All The Ways To Ruin A Rogue(26)
Even more problematic was that he’d decided to forgo Sodom that night and instead returned directly home. He had stroked himself to satisfaction, all the while envisioning her face. A decided first and a new low. Much could be said of him, but it was not his practice to debauch untried girls. Especially when they were the sister of his best friend. If he ever had a doubt, he no longer did. He was going to hell.
“We thrive on discord,” he said now, as though Rosalie needed to understand what he meant by special. He wasn’t going to explain their complicated history, but he’d been around enough matchmaking mamas to recognize a conniving mind, and he didn’t want her to get any ideas when it came to Aurelia and himself. Now that would be a disastrous match. They would likely kill each other within the first week.
“You know what they say of enemies and lovers . . .” she said, looking at him archly . . . almost as though she could read his mind. “It’s a fine line between the two,” she elaborated.
“Your romantic nature is running away with you.”
“Ah, speaking of Aurelia. There she is.” Rosalie nodded toward the ballroom floor. “She’s looking exceptionally fine tonight, is she not?”
A familiar tightness lined his shoulders as he braced himself, preparing for the sight of her . . . the moment their eyes would meet and she would give him that cool, dispassionate look. The empty smile. As though he were nothing. Simply a subject to be sketched in her pad, torn down, and reduced to something of ridicule.
He followed Rosalie’s gaze to Aurelia. She did indeed look exceptionally well. He swallowed past a sudden tightness in his throat. Like a Mediterranean princess. A sultry red rose in a sea of pale English primrose.
Her hair was swept up in a mahogany mass atop her head. A single long ringlet draped over the smooth expanse of her naked shoulder. She wasn’t wearing the usual ruffles and flounces. No, she was garbed in a sleek amber gown with simple lines that fit her torso tightly before flaring out at the waist. Her gaze was trained on the gentleman waltzing her about the floor—a man who seemed equally attentive to her as well. Bastard.
“What’s she wearing?” he muttered beneath his breath. Her partner’s hand rested not on her dress but on the bare skin of her back above the dress. He glared at the man’s pudgy hand on that smooth, olive-toned back, wanting nothing more than to wrench it free of her. He told himself this was because she was Will’s sister, that he felt protective of her for Will’s sake. Nothing more. That flash of desire he’d had for her last week was an aberration. An anomaly. Thrust him alone with a half-dressed woman and tell him she was off-limits and he would react the same.
“Isn’t the dress stunning? Much more flattering than her usual gowns.”
“What was wrong with her usual gowns?” he grumbled.
“They weren’t precisely memorable.”
This dress was memorable. Or rather, Aurelia in this dress was memorable. The waltz came to an end and another gentleman was already there, waiting for the next dance.
“Aurelia is memorable no matter what she’s wearing,” he murmured, watching her closely as she drifted into the arms of her new partner.
“That’s kind of you to say,” Rosalie said, sounding surprised. “You should tell her that.”
No he shouldn’t. And he wasn’t trying to be kind. Her saucy mouth made her impossible to ignore. That was all he meant. Presently, he simply did not care for the looks she was getting in her gown. Her display of cleavage did not go unnoticed.
Rosalie continued, “I think Aurelia was hoping to attract a little more attention for herself tonight.”
“Why?” He frowned. For some reason, he didn’t like the notion of Aurelia attracting suitors. He’d gotten accustomed to her role as Will’s unwed sister. He’d assumed she would remain just that. A fixture in Will’s household for the years to come, there to quarrel with him whenever he visited.