He was brought back to the moment by Beatrice’s hand on his cheek.
‘You are missing from me.’
‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘Never.’
Her cheeks flushed. ‘I remember when I so looked forward to experiencing a ball. And now I find myself impatient to leave so that you and I can be alone.’
‘If your brother were not here, I might take you into the garden again.’
‘That I would enjoy. But perhaps I would be the one to pleasure you.’
His desire had him in a chokehold. And he knew that he should not tease her like this, not so openly. But everyone around them was dancing, and they were far too interested in their own entanglements to worry at all about Briggs and his wife.
He moved his hand up between her shoulder blades, then up still to the back of her neck, his hold turning possessive. And he felt her shiver beneath his touch.
‘A promise,’ he said. ‘For later.’
‘I will hold you to that promise. I must warn you, I’m feeling particularly unruly tonight.’
‘You shall require a firm hand.’
Her grin lit up the ballroom. And he felt it square at the centre of his chest.
‘I do hope so.’
When he looked up it was because he felt, rather than saw, someone looking at him. And he was correct. The Duke of Kendal had fixed him with a thousand-yard stare that felt rather like a knife at the centre of his back.
He had been wrong then, about the interest of others. Hugh needed to find himself a woman to distract him, for Briggs had no interest in being the focus of his attention.
But then, Hugh would not find the sort of woman he liked here. While he did not share Briggs’s specific affinities, what he knew was that his friend tended towards a level of roughness not ever visited upon gently bred ladies.
‘Come on,’ he said.
He led her out towards the back of the ballroom, to the terrace. And he sensed that Kendal was following them.
He was not in the mood to have a discussion with his friend about the
details of his intimate life.
‘What is it?’
‘Oh, I imagine we will discover exactly what it is in just a few moments.’
‘Why exactly was I watching as the two of you flirted outrageously on a dance floor?’
‘We are married,’ Beatrice pointed out. ‘I cannot be ruined by my own husband.’
‘Do not be incorrigible,’ Hugh said. ‘You and I both know the circumstances of your marriage.’
‘Nobody knows the circumstances of our marriage but us,’ Beatrice said.
And he did want to tell her to not play quite so grandly with his fate. He did like to be alive.
‘Briggs, I asked one thing of you.’
‘Yes. You asked me to take care of your sister. You asked me to treat her as a ward.’
‘I have the sense things have changed.’