Born of sin and raised in sin.
Miss Marlow’s partner lifted her hand to his lips and bowed.
Drew stepped forward. “Miss Marlow.” He said her name as though they’d been introduced and he had a right to use it, speaking before the man had chance to offer to lead her back to her mother.
She looked at him, her expression confused, but then she smiled, and it was as though the sun rose in the room which was already illuminated by several hundred candles in the chandeliers.
Her smile said, “I am not sure I know you, sir.” Yet a young woman like her would never be rude enough to ask.
When her companion let her go, Drew captured her hand, as if he had a right to that too. He felt as though he did. She had become his favourite choice as a bride the minute she’d smiled at him and not turned away. “May I have the next dance?”
He did not push things too far, he did not kiss her hand, yet he let his gloved fingers slide up her wrist a little to touch her skin, as if the gesture was accidental. She lowered into a sweet perfectly correct curtsy and looked up an instant before she rose.
Beautiful.
Her eyes were an unusual blue, an extremely pale rim of colour surrounding the dark pupils that looked at him in question. “Who are you? Do I actually know you, sir?” Too polite to ask those questions she simply continued to pretend they had been introduced. They had not.
If he could have picked a tune it would have been the waltz, but the first waltz was not until later and he had no wish to lose the chance of the distance from her family. They were at the far end of the ballroom, in their usual pack. The Pembrokes. Although Pembroke was not the name the family went by as a whole, the old Duke had had four girls, and they’d all married exceptionally well, apart from Mary’s mother, who had at first married a soldier, who’d died, and then settled on the second son of an earl. But the son from her first marriage had inherited the title and given Miss Marlow a very attractive dowry, and so Mary was simply a Miss and yet a powerful match as a duke’s sister, and innocent.
“I believe you should stand here, and I there…” Drew said to her look of confusion.
There was another quick smile, which was far more fleeting than the first. She was perhaps realising she had made an error. He smiled to ease her concern. “I shall admit we have not been introduced. You must forgive me for taking the liberty of breaking the rules, Miss Marlow.” The music commenced.
He stepped forward and took her hand in the format of the dance, then completed a shoulder to shoulder turn.
“I should walk away immediately.”
“Indeed you should. But is it such a sin for a man to find you so utterly beautiful he cannot wait even another moment, or at worse another dance, to find some party who might introduce him?”
“That is the course of a gentleman.”
“It is indeed.” He leaned to her. “There you have me; perhaps I am not a gentleman…” He said it in a voice to tease her, the voice he knew earned him a little more money from the women who asked for his favour. Her head turned instantly, but then her gaze dropped to the lopsided rogue’s smile he threw at her and she laughed.
“You are a gentleman. You would not be here if you were not.”
So innocent… so blind. Such a novelty.
What he would give for that blindness.
“So are you enjoying your season, Miss Marlow?”
Her answering smile was softened then. “Yes. I have had to wait patiently, because we’ve been in mourning for my grandsire, but I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to finally be out. My cousins, who are older, have been full of stories and made me long for this. Now finally I have my moment.”
Yes, she did. “Tell me how it compares to the things you must have dreamed…” As they talked their steps followed the intricate country dance, but the blessing of it was, he had by chance chosen a country dance that did not separate them.
“It does not compare, I could not have imagined this…”
“You lie, surely you knew you would be in a room full of young men making fools of themselves for young women, and old men being bores, and young women who giggle at the slightest word.” and older women… like his mother… he did not even wish to think of them.
“So you think I giggle like an idiot.” There was a little annoyance in her voice.
As they made another turn he took the opportunity to press his palm against her side, below her breasts. Her body slid across his fingers as she followed the pattern of the dance. He only touched her for an instant, as if it was to stop her stumbling, yet her whole body jolted.
“Forgive me. I thought you’d missed a step.”
“You thought—”
“No I did not.” He leaned to her ear as he stepped forward. Her hair brushed his cheek. “I simply wish this were a waltz and I had the opportunity to hold you.”
He stepped back. There was a sparkle in her dark pupils, and he saw her heartbeat flickering beneath her skin at the base of her neck.
The woman was charming.
“Yet it is not a waltz, and so you should refrain…”
Finally he was challenged, her pause awaited his name. It had taken her long enough. “Lord Framlington.”
As they walked around the back of the couple beside them she looked as though she searched her memory for his name, yet when they came into the middle of a ring of six there was no light of recognition in her eyes. The Duke of Pembroke had not mentioned his name to her then.
“I like you, Miss Marlow. You are pretty and sensible,” he said, as they came back together – and innocent and wealthy.
“I cannot say I like you in return, I do not know you.”
He smiled at her little jab. “Know you or not, I like and admire you.” It was true, the girl was claiming his entire interest the more the dance progressed. She was perfect.
“Indeed.” She laughed, a light, jolly sound, not a forced jubilant creation developed to draw attention.
The girl was doing something to his soul, he felt as though he was bathing in her innocence, baptised in it, his sins washed away. “It is no jest, and no falsity, you are charming. A man would be a fool if he did not see it.”
“So you are telling me you are no fool.”
“I have never been a fool, Miss Marlow.” Another step forward brought them together. “I am interested in you.” He whispered it into her ear.
Her head pulled back. “Interested…”
He let his lips tilt into a smile. “Yes. Very. Immensely. As I said I like you.”
“My Lord, you may speak as though you know me, but you do not.”
“Such a sensible head, you only interest me more…”
Damn it, there was probably only a dozen steps left and beyond those dancing Drew saw her father in a discussion with her brother, Pembroke. The Duke must have recently arrived. They both glanced across the room.
Drew looked at Miss Marlow, his time with the beauty was at an end. “I am the son of a Marquis…” In theory, and yet if he was to sell himself he must sell his best side. “You may hear bad things of me, but disregard them. Judge me by the man you see. Admittedly I am not like the young men I see you dancing with—”
“You have been watching me.”
“Did I not already say that I admire you? Why would I not watch you to learn more about you and be sure what I think is true?”
“What do you think?”
“That