Лиза Клейпас - Chasing Cassandra

With a sigh, she picked up the discarded shoe and scowled at it. The pearls and intricate beading glittered in a slant of moonlight. So beautiful, and yet so incompetent at being a shoe. “I had such high hopes for you,” she said dourly, and threw it, not with any real force, but with enough strength to hit a potted palm and send beads scattering.

Tom Severin’s dry voice cut through the silence. “People in glass houses really shouldn’t throw shoes.”

Chapter 9

Cassandra glanced up with chagrin as Tom Severin entered the conservatory. “How did you know something was wrong?” she asked. “Was I that obvious?”

Mr. Severin came to a stop a few feet away from her. “No, you hid it well. But you winced as you stood from your chair, and you walked more slowly than usual.”

Some part of her brain registered surprise that he’d noticed such details, but she was too preoccupied to follow the thought. “Did you find my missing shoe?” she asked apprehensively.

For answer, he reached to an inside pocket of his coat and pulled out the shoe.

Relief radiated through her. “Oh, thank you . How did you manage to retrieve it?”

“I told one of the footmen I wanted a look underneath the table, as one of the leaves wasn’t quite level.”

Her brows lifted. “You lied for my sake?”

“No, I noticed at dinner that the liquids in the wine and water glasses were slightly tilted. The leaf wasn’t set in properly, so I adjusted it while I was down there.”

Cassandra smiled and extended her hand for the shoe. “You’ve done two good deeds, then.”

But Mr. Severin paused before giving it to her. “Are you going to throw this one as well?”

“I might,” she said.

“I think I’d better keep it until I’m sure you can be trusted with it.”

Cassandra drew her hand back slowly, staring into his glinting eyes. As she and Mr. Severin stood there with moonlight and shadows playing around them, it seemed as if they’d stepped out of time. As if they were the only two people in the world, free to do or say whatever they pleased.

“Will you sit beside me?” she dared to ask.

Mr. Severin hesitated for an unaccountably long moment, glancing at their surroundings as if he’d found himself in the middle of a minefield. He gave a single nod and moved toward her.

She gathered in her skirts to make room on the step, but some of the glittering blue silk spilled over his thigh as he sat. The scent of him was fresh with soap and starch, and a wonderful hint of dry resinous sweetness.

“How are your feet?” he asked.

“Sore,” Cassandra replied with a grimace.

Mr. Severin examined the shoe critically, turning it this way and that. “Not surprising. This design is an engineering debacle. The heel is tall enough to displace your center of gravity.”

“My what?”

“Furthermore,” he continued, “no human foot is shaped like this. Why is it pointed where the toes should go?”

“Because it’s stylish.”

Mr. Severin looked sincerely perplexed. “Shouldn’t the shoe be made for the foot, and not the foot for the shoe?”

“I suppose it should, but one must be fashionable. Especially now that the Season has started.”

“This early?”

“Not officially,” Cassandra admitted, “but Parliament is in session again, so there’ll be private balls and entertainments, and I can’t afford to miss any of them.”

Mr. Severin set down the shoe with undue care and turned to face her more fully. “Why can’t you afford to miss any?”

“It’s my second Season. I have to find a husband this year. If I go for a third Season, people will think there’s something wrong with me.”

His expression turned inscrutable. “Marry Lord Foxhall, then. You won’t find a better prospect, this year or any other.”

Even though he was right, the suggestion nettled her. She felt as if she’d just been rejected and dismissed. “He and I don’t suit,” Cassandra said shortly.

“The two of you chatted all through dinner—you seemed to get on well enough.”

“So did you and Lady Grace.”

He considered that. “She’s an amusing dinner companion.”

Inwardly rankled, Cassandra said, “Perhaps you should court her.”

“And have Lord Westcliff as a father-in-law?” he asked sardonically. “I wouldn’t enjoy living under his thumb.”

Now feeling restless and glum, Cassandra heard the lush music of a chamber orchestra as it filtered through a wire mesh window screen. “Bother,” she muttered. “I wish I could go back to dance.”

“Change into another pair of shoes,” he suggested.

“Not with these blisters. I’ll have to bandage my feet and go to bed.” She frowned down at her bare toes peeking from beneath the hems of her skirts. “You should find Lady Grace and ask her for a waltz.”

She heard his smothered laugh. “Are you jealous?”

“How silly,” she said stiffly, drawing her feet back. “No, not at all; I have no claim on your attention. In fact, I’m glad you’ve become friends with her.”

“You are?”

She forced herself to reply honestly. “Well, not especially glad, but I don’t mind if you like her. It’s only . . .”

Severin gave her a questioning glance.

“Why won’t you be friends with me ?” To Cassandra’s chagrin, the question came out plaintive, almost childish. She looked down and rearranged the folds of her skirts, fidgeting with the crystal beads.

“My lady,” he murmured, but she refused to look at him. One of his hands came to the side of her face to angle it upward.

It was the first time he’d ever touched her.

His fingers were strong but gentle, slightly cool against her hot cheek, and it felt so amazingly good that she trembled. She couldn’t move or speak, only stared up into his lean, slightly wolfish face. A trick of moonlight had turned his blue-green eyes iridescent.

“That you’d even ask . . .” His thumb brushed over her skin in a slow stroke, and her breath stopped and started too fast, sounding like a tiny hiccup. There was no mistaking the experience in his touch, sending pleasure-chills down the back of her neck and all along her spine. “Do you really want to be friends?” His voice had softened into dark velvet.

“Yes,” she managed to say.

“No, you don’t.” In the electric silence, he drew closer, his face right over hers, and her heart thundered as she felt the warm waft of his breath against her chin. His other hand came to the back of her neck in a light clasp. He was going to kiss her, she thought, her stomach tightening with excitement, her hands fluttering between their bodies like panicked moths.

Cassandra had been kissed before, during stolen moments at dances or soirées. Surreptitious and hasty kisses, each lasting no longer than a heartbeat. But no erstwhile suitor had ever touched her like this, his fingertips gently exploring the curve of her cheek and jaw. She began to feel unsteady, unfamiliar sensations coursing through her bloodstream, and she welcomed the support of his arm sliding around her. His lips looked firm and smooth as they hovered close to hers.

To her dismay, however, the expected kiss didn’t happen.

“Cassandra,” he murmured, “in the past I’ve made more than a few women unhappy. Never intentionally. But for some reason I’m not eager to dwell on, I don’t want to do that to you.”

“One kiss wouldn’t change anything,” she protested, and flushed as she realized how brazen that sounded.

Mr. Severin drew back enough to look down at her, his fingertips toying with the fine wisps of hair at the nape of her neck. A shiver chased through her at the delicate caress.