“Silas, you’re holding me too tightly.”
He emerged from his fit of the sullens—confound it, no woman but Caro pierced his sangfroid—to find her watching him curiously. And with more of that dashed wariness.
Careful, Silas.
He made himself smile and loosened the hand clutching her waist the way a falling man clutched an overhang on a mountainside. “My apologies.”
He’d imagined that their friendship would offer him some advantage over other predatory males. Now he wondered if he’d made a basic mistake in his strategy. He’d become part of the furniture of her life when she was on the hunt for novelty and excitement.
His fear of competition was well founded. In this room a host of men, good and bad, watched the beautiful widow with avid eyes. He could hardly blame them. In unrelieved black, she’d been lovely. In a red gown with gold embroidery and a décolletage that skimmed the edges of propriety—and a few other things—she was breathtaking. With difficulty, Silas kept his attention on her face and not on the wealth of white skin displayed below her collarbones.
As he whirled her around the room, her smile became more natural. “No, I’m sorry. I spoke inappropriately. It’s partly your fault. You’ve become a mainstay of my life since I came to London. Like Helena or Fenella.”
Bugger him to hell and back. He only just hid a wince. “I don’t want to see you hurt.”
Which was true, if not the whole truth. He intended to be the man to introduce her to sensual delight. She’d only ever mentioned her married life in passing. But hints—and the few stultifyingly dull occasions when he’d met Freddie Beaumont, a good soul, but as thick-witted as a sheep—had led him to some interesting conclusions about her sexual experience. She was ripe with womanly promise, but every instinct screamed that all her bottled-up passion had never yet found outlet.
His declaration left her unmoved. “I intend to have some fun, Silas. I’m not looking for anything significant.”
He knew it was a mistake to ask. What point torturing himself? And worse, inviting another set-down. “Have you decided on a lucky candidate?”
For a second, he worried that he’d betrayed how important her answer was. But after a pause, she responded. “A few gentlemen have caught my interest.”
He sucked in a relieved breath. She hadn’t made her choice yet, so the affair remained in the realm of theory.
She lowered her voice. “Lord West is a most charming gentleman.”
Shock made Silas trip, he who had learned to dance at eight years old and hadn’t made a misstep since.
“West?” he choked out, forgetting all his plans for a subtle pursuit. Luckily his inamorata watched that popinjay West waltz with Helena a few feet away. Caro was too distracted to notice that her dance partner contemplated murder.
“We’ve met several times. He’s articulate and handsome and seems considerate.”
The unconcealed interest in her dark blue eyes threatened to make Silas lose his dinner. In an attempt to rein in his explosive reactions, he looked at Vernon Grange, Baron West, the man he’d previously considered his best friend. “Until he moves on to his next mistress. West has an appalling reputation with women.”
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” she retorted.
He looked down into Caro’s piquant face under the elaborate coronet of dark brown curls set with glittering diamond pins. His darling was no fragile beauty like her friend Fenella Deerham. Her face was too angular and full of character to be fashionably pretty. But the sight of her transformed his day from the mundane to the extraordinary.
And she talked about wasting herself on that scoundrel West.
Silas told himself that a short affair with another man didn’t toll a death knell to his dreams. But everything male roared denial. Silas didn’t want Caro Beaumont in West’s bed. He wanted her in his bed. For always.
With difficulty, he found the rhythm of the music again. “He’ll leave you once he’s bored—and that usually means after only a few weeks.”
She was back to regarding him like a complete stranger, blast her. “Stone, I’m contemplating a fling, not lifelong slavery.”
Slavery? What a clod he was. Finally and reluctantly, he recognized that her opposition to a second marriage was real—and deep-seated. Dear God in heaven, all the clues had been there. He’d just been too lost in a rosy fog of love and hope to see them.
Given time, that was a problem he could surely overcome. The threat of Caro tumbling into West’s bed in the meantime was far more immediate. “He’s a debauchee and incapable of fidelity.”
She frowned in puzzlement. “I thought he was your friend.”
He used to be. “That doesn’t mean I’m blind to his faults.”
Silas’s blood thundered to haul her out of that blackguard West’s reach. Not to mention all the other boneheads infesting this room. He retained enough of his previously civilized self to resist the impulse. Just.
Love, it seemed, made beasts of men. How wise he’d been to avoid it all these years.