When he turned back, he had removed his spectacles and was rubbing them on a handkerchief to wipe away the steam that had somehow gathered on the glass in those close moments.
She stared at him, this man she had told herself she would steer and seduce and manipulate. This man who had turned all that on its head by stealing her control and her plans with just a sweep of his tongue.
“Evangeline,” he whispered again, his voice just as rough as it had been when he said it before they kissed. Then he shook his head. “I apologize, my lady. I have behaved in an ungentlemanly manner. Allow me to remove myself so I do not go further than I already have.”
She stared, mouth agape, as he walked past her to the music room door. There he stopped, turned back and his face was lined with true regret. “I am…I am sorry.”
Then he was gone without another glance in her direction and Evangeline was left to sag against the piano, her hands shaking and her mouth tingling with the memory of his lips and hers. With so much more than that.
She fought to catch her breath, for it was short and ragged and almost painful. Her heart throbbed, almost like she had been running, and she was just a little dizzy as she sat down at the piano to regather herself.
Regather. That was not something she had to do very often in her life. She had planned it that way, arranged it, created every circumstance that she never felt exactly as she did now: out of control.
What had gone wrong with her plan? She had chosen Henry as her target because she knew…thought she knew…that he could be navigated in the direction she wished for him to take. That she would be able to stay cool and collected and careful with him and put herself in a position where she no longer had to fear what could be taken from her.
A marriage of convenience, but not one based on money, only on a desire to keep her independence.
And yet, in the span of a few seconds, Henry had proven she could be put into the very position she had watched her mother take over and over and over again. The position she saw her sister in regularly, and her sister-in-law. That position was them wanting something more from a man. A man who didn’t care enough to provide it.
When Henry had pulled away from her, she had felt the humiliating desire to beg him back. To follow him like a pathetic puppy, craving a connection he didn’t feel.
She leaned forward against the piano, resting her head in her hands. She’d thought she would avoid all that with Henry. And now she had no idea what to do next.
And for Evangeline, not knowing was the worst thing in the world.
Henry staggered back into the ballroom, his legs barely keeping him upright and his spinning head making it hard to concentrate. The taste of Evangeline was still on his tongue, sweet and heady as spiced wine. The warmth of her was one his skin, hotter than any festive Yule log crackling in the fireplace.
And all of it led to a deep and powerful longing he had never allowed himself to fully feel, that he had always quashed when it dared to rear its head over the years, but now could not be denied. It was a longing for her. For a woman who had always been out of reach.
But now he’d had a taste of her, of what he could no longer deny he had craved for years, and he realized in that moment that he would never be able to pretend away that longing again. It would live with him always, a cold reminder every time he saw Evangeline. Nothing could ever be the same now.
She had made certain of that through her actions. Oh, he had elevated the kiss, certainly, wild and animal abandon taking him over in a way he’d never allowed before. But she had started it. She had steered them to the quiet music room where they would never be interrupted. She had flirted and leaned and ultimately, she had kissed him.
His body jolted at the memory of that kiss, sweet at first and then something far wilder and more wanton as they both let loose of control.
Why had she done it? After years of what he’d perceived as only a friendly connection, why was she suddenly and rapidly pressing for something more?
“Henry.”
He froze, all heated thoughts of Evangeline’s taste fading from his mind at the hard sound of his father’s voice behind him. He turned slowly and found the viscount standing there with folded arms and a judgmental expression.
“We did not get a chance to speak much earlier. I did not expect you here tonight,” Lord Killam said.
Henry was still so dizzy, he had a hard time measuring his response. “I was invited. I did not realize I was to remain locked in my tower until I did what you asked of me.”
His father’s eyes narrowed. “Watch yourself, boy.”
Henry bent his head. There was nothing else to be done. His father held all the cards at present and would destroy Henry’s future despite anything he did. At this point, it was a matter of degrees.
“I apologize,” Henry ground out. “I hope my presence here doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”
His father shrugged. “Have you put any thought into what we discussed a few days ago?”
“Your ultimatum.”
“Yes, that.” His father lifted his brows. “Time is running out, boy. Don’t make me use the worst option. Don’t make me destroy you to save you from yourself.”
His father tipped his head and walked off without an answer. Henry watched him, hands clenched at his sides. “You mean save yourself from me,” he muttered, and reached out to catch a drink from a tray carried by a passing footman.
As he sipped it, his gaze moved to the door. Evangeline was stepping through the double doors, her gaze darting around the chamber. From her expression, no one would guess she had very nearly been ravished in a music room. She looked as bored and unbothered as she ever did.
As he watched her fall back into her hostessing duties, his mind turned to his conversation with Donovan a few days before. His friend had teased him about marrying an heiress to solve all his problems.
She looked at him, and when their eyes met, the color left her cheeks. So she was not so unaffected as she pretended. He was almost proud of that fact, but it also made Donovan’s words even louder in his head.
If Evangeline was sniffing around him, she had to have a purpose. What if he could use that purpose to further his own future? What if it could actually work?
He bent his head. These kinds of thoughts and plans were not to be made lightly. He had to think on them, hypothesize, research, make lists of all the potential outcomes. He needed to think. And he certainly wasn’t going to do that here.
So he made his way through the crowd carefully. At the door, he turned back one last time. Evangeline was watching him. Her expression had gone flat again. Control had returned.
But she held his gaze as he stood there. And it was he who broke it when he walked away.
Chapter 7
Evangeline very rarely allowed herself to get lost in life, but the one true exception was in a bookshop. Normally she could walk through the shelves, touching the spines, inhaling the heavenly scent and picking out the perfect story…or two…or ten…to take her away later.
Today that plan simply wasn’t working. She stood in Mattigan’s Bookshop, surrounded by its calming beauty, and her mind was most decidedly elsewhere. In a music room, to be precise, with Henry Killam’s arms around her and his lips on hers—