"Izzy, you mustn't worry. We are going to go, and dance, and be seen. And when you want to leave, we shall leave. However, I don't think you will, once you arrive."
"What if no one asks me to dance? May I just sit and watch?"
He laughed and shook his head. "Izzy, you truly don't comprehend how notorious you are. The ton is dying to see you. There has been a month-long storm of gossip about Lord Cherrymore's house party.
"The young bucks will be tripping over each other to partner you, and the elder lords will be eager to inspect the future duchess. Wives and daughters will line up to be introduced, and all of them will believe you a temptress beyond compare."
"Oh, no." The wave of dread that swept her threatened to steal her breath. Her stomach rose from her shoes and threatened to take flight. "Oh, dear God."
"Izzy, Izzy, don't you see? You already
are
an Incomparable. Even if you appeared in one of those black sacks of yours, it would only cause a wave of black-sack fashion. You cannot fail. You are Juliet, Isolde, and Cleopatra all rolled into one.
"You are the flaming temptress who lured me to her bed. You are the fiery lover who brained me in a passionate rage. You are the mysterious woman who has always been there, but no one remembers ever seeing. If you kicked off your slippers and performed a French cabaret dance on the tabletop, you could not be more scandalous or outrageous than you already are."
"Oh, my," she whispered. As the meaning of his words began to come clear, the burden of her fear began to lighten. Notorious? Mysterious? A sensation akin to floating seeped over her. After a moment, she identified it.
Freedom. She was free, free to do or be anything she wished. Free to shed years of Hildegard's dour oppression and endless lectures on propriety. She had no need to impress society. Fed on speculation and the endless search for relief of its own boredom, society was already impressed.
A small smile slowly stretched across her face. It widened into a full glowing expression of her relief. Leaping up, she threw her arms around his waist, laughing joyfully up at him.
Startled, he let his arms come around her. The rich sound of her laughter made him smile. Her firm breasts pressed against his chest and her magnificent hair flowed down over his hands.
Looking down into her shining eyes where she stood so artlessly between his parted knees, he suddenly felt a stirring within him.
It grew in a mystifying fashion until he was aware of her in a way he had never been before. He had long since buried all memory of that one scandalous night, yet suddenly he was teased by the recollection of a small sensuous creature responding most enthusiastically to his touch. The image made his chest tighten and his breath come faster.
She caught the change in his expression and her smile faded, to be replaced by a half-fearful, half-longing tremor of her lips.
Julian was never one to pass up an opportunity to kiss a woman, yet he hesitated. Not only was he not used to considering Izzy particularly kissable, he was not sure he was ready. Izzy was… Izzy. His friend, one of the few people he could truly be himself with. He feared this new awareness within him would alter that. He did not want to lose the closeness they shared to the tangled web of sexual desire.
Nevertheless, they were going to marry in a few months, an inner voice argued. He
should
kiss her. Test the waters, so to speak. Deciding an experiment was in order, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Izzy trembled at the touch of his lips. Warm, both hard and soft, they pressed to her mouth, urging her to press back in reflex. The faint bristle of beard about his mouth brought back a flash of that one frightening night, but she resolutely suppressed it. Julian had not harmed her then, and he would not harm her now. Her breath came faster as she melted against him, turning liquid in his potent embrace.
She was soft, giving and honeyed. Still acting in the interest of research, of course, he deepened the kiss. Sweeping the tip of his tongue across her lips, he took her startled sigh into his mouth and pressed his advantage. Dipping lightly, then more demandingly, he sampled the sheer sweet innocence of her mouth with growing ardor.
After one quivering moment of surprise, she welcomed the wickedly sensuous intrusion. She remembered the taste of him, the hot wild flavor of him, from the one previous kiss in her life. This time she was aware of everything about him. His hands were warm and urgent on her back. His powerful arms pulled her so tightly against him, she could feel the change in his body as it pressed intimately to her belly.
