"Hmm-and what else do I deserve?"
Alathea swallowed a gasp as one large hand slid over her hip to perform a leisurely, all-too-knowing circuit of her silk-clad bottom.
Closing his hand, Gabriel lowered his head and whispered in her ear, "Perhaps you'd like to retreat to your office-I was, after all, ordered by your stepmother to do my very best to keep you amused."
Alathea couldn't resist the urge to tip her head back and meet his eyes. Under their heavy lids, they glowed with golden fire. There was absolutely no doubt of what he was thinking.
Her gaze dropped to his lips. Did temptation come any more potent than this?
The crush about them eased, and she managed to draw breath. "There's no lock on my office door, remember?"
She'd spoken before she'd thought-her cheeks flamed. The wicked chuckle he gave made her think of a buccaneer about to seize her, but his hand left her bottom-her fevered flesh-closing briefly, affectionately, on her hip before he released her. The flow of people resumed and they moved on.
Almost immediately they encountered Lady Albemarle, a distant Cynster connection, and stopped to chat. From her, they passed on to Lady Horatia Cynster.
"I have no idea," she responded to Gabriel's query, "if Demon and Felicity will return to town before the end of the Season. They're enjoying themselves hugely by all accounts. The last we heard, they were in Cheltenham."
They chatted easily for some minutes, then once again moved on. When the next lady with whom they paused to exchange greetings proved to be another Cynster connection, Alathea had to wonder. It was true there were a lot of Cynsters and many more family connections. Nevertheless…
As they strolled on again, she caught Gabriel's eye. "You're not, by any chance, introducing me to your family?"
"Of course not-they already know you. And those who don't were introduced to you in the receiving line."
Alathea sighed exasperatedly. The look in his eyes, the set of his jaw, warned her any protest would be fruitless-his intention was fixed. The reins were presently in his hands and he was driving as hard as he could toward matrimony. She shook her head. "You're impossible!"
His lips quirked. "No. You're impossible. I'm merely immovable."
She tried to smother her giggle but failed.
"Lady Alathea!" Lord Falworth pushed through the crowd to bow before her. "Dear lady, I've been searching quite doggedly, I do assure you." He shot a censorious glance at Gabriel. "But now I've found you, I believe a cotillion is starting. If you would do me the honor?"
Alathea smiled. For all his foppish tendencies, Falworth was an amiable gentleman and an unexceptionable partner. "Indeed, sir-it is I who would be honored." It was, perhaps, time she put some distance between herself and her self-styled keeper. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Cynster?" With a nod for Gabriel, she placed her hand on Falworth's sleeve and let him lead her to where the sets were forming.
As soon as the dance started, her thoughts reverted to Gabriel, Falworth forgotten. No other gentleman could vie with her nemesis. There was-and very likely always had been-only one man for her, the man she'd been closest to all her life. And now he wanted to marry her. He cared for her, but not in a way she could accept as a safe basis for marriage. What she should do-how she could take charge of the situation and steer a safe course for them both-she had no idea. With every day that passed, the pressure to give in, to surrender and be his wife, grew.
Her one bulwark against that was simple but solid. Fear. An unconquerable, unquenchable fear of a pain so vast, so deep, she'd never be able to survive it. A pain she sensed rather than knew, one she could imagine but had never felt. The sort of pain that no sane person invited or permitted to threaten them.
That much she knew: She was too afraid to ever consent to their marriage if all he felt for her, bar transient desire, was mild affection and a duty of care.
As she circled and swayed through the figures of the cotillion, she considered that truth, and the fact that it meant she would never bear his child.
She would never, ever, have children of her own.
But that had been decided eleven years ago. Fate had yet to revoke her decree.
From the side of the dance floor, Gabriel watched as Alathea gracefully twirled. She was thinking of something, some thing other than the cotillion-there was a distance in her gaze, a closed calmness in her expression that meant she was mentally elsewhere. He was certain she was thinking about him. He wanted her to think of him, but… he had a strong suspicion that her thinking at present was not following the lines he wished. His instincts prodded him to press her, to seize her however he might. Some other emotion-a stronger emotion-warned him the decision was hers. And he knew just how easy she was to influence.
At present, his campaign was mired in circumstance and his quarry was proving elusive. Every time he thought he had her in his grasp, she drew away, hazel eyes wide, slightly puzzled, not convinced.
Nowhere near convinced enough to marry him.
That fact left him feeling caged and not the least bit civilized every time she moved away from his side. There was no convenient wall against which he could lean and guard her, so he prowled the edge of the cleared area, unwilling to be waylaid by any of the ladies intent on catching his eye.
He was successful in avoiding all the encroaching madams, but he couldn't avoid Chillingworth. The earl loomed directly in his path.
Their gazes clashed. By mutual accord, they swung so they stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing over the dance floor.
"I'm surprised," Chillingworth drawled, "that you haven't tired of this game."
"Which game is that?"
"The game of knight-protector, keeping the rest of us at bay." Chillingworth's gaze raked his face. "Being such a close friend of the family's, I can understand why you might feel compelled by the notion, but don't you think you're carrying the role a little far?"
"Now why, I wonder, should that so concern you?" Even as he asked the question, Gabriel felt an icy tingle at his nape.
"I would have thought that obvious, dear boy." Chillingworth gestured toward the dancers, careful not to indicate Alathea specifically. "She's an attractive proposition, particularly to one situated as I."
Every word deepened the chill now steadily coursing Gabriel's veins. The uninformed might imagine Chillingworth meant he was considering seducing Alathea because he was presently amorously free. Gabriel knew better. The earl was of their class, from the same social stratum as the Bar Cynster; he was their contemporary in every way. He abided by the same unwritten code Gabriel himself had honored all his adult life. Ladies of good family and good character were not fair game.
Alathea was unmistakeably both. Seducing her was not what Chillingworth had in mind.
His expression impassive, Gabriel looked over the dancers, his gaze fixing on Alathea's face. "She's not for you."
"Indeed?" Challenge rang in Chillingworth's tone. "I realize this may come as a surprise, especially to a Cynster, but the lady herself will ultimately be the judge of that."
"No." Gabriel uttered the word quietly, yet it held enough latent force to make Chillingworth tense. And wait.
Gabriel saw the danger clearly. Chillingworth was Devil's age but had yet to marry. He needed an heir, and for that he needed a wife. He could appreciate Chillingworth's taste in being attracted to Alathea; he was not, however, of a mind to approve.
Alathea loved him, but whether she knew that, or accepted it, he didn't know. She was headstrong and willful, used to charting her own course. She also had that streak of considered recklessness he'd always found alarming. He could never predict what it might lead her to do. She was finding coming to terms with the notion of marrying him difficult. If Chillingworth offered for her hand, might she accept to escape the impasse he'd created?