping to banish the sudden shyness twisting through her, she moved a few paces away. “Perhaps I wondered to where you disappeared.”
His face fell into the shadows once again, and a baffling silence lingered. The strains of a waltz filtered on the air, and she sighed her pleasure.
“The waltz is your favorite dance.”
“It is.”
“I am surprised no one would have claimed you.”
She laughed lightly. “Mamma happily promised my hand to Lord Ponsby, but he has generously disappeared.”
Something dark shifted in Richard’s gaze, and Evie frowned.
“If you’ll honor me with this dance?” he said coolly.
They hadn’t had an occasion to dance together for almost a year. “Mamma would faint.” Everyone in the ballroom below always seized upon and savored every tidbit of scandal about him that drifted their way. To see them dancing again after so long and so illicitly would create wild speculations in the scandal sheets. “But I would be delighted.”
“Not inside. Here.”
No doubt he was thinking of his dastardly reputation and the few ridiculous cartoons that had been drawn of them over the years. It warmed her heart and frustrated her in equal measure the care he was taking of her circumstances in society. She hesitated, before inclining her head in agreement. They met in the center of that narrow balcony. His hand settled about her waist, and his touch, though light, was an inescapable possession.
With a raw, confident power only he seemed to possess, he moved her into the dance. Evie was very much aware of his arm about her waist and of the strength and power of the shoulder that flexed beneath her hand. They glided across the narrow length with seemingly effortless ease.