One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)(6)

Despite his efforts, she only trembled more violently. Small sounds, something between a hiccough and a squeak, emanated from her throat. Against his better judgment, he pulled back to study her face.

The woman was laughing.

His heart began to beat a little faster. Steady, man.

“It is true, what the ladies say. You do waltz like a dream.” Her eyes swept his face, catching on his brow, his jaw, and finally fixing on his mouth with unabashed interest. “And you are undeniably handsome, up close.”

“Do you hope to move me by means of flattery? It won’t work.”

“No, no.” She smiled, and her right cheek dimpled. The left did not. “I see now that you are a positively immutable gentleman, a veritable rock of determination, and my every attempt to move you would be in vain.”

“Why the laughter, then?”

Why the question? he berated himself, annoyed. Why not gratefully allow the conversation to die? And why did he find himself wondering whether Lady Amelia’s left cheek ever dimpled? Whether she smiled more genuinely, more freely in situations that did not involve debasing herself over large debts, or whether the lone dimple was merely another of her intrinsic imperfections, like the unmatched freckle on her breast?

“Because,” she answered, “anxiety and gloom are tiresome. You’ve made it clear you will not forgive the debt. I can pass the remainder of the set moping about it, or I can enjoy myself.”

“Enjoy yourself.”

“The notion shocks you, I see. I know there are some”—here she raked him with a sharp glance—“who judge it a mark of their superiority to always appear dissatisfied with the available company. Before they even enter a gathering, they have made up their minds to be displeased with it. Is it so very unthinkable that I might choose the reverse? Opt for happiness, even in the face of grave personal disappointment and complete financial ruin?”

“It smacks of insincerity.”

“Insincerity?” She laughed again. “Forgive me, but are you not the Duke of Morland? The playwright of this little midnight melodrama that has played to packed houses for weeks? The entire scene is predicated on the assumption that we eligible ladies are positively desperate to catch your attention. That a dance in the Duke of Midnight’s arms is every girl’s fondest fantasy. And now you call me insincere, when I claim to be enjoying my turn?”

She lifted her chin and looked out over the ballroom. “I have no illusions about myself. I’m an impoverished gentlewoman, two seasons on the shelf, no great beauty even in my bloom of youth. I’m not often at the center of attention, Your Grace. When this waltz concludes, I don’t know when—if ever—I shall know the feeling again. So I’m determined to enjoy it while it lasts.” She smiled fiercely, defiantly. “And you can’t stop me.”

Spencer concluded this must now be the longest set in the history of dancing. Turning his head, he dutifully swept her the length of the floor, striving to ignore how every pair of eyes in the ballroom tracked their progress. Quite a crowd tonight.

When he risked a glance down at her, Lady Amelia’s face remained tilted to his.

“Can I persuade you to stop staring at me?”

Her smile never faltered. “Oh, no.”

Oh no, indeed.

“You see,” she whispered in a husky tone, that from any other woman he would have interpreted as sensual overture, “it’s not often a spinster like me has the opportunity to enjoy such a prime specimen of virility and vigor, and at such close proximity. Those piercing hazel eyes, and all that dark, curling hair … What a struggle it is, not to touch it.”

He shushed her. “You’re creating a scene.”

“Oh, you created the scene,” she murmured coyly. “I’m merely stealing it.”

Would this waltz never end?

“Did you wish to change the subject?” she asked. “Perhaps we should speak of the theater.”

“I don’t go to the theater.”

“Books, then. How about books?”

“Some other time,” he ground out. And instantly wondered what had possessed him to say that. The odd thing of it was, despite her many, many unpleasant attributes, Lady Amelia was clearly possessed of some intelligence and wit. He could not help but think that at another time, in another place, he might have enjoyed discussing books with her. But he couldn’t possibly do so here, in a crowded ballroom, with his concentration unraveling on each successive twirl.

His control of the scene was slipping.

And that made him frown.

“Ooh, that’s a dangerous glare,” she said. “And your face is turning a most impressive shade of red. It’s enough to make me believe all those dreadful rumors about you. Why, you’re actually raising the hairs on my neck.”

“Stop this.”

“I am all honesty,” she protested. “See for yourself.” She stretched up and tilted her head to the side, elongating the smooth, pale column of her neck. No freckles there. Only an enticing curve of creamy, soft-looking, sweet-smelling female skin.

Now Spencer’s heart slammed against his ribs. He didn’t know which he yearned to do more. Wring that neck, or lick it. Biting it might be a fair compromise. An action that mingled pleasure with punishment.

Because she deserved to be punished, the impertinent minx. Accepting the futility of her first argument, she’d chosen to wage a different battle. A rebellion of joy. She might not wrest a penny from him, but she would wring every possible drop of enjoyment at his expense.