“We will waltz.” It was an imperious command.
“Oh, hardly,” she protested.
But he was holding out a hand for hers. “I believe waltzing is something you and I never did together, Viola,” he said. “We will right that wrong. Come.”
“Marcel.” She frowned.
“Ah,” he said. “I like it—the sound of you speaking my name. But come.” He took her hand, and she did not resist as he led her about the green to the side nearest the church, where there were no people, perhaps because full night had fallen and the light from the lamps did not penetrate this far. Here there was heavy shade, though not total darkness. It was a clear night, illumined by both moonlight and starlight.
“You will waltz with me here,” he said. It was still not a question. He was offering her no choice. Neither, of course, was he coercing her.
“But people will see,” she protested.
“And?” She was aware that his eyebrows were raised. “They will see us dancing together. Scandalous goings-on indeed.”
“Oh, very well,” she said, raising her left hand to set on his shoulder as his right arm came about her waist. How could she possibly resist? She had always thought the waltz the most romantic dance ever invented, yet there had been no such thing when she was young. There were still people who thought there was something scandalous about it, a man and a woman dancing a whole set exclusively with each other, face-to-face, their hands touching each other.
He took her free hand in his, listened a moment, and then led her into a waltz, twirling about the uneven ground of the village green, the sounds of voices and laughter seeming far away though they were only just beyond the shadows. She was very aware of his hands, the one resting firmly against the arch of her back at the waist, the other clasped about hers. She was aware that there was only an inch of space between his evening coat and her bosom, that their legs occasionally touched, that he was looking down at her, that she was looking back. She could not see him clearly in the darkness, but she knew his eyes were on hers. She could feel his body heat, smell his cologne, feel his magnetism. She could hear his breath.
She did not know how long it went on. Probably no longer than ten minutes. The dance had already been in progress, after all, when they started. It might have been forever. Viola forgot everything except the waltz and the man with whom she danced it in silence.
“Viola,” he said softly next to her ear when the music stopped. He did not immediately release her, and she made no move to extricate herself from his arms. “Let us go see what is behind the church, shall we?”
A churchyard, she supposed. But actually there was a sort of meadow beyond that, sloping downward to a river she had only half noticed this morning from the carriage window. A willow tree leaned over from the bank and almost touched the water. A humpbacked stone bridge crossed the river a short way to their left. It must all be very picturesque in the daylight. But so was the rest of the village.
They stood halfway between the low churchyard wall and the river, which winked in the moonlight, and listened to the slight rushing sound of water. The music began again, but the sound of it and of voices and laughter seemed far away now, part of some other world that did not concern them. His arm, through which her hand had been drawn, came about her waist to draw her to his side, and she wondered idly, not if she ought to allow it, but if she would. She made no move to bat his arm away or to take a step to the side. Rather, she leaned against him.
She would allow it, then. But she was in no danger. She knew what he was about. She understood. It did not matter.
He nudged her head onto his shoulder, lifted her chin with his long fingers, and bent his face to hers to kiss her.
Ah, it was a shock. She was so very unkissed. The boy she had loved when she was sixteen had kissed her once—a fumbling, guilty, swift smacking of lips that had left her in rapture for weeks afterward. And Humphrey had kissed her a few times in the early years of their marriage when he came to her bed. But the kisses had always been a prelude to the bedding and had never been offered with anything resembling conviction or affection or even lust. He had never lusted after her. He had married her—bigamously—for her money because he had none with which to pay off his many debts, but her father had pots of it that he was willing to give in exchange for the titles and prestige that would come through marrying his daughter to an earl’s heir.
She had never been kissed with any expertise. Until now. The first shock was the lightness of it, the unthreatening nature of it. He did not grab her or grind his lips against hers. He did not even turn her and pull her against him. His lips were soft, warm, slightly parted, and he teased her own until they parted too. His breath was warm against her cheek. His hand moved from beneath her chin to cup the back of her head. He took his time. There was no urgency, no hurry, no agenda, no destination. No threat. It was she who turned at last in his arms to come against him—knees, abdomen, bosom. Her hands came to his shoulders.
The second shock was that it did not end, not after a moment, not even after several moments, though he did move his mouth from hers to kiss her face and her throat, to murmur soft words her mind did not even try to decipher. Then he was kissing her mouth again, but again without urgency, teasing her lips farther apart, touching the flesh within with his tongue, reaching his tongue slowly into her mouth, stroking its tip over the sensitive roof.
That was when desire stabbed through her like a raw wound, and she knew herself to be in peril. She was, she understood, an almost complete innocent. She had been married—or had thought herself married—for more than twenty years. She had borne three children. She was a grandmother. But she knew virtually nothing. She had not even had . . . relations for almost twenty years. Soon after Abigail had turned out to be another girl and not the spare for Harry that Humphrey had hoped for, he had given up on their marriage in all but name—and even that was false.
She knew nothing about desire.
If she had thought about it at all, she had expected it to be a fierce thing. On the part of the man, that was. With willing submission on the part of the woman.
But this was not fierce. This was . . .
Expertise.
This was seduction.
She drew back, but only with the upper part of her body. Her hands were still on his shoulders. She could see him only faintly in the moonlight. His eyes were dark and heavy lidded. “We ought not to be doing this,” she said.
“Ought we not?” His voice was low. “Why not?”
She drew breath and . . . could not think of a single reason. “We ought not.” She was almost whispering.
“Then we will not,” said the master seducer, and he released his hold on her, took her hand in his, laced their fingers, and strolled closer to the water with her and along the bank toward the bridge. He led her to the middle of it, and they stood by the low parapet and gazed into the dark water that flowed beneath. The sounds of merriment seemed louder from here. The light of the lamps from the street on the far side of the green was visible again.
She was bewildered and . . . disappointed. That was all? He would answer so promptly the voice of protest? But why was she surprised? When she had told him fourteen years ago to go away, he had gone without argument, and without returning. She remembered now that she had been both bewildered and disappointed then too.
Perhaps this was why he was so successful. He might be a seducer, but he was not a coercer. No woman would ever be able to accuse him of tricking her, of persuading her against her will, of refusing to take no for an answer. At least, Viola assumed he approached all his conquests this same way.