"However, it wouldn't be fair. You're trigged up in all your finery, and I find that anticipation often heightens the pleasure. So you and I may waltz this evening at the ball, and look forward to all the wonderful things we shall do to each other once we get home."
She let her hand dip down to stroke him. "Are you sure?"
"Wanton woman."
"Never mind the Lower Rooms," she whispered.
He removed her hand firmly. "You shall just have to wait. I love it when you get so eager."
"If I get any more eager I won't be able to dance."
He grinned and took her arm. He helped her on with her cloak, his warm hands lingering on her shoulders intimately. He stopped her from putting in her gloves, though, to her surprise, and barehanded, led her downstairs to the coach.
Once safely inside, he attempted to relieve some of her eagerness, but as she complained to him breathily, "You can't just lead me on and then leave me like this. It's too cruel. I'm going to squeak when I dance, or leave a puddle somewhere at this point. Oh, Alexander, oh, please. Let's turn around and go back."
With one last sinuous caress of his tongue deep inside her, he lifted his head, adjusted her underclothes, and smoothed her skirts down. Then he kissed her, his mouth damp and aromatic with her own special light scent of love, and he sparked her desires anew.
"We won't have to stay long, but I do want to dance with the most beautiful woman in Bath."
Sarah, in a haze of desire, barely noticed her acquaintances as she walked through the rooms, and tried to stay up on her jellied knees. She barely remembered to put her crumpled gloves on, and noted with relief and regret that Alexander was at last wearing his.
He chatted away easily, but she could swear there was a twinkle in his eye meant specially for her. They were just in time to find space on the floor for the opening waltz. While they could not join in the quadrille, which required a great deal of interaction with other partners, they got through a polka and a simple country-dance with grace and aplomb.
"Tea?" she asked at one point much later.
"Not yet. I want to dance this next one."
"Are you sure?" she asked doubtfully. "It's a bit fast even for me."
"Let's have a go, eh? As long as we're here."
"All right, darling. It'll be fun."
He was about to lead her on the dance floor when a red-coated figure blocked her way.
"Miss Deveril, how delightful to see you again. I had no idea you were in Bath."
"Captain Breedon," she said in surprise. "I haven't seen you for quite some time."
"I've been visiting with my parents in Gloucestershire. In any event, now that old Boney has abdicated, there's little call for recruitment. I know you and your brother were most ardently opposed to my activities, but then, you've no doubt picked up all sorts of strange ideas from the company you keep."
It seemed an odd way for him to request an introduction to her companion, whom he was looking at pointedly, but she took the hint.
"Captain Breedon, may I present my cousin, Mr. Alexander Deveril. Alexander, this is Captain Breedon, stationed outside Brimley. He was a most vigorous recruiting officer in our neighborhood. I'm pleased to say the war is over now, and they shall all be coming home to the fields where they belong."
Sarah noticed that Breedon was looking closely at her companion, his eyes narrowed. Was it possible he recognized Alexander?
"Forgive me, Captain, but do you two know each other at all?" she dared to ask.
"I don't believe so," he said abruptly. "Is he from around these parts?"
"Er, no, from the north, near where my sisters have settled," she lied, then blushed.
He took in her red face, and the way that Alexander was looking at her, and immediately knew the lay of the land between them. Who would have ever imagined it? The vicar's sister with a lover. And him of all people...
"I see. You will pardon me asking, but is your cousin, er, unwell?"
Alexander's jaw set, his full lips thinning to a tightly compressed line.
"He has been, yes. Is it so easy to tell?"
"Perhaps only to me. I've met other men injured in the war with the same infirmity."
"Are you sure we've never met?" Alexander demanded with a frown.
"I've met many people in my role as recruiting officer," Captain Breedon said with an airy wave, stepping away to allow them access to the dance floor.
"Pray do not be offended. It is just that the injury affected his memory as well," she hastened to apologize to the Captain. "There are some gaps about what happened during the war years which he hoped to fill. But thus far no one has been able to help."