Page 26 of Again, Scoundrel

No.

His fist clenched at his side.

You’re to introduce her to McGann. It’s the whole point of the evening.

She was to marry him, in fact, if all went well. Which meant that Alistair had to keep his hands to himself. He paced in a circle once more, this time counting out his breaths and steps to regain his equanimity.

By the time Violet made it outside, he had convinced himself he could and would simply dance a step or two with her to make her feel more comfortable. He’d somehow known the ballroom had put her on edge; he could see it in the way she held her shoulders tense and tight.

It reminded him of how he’d felt when faced with the Koh-I-Noor exhibit; something about this environment was gnawing at her. He wondered what it was. And then why he felt such a strong urge to put her at ease. All he could reason was that it felt good to him to be able to recognize something in her that was the same in himself. And Alistair, as a general rule, did what felt good to him.

He paced his small circle once more. And then he saw her coming down the steps toward him, her blue eyes peering into the darkness, and all other thoughts were lost. He rushed to Violet and grasped her gloved hand to lead her into the quiet behind the house.

“Miss Goodwin,” he whispered and put his hand back where it belonged, in the small sway of her spine. Moonlight illuminated her honey-colored curls, and those blue, blue eyes turned to look up at him as he spoke.

“Yes?” she asked in a whisper that made his cock stand at attention in his trousers.

“Will you dance with me?” he asked.

“No.” She stepped toward him instead.

Not ten minutes before, Violet had stood inside the ballroom, heat rushing her thighs and thoughts of copulation strumming her lurid imagination. Her body was quivering, trembling with a wanting unknown to her until he had placed his thumb along the sway of her back and pressed.

She understood what was happening to her, from a scientific perspective at least. What she felt in his presence—the way her nerve endings were alight in shivering prickles and her skin felt flushed with heat—was nothing more than the urge to mate. A natural, corporeal reaction she could control.

That I will control.

After all, she reminded herself as she stood, wavering between following him outside and staying exactly where she was, she did not eat every slice of cake nor every biscuit she laid eyes upon that looked delicious. Giving into such inclinations would be a poor decision for her digestion, her teeth, and her health.

Just as giving in to her body’s cravings for Alistair Crawford would be a poor decision for her heart and her future. He was erratic and inconsistent, swinging from one action to the next. From one desire to the next.

Stay, leave, confide, hide. She couldn’t keep up.

She would, she promised herself, control her body’s appetite for him as much as she controlled her appetite for anything else in her life. Violet was good at control; she’d spent the three years since James’s death perfecting it. She’d not let herself even think of flirting or kissing or touching since James. She had scuttled even the idea of those desires from her life with an iron will.

And yet here she was, considering following this man—this erratic, handsome, nonsensical man—out into the dark gardens only two weeks after they’d met again. Because her body wanted her to.

Her feet began to walk toward the ballroom doors, and her mind fought valiantly to stop them. Her mind knew that if she let this one man breach her defenses, any number of other breaches could follow.

She was already rescinding her promises to herself: first this silly ball gown with its too tight corset and too low décolletage, and next a dalliance outside with Alistair Crawford… and then what? Marriage, loss of control of her time, of her fortune?

Loss of my goals.

Yet, her feet still moved. Her body wanted what it wanted. And it wanted Alistair Crawford.

Just this once, her mind conceded as she stepped out of the stuffy ballroom and into the dark garden. Just one dance.

One dance that would mean nothing because as soon as it was over, the pendulum of Alistair Crawford was sure to swing in the opposite direction, and he’d disappear from her once more.

Her eyes found him in the shadows, and her heart thrilled as he rushed to her and took her by the hand. Her feet followed as he led her to a shadowed, private place and asked if she’d dance with him. But when she opened her mouth to reply, her lips rebelled.

“No,” she said, surprising herself and him. Her lips had a better idea.

She stepped toward that huge wall of man and closed her eyes, inhaling his scent. She put her arms around his neck and drew him toward her. And then she kissed him.

Chapter

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