Antonia looked into his eyes and caught her breath with a shock of love and longing. She wanted to reach out and touch his hair, smooth out the tension that only she could discern in the taut skin over his high cheekbones and caress the lips that had kissed her so thrillingly only the night before.
Instead, she looked at Claudia Reed sitting close to him and hardened her heart. No, she would not let herself be hurt by a man who continued his liaison with such a woman, so blatantly, so cruelly.
‘Is Mr Blake not with you?’ Marcus’s voice recalled her attention.
‘Mr Blake? Why, no. Were you expecting him?’
‘I expected you to be accompanied by your fiancé.’
‘My fiancé? Why, Your Grace, I am not engaged to be married to anyone.’ She widened her eyes innocently. ‘You must have dreamt it. The moonlight has such a strange effect, do you not find?’
Marcus’s lips narrowed and his eyes sparked with unshielded emotion. Antonia found her wrist gripped none too gently as he pulled her closer to his side. ‘Do not toy with me, Antonia. Are you telling me Blake lied to me last night?’
'Last night? I cannot imagine to what you refer, Your Grace. I was in bed last night.’
She gasped as his fingers tightened and he bent his head so close to hers that she felt his breath on her mouth.
‘Last night, madam, you were in my arms on the riverbank and, if that fool Blake had not blundered in, I would have made you mine.’ His eyes glittered and Antonia was seized with the wild thought that he would take her in his arms, stride out into the night and complete his seduction there and then.
‘Marcus, do not monopolise Miss Dane, you have all evening to talk to her.’ Lady Anne advanced across the Chinese carpet towards them, ‘And here is Sir George just come down. Antonia, allow me to make him known to you.’
Colonel Sir George Reed was a sad disappointment to Antonia who had imagined a distinguished military man of impeccable bearing, nobly sacrificing hearth and home for duty. Instead, the man who took her hand in his damp grasp reminded her of no one more than the Duke of York. Portly, the red veins of his cheeks competing with the scarlet of his dress uniform jacket, and with a lecherous eye to match that of the Prince Regent’s brother, he bent over her hand.
For a moment, as he held fast to her fingers, Antonia felt a stab of sympathy for Claudia. Faced with such a husband, who would not turn to another man for consolation, especially if the other man was Marcus?
Sir George’s corsets creaked as he straightened up from planting a kiss on Antonia’s gloved hand and she had a struggle to repress a giggle. To her alarm, he tucked her hand under his arm and announced, ‘Now, my dear, you must allow me to take a little promenade up and down the room while I learn all about you.’
Antonia shot a glance of startled entreaty towards Marcus, which he met with a stony gaze. Claudia, on the other hand, smiled vixen-like from her chaise longue as her husband, perspiring profusely from the combination of tight stays and the intense heat, passed by.
‘Now, do not allow Miss Dane to tire you, Georgie darling,’ she called sweetly, bringing a flush to Antonia’s cheeks.
But Antonia was far more exercised preventing Georgie darling’s straying fingers from inching any further up her arm towards the underswell of her breast. It took all her social grace not to shake him off and slap his face. Instead, she drew herself up stiffly and away from him and enquired in a voice of frigid formality if the drive from Brighton had been free of incident.
‘Tiresome, tiresome, my dear, but nothing which cannot be forgotten in the face of your beauty,’ he wheezed enthusiastically. Mercifully Lady Anne appeared and begged Sir George to permit her to take Miss Dane to admire the new hangings in the study.
The two ladies shut the door of the study behind themselves and gazed at each other. It was difficult to tell which was the more horrified, and almost together they said, ‘Beastly man…’
‘My dear Miss Dane, I cannot apologise enough. Had I known what he was like I would never have invited him! No wonder Marcus was so angry with me. And the Reeds obviously loathe one another. My dear, you must not leave my side for an instant. Fortunately he has shown not the slightest interest in Sophia, she is far too young for his taste, thank goodness.’ Lady Anne subsided into a chair and fanned her flushed cheeks.
‘What is the seating plan for dinner?’ Antonia asked, seized with a sudden alarming thought.
'Oh, my heavens.' Lady Anne jumped up. 'I must see Mead at once, for I fear I have placed Sir George next to you…’ She hastened from the room, leaving Antonia to divert her thoughts by admiring the handsome cut-velvet draperies at the windows. They changed the aspect of the room somewhat from that cool day in March when she had been dragged unceremoniously into Marcus’s presence, accused of poaching.
She ran her fingers over the arm of the carved chair in which she had been sitting when he had kissed her for the first time. The warmth of that recollection was rudely interrupted by a kiss of a very different kind: the pressure of wet lips on her bare shoulder.
Antonia spun round with a small shriek of outrage to find herself pinned against the desk by the rotund and lascivious figure of Colonel Sir George Reed. ‘Alone at last,’ he announced with undisguised satisfaction.
‘No, leave me be,’ Antonia gasped, wriggling away.
‘No need to pretend now. My wife told me you were a bit of a goer, a game pullet.’ He opened his arms as if to envelop her. ‘Good of our hostess to make this room available, what? Thought she was a bit starched up at first, but I was wrong.’
‘Sir George, I believe your wife is looking for you.’
Marcus’s voice dripped ice. Antonia, glimpsing his set face over the gold braid of the Colonel’s shoulder, thought she had never been so glad to see him.
Sir George swung round with an oath, but clearly failed to read the danger signals in his host’s face. ‘Damn it, Allington, no need to spoil sport. After all, you’ve got Claudia to amuse you.’
‘Sir, if you cannot take a hint, I may be forced to make my meaning more plain. I do not wish to embarrass Lady Reed, a guest in my house, by calling out her husband, but if you persist in annoying Miss Dane, you leave me no choice.’