The Duke Heist (The Wild Wynchesters #1) - Erica Ridley Page 0,46

she knew. She remembered. She couldn’t close her eyes without feeling the hardness of his muscles beneath her palms, the heat of his mouth slanting across hers.

And she couldn’t lift her gaze to his face without wanting to do it all over again.

She had to get out of here before she gave herself away.

Somehow she survived all six courses. After the blancmange, she was ready to bolt, but then Lady Ainsworth clapped her hands and said, “Now for the dancing!”

A sharp burst of longing, white-hot and razor edged, sliced through her.

How she wanted to dance with Faircliffe—wanted to be fully in his embrace—but, more than that, wanted everyone else to see her as he saw her. Someone desirable, irresistible. Someone he could not prevent himself from kissing, no matter how valiantly he tried.

Not that he would admit to finding her kissable. Her throat grew thick. If his peers couldn’t imagine him attending a social event with her on purpose, they wouldn’t believe he’d want her in his arms.

She should go. She should definitely go. Watching him dance with everyone but her was a terrible idea.

But she stayed. Just in case.

There was one waltz. Faircliffe did not stand up for it with Chloe. He hadn’t spoken to her since being seated for supper. The waltz was reserved for Miss Philippa York.

Chloe couldn’t even hate her for it. Philippa was doing exactly what Chloe would do if Chloe were in Philippa’s dancing slippers.

Well, almost everything. Philippa did not appear gratified to find herself the lucky object of the Duke of Faircliffe’s attentions.

For years Chloe had fantasized she could burst from her dressing room and into a ballroom dressed as her real self, not her blending-with-the-wood-grain self. Not to show up the beau monde but rather to be bold because she could. To just once know what it felt like to strut into a place like this wearing, saying, and doing anything she pleased—and be accepted anyway. Not just to be herself, but to belong.

But she’d given up such dreams long, long ago.

When Lady Ainsworth announced that the second-to-last set of the evening would be a pair of country-dances, Chloe still sat along a forgotten wall with Tommy.

Until a gentleman stepped into her path.

“Is this dance spoken for?” It was Lord Southerby. The handsome rascal who found tigers exhilarating.

“Er…” Chloe said brightly.

She could dance; Bean had seen to that. The siblings occasionally danced with each other or at informal gatherings with middle-class friends. But she had never danced in a place like this. Never in front of people like this. She wished Marjorie were here to sketch the moment so Chloe could remember exactly how she’d looked, the time she was treated like a lady.

“Take her out of my sight,” Tommy blustered in her guise as Great-Aunt Wynchester. “And keep her away from that Faircliffe fellow. He seems shifty.”

“He’s a duke, Aunt,” Chloe murmured, her pulse ticking faster. “And he’s coming this way.”

“Dukes are the dodgiest,” Tommy asserted with a dramatic sniff.

“I’m afraid I cannot be dodged at all this set,” came Faircliffe’s dry voice. “These figures require four partners.”

Which meant…of course it did. Faircliffe’s partner was Philippa York.

Chloe jerked her gaze back to Lord Southerby and allowed him to lead her onto the parquet.

Faircliffe couldn’t dance with her any other way, she reminded herself. People might think it meant something.

Only a fool like her would want it to.

As the country-dance began, she forced herself to smile at the Earl of Southerby as she performed each step. He wasn’t the enemy. He was a kind gentleman, willing to stand up with her when no one else would. Even if he was no more romantically interested in Chloe than the Duke of Faircliffe was.

Not that Faircliffe was a monster, either. His carefully cultivated hauteur wasn’t the result of believing himself better than all others but of believing that if he wasn’t as perfect as possible, he risked his title, his reputation, and the happiness of his future children.

Who could argue with a motive like that?

Chloe’s birth parents hadn’t been able to offer that to her, but the Wynchester family more than made up for it. They didn’t have to try to be perfect. They loved each other just as they were.

She was a Wynchester, first and always. She would only give a second glance to a man willing to come into her fold rather than one whose precious reputation would rip her from those who loved her.

The country-dance switched figures, and she suddenly found