A buzz filled the crowded space, like a swarm of angry bees knocked from their nest. He ignored the overly loud whispers and continued his search.
Edgerton whistled. “Well, well,” he murmured.
“What is it?” Harry asked distractedly.
“It would seem you, my friend, saw a diamond amidst paste baubles.” He motioned with his nearly empty glass to the receiving line at the crest of Lord and Lady Preston’s staircase into the main hall.
“What are you on...?" He fixed his gaze on the arrival of a golden beauty draped in burnt orange satin. The candles strategically placed throughout the ballroom cast a pale glow about her lending an almost ethereal, otherworldly quality to the woman. “…about.” The air left him on a slow exhale.
Vaguely familiar, and yet…not. The slender, sweetly curved temptress had the look of a siren who’d just broke through fiery waters and climbed ashore. She fingered a loose blond curl artfully arranged between the crevice of her delectable mounds of white flesh, calling Harry’s—and every living, breathing gentlemen’s—attention to the enticing décolletage. She stood, regally elegant while introductions were made. She worked her gaze over the crowd, bypassing the interested stares trained on her by lustful lords and jaded rogues.
He willed her stare to his, willed her to forget every single last, unworthy gentleman present. As though she sensed his silent beckoning, her pale blue eyes collided with his.
A slow, inviting smile turned the corner of her lips. Smile with your eyes…and your lips as one… The air left him on a soft hiss. Ah, God, she was. With her lips, eyes, her every movement she smiled. Lady Anne Arlette Adamson.
Lord and Lady Preston’s majordomo could have rattled off the name. Or mayhap the four words, her name, echoed around the chambers of his mind.
He held his glass of champagne out.
Edgerton accepted it with a cynical chuckle. “You’ve gone all moon-eyed.”
Perhaps he had. She’d captivated him, mind, body, and soul.
Harry cut a quick path through the crowd. He shouldered his way past gentlemen determined to encroach on that which was Harry’s but whose wits had been dulled by the mere presence of her. She hovered at the edge of the ballroom floor. The orchestra struck up the chords of a waltz. He quickened his step. So close.
Lord Rutland, rogue, reprobate, everything Anne deserved so much more than, sidled up to her. The same bastard he’d sparred with for Margaret’s affections would now turn his lecherous sights upon Anne?
Harry growled. He’d meet the bastard at dawn once more, and this time it wouldn’t merely be for the draw of first blood, but to the damned death. He nearly sprinted the remainder of the way. His footsteps beat an angry rhythm upon the Italian marble floor as he recalled her boast more than a week ago to enlist Rutland’s support. He’d put his fist in the other man’s face before he allowed him to sully her with his presence. Couldn’t Rutland realize a woman of her wit, humor, and beauty deserved more than a jaded lord with a hard-edged smile?
He narrowed his gaze upon the couple as Rutland dared to touch the dance card dangling from her wrist. “I believe this set is mine,” Harry barked as he came upon them, attracting rapacious stares from nearby lords and ladies.
Anne started as though startled by his sudden appearance which was of course, madness. Surely her body’s awareness of him rivaled his own sense of knowing whenever she was near. Another seductive smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
He fisted his hands at his side. Where in hell had Anne learned such a thing? Then Harry blinked with the sick, slow realization—she’d learned every last seductive trick from him. Harry had schooled her—too well.
Rutland eyed Harry with an ice-cold grin. “Stanhope,” he said, running a contemptuous glance over him. “The lady’s only just arrived. Her dance card is as of yet—”
“Filled with my name,” he bit out. If Rutland cared to debate the point, he’d gladly do it with his fists outside the fashionable ballroom floor. Harry held out his hand.
Anne eyed him a long while. His stomach roiled as a sudden, irrational fear coursed through him that she intended to reject his offer, that she intended to allow Rutland to put his lecherous hands upon her satiny soft shoulders and touch her waist and this, this would be so much different than the fight he’d waged for Margaret’s affections. This would eat away at Harry like a fast-moving cancer.
She placed her fingertips in Harry’s hand. He folded his around them and studied the interlocked digits a moment.