The Louise Allen Collection. Louise Allen
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She had forgotten to keep her voice low and both Olivia and Henry turned to regard her in surprise. ‘Lord Weston is bamming me,’ she explained, taking a restorative draught from her wine glass.
‘Would either of you ladies like an ice?’ Henry said, hastily flashing Decima a warning glance. She wrinkled her nose at him. Goodness, the champagne was making her positively light-headed. It was a delightful feeling, so unlike the way she had always felt at balls in the past, huddled in the wallflowers’ corner with the spotty, the fat and the poorly dowered.
She took another sip and shook her head. ‘No, thank you, Sir Henry.’
‘Then perhaps you will dance with me?’ Adam asked her, catching her dance card as it hung on her wrist and flipping it open. ‘The next dance is a waltz, if I am not mistaken.’
‘I am not dancing, my lord.’ The words slipped out before she realised she no longer had that defence.
‘Obviously not. Just at the moment you are partaking of supper. But as you say, you have finished—’
‘You choose to misunderstand me.’ Decima felt the blush mounting and fought it. ‘I am not intending to dance.’
‘But you have been—all evening. Are you rejecting me as a partner, Miss Ross? I am wounded.’
‘I…no…I mean…’ Decima gazed hopelessly at his bland countenance as he waited patiently for her to dither herself to a stop. She had been dancing. Rather a lot. With a number of different men. And there was absolutely no reason—short of becoming suddenly indisposed—why she should refuse Adam. She gave in. ‘Thank you, Lord Weston.’
Beside her she realised that Henry was asking Olivia to partner him and the four of them reached the floor just as the first notes sounded. Decima stood uncertainly, the confidence that had filled her ever since Mr Mays had led her out quite deserting her.
‘Decima?’ Adam was waiting patiently, and with a sensation of breathlessness she stepped into his arms and took his hand. When she could breathe again the familiar scent of him was such a shock that she almost stumbled—citrus and man and, quite simply, Adam. His arm held her firmly, as he might have collected a horse that had stumbled, and they were dancing.
‘That is a particularly fetching gown,’ Adam remarked. She could hear the smile in his voice and it brought her eyes up sharply to his face, but mercifully he was not regarding the embarrassing swell of exposed bosom. He grinned at her. ‘Those freckles get everywhere, don’t they?’
‘No, they do not,’ she retorted. ‘I believe you have now seen every freckle I possess and I would be obliged if you would not refer to them again—it is most unseemly.’
‘You make me feel unseemly,’ he remarked plaintively, whirling her around a slower pair of dancers. For a second their bodies pressed together. A flash of heat, of hot liquid yearning, ran through her loins and Decima drew back with a gasp.
She said the first thing she could think of to bring them both back to earth and to a sense of their obligations. ‘When is the wedding to be?’
‘June the eighteenth.’
‘Oh.’ Now what to say? ‘And where will it be?’
‘I have no idea. My future mother-in-law has not yet vouchsafed her decision on the matter.’
‘Does Olivia not have a say?’ Surely a bride would have very decided ideas about every aspect of the ceremony.
‘Olivia does exactly what her mother tells her,’ Adam said, with a suggestion of gritted teeth.
That did make sense, and could account for some of Adam’s apparent coolness on the subject of his marriage. From what Decima knew of Mrs Channing, she imagined she would not make an easy mama-in-law.
‘I would lay odds on you winning any future encounters with the lady,’ she remarked outrageously.
‘I have every intention of doing so. But until Olivia is removed from her orbit, nothing is gained by coming to cuffs with her, other than to make Olivia miserable.’
‘You are concerned how Olivia feels?’ It was the first time she had heard him say anything that showed any feeling for his fiancée.
‘You think me cold? I am very fond of Olivia and I want her to be happy.’ Adam looked down at her, his grey eyes dark as he regarded her with an expression at odds with the cheerful music. ‘She is shy of me—overt shows of affection would disconcert her.’
‘I beg your pardon.’ Decima bit her lip and forced herself to finish her apology. ‘That was inexcusable of me, I have no right to pry.’
He smiled at her then, making her ill-disciplined heart flip against her ribs. ‘As my friend, I expect you to lecture me on a regular basis. I am sure you scold Freshford.’
‘Henry rarely needs scolding,’ Decima rejoined, catching sight of the other couple as they turned. ‘Oh!’
‘Indeed,’ Adam said drily. ‘What a very handsome pair they do make, to be sure.’
It was as though an artist had decided to paint the perfect couple. Olivia, tiny as she was, fitted perfectly against Henry’s modest height so they could have been made to measure for each other. Their hair shimmered under the lights: hers palest gilt, his a masculine gold. And both of them had the sort of perfectly moulded looks that seemed to come straight from a classical frieze.
‘Olivia has a beauty that would look good, whoever she was partnered with,’ Decima said quickly. If he wasn’t careful, Henry was going to find himself called out by an enraged fiancé. Adam might turn a blind eye to Olivia enjoying a little light flirtation while she was sitting at his side, but to have her circling the dance floor in another man’s arms while the two of them gazed deep into each other’s eyes was asking rather too much.
‘That is very true,’ Adam agreed equably. She shot him a suspicious glance, but he seemed to be quite calm about the situation, only pulling her a little closer into his hold as they danced.
It was a dangerous thing to be doing, dancing with Adam like this. Decima knew it, yet felt no more able to stop herself revelling in the sensation of being in his arms than if she were a small child who had found a bag of sugarplums and was gorging herself to the point of sickness.
She had forgotten quite how well matched their bodies seemed to be as they danced, how his height was quite perfect for her, how the hair on his temples grew and the way the skin at the corner of his eyes crinkled when he smiled, how her breath caught in her throat when he looked at her.
Decima dropped her eyes at the sudden panicky thought that he had seen her feelings in them. She had told herself that it was perfectly possible to love Adam and yet to live with that. She had been prepared to see him around in London and had expected to feel a pang, but that was all. In fact, she had been prepared to find that distance had lent enchantment and that meeting Adam again would be in some way a let-down. She had had no idea that love could be so all consuming, that it would feed on his nearness, would be rekindled by his kiss, that the fact that he was betrothed to another woman would not alter the way she felt one iota.
The music stopped and she swept a curtsy. She felt light-headed and reckless, yet one part of her mind was marvelling at the way she was dancing and having such pleasure doing so—one of her darkest, scariest bogeymen vanquished at a stroke. As if reading her thoughts, Adam whispered, ‘I can see two Patronesses staring at us. Were they ones who were beastly to you?’
Decima shot them a hunted look, suddenly a gawky eighteen-year-old again. ‘Mrs Drummond Burrell and Lady Castlereagh. I was terrified of them. They used to look right through me, but you could see what an effort they found it to ignore something as obvious as me, nevertheless.’
‘Right.’ Adam tucked her arm through his and headed for the two formidable ladies. Only the fact that over a hundred eyes were watching the dance floor stopped Decima gibbering with nerves and tugging her arm free.