Page 125 of Devil in Her Details

“There’s the brigand she’s been consorting with!” A woman’s high-pitched voice cut across every corner of the ballroom. “The one that she’s been rolling in the sheets with every night.”

What on earth was going on?

Lilly glanced over to where a woman was pointing, jaw dropping. A figure stepped out of the shadows at the far side of the room and into the unsparing light of the chandeliers above.

Oh.

Blazes.

Dagger.

Her head went deathly silent and thunderously loud all at once. She hadn’t been imagining things. He was here. In London. At this ball! And the moment their eyes locked everything became clear. All her misgivings vanished. She was in mourning, all right, just not for him.

He was everything.

He was her life.

The harpy, Lady Lavinia or one of her friends, she presumed, was still screeching obscenities, but Lilly blocked her out. She had eyes only for her panther. And by blazes, her heart. He looked terrible. His hair was a mess, and his jaw carried several days of fierce, dark growth. There were shadows beneath his eyes deep enough to suggest he had been sleeping worse than she had; his face pale enough that the scar on his cheek cut through in its sharpness.

But still.

Dagger Fury was the most beautiful thing Lilly had ever seen in her life.

And she was staring.

But she didn’t care. She couldn’t have torn her gaze away even if she had tried. There was no looking away from him. And he—oh Lord—was wearing his coat lined with an assortment of daggers!

How . . . How . . .

Devilish.

Positively indecent. But utterly bewitching.

Seductive.

The gossip sheets were going to be on fire. And that blazing harpy. She was still screeching somewhere to her left, other gasps and murmurs joining in, but she couldn’t mind them. She couldn’t mind anything. Not when Dagger Fury was standing in the middle of the a ballroom looking disheveled and worn-out and entirely out of place.

His gaze dropped to her hand on Merrick’s arm.

Lilly’s heart caught as his expression darkened into the most magnificent scowl. A scowl of a lady’s dreams. How she’d missed those dark looks!

She didn’t hold back any longer.

She slipped away from her friend, picked up her skirts and shot to him like a blast from a cannon. Straight across the ballroom floor, past all the ripples of gasps. There was no other direction that made any sense. He was where all her roads led, and if she didn’t fling herself into his arms right now, she was not Lady Lilly Trenton.

*

Dagger caught Lilly in his arms with a grunt and a stinging burn in the corner of his eyes. Her arms circled his neck, and his mind went blank as a sheet of paper. He hadn’t thought she’d bolt, but if she did, it would be from him, not to him. As it was, he’d already broken every vow he’d made to himself after she’d left Brighton.

He couldn’t bring himself to give a damn.

She was in his arms again.

He hadn’t let himself believe this was possible. If this was a bloody dream, slit his throat right now. He buried his face in her neck and breathed in her softness. Have him perish in this moment. She smelled exactly as he remembered.

Christ, he couldn’t stand her in another man’s arms. Not even for a dance. If he hadn’t doubted that he could break them apart without putting a dagger into the nob’s heart, he’d have hauled her out before she could take one step into that dance.

And what the hell was that dance anyway?