A puzzled frown creased her forehead. “Why are you smiling?”
“Because you’re here. You appeared out of the music like a spirit.”
Mockery lit the rich blue eyes. “You summoned me.”
“Now I know that I can, I’ll do it again.”
Humor faded. “No. Tonight is special.”
A reminder that this might be the only time he kissed her. Recklessness surged. Damn it, he’d make sure she never forgot him.
He cupped the delicate line of her jaw. He felt rather than saw her tiny start at the contact. This was like trying to lure a wild creature to his hand. A fluttering bird. Any second, she might take fright and vanish forever. The knowledge that her urge to flee was at least as strong as her will to stay made each second a prize. “For me, too.”
Her skin was warm beneath his fingers. No man who touched her would believe she was the ice maiden people called her.
Because he felt that the untouchable goddess Lady Marianne Seaton was real and vivid—and eminently touchable—he spoke the words that had burned in his throat since she’d drawn away. “I could show you more.”
That winsome little frown reappeared. The same numskulls who called Marianne Seaton an ice maiden said they found her as lovely and impassive as a statue, but Elias had never thought that. He’d immediately recognized her essential shyness.
He stroked her satiny cheek. “Let me show you more.”
Trouble shadowed her eyes to cobalt. “I’m not—”
He smiled tenderly. “Something just for you.”
“You’re trying to ruin me,” she whispered. Pain scored his heart as she stepped back, breaking his hold.
He shook his head. “On my honor, no. I swear you’ll leave as pure as you are now.”
“What’s your reward?” she asked with a hint of grimness.
“My reward is your pleasure.” He shrugged. “I won’t lie and say I don’t want more. But I’m not an impulsive boy. I can control myself. You’re safe, Marianne.”
“Am I?” She stared at him as if weighing his soul.
“You have my word. I’ve watched you so closely. You devote your life to making other people happy. Tonight I offer you a gift—an hour of pure self-indulgence.”
She swallowed, her white throat working. “And you promise that nobody will know?”
“Nobody.”
“It’s…tempting.”
Defying his impulse to seize her, he stepped away to allow her space to decide. Although he knew that in letting her go, he risked losing her. “An interval of selfish enjoyment. I can guess nobody has ever offered you that.”
“No.”
The word was a mere filament of sound. The house settled around them in slumbering silence. It was like they were the sole two people awake on earth.
He’d hesitated to mention anything beyond this encounter because reminding her of his hopes was the surest way to drive her off. Now he dared. “Accept this, even if you’ll accept nothing else from me.”
She stood regarding him for so long that he became convinced she meant to deny him. And herself.
Then she straightened and gave a stiff nod, as if accepting a challenge to a duel.
He supposed in her own way, she was.
“Very well,” she whispered. ?