“How do you mean?” he asked, with a smile of his own growing.
“The way you look at me,” she said softly. “It would be almost easy to believe that you did like me.”
“I never said I didn’t like you, Julia.” He turned her away from another couple, preventing a collision. The movement brought the two of them a few inches closer together, meaning she had to tilt her chin up toward him. He was suddenly enraptured by her scent, rose and honeysuckle.
“Not quite. Maybe you hinted at it,” she said, her voice still soft. “Yet this look… is it how you look at all your ladies?”
“Well, you have heard of my reputation, have you not?” He was unable to stop his mischief now. “I am rather good at the practiced art of seduction by now.”
“Ha! You make it sound as if ladies are all instruments. Like these violins that play for us now. You play them, merely, and work them to sing your tune.”
“I am not quite as callous as you believe me to be.” He shifted his hand across her waist a little, pulling her closer to him. When Julia’s breath hitched, he smiled a little.
I love the effect I can have on her.
“Any lady I have been with has wanted what I desired too.”
“What was that?” she asked, her voice a little breathless.
“Excitement. It may be fleeting, even momentary in our lives, but sometimes that thrill is worth all the risk in the world.” He paused with his words, turning her in his arms a little. Her hands seemed to grip to him a little more. “Does that sound so awful?” She didn’t answer, but she bit her lip. It made his eyes shoot down to those lips, wondering how it could be to taste her in a kiss once again. “You are avoiding answering.”
“I am.” She acknowledged. “You claim to be the master of seduction. Is that what this look is? The one you give me now? So that any onlooker will believe you are completely enamored, Your Grace?”
“Is it wrong if I say it is?” he asked. He kept his eyes on hers, though he shifted his hand against her palm. No longer did her fingers rest in the crook of his hand, but their fingers became entwined together. It was an infinitely more intimate hold. “Look at me in the same way. If your Lord Gillet is watching us, he will soon give up hope when he sees that look.”
“I do not know how to look like you do now,” Julia whispered. Edward inched toward her a little more, watching as her gaze changed.
“Then you are a natural, for you are doing it already.” His words made her gaze flit down to his lips, then raise again.
Oh, to have another kiss, Julia.
“Do I pass your test of being a good seducer?” she asked with a playful smile after a minute. Edward was distracted. He was too busy thinking of her hand in his own and the look she was giving him, wondering what it would be like if she wasn’t putting on that look. How lucky would he feel if she would truly look at him like that, without being prompted to do so? “Edward, you have lost the power of your tongue.”
“A little,” he confessed. “I think I am just beginning to realize something about you, Julia.”
“What is that?” she asked.
Before he answered her, he turned the two of them together once again, avoiding more couples on the floor. It made her body brush briefly against his own, and her hand on his shoulder clung to him. That touch was enough to make his body tense, imagining things.
Stop thinking of it! I am dancing, for goodness’ sake, not alone in a lady’s chamber.
“I think you can have quite a lot of power over a man. When you choose to use it,” he said softly. His words clearly amused her, for she smiled, nearly giggling as she looked up at him.
“I? No. I have no power over men.”
“You think that?”
“I know that.” She spoke confidently. “Men do not fall at my beck and call.”
“Maybe one man would.” The words escaped him before he could think of stopping them.
“You are flirting once again,” she said, smiling. “Is this all part of your ploy? Have you said such things to all your past ladies?”
“I could not tell you that, could I?” Edward said, smiling too. “Then you would know all my secrets.”
“Ha! Something tells me you are a man that keeps many secrets locked away and hidden.” Her words made him slow the pace of their dancing a little, so that they were moving side to side, gentle in one another’s arms, their gazes never wandering from each other.
“You are perceptive,” he said quietly.