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.Always encouraging her to spread her wings and develop some gumption.And Mr.Pitts too.Though he tended to phrase it a bit more bluntly and in less flattering terms.The viscount reached forward and ran a finger along the soft fuzz of a ripe peach.“It would crumple so charmingly beneath your arched bare back.”And there had been something growing in her, ready to fan that spark into a full flame.It had been two long, sad years since the deaths of her parents and brother.And she hadn’t taken one step toward the things she’d always talked about doing.Her erstwhile correspondent would be quite cutting about the finality of that revelation.“Is that why you purchased it?” she asked as lightly as she could, staring down the shadowed path that the flirtation spread wide open.One toe rose in anticipation.Two froze in the same.His lips curved at her direct question.“Whatever the state of your gown at the end of the night, the style is quite flattering on you.”“And here I thought you uninterested in the vagaries of fashion.” She sought to follow his direction back to the lightness of their library conversations.Just when he might send her skittering off, he always said or did something to keep her firmly planted next to him, continuously on edge.Thoughts of sirens emerged once again.She switched her gaze to the boxes across from them, where a number of women held court in separate spaces, vying with each other.One was clearly winning.Her green gown was at the height of fashion.Everything about it accented her features and carriage.And yet she wasn’t beautiful.Not conventionally, at least.There was something about her though as she surveyed her court.A quickness to her eyes, a clever turn of her mouth.She laughed and said something in a saucy manner to a man at her right, who laughed in delight.There was definitely something about the woman.And her identity was clear.The rose pinned to her lapel proclaiming her to all.The notorious Mrs.Q.Georgette would be in heaven with the clear window through which to watch.“Intrigued by our dear Mrs.Quembley?” the viscount said, lounging in his seat, languidly rolling a grape between his thumb and forefinger.“Yes,” she admitted.He had caught her hunched over the gossip columns, it would be silly to deny any knowledge of the woman.She had never followed her exploits in the papers as Georgette had, but she did read the papers daily.“She is on the hunt, I see.She will find someone quickly enough.She always does.”“Yes,” she said absently, still watching the woman; the freedom of her disguise seemed to have switched off her normal inhibition to do so.“I remember she was connected to you.”Her mortification was instantaneous.She tried vainly to hope that she had only thought the thought and not actually said it.“I think Mrs.Q.has been connected to nearly everyone.”Well, that took care of the hope.She touched her expensive glove to her forehead, hoping that she would somehow come up with the perfect rejoinder to minimize her embarrassment.His statement was only partially true—Mrs.Q had indeed been connected to a number of men, but only to the more coveted members of the ton, of which the viscount was a decided part.“Are you jealous?”She looked at him strangely, the vain search for a response rendering her dumb.“Of being connected to everyone?”He smiled, and the usual mysterious nature of it stretched into something far more genuine, and even more appealing for it.“I think I should feel deeply wounded, but instead just find myself highly amused.” He rolled the grape down all of his fingers and back up again, then tossed the fruit into the air and caught it on the back of his hand in the valley between two fingers.Her brain caught back up to a somewhat normal flow.Jealous? The possibility of some sort of unique relationship with the man next to her was so far from her realm of reality that with her mind in pure social survival mode she hadn’t even realized what he was referencing at first.Jealousy? Perhaps a bit of longing.Longing?She swallowed quickly and tried to tamp down the nervousness at the thought, mingled with the strands of adventure and want that crept forth on mischievous tendrils.That reached across the space from the magnetic man across from her.She concentrated on Mrs.Q.“It’s interesting really.She isn’t as beautiful as the woman on her right.”The other woman, perfectly blond and haughty, didn’t command half of her court, and if anyone was envious, her cheeks were veritably green whenever her eyes connected left.“Beauty is something that is hard to debate.Every man thinks his ideal the best.” His eyes raked her hotly, and she felt her internal temperature increase like a kitchen stove overly stocked before being lit.“But the wittiest women rise to the top of this structure, conventional beauty often taking a backseat to a woman possessed of a clever tongue.”“Why?” she asked, truly curious.“Iced beauty can be had in marriage, in the pressed palm of a switched partner in a dance.Heat though…passion and earth, stimulating all of the senses…that is what is desired in a companion.”“And a wife isn’t a companion.”He raised his brows, visible above his mask.“Are you asking me or verifying the sentiment?”“Asking you.”“I’ve only seen it happen in a handful of cases, and those too unique to replicate.” He looked away, too casually.“Most love matches are actually untamed desire not allowed to run its course.”“That is cynical of you.” And yet, with parents such as his…“Realistic.”She watched him.The too-casual set of his shoulders.The way he moved the grape between his fingers in a decidedly idle motion.“You say it as if it irritates you that it is so.”“Irritates me?” He raised his infernal brow again.“I hardly think you aware of the normal sway of my thoughts, Miranda.” He echoed her previous words to him.She colored.“Perhaps not.But for all of your apparent cynicism, you at times have a most gilded tongue.Even Lady Banning remarked upon it.”She tried to back away from the edge of the knife that was the topic of his parentage.“A gilded tongue can be had on the most crafty of serpents.”“I meant it in the lyrical sense.”A number of emotions crossed his face in quick succession.Such a change from his normally sultry or indecipherable features that she nearly missed them in her surprise.Irritation, amusement, desire.Desire? But then he always had that in his arsenal.His lips tightened, then parted, and she tensed.Would he agree or draw sword?“Downing.What a surprise.” A man entered their box on slightly tipsy feet, a mask dangling perilously on his nose, the curve of a loosened knot making a noose on the side of his head.“Messerden.What a lack thereof.” The viscount’s eyes grew icy.Messerden clapped a hand against his thigh and rubbed the edge of his forefinger against the tip of his drink-reddened nose.“Thought you could hide?”“If I did, it would be in vain now, wouldn’t it?”The man turned to her, frankly appraising her.“Mrs
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