‘Then allow me.’ Bradon whipped the card from her hand, frowned at it, then put his initials against the first set and another after supper. Luc lowered one eyelid in what might have been the ghost of a wink and turned back to the young lady in sea-green, who was, of course, speaking French.
She had auburn hair and was quite lovely. She also appeared to find Luc fascinating. In fact, it seemed mutual, judging by the intensity with which they were making eye contact. Something tightened inside Averil, an uncomfortable twist of what was almost apprehension.
For goodness’ sake! Why should Luc not enjoy talking to a pretty young woman? He was, she reminded herself, looking for a wife. A French wife. It would be foolish indeed of her to expect him to reject the company of other women simply because she was not going to become his mistress.
He had probably already taken a new mistress, she thought, sliding even deeper into gloom at the thought. He was not a man to stay celibate for long, she was sure.
The scrape of bowstrings caused the chattering guests to turn towards the floor and the first chords from the orchestra on the dais brought the dancers on to the floor to make up the first set, the country dance that was opening the ball.
Bradon took her arm and steered her into the line of ladies before taking his place facing her. Lady Farringdon, a sprightly blonde, took the head of the line, called the first figure, and they were away. Averil was too occupied in concentrating on her steps to do more than follow Bradon’s lead for at least the first fifteen minutes, then they were safely down the line, had executed a complicated figure without her falling over and disgracing herself again and she began to relax a trifle.
Luc was halfway down the line, partnered by the girl in sea-green, who was, of course, dancing with grace and confidence and managing to talk at the same time.
He was courting her, it was obvious in the way he moved, the way he looked at her, the way she coyly avoided looking at him. The sensation in Averil’s stomach stopped being a vague discomfort and became a pain she recognised, even though she had never felt it before. It was jealousy. Full-blown, green-eyed, savage jealousy. She should be ashamed. But she was not.
I love him, Averil thought, and turned blindly to follow Bradon’s lead through the next figure. I love him. It was not simply desire, or gratitude for her rescue. She wanted him body and soul and heart, even if he never touched her or kissed her again. She wanted him as the father of her children. She wanted to grow old with him.
Appalled, Averil looked at Bradon, the man to whom she would be tied for life, who would be, if she was blessed with them, the father of her children. And she could feel nothing except a vague pity for his coldness.
He was well-enough looking, there would be nothing to actively repel her when he came to her
bed. He seemed intelligent enough. Until a few minutes ago the fact that she did not love him had not mattered one iota—she had not expected ever to experience that emotion. Now she was dizzy with despair because she knew what it felt like to love a man and she could never have him.
‘Are you quite well, my dear?’ Bradon bent to murmur in her ear as the measure brought them to stand side by side. ‘You have gone quite pale.’
‘It is very warm in here,’ she lied. Her limbs felt numb with cold.
‘I would have thought that after India you would be accustomed,’ he said with a frown. ‘You are not … unwell?’
‘No, I am not,’ she almost snapped back. ‘And I have been out of India’s heat for months now, my lord.’
‘We had best sit out the remainder of the set, I think.’ He took her arm to guide her out of the line, but Averil resisted. She did not want to have to sit with nothing to do but think, nothing to look at but Luc and the French girl, so absorbed in each other.
Somehow she got through the set, and the next, a cotillion where she was partnered by a shy young man who hardly managed to articulate his request for the dance. Without any need to converse Averil was left to work her way through the complex figures and to brood on Luc.
Even if he knew she loved him he would not marry her. He had made his requirements in a bride quite clear. She must be French and even Averil’s spoken French was inadequate. She must be of aristocratic breeding and Averil’s grandfather had been a shopkeeper. There was nothing except a physical attraction to make him want her and she had a sinking suspicion that once he had made love to her fully and satisfied that urge, then she would hold no further attraction for him. She was hardly skilled in the arts of love. How long, she wondered gloomily, would he have kept her if she had yielded to his desire and become his mistress? A week, a month?
Shy Mr McCormack delivered her back to Lady Kingsbury with mumbled thanks. The orchestra stopped to retune, the volume of conversation rose. At any moment Luc would come to claim her for the next set and she had not the slightest idea what she would talk to him about, or even if she was capable of conversation.
She was so lost in painful thought that when he appeared in front of her in the flesh she gasped.
‘Am I startling you again, Miss Heydon? I do apologise.’ Luc stood there, elegant and groomed, a thousand miles from the piratical figure who had hauled her naked from the beach on St Helen’s. But that man was still there with the dangerous fire in those deep grey eyes, the jut of that arrogant nose, the set of the determined chin. And the lean figure, all hard-toned muscle and long bones that made her mouth dry with desire when she looked at him. Those were the same.
And so was the mouth that could thin into a hard line of anger or curve into a smile that made her want to follow him into sin and back, that could bark orders in one breath and breathe promises of those sins with another.
‘I was momentarily distracted, Count,’ Averil said. She got to her feet without a stumble by focusing every ounce of concentration on her deportment. I stand just so, my hands like this, my back straight and shoulders down. Head up. Fan and reticule—both under control. Chin up. Smile. Put out my hand to him …
She thought she was succeeding admirably until they took their places for the quadrille. ‘What is wrong, Averil?’
‘A headache, that is all.’ The smile became brighter.
‘You no more have a headache than I have. Is it your thoughts that are painful?’
‘Perhaps,’ she admitted. ‘It is not such an easy thing as I thought it would be, to travel so many miles and to learn to live with strangers on such terms of intimacy.’
‘Do you think Bradon will become easier with acquaintance?’
‘He is not a man who finds it easy to give expression to his feelings,’ Averil said, choosing her words with care.