Angelique was tempted to close her eyes against the soft rush of pleasure that stood the fine hairs on her neck on end.
Everyone was watching this, smiling.
No one seemed shocked.
Because it was not quite the eternity it had seemed to Lucien and Angelique. One brief grip of the hand did not betray their passionate kiss in the hall, or the fact that she knew precisely what it was like to be pressed up against Lord Bolt’s erection and that she had liked it.
He pulled her to her feet and released her hand at once as though she were made of flame.
Delilah helped Angelique smooth her skirt.
And then Angelique offered a smile to the crowd at large. “I live to fight another day,” she said.
“Hurrah!” everyone cried, amid laughter.
But Lord Bolt absently sheathed his invisible sword. Then he pivoted and left the room without another word.
He did not return to the drawing room for the rest of the night.
Chapter Ten
Lucien was dressed and out of The Grand Palace on the Thames just after dawn, feeling martyred and irritable. A man would have to be mad to turn his back on the seductive smells of eggs and sausage and kippers rising from the kitchen.
Perhaps he was.
He thought perhaps a good walk in a stiff ocean breeze on a foggy London day was the “get a hold of yourself, man!” kind of face slap he needed.
Last night—at least about three seconds of it—was purely an embarrassment.
It was also an epiphany.
This was what troubled him the most.
When he’d turned and seen Angelique on the carpet two profound events had crowded themselves into a fraction of a second, stomaching their way beneath his solid foundation of good sense.
His heart had stopped and the world—almost literally—went black. Snuffed right out, like a candle. It had dropped him to the ground.
And he’d knelt there like... like someloobyseconds away from rending his garment and howling his grief to the heavens. Something had him in its grip and it had naught to do with sense. Without his knowing, without hispermission, his life—thoughts and feelings and all that rot—had reshaped itself around her.
If she were to be plucked out of it... well, what was left behind closely resembled a void.
A moment later her voice had returned him to his senses, but she’d seen his expression, in all its raw, exposed glory. Of that he was certain.
Because he’d seen the impact on her own. She’d been stunned.
Bloody hell.
It had felt like a calling, for a mad moment: simply helping her up. It occurred to him that whatever she needed, no matter what it was, he’d be too happy to provide. Holding her hand had seemedabsurdlyprofound. Laughably so. It brought home to him that something about her had indeed stripped him