Page 23 of Lady Petra and the Wolf

As they rode together in silence, Petra considered the likely reason she found herself so ill-equipped to articulate her own desires. When she had been a girl, any request was met by empty promises from her father. And now that she knew what he was, she was not foolish enough to tell him her desires and not expect him to turn those truths against her in some future game of chess.

Once they arrived and made it through the receiving line, Petra fielded several requests for her dance card, much to her surprise after the events of the Bromley Ball. For once, her father did not absent himself to the cardroom, electing instead to remain within the ballroom. Petra eyed him as she took Lord Voxwell’s arm, the young lord leading her to the opening of the quadrille.

Aside from the man she was currently dancing with, Petra recognized that the myriad gentlemen so eager to secure a position upon her dance card were motivated far less by her company than by a calculating desire to curry favor with her father. Whilst the House of Commons was ascending in its influence, the House of Lords remained a formidable bastion, retaining the authority to block new legislation from both reformers and industrialists. And in the navigation of that recalcitrant machinery of Parliament, none possessed a more practiced hand than Randolph Newkirk, the Earl of Kemberley.

After a quick turn of the dance away from Voxwell, she spied two of the young men nodding with obsequious fervor at something her father said. Her sire looked away, aware of the power he held over the two men but seeking larger prey. The words waiting and watching swam to the forefront of Petra’s mind, yet she had no earthly idea what he was waiting and watching for.

After another turn, Petra found her gaze returning to the entrance, just as she had before, only this time…

She started as the truth struck her in the chest: she was waiting for the arrival of one darkly handsome lord with an intense green gaze. As her dance with Voxwell ended, Petra again became achingly aware of someone’s eyes on her. She glanced to the corner of the room and realized that for once that evening, it was not her father’s cold stare. As her gaze moved toward the entrance, she landed on the man with the bottle-green eyes, who was staring at her with a singular intensity. Well, initially he stared daggers at the baron, but then his eyes returned to her and Petra had to remind herself to breathe. Since the Bromley Ball, a glance from him caused every part of her being to freeze in place, as if her body was an engine that stopped and started, reconfiguring and remaking itself in the process.

The gentleman advanced with a predatory grace as he wordlessly extended his hand. Upon meeting that unwavering gaze once more, Petra intuited his silent demand for her dance card and offered the object to him. Without a word, he subjected the card to a brief perusal before scrawling his name upon its surface. Upon return of her card, Petra gazed down the list of dances and located “Lord Wolfridge” next to the waltz.

The most intimate of dances.

When she looked back up at him, those bottle green eyes were watching her carefully. The realization that she would shortly dance a waltz with this strange man sent a shiver down her spine. Try though she might to hide that shiver, his eyes darted first to her pulse, then to the slight shaking of her hand. Striving to steady herself, she gave the man a stiff nod with as much dignity as she could muster.

“Until the waltz, Lord Wolfridge.”

“Until the waltz, Lady Petra.”

And with that he was gone. As she pondered their interaction, Petra danced a reel, then declined to dance the following. She was grateful that she was not some fresh debutante new to Polite Society, in which case she might need permission from a chaperone or her father to engage in what was regarded as such a scandalously close dance as the waltz. Thinking back only a week or so earlier, Petra recalled what she had thought was heartbreak as John and Jillian waltzed so closely together. Their dance had revealed a deep and abiding love, even if Jillian could not see such a thing. What would this dance reveal for Petra?

She bit her lip as the truth began to swim through her veins, like a dark red wine staining a pure white tablecloth. She was coming to care for Lord Wolfridge. Though he remained a man shrouded in mystery, his attempts to safeguard her reputation kindled an unexpected warmth within her chest. The sheer intensity of his gaze, moreover, exerted a most unsettling influence upon her equilibrium, rendering her quite breathless.

Will this waltz be the end of our fake courtship or the beginning of something new? Petra pondered as she wended her way through the crush to join Lord Wolfridge, the first melodic strains of the waltz already weaving through the ballroom air.

Tall and lean, the man blocked out the others around her, much as an eclipse might blot out the meridian sun. She had shamefully noticed the way his muscular arms filled out his day coat when he had taken her driving in his phaeton, but at the time, her mind had willed that appreciation away out of loyalty to Lord John.

Suddenly, she found herself enveloped within those very arms, and Petra discovered that her mind possessed no such fortitude to dismiss the sensation this time. While they had shared the fleeting movements of the quadrille at the Bromley Ball, the tempo had been far too spirited to permit any manner of sustained touch Now, every point of contact burned, and Petra imagined their skin glowing orange and red at each point, like an ember of a fire.

“Petra,” Wolf rasped, the intensity in his voice forcing her gaze upward. He almost never called her by her name alone, and the intimacy of it caused a tightness in her chest that she found she could not will away.

Wolf very purposefully held her gaze. “Will you meet me after this dance?”

Petra almost stumbled on the spot as the implications of what he was asking almost caused her to lock her step.

“Meet you?” she whispered, forcing her voice not to squeak. She searched his eyes to discern if he understood the implications of what he asked but his gaze remained steady and focused.

Gazing between his eyes, she noticed one had a gold striation that reminded her of a shooting star, that for some reason brought to mind Lucifer’s fall from Heaven. Was this an offering from Lucifer, sent to tempt her after her failed betrothal? Her mind shouted caution, but something in her chest had never been more curious. It was that curiosity that forced her head down into a nod and though his face remained impassive, the striation in his left eye pulsed.

Upon the conclusion of the dance, he offered a bow and leaned near, his voice dropping low as he murmured, “The library then. Perform your necessary rounds and meet me there.”

Petra gave another faint nod as her thoughts began to race. Why was she courting ruin thus? And so soon after her public humiliation. Yet she was never going to say no to his request.

And with that, Wolf was gone, leaving Petra to ponder the immense power of men with green eyes who vaguely resembled Lucifer.

* * *

The Stillwell library was a thing of beauty. Even in his singular focus on meeting Lady Petra, Wolf took the time to admire his surroundings. Lined with shelves of rich mahogany, the roaring fire danced across the wood, making the room appear a lava-like red.

“At least the books will be warm,” Wolf muttered to himself, eyes darting to the hearth.

“Very thoughtful of you to consider the comfort of the books, Lord Wolfridge.”

Abruptly jolted from his thoughts by the lady who now occupied the very core of his unbidden longing, Wolf stood mesmerized by the manner in which the firelight bathed her with ethereal radiance. She already possessed a naturally fairy-like nature, having slipped silently into the chamber to manifest before him like an apparition. Yet, the dancing red-gold illumination cast an undeniable aura of raw sensuality upon her visage, imbuing the moment with a potent, almost tangible sense of the forbidden.

Yet she was no longer forbidden. Mayhap he had watched her all these years not in some noble need to protect John but because she always intrigued him. Perhaps, deep down, he suspected there was more lurking behind her dutiful façade that called to him.