Dizzy from the mysterious heat that was rushing through her, she felt her knees weaken. She clung to him. Her heart was pounding so it was all she could hear, aside from his. Pounding together, like horses racing side by side. She was frightened, exhilarated, afire. She answered the kiss, tentatively copying his actions.
When her dainty, inexperienced tongue slipped between his own lips, Julian fought down the sudden surge of hot lust that stalked and snared him unawares. Struggling to regain control, he pulled his lips from hers with a groan. Breathing hard, he decided that was all the experimentation he could bear at the moment.
Sliding his palms up her gloved arms, he took her hands from where they had crept behind his neck, and pulled them down before him.
"Izzy, Izzy, Izzy. What a contradiction you are," he whispered into her hair. Releasing her, he stepped back, then turned and strode from the room.
Chilled without the warmth of him, Izzy wrapped her arms about herself. Slowly lowering herself to her chair, she wondered how anyone could be more contradictory than the man who had just kissed her into blind, panting passion, then walked away.
Izzy made no movement when Julian re-entered the room more than an hour later. He cleared his throat, but there was still no response.
She's angry, he thought, fighting off a stab of guilt at leaving her alone all this time. It had been rather inconsiderate, but he simply hadn't wanted to face her. He hadn't wanted to see that hopeful look, the one that maidens always got when he showed the slightest polite interest.
It was nothing more, really. Simply a supportive gesture, to boost her confidence for tonight. He had repeated that to himself so often in the past hour that he very nearly believed it.
Although he must marry Izzy, and although that thought was not as repugnant as it had once been, he did not want her to fall in love with him.
He preferred the cool impersonal marriage so common in the aristocracy. He wanted a wife he could not hurt, a woman he could not fail. For fail he would. He was not the monogamous sort, and never had been. He wanted no part of Izzy's woman's heart, knowing he would only break it.
Coming up behind her chair, he looked down at the tumbling fall of her curls.
Good God, look at that hair. Who would have thought such beauty lay under those horrid caps of hers? He wouldn't mind seeing it spread out across his pillow.
He stopped himself, shocked. Izzy was an innocent, soon to be his honorable wife. She would lie in his bed a few times in the dark, decently covered, of course, beget an heir and be off to her solitary life in the country. He doubted he would ever see beneath her nightgown. So he needn't picture her hair cascading over her naked, nimble form as she rolled sinuously on his sheets.
Shaking away that impossible image, he spoke. "Izzy, it is time to leave for Waverly's." He looked back to the table. "You scarcely ate. Are you… upset?"
Probably. He had been an atrocious host, abandoning her in here.
"Come now, Izzy. Don't sulk." He came around the chair and stopped before it.
She was asleep. Sitting up straight, her hands were placed neatly on the chair arms, for minimum wrinkling, no doubt.
Practical Izzy.
Cocking his head, he perused her changed appearance. What a shock it had been.
He felt as though she was someone else altogether now. Some unknown girl, not plain and dowdy Izzy. It could not simply be the grand new clothes. The gown shimmered in the firelight, yet not as brightly as her porcelain skin.
She was made to be seen by candlelight, so pale and delicate. The soft glow defined the angles of her face and the fullness of her lips. On white cheeks lay sooty lashes, shades darker than the burnished sable of her hair.
How had he not seen this before? Until tonight he would have wagered the dukedom on his ability to spot a pretty woman. Yet he had spent hours with this singular female and never seen the beauty in her. Although, he did seem to remember noting a certain dainty grace, a pixie-like ease of movement. But this!
She hadn't the plump pink-and-gold appeal currently in fashion. She was midnight mist and moonlight, with surprising flares of passion and righteous anger. He smiled, thinking of her anger earlier and how her eyes had flashed and her breasts heaved.
Letting his gaze travel down her neck, he considered those breasts. Once, he would have found them a bit small for his taste. He was usually drawn to more lush charms. Yet her figure seemed somehow perfect as it was, proportioned beautifully to her diminutive delicacy. The warm light from the fire accentuated the shadowed cleft between them, drawing his eye. It was surprising how tempting he found them.
