The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(49)

“Miss Banbury?” The duchess’s sharp tone brought Helena’s head swiveling back to the group. Again, her skin tingled with the force of Robert’s gaze. “His Lordship is speaking to you,” the duchess said between tight lips.

A surge of color rushed to her cheeks. “My lord,” she said quickly.

He inclined his head, and took a step closer, effectively angling the duchess out of Helena’s line of vision. Were his movements a deliberate bid to divert that vitriol away from Helena’s notice? “May I?” he asked quietly, that grin the Devil would have traded him for on his lips.

“May you what?” she blurted.

Robert indicated the bloody card dangling from her wrist, and Helena followed his gaze. She snapped her other hand over the offensive piece.

“Dance with you, Miss Banbury,” he said smoothly, and reached for her card.

Helena gulped. “No.” That terse exclamation froze him midmovement. Head bent over her card, he lifted his gaze.

The duke and duchess alternated their stares between Helena and Robert like spectators at a tennis court.

Then, in the show of arrogance she’d come to expect of him, the marquess collected her wrist, and skimmed the empty card.

She tugged. “I don’t.”

He returned his attention to her face. “You do not what, Miss Banbury?”

As though to accentuate the full extent of how ill suited she was to this world, a strand escaped her chignon and fell over her brow. “Dance.” Of all the tutors and instructors Ryker had hired her through the years, there had never been a need for a dance master.

“You do not . . . ?”

Nor had she seen the need or benefit of wasting funds on such a frivolous activity—until now. “Dance,” she again supplied, waving to the couples completing the intricate steps of some set or another. “I do not dance.” Now this inability only accentuated further her oddness amongst this world.

A frown hovered on Robert’s lips. What accounted for that faint expression? Was it disapproval for the woman he’d agreed to help? A pang struck in her chest.

“A stroll about the dance floor, then?” He held his elbow out.

“Go along, Helena,” the duke urged. “Lord Westfield is one of the good ones.”

One of the good ones who’d entered her rooms, kissed her senseless, and then shattered her world. One of the good ones, indeed. Helena tamped down a private smile, and reluctantly placed her fingertips on his sleeve.

Grateful to be free of the duchess’s constant glowering, she kept her gaze trained forward. Again, years away from company, with only her laconic brothers for companionship, she’d little practice with matters of discourse.

Ever the proper nobleman, Robert broke the silence. “You do not dance,” he whispered, that obvious fact coming from the corner of his mouth. “That is a detail you may have mentioned, yesterday.”

“You did not ask,” she returned, eyes trained forward.

He continued in hushed tones. “You are making the whole manner of your courtship—”

“Our courtship,” she interrupted.

“Vastly more challenging.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I expect strolling about the dance floor is statement enough for the guests present.”

He brought them to a stop beside a tall Doric column, shifting his body so he placed himself between her and the gazes of the other lords and ladies present. “Ah, but strolling around the ballroom is markedly different than dancing, Helena.” His breath fanned the shell of her ear, and her eyelashes fluttered wildly.

“I-Is it?” she managed, hating that faint quality of her tone.

“Oh, yes,” he whispered, dipping his head lower still, and the male scent of him, brandy, blended with mint, cast a quixotic spell.

She’d long despised spirits, but on this man, it was more intoxicating than any potent brew. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep, heady breath.

“All it will take is my hand over the small of your lower back as I draw you close to make it very clear that my attentions are not to be challenged.”

Helena could make right and reason out of any set of numbers with barely any effort. That comforting order had been her lifeline when so much of her life had been ugly and unclear. But there was no order to the way this made her feel. There was no way she could neatly reason out what she felt in his presence. This man had a mastery of words that had the power to weaken. Pull yourself together, girl. Helena forced away the seductively thick haze he’d thrown over her and she blinked back that fog. His efforts here were nothing more than a bid to present the very fa?ade she’d asked of him a day earlier.

And for some inexplicable reason, she hated that his was nothing more than an expert show put on by a rogue.

“You are indeed, correct,” she said quietly, and he went still. “Given our . . .” She searched her gaze about, but Robert’s positioning continued to shield her from Society’s view. “Relationship, it would certainly be beneficial that I take part in certain activities that ladies partake in.” Grateful to have logic restored, she gave a decisive nod. “It is settled.”

Robert angled his head. “Settled?”

“Why, you’ll need to instruct me.”



. . . You’ll need to instruct me . . .