“Oh, dumpling,” Teddy said, giving her a nudge in the side. “Don’t give up now. I hope you’re not listening to what they’re saying in the card room.”
“Why? What are they saying in the card room?”
Her brother-in-law looked sheepish. “They’re wagering, of course. On whether the wedding will take place. Lord Pennington’s giving odds of four to one against it.”
Ah. That was probably the true reason they’d been invited here tonight. To provide a bit of idle speculation and amusement. A joke.
In that moment, Clio realized something wonderful.
She just didn’t care.
Perhaps they’d worn her down. Or perhaps five-and-twenty was a magical age where a woman came into her own. For whatever reason, she truly, genuinely did not care one whit.
And then, as though announcing a prize she’d been awarded, the majordomo cleared his throat. “Lord Rafe Brandon.”
No one was worried about string now. Not even Phoebe.
Clio knew the man could make a dark, dramatic entrance on horseback. But turn him out in a fitted tailcoat, snowy cravat, and polished boots . . . ?
Good heavens above.
The strong cut of his jaw was pure Brandon, as was the easy air of command. But he brought with him that essential Rafeness, too. The aura of rebellion and danger that made the air prickle and set her heart racing.
Everything about his looks declared he was born for just this setting.
Everything about his expression told Clio he hated it.
But he was here anyway.
For her.
He crossed to their corner and bowed to each of them in turn, saving Clio for last. “Miss Whitmore.”
She dropped a small curtsy. “Lord Rafe.”
“You came,” Phoebe said.
“Yes.” He gave his cuff an uneasy tug and cast a glance around the crowded ballroom. “Sorry to arrive so late. Miss Whitmore, I suppose all your dances are spoken for.”
Clio couldn’t help but laugh. “No. All my dances are free.”
“How the devil is that possible?”
“I’ve been sitting out with Phoebe.”
The orchestra struck up the first strains of a waltz. Rafe took her by the hand. “Well, you’re not sitting out a moment longer.”
Wearing a look on his face that blended defiance and unease, he led her to the dance floor and spun her into a waltz.
He was a most capable dancer. It made sense that he would be. Moving with coordination and grace was a part of his trade.
“I confess, I’d lost hope. I didn’t think you were coming.”
“I wondered, too.”
When she could bear to look up at him—and how strange that was, that gazing up at him was what she most wanted to do, and yet it cost her every scrap of courage she could muster—she noticed a faint purple shadow on his left cheekbone. And his full, sensual lips were even fuller than usual on one side.
“You’ve been hurt. What happened?”
He shrugged. “Hit a bump in the road. So to speak.”
“It rather looks as though the bump hit back.”
His swollen mouth tugged to one side. “It was nothing I wouldn’t have done ten times again to get here tonight. But I can’t stay long. I just came to give you the dance I owed. And to say farewell.”
“Farewell?”
He swept her into a turn. “I’m returning to London tonight. I assume I can leave Bruiser and Ellingworth at the castle with you.”
“Of course, but . . . Why? Piers will be home within a week or two. You’ll want to see him, and I . . .” Her chest deflated. “I just don’t understand why you have to go so soon.”
He drew her close and lowered his voice. “Come along. You’re a clever girl, and it doesn’t become you to pretend otherwise. You know why I have to leave.”
“I don’t know at all. We can agree to keep our distance.”
“There’s agreeing in principle, and then there’s nightfall. There’s being alone when it’s dark and quiet, and knowing you’re somewhere beneath the same roof. We can’t rely on your insomniac relations to keep saving you. If I spent one more night in that castle . . .”
His gaze swept down her body. She ached everywhere.
“I’d come to you.”
I’d come to you.
Those words. They made her heart flip and her knees go weak.
“I’d come to you,” he repeated, as if taking a solemn vow. “I wouldn’t be able to stay away.”
“I could change rooms. I could move to—”
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter if you locked yourself in the highest, farthest tower. I’d find you. I’d come to your door in the night. And then . . . You know what would happen then.”
She couldn’t breathe. “What would happen then?”
“You’d answer.” He moved closer, until she was faint with his heat and the clean, male scent of him. “You’d let me in, Clio. Wouldn’t you? You couldn’t turn me away.”
She nodded, entranced by the low, dark thrum of his words.
He was right. If he knocked at her door in the middle of the night, she would let him in. And it didn’t have anything to do with kindness or generosity. It had to do with yearning and desire. The wild chase of blood through her veins whenever he drew near. The pang of need that answered whenever he looked at her like this.
The power of the emotion in those bold green eyes . . .
If this man were ever to love—truly love—a woman could spend her whole life reeling from the force of it.
But he was here to say farewell, and the sharp pain of losing him was enough to make her dizzy.
He slowed them to a stop. “You’ve gone pale.”
Had she? Now that he mentioned it, the ballroom had gone dark at the edges. And her head was still spinning, even though they’d stopped dancing several moments ago.
Her heart was just so full. And pounding. His suit, those words, the waltz . . .
How could any mortal woman bear it?
“Perhaps I just need some air,” she said.
Rafe shored her up with an arm about her waist. Then he steered her to the edge of the room, back to the corner where Daphne and Teddy were waiting with Phoebe.
“Lady Cambourne.” He nodded. “You should take your sister to the retiring room.”
“No.” Clio scooped in a shallow breath. “Don’t leave me. I’ll be fine. It’s just all that twirling on an empty stomach. Tight corset laces. You, in that coat.”