Swelling white and smooth over the low décolletage of her gown, they seemed to call for a touch, his touch. His hand clenched at his side with the effort of not reaching for her satiny flesh. He could feel the blaze of the fire behind him. It was nothing compared to the blaze within him.
Pulling his gaze up with superhuman effort, he saw with a jolt that her eyes were now open. She regarded him steadily, eyes dark and wide.
Clearing a suddenly dry throat, he held out his hand. "Come, my dear. It is time."
Acquiescing instinctively, Izzy placed her hand in Julian's large one and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Confusion swept her as he merely smiled and turned to go. It took an instant for her to remember the ball.
A moment ago his golden eyes had asked a very different question. Waking to find him before her, his burning gaze fastened on her bosom, had rekindled the heat caused by his kiss.
Why had Julian kissed her? Was it nothing more than another impulsive gesture for him? For her, it had been a clarion call to her senses, awakening in her what had only been slumbering until now. The kiss had changed everything—and yet, apparently, nothing. Julian seemed entirely unmoved at the moment, while her own body was in riot.
She had no idea what to do with the feelings. Coiling warmth spread through her, weakening her limbs and melting into her breasts. She tingled, she ached, and Heaven help her, she throbbed. It frightened her how he could kindle this within her. Was this a skill all men possessed with all women?
Standing on trembling legs, she felt confused over how to manage the humming condition of her flesh.
And apparently he was not going to show her, either, she thought as he preceded her out of the room. Irritable now, for reasons she did not fully understand, Izzy glared at his back.
"I know you outrank me, Julian, but any lady precedes a lord."
The back of his neck flushed, but he did not slow or turn. Oddly, Izzy had the feeling he was concealing something.
At the front door, he graciously indicated that she should pass him. The butler stood ready with her wrap, and Izzy went to him rather than allowing Julian to assist her.
"Come, Izzy. Let's go perform for the
ton
." Julian smiled as he handed her into the carriage. "Do not worry, my little friend. I shall be nearby all night."
Inside Izzy huddled beneath her velvet cloak. She told herself she was glad Julian had no idea of her response to him, was glad that he himself had found nothing spectacular in their kiss—enough that he could just walk away. Half-shamed by her arousal, she fiercely tried to suppress the longing that his merest touch brought her.
She promptly forgot all such thoughts when the carriage pulled up to the long line before the Waverlys' grand home. Light spilled from every window and door, gleaming from the finery worn by the arriving guests.
The noise outside was incredible—clattering carriages, horses, the shrill gay laughter and the loud cheerful voices. It was nothing when compared to the bedlam inside.
The ballroom did not really fall silent as they entered, yet there was a definite startled lull. Then voices madly clamored once again, even more loudly than before.
"What happened? Did someone special come in?" Izzy had to stand on tiptoe and shout in Julian's ear. She was gazing about with delight, torn between looking at the people draped in glamour or the ballroom draped in crystal and gold.
"Yes. You did."
Izzy dropped abruptly back on her heels. The magnificence of the ballroom began to blur before her eyes. Her hands began to shake. She clenched them more tightly on Julian's arm. Frozen with anxiety, she did not move when he stepped forward and was almost pulled from her feet. He turned to her, covering her fisted hands with his own.
"Izzy. Everything is fine. Remember, you cannot fail tonight."
Drawing a deep breath, she tore her gaze from the sea of faces she knew she must be imagining were looking at her and turned wide eyes to his.
"I'm terrified, Julian. I do not think I know any cabaret dances."
Julian blinked, then threw back his head with a laugh that rang over the din. Izzy gave a tremulous smile.
"You're going to be just fine, Isadorable." He stroked his knuckles across her cheek, ignoring the interest of nearby onlookers. Izzy did not seem to see how under scrutiny they were, and he was glad. She needed to be her own slightly outrageous self tonight.
"Julian!"
Eric slipped between guests to stand with them. "Damned if I know why that name works for you, but it does. Always did feel odd calling you Eppie once we left school." His gaze flicked over Izzy with absent admiration. He leaned closer to Julian. "Where's the mouse?"