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“Then I’ll try to improve upon your feelings even more.” Tucking her hand in his elbow, he led her to the floor, and a moment later they were waltzing.
She could hardly breathe for the memories. They hadn’t danced together since he’d first appeared in Stratford all that time ago. She’d forgotten how well he danced, how sensuous it had always felt to have his hand resting on her waist and his smoky scent swirling between them.
She examined his face, marking the changes since she’d last seen him. Had he always looked so thin and weary? Or dared she hope that her absence had affected him as strongly as it had her?
And did this mean he’d decided to tell her family the truth at last?
“Why are you here?” she asked bluntly before she could begin hoping too much.
He gazed down at her with an impenetrable look. “I missed you.”
Vainly she tried to squelch the thrill his words sent coursing through her. “I seem to recall your claiming that since you’d ‘done without me’ for most of your life, you could ‘manage a few more weeks.’”
He winced. “One of my more idiotic statements. Being a man, I’m prone to the occasional blustering. You’ll have to get used to it.”
“Still the same arrogant scoundrel as ever,” she said with a sniff.
“Absolutely.” He moved her smoothly, easily about the floor. For a man who rarely came into society, he certainly danced well. “I’m giving you fair warning, sweeting. I’m here to marry you.”
Despite all her stern self-cautions, her pulse began to race. “I haven’t exactly accepted an offer of marriage from you, Sebastian, and you know it.”
“Ah, but you will. This time I won’t brook any refusal.”
It was getting decidedly harder to restrain her foolish, hopeful heart, but restrain it she must. She didn’t yet trust him. Though she did indulge her urge to stare at him, so fine and handsome in his evening attire. The only way he’d look better was if he were peeling it off one piece at a time to bare that delicious chest and—
“I’ll begin,” he went on, “by making my intentions known to your family tonight.”
“You think to stride in here and marry me, no matter what my wishes.”
“Something like that.”
She wished her insides would stop doing all that premature leaping for joy. “And I don’t suppose you’ve come to your senses about telling my family everything.”
His long, sober silence was her answer.
The leaping for joy stopped at once. She’d known it was too good to be true. “Then we have nothing more to discuss,” she murmured, trying to pull out of his arms.
He jerked her back, managing it so well that she didn’t even stumble. “Hear me out, Juliet.”
“No! You’re still refusing to do the right thing, so—”
“The ‘right thing’ doesn’t involve abandoning my brother for you,” he snapped, “no matter how much I want you for my wife. I can’t risk it—especially now, with this whole mess involving—”
“The pirates,” she finished for him. “I heard all about the Pirate Lord and his new outrage. And I knew you’d respond like this.” She added in a whisper, “I sometimes think I know you too well. That’s probably why you really came to London—for him.”
“No, I came for you. I didn’t hear about the pirates until this afternoon, I swear.”
At least that was some comfort. If he’d come all this way for her after being so firm about how he wouldn’t, then he must care about her a little.
Just not enough. “You know, Sebastian, if your brother was involved with that nastiness, you ought to be handing him over to the authorities, not trying to get him pardoned.”
“He wasn’t involved—I refuse to believe it.” They swept past one of the gossipy Miss Marches, who was straining to hear their conversation. Sebastian cast the woman a pointed glance, then moved them both well away from her. “But I can’t prove it, of course. I spoke to the Navy Board this afternoon. I’d already gone there to prevail upon them to consider a pardon for Morgan even though he hasn’t shown up in England yet. They told me of the pirates instead. Now the pompous sots are refusing even to consider the matter until the Pirate Lord is captured. They are up in arms over this.”
“At least they’re concerned over those poor women convicts.”
“It’s not the women they care about; it’s Blackmore’s stepsister. I suppose you heard about that, too.”
She nodded.
