The Danger in Daring a Lady by Emma Locke

Author:Emma Locke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781939713506
Publisher: Intrepid Reads
Published: 2016-03-10T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

“DON’T EVEN THINK IT,” Dare said. Had he just lost part of his wager? He didn’t care. Not when Cate stood in the doorway clad in Elizabeth’s sapphire dress, her lustrous skin bright by contrast, her long hair the color of spun gold.

She’d come for him.

She arched her spine and glared at Dare. “Your brother did offer himself as escort in your stead, Lord Darius, but you failed to figure on me. This may well be my only ton dinner party. I wish for my memories to be of you, not your brother. When I return to my simple meals and simple life, I want to recall your arm under my fingertips, your approving smile. I sent your brother away, Lord Darius, because he is not you.”

An ache poignant enough to knock Dare over struck him in his solar plexus. He is not you. She could have said anything else and he would have expected it. Had she thrown his gambling in his face, he’d have been prepared to rebuke her. She might have harped at him for leaving her, or ordered him out, or forbid him.

But to admit she all but desired him…

Her breasts heaved as she glared at him. Fury cast her cheeks in a rosy red, and her glossy hair reflected candlelight glowing from the library sconces. She was so lovely, it hurt.

There. Right in the center of his chest. He’d never felt a pain quite like this before.

Thrusting away the blissful, addictive sensation, he fortified himself, knowing an affair with her would no doubt end in tragedy for them both. No relationship had ever ended differently for him.

“Miss Hart,” he said, striding toward her. “I’m sorry I’ve kept you.”

Her green eyes narrowed, the hue becoming sharper as he drew nearer. “No, Lord Darius, you are not.”

He stopped short.

His friends’ gazes bored into his back as he tried to think of a way to assuage her ire. Falling on old habits, he gifted her his most rakish smile. “Had I recalled how becoming you are in that dress, I’d not have kept you waiting.”

Her chin notched. “Is that a compliment to my bosom, or an apology?”

Lord de Winter snickered.

She ignored him. Her hand clung to a half-drunk glass of lemonade. She shook with anger, yet Dare had never seen anyone so comely. If his friends hadn’t been there, he might have done something asinine, like confess that he’d begun imagining his life with her in it, and her bosom was only a distant second in his mind. But his friends were watching, and he wasn’t about to say something that might be construed as a promise.

“It’s a compliment,” he said, for she did look beautiful.

She smiled then, a deadly smile that never made it to her eyes. “Why in that case, Lord Darius, this drink is for you.”

His bemused smile quickly turned into horrified astonishment as his angel flicked her arm forward with righteous purpose, splashing cold, syrupy lemonade down the front of his waistcoat, all the way to his breeches.

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