ball, however, was such a crush Alicia was grateful that the size of Adriana’s court gave them some protection.
As was her habit, after delivering Adriana to her admirers, she stepped back to the wall. There were chairs for chaperones a little way along, but she’d quickly realized that, not truly being chaperone material, it behooved her to avoid those who were; they were too inquisitive.
Besides, standing just feet away, she was near if Adriana needed help in dealing with any difficult suitor or avoiding the more wolfish elements who had started to appear at the periphery of her court.
Such gentlemen Alicia showed no hesitation in putting to rout.
The strains of the violins heralded a waltz, one Adriana had granted to Lord Heathcote. Alicia was watching, relaxed yet eagle-eyed as her sister prettily took his lordship’s arm, when hard fingers closed about her hand.
She jumped, swallowed a gasp. The fingers felt like iron.
Outraged, she swung around, and looked up—into the dark, hard-featured face of the gentleman from the shadows.
Her lips parted in shock.
One black brow arched. “That’s a waltz starting— come and dance.”
Her wits scattered. By the time she’d regathered them, she was whirling down the room, and it was suddenly seriously difficult to breathe.
His arms felt like steel, his hand hard and sure on her back. He moved gracefully, effortlessly, all harnessed power, hard muscle and bone. He was tall, lean, yet broad-shouldered; the notion that he’d captured her, seized her and swept her away, and now had her in his keeping, flooded her mind.
She shook it aside, yet the sensation of being swept up by a force beyond her control, engulfed by a strength entirely beyond her power to counter, shocked her, momentarily dazed her.
Tangled her tongue.
Left her mentally scrambling to catch up—and filch the reins of her will back from his grasp.
The look on his face—one of all-seeing, patronizing, not superiority but control—helped enormously.
She dragged in a breath, conscious of her bodice tightening alarmingly. “We haven’t been introduced!” The first point that needed to be made.
“Anthony Blake, Viscount Torrington. And you are?”
Flabbergasted. Breathless again. The timbre of his voice, deep, low, vibrated through her. His eyes, deepest black under heavy lids, held hers. She had to moisten her lips. “Alicia…Carrington.”
Where were her wits?
“Mrs. Carrington.” She dragged in another breath, and felt the reel her wits had been whizzing through start to slow.
His eyes hadn’t left hers. Then he slipped his shoulder from under her hand, and that hand, her left, was trapped in his. His fingers shifted, finding the gold band on her ring finger.
His lips twisted fleetingly; he replaced her hand on his shoulder and continued to whirl her smoothly down the room.
She stared at him, beyond astonished. Inwardly thanking the saints for Aunt Maude’s ring.
Then she blinked, cleared her throat, and looked over his shoulder into safe oblivion. “I must thank you for your help last evening—I hope the matter was concluded without any undue difficulties. I do ask you to excuse my early retreat.” She risked a glance at his face. “I fear I was quite overcome.”
In her experience most men accepted that excuse without question.
He looked as if he didn’t believe it for a moment.
“Quite overcome,” she reiterated.
The cynical scepticism—she was sure it was that—in his narrowing eyes only deepened.
Theatrically, she sighed. “I was attending with my unmarried younger sister. She’s in my care. I had to take her home—my responsibility to her came first, above all else, as I’m sure you’ll understand.”
For a full minute, not a muscle moved in his classically sculpted face, then his brows rose. “I take it Mr. Carrington was not present?”