Abandoned to the Prodigal - Mary Lancaster Page 0,63
whatever leads you to imagine that?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I know you feel things deeply.”
Subtly, the character of the once brotherly embrace had changed. “Do you?” he said deliberately. “Such as what?”
“Concern for your mother, care for your grandfather’s people…”
“And for you?”
She searched his face. “You have been a good, kind friend to me.”
“Have I, Juliet?” He threw his head back against the folded shutter with a half-laughing groan. “I have to stop acting from impulse. Look, I shall go back first and watch for you from the door so that you’re never alone where Barden can get to you. Wait about five minutes so no one connects our reappearance.”
He was right, of course, Being discovered here was fresh ruin. She tried not to be disappointed and simply nodded. “Very well.”
He put his finger under her chin, tilting her face up to his searching gaze. “You will be fine now?”
Her gaze dipped to his lips, fascinated by their texture, and their movements as he spoke. “Of course I will.”
“And the next dance is mine?”
“If you still wish it.”
His breath caught. The finger under her chin moved, caressing, and was joined by his thumb. “Oh, the devil,” he muttered and kissed her.
She opened to him with a sigh that was almost relief. She touched his face with wonder, loving the faint stubble beneath her hand. It was a gentle kiss, sweet and exploring, and her whole being seemed wrapped in its glow.
He raised his head.
She swallowed. “Was that comfort also?”
Slowly, he shook his head. “That pretense is long gone.” He swooped, capturing her mouth again in a swift, sensual kiss that parted her lips and then left them.
“Stop putting ideas in my head, Juliet Lilbourne,” he said with mock severity.
“I never said anything.”
“You don’t need to. That’s the trouble. Five minutes and I’ll be watching.”
When the door closed, she reached up and touched her lips. They were smiling. And somehow, she no longer cared about Barden’s distasteful talk, or his vile assumptions, or even about his villainy. Because somehow Dan’s kisses raised her above it all.
*
He was as good as his word. She spent a moment in the supper room with the servants, deigning to approve their arrangements, then poured two glasses of lemonade, one of which she would pretend was for her mother since it was a good excuse to be out of the drawing room alone.
She arrived back just as the country dance was ending. Dan stood with Ferdy and a couple of other people near the door. Anne was hurrying toward them.
Dan smiled at Juliet, just as if he hadn’t kissed her only minutes before. “My dance, still, I hope?”
“Of course, let me just take this to Mama—”
“I’ll take it,” Ferdy offered, taking one glass off her hands.
She thanked him and sipped from the other, smiling at Anne. Beyond her cousin, she noticed her mother. She wore a faint smile, as she often did when she had stopped listening to the conversation but wanted to pretend she was still interested. Her eyes darted now and again, always in the same direction.
Juliet followed her glance and saw her father, seated beside Dan’s mother, deep in conversation.
She dragged her gaze back to Dan. “Is it a waltz?” she asked brightly.
“I hope so,” Dan said. “I bribed the fiddler with a secret glass of champagne.”
Juliet laughed and set down her glass to accompany him to the dancefloor.
The contrast between her last dance and this one could not have been greater. Both comfortable and thrilled in Dan’s presence, she welcomed his embrace for the dance, rejoiced in his nearness, the very scent of him.
And of course, it was fun. They exchanged banter and simply talked together as they hadn’t been able to since the days of their secret walks. And all the time, her heart beat faster, and her whole body thrummed with awareness of him. Some huge idea was forming in her mind, but she refused to dwell on it for fear of spoiling the moment. After all, on either side of the present lurked all the disagreeable anxieties involving ruin, Barden, and her broken engagement.
But for now, she lost herself in the exhilaration of the dance, turning and swaying to the beguiling rhythm in the arms of the man who made her feel safe and alive. Her friend.
Toward the end of the dance, he was silent and thoughtful, glancing often toward the curtained windows.