The music ended; he swung her to a flourishing halt—which, he noted, she enjoyed. Her unalloyed delight in the dance, something she’d permitted him to see, had to him been a subtle pleasure.
It was also a significant advance from where he had been when he’d first fixed his eye on her; then he hadn’t been able to see past her shield. Now…in moments like this, he glimpsed the woman behind it clearly.
With every fresh insight she grew more intriguing.
After one swift glance over the heads, he took her arm. “I believe it’s time for supper. Shall we?”
Her brows rose a little at his clear expectation of her agreement, but then she inclined her head. Her next words told him why. “The boys told me you’d formed some new gentlemen’s club in London. If they had it right, one with a rather unusual purpose.”
He smiled. And set about distracting her.
In that he was surprisingly successful; between her questions and his answers, ranging over the Bastion Club and its members, the true nature of his past service to the crown, Dalziel and his office, they progressed through supper in earnest conversation, sufficiently engrossed to discourage others from joining them. As they strolled back into the corridor leading to the ballroom, Gervase couldn’t recall a supper he’d enjoyed more.
Why he found her, of all females, so easy to talk to he didn’t know, yet her quick wits and the breadth of her understanding had allowed him to speak freely of topics he normally eschewed.
That had been another subtle pleasure, just being able to relax and speak without thought. Without censoring his words.
Perhaps it was dealing with her brothers that had left her so patently unshockable. So calm, so grounded.
Around her he felt anchored in a way he never had, not with any other, not at any time.
“This Dalziel,” she said. “You’re quite sure he’s right, and there is one last traitor somewhere in the government?”
Taking her arm, he turned her away from the ballroom. “Yes. If you met Dalziel you’d understand, but quite aside from the fact he’s the last person to invent things, we—the rest of us—have seen evidence that this last traitor exists. Jack Warnefleet got closest—he nearly caught the man’s henchman—but the traitor killed his man rather than allow him to fall into our, and Dalziel’s, hands.”
She walked beside him, looking ahead, puzzling over Dalziel’s nemesis and not really seeing. He knew that last was true; she made no demur when they reached a garden room and he opened the French doors giving on to it. Without comment, a faint frown on her face, she walked through.
“This traitor—what is known of him?”
“Another traitor suggested he had some connection with the War Office. Beyond that, the only physical description is of a tall, well-set-up, dark-haired gentleman of the ton.”
“Of the ton?” She whirled to face him as, having closed the door, he joined her.
He nodded. “He killed his henchman at a royal gala at Vauxhall. The only people who could obtain tickets were members of the ton, and the young lady who saw him was quite certain of his station.” He paused, looking into her eyes. “As Dalziel puts it, the last traitor is one of us.”
She looked stern—a severely disapproving Valkyrie. “No wonder he—Dalziel—is so determined to expose him.”
“Indeed. But enough of Dalziel.” His ex-commander had served his purpose. They stood alone in the garden room, well away from the ballroom. He reached for her.
Madeline blinked and glanced around; before she could do anything beyond register that they had somehow wandered down to Lady Moreston’s garden porch—a square room between two others, wall-less on one side and so open to
the garden with a pair of slim ivory columns framing the view—she was in Gervase’s arms.
Recalling his fell purpose—and her opposition—she braced her hands on his chest and pushed back to glare at him. “You distracted me.”
The accusation made him smile. “I did. I admit it.” Holding her fast within one arm, he raised his hand, and brushed the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. Leaving it throbbing. Then his eyes, dark in the weak light, lifted to hers. “And now I propose”—his hand shifted; his long fingers framed her jaw and tipped it up as his lips lowered to hers—“to distract you even more.”
Chapter 6
Madeline intended to hold firm, to refuse to play his game, but her besetting sin had other ideas.
No matter how much she’d tried to dismiss it, to play down her interest, that more adventurous side of her that she so rarely let loose knew the truth.
Knew how deeply she longed to know more, to learn of desire, and the passion that, with his arms around her and his lips on hers, seemed to hover at the edge of her perception.
It was that need to explore that had her twining her arms about his neck and kissing him back, had her sinking against him in flagrant encouragement entirely deaf to the protests of her rational mind.
Rationality, caution, held little sway as their mouths melded, as the kiss deepened and time spun away.