“Your word is good as gold, my dear.” Arthur smiled.
He danced so gracefully; it was like dancing on a cloud. As they moved from the Allemande to the Cotillion, she felt her shoulders relax, the tightness in her gut slowly unknotting itself.
She did love to dance, for all that she’d had little opportunity in the last four years. Little opportunity and even less occasion. Even so, it had long been among her favorite activities as a young woman. And indeed, her favorite lessons among those required for a girl of genteel breeding and good name.
“So sad, my dear? Have I distressed you?” Arthur’s voice broke into her thoughts.
“No. No, you have not distressed me. It was only a memory of something I used to do with my father, many years ago.” She shook her head.
“Your father? The family in London that you spoke of? I should like to meet him if that is the case.”
“No, I am afraid it is not.” She shook her head. “My father and I... we have been estranged for some time, and he and my mother reside far from London. It is other members of my family that I speak of when I talk of my kin in London.”
“Ah. Well, I should still like to meet them.”
That would not happen until she was a good deal more sure of the Duke’s disposition and trustworthiness. But she could not say that, not without spoiling the thus far amicable mood between them. Instead, she offered him a coy smile.
“Mayhap you shall. Though I do worry. I thought you might choose a lady of your own station to make your bride. But if station is no object, what prevents you from deciding you prefer my sister to me?” She had no qualms about claiming Scarlett as her sister. They were closer than blood in many ways and, as Scarlett herself had said, family in all ways that mattered.
“Ah, but why should I do so? It is you I fancy, Nora darling. You with your ready wit and a spirit that does not hesitate to challenge mine, even when we were but master and maid, rather than promised to one another. Did not you say that ‘sun and moon do never meet, and thus comparisons of love along such lines are less than nothing?” He smirked at her.
“And so I did, and I do not think I am wrong. But what has that to do with this?”
“Only that I need not seek another when I have your radiant features before me. And such features are only enhanced by your nature, which bids fair to blind me with brilliance.”
She managed to stifle her laughter at his words, but only barely, confining it to a single sniff of mock disapproval. “Such pretty words and empty flattery will win you little, for I’ll wager you speak them or something very like to all the pretty ladies you chase. And do not tell me they are few or non-existent when I have escorted one of them from your study myself!”
She gave him a bright smile, with more kindness than sarcasm, to show she meant the words in jest. Arthur responded with a sheepish look and a shrug of his broad shoulders.
“I will not deny it. Nonetheless…” He slowed their steps and brought them to a stop, fingers caressing hers as laughter danced in his bright gaze. “Nonetheless, that does not keep them from being true, Nora dear.” He lifted her hands to press a kiss to her fingers. “I should like to prove that to you.”
“And I may yet permit you to, Arthur. But pretty words alone will not win much favor.” She tipped her head.
“And why should they not?” There was the faintest edge to his voice as he regarded her, heat creeping into his eyes and turning them the color of honey, fresh from the hive. “You have given me almost no chance to offer much else, avoiding me as you did.”
“And why should I not?” She mimicked words and expression, despite having to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. “When you are asking me to escort your paramours from your study one day and propositioning me wearing nothing but a towel the next.”
“And can you truly say you disliked what you saw in the second occurrence? For I can well understand, now at least, why you might have been unhappy with the first. But surely I am not so displeasing to the eye.” There was still heat but also the faintest bit of insecurity.
She could not call him ugly, nor even anything less than handsome. But neither did she need to let him know that he might have won this particular round. She arched an eyebrow the way Scarlett had at home earlier when they were discussing the matter.
“Displeasing to the eye, you are not, dear Arthur…” It felt so strange to call him that and even more to feel as though she might mean it at some point. The man she had known before she would not have cared for, but the man who had been her dance instructor had been a gentleman worth knowing and someone she might, perhaps, come to have feelings for. “...but even you cannot deny that your manners and behaviors have not always been the most pleasing, not from the perspective of a lady, at least.”
His eyes flashed, even as his face flushed, and he drew her closer. “Maybe that is true, but if you would see me behave in a better manner, then you must stay around to witness it and not flee every time I glance in your direction.”
“And what incentive will you give me to stay? Especially since I am already pledged to be your wedded wife or will be as soon as the banns are posted and read.”
“Incentive, is it?” His voice went soft and enticing as he smiled. The smile was still playful, but there was an undercurrent of heat and promise that sent tension skittering through her shoulders and warmth coiling in her belly and lower still. “Well, if it is incentive you require…”
There was no more warning before he leaned in, cupping her head with one hand and tipping her chin up with the other before his mouth fastened on hers.
His lips were rough, a little dry, and warm. And demanding, claiming her own and leaving no room for resistance, even if she had wanted to resist him. Heat seemed to pass from him to her like a dart of lightning, like the scorch of a torch brushed too close to sensitive skin. She was scarcely aware of her hands, clutching at his jacket in an attempt to anchor herself as the kiss deepened.
His tongue swept across her lips, asking, coaxing a response, and she yielded to it and to the moment. Her own tongue flicked out to tease his, gaining her a startled inhalation as she boldly caressed his tongue with her own. A challenge that dared him to match her and try to draw her in, if he dared.
He did. His hands tucked her closer, a deep rumble coming from within his broad chest as his tongue dueled hers for dominance, then slid further into her mouth and drew what felt like a blazing trail across the roof of her mouth before tangling with hers once again.
She became aware, through the haze of pleasant heat, that it was becoming hard to remain upright, and her lungs were burning from want of air.