“Nothing,” she said again. It was a solid alibi. She was sticking with it.
Oliver wasn’t quite as massive as her brother Carver, but when he stepped in front of her and towered over her as he was doing just then, he felt very much like a giant. Elizabeth’s heart stumbled as she smelled his familiar scent—like mint and fresh rain and something else masculine and spicy that she couldn’t name. She wanted to bottle it up and carry it on a chain around her neck so she could inhale it whenever he wasn’t around.
“Then let me see your hands,” said Oliver, nodding toward her hands still tucked behind her back.
“No. They’re cold. I’m trying to warm them up.”
His eyes narrowed. “Mary said you left the ballroom because you were overheated.”
“Mmhmm. I am. But my hands are…cold.” She winced. She was a terrible liar and always had been.
As he spoke, he gave her the half smile that always made Elizabeth’s stomach turn inside out. “What scrape have you gotten into this time?” Before she could answer, he darted his hand behind her back and retrieved the broken slipper.
She sighed and looked on, a little crestfallen, as he held the pathetic accessory up to the flickering candlelight. He began to chuckle. Elizabeth tried to snatch the slipper back from his hand but he just lifted it higher. “How in the world did you manage to tear your slipper?” Well, he didn’t need to make it sound as if it was such a fantastic situation. In fact, it had torn quite easily.
As it turns out, when a lady stands on her tiptoes to get a good look at a gentleman across the ballroom, the back of her slipper might fall off. And when the back of the slipper is lying limply on the ground, another gentleman just might step on it. And when she goes to take a step, the heel of the slipper will remain pinned under his boot and the whole thing will tear. It was accomplished quite easily. But she couldn’t tell him that, because it had been Oliver who she was lifted on her tiptoes trying to see.
It was his fault for looking so ridiculously handsome in his evening attire.
“I must have snagged it on a chair or something. Who knows?” She shrugged, and Oliver simply raised an eyebrow, knowing her too well to believe such a docile story.
He turned his attention back to the slipper and flicked the fabric once again. “I’m afraid I can’t fix it. I’ve left my sewing kit in my other reticule.” This was what she loved most about Oliver: his sense of humor. That—and his eyes, as blue as the North Sea—and his laugh, the way it rumbled in his strong chest—and his nose, the way it sometimes crinkled when he was reading. And everything else about the man.
Oh, she was pathetic. This was exactly why she had decided to come to London: to find another recipient for her heart. She didn’t even feel too particular about who that someone might be—she just needed him to be a gentleman other than the one in front of her, someone who would return her love rather than continually dash her hopes of reciprocal feelings.
Elizabeth cleared her throat and extended her hand. “Never mind the slipper. I’ll manage with it as it is.”
But the handsome fool just smirked and held it up over his shoulder as if he expected her to make a lunge for it again. “How?”
“The same way I’ve been managing it for the past half hour. I slide my foot instead of picking it up.”
His face was too serious to be trusted. “I don’t know, I can’t picture it. Let me see the walk.”
She gave him a flat look. “Not going to happen. Give me my slipper, Oliver.”
“I must insist you show me your sliding walk, so I may judge whether it’s a sufficient cover or not. I cannot let my dearest friend parade about a ballroom looking as if she were mentally deranged.”
“I’m not performing the walk for you.”
He gave her a look that said, I think you are. She refuted his look with a challenging one of her own before rushing up to him, rising up on her tiptoes, and grabbing for her slipper. He, of course, being the ever-playful Oliver, raised it high above his head. But then he did something surprising. Oliver reached out and snaked an arm around her waist, pulling Elizabeth up close to him. She froze, feeling shot through the chest as her heart tried to recover, beating an unnatural rhythm.
Elizabeth expected him to let her go.
He didn’t.
Oliver was only teasing. He was always teasing or playing some amusing game with her, although never a game quite like this one. But, still, he must have simply been teasing her. However, when she willed herself to meet his gaze, she saw something entirely new reflected in his eyes. She was dry brush and his eyes were a loose flame. There was no teasing glint. No smirk. His face was solemn and his eyes bored into hers. Knowing exactly what to do—because she had dreamt of this moment a million times before—her greedy hand raised to rest on his chest. She sucked in a breath when his hold around her waist tightened. She could feel the warmth of his hand searing through the fabric of her gown.
Her lips parted and her breath shook when his eyes fell to her lips. She pressed her hand a little heavier against his strong chest and felt his heart beating a rapid rhythm not so different from her own. If Oliver hadn’t been holding her so firmly to him, she would have undoubtedly melted into a puddle on the floor by now. Someone would have needed to mop her up. Fortunately, he was holding her as if the last breath of humanity lived within her body.
Was he going to kiss her?
“What?” Oliver’s slightly husky voice broke through the moment, to her horror, alerting Elizabeth to the fact that she had spoken the question aloud.
Oliver abruptly released her and stepped away, the fire in his eyes dying, replaced by a new, closed-off expression.
No, no, no, no.
She saw a muscle in his jaw jump as he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Lizzie. That was…”