cream and knew how to talk to an eleven-year-old girl and remembered how to roll a hoop?
Which man did Lydia want him to be?
Both.
The answer slipped like a whisper just beneath her heart.
A warning followed, but she chose to ignore it and allow the warmth and pleasure of the day to submerge her persistent unease.
Jane came hurrying back to fetch Lydia and Northwood for the start of a puppet show, and after a helping of lemon ice, they went to the area where the musicians had begun to play. The lively tunes swam above the sounds of laughter as a number of children and adults began dancing.
“Will you honor me with a dance?” Northwood asked, pausing beside Lydia.
“Dance? I—”
A grin tugged at his mouth. “You’re about to tell me you can’t dance, aren’t you?”
“Of course I can dance, Lord Northwood. I’m not ill-bred.” Lydia lifted her chin a fraction. “It’s simply been some time. I’m a bit out of practice, I fear.”
“Then I’ll enjoy teaching you again.” He curled his hand around her wrist, his fingers skimming the pulse beating too rapidly beneath her skin.
As they stepped onto the dance floor, Lydia expected him to draw her closer, but instead he wove a path around the couples who danced to a brisk country tune. He guided her into the easy rhythm of the dance. His grip remained firm on her waist, the warmth of his hand burning through her glove, his gaze so attentive it seemed as if he wanted to look nowhere else but at her.
And all of it, everything about him—his touch, his eyes, his grasp, the movement of his body mere inches from hers—incited a response of pure pleasure in Lydia, a pleasure undiluted by guilt or shame.
They parted several times to dance with others—Northwood with Jane and then Talia, Lydia with Sebastian and then Lord Castleford. After an energetic Scotch reel, she paused to sit on a bench and catch her breath. Then Sebastian began playing a waltz, and Lydia watched as Northwood stopped to look around. For her.
She waited, expectant, ready. Surprised at the happiness that filled her blood.
Alexander approached, his dark eyes twinkling. At that moment, Lydia wanted nothing else in the world. She put her hand in his and went out to dance again.
He watched her from his position hidden in the crowd. He remembered when he’d first laid eyes upon her.
She had arrived on a train. Not pretty at first glance—pallid skin from being indoors all the time, too serious, her forehead marred with frown lines. She’d barely said anything either, let her grandmother do all the talking. Then after they’d gotten home and she’d removed her coat and hat, he’d noticed the way her dress fitted her, the thickness of her hair, her dark eyelashes.
That was when the seeds of lust had sprouted, though it had taken many months of cultivation before they’d borne fruit.
All that time he’d spent—leaning over her shoulder at the table to point out an error in her equations, standing beside her at the blackboard, watching her at her desk, sitting across from her at the dinner table—all leading to that one afternoon when he’d summoned his courage and made his move.
And she had responded. Like a cat in heat.
Even now, remembering, he became aroused. He wanted that Lydia again. Not this one, not the hardened, older Lydia of today, but the young Lydia who’d arrived in Germany so quiet and serious. The Lydia who, contrary to every expectation he’d had about her, had blossomed under his touch—until that stupid girl had ruined everything.
Anger subsumed his arousal, tightening his chest. His hands curled into fists.
She owed him. She’d instigated his downfall from a prestigious career. She’d lost him the respect of his peers. She was the reason he’d returned to the filth of London. For well over a decade, Lydia Kellaway had owed him—and now the time had come to pay.
Chapter Ten
Alexander paced outside the building. A horse clomped past, pulling a wagon filled with broken furniture, rusted bits of metal, and a pile of greasy rags. The sun burned through the layer of yellowish fog permeating the city streets.
He flicked open his watch and gave a mutter of impatience. He had allowed four days to pass since the festival—days during which he’d stayed up well past midnight attempting to solve Lydia’s damned problem—before devising another excuse to seek the woman’s company. When he’d gone to her town house, Mrs. Boyd had told him Lydia had a