“Countless times,” Nick said, hating himself but keeping his voice as light as he could. He really did not favor lying to women, no matter what that made him in their eyes.
“I wish you weren’t so honest.” Leah shifted back, and Nick feared she was regretting her advances.
“I wish you weren’t so pretty,” Nick rejoined. “I wish you had an honorable papa. Now, how about you introduce me to your negligent brother?”
He led her back around to the doors opening into the ballroom, and she even suffered his scrutiny when he made her tarry under a torch that he might inspect her presentation. Nick prided himself on being able to kiss a woman passionately without messing her hair, but had to ask her to smooth his back into place. She obliged by sifting her fingers repeatedly through his hair, until he had to straighten, clear his throat, and deliver a mental lecture to parts of him that were getting untoward ideas from even such a simple, casual caress.
Four
Darius nodded at Nick’s retreating back, Lady Blanche Cowell nigh wrapped around Reston’s arm as they walked away. “So where did you meet that?”
“I met him in the park with Emily,” Leah said, and then because the dratted woman’s perusal of Nick had been so possessive even as she’d clung to Darius’s elbow, “Where did you meet her?”
“She’s frequently at the same functions you are,” Darius said, delivering what Leah suspected was a lie—Darius was nigh gulping his wine. “She travels in a slightly less genteel circle.”
“Lord Reston apparently frequents the same set.” And that hurt, even while it also reminded Leah that Nick’s aid was a product of chivalry, nothing more.
“You needn’t sound so offended, Sister mine. I will run screaming into the night if Blanche gives up the juicy prey on her arm and returns her attentions to me.”
There was something off in Darius’s observation, for all he’d handled the introductions with careful punctilio. “You don’t like Reston?”
“I like him well enough, though I can’t say I know him.”
Ah. Darius did not like Blanche Cowell, then. When Leah and Nick had come upon Darius literally in Blanche’s clutches, Leah’s brother’s expression had been one of banked despair. The notion that Leah had abandoned her brother when he might have needed her was insupportable. “Is Lady Cowell trifling with you?”
Darius scowled at her. “I am not going to dignify that, unless you want to tell me if Reston is trifling with you. Shall I lead you out or find you a place to hide?”
“Leave me in peace.” She wasn’t up to concealing her emotions from her brother, but knew if they went home before supper, her father would be railing at her, reminding her he didn’t spend a fortune on ball gowns so she could hide away at home night after night.
“Keep an eye out for Hell-raiser,” Darius warned. “If you see him, find me or Lord Val, or even your new friend Reston.”
Leah waved him off with a flick of her fan and sank onto a bench nearly obscured by potted plants. She loved her brothers, and she owed them more than she could ever repay, but Darius of late had been more than a little trying.
If she did see Hellerington, she was under strict orders from Wilton to be pleasant to the man, just as she was supposed to be pleasant to Reston.
And look what had come of that.
She blushed anew at her forwardness and at Reston’s careful retreat. He was trying to help her, for pity’s sake, and she had to behave like the strumpet her father believed her to be.
A ruthlessly honest part of her had to admit, though, that strumpethood had never been so appealing. Reston’s scent was divine, and dancing with him… When Nick Haddonfield held her, she felt protected, cherished, understood, and… treasured. When he kissed her, she felt all that, and so much more that was wicked, wonderful, and hopeless.
She didn’t know how much time went by while she sorted feelings, arguments, and more feelings, but in the end, she could only conclude she’d suffered a lapse of judgment when she’d kissed Nick—kissed him again. He was a flirt, that much was obvious, and she’d misread his generous willingness to dance with her on the back terrace. It was just more of his kindness, no doubt. She’d have to apologize, relocate her dignity, and watch her step in the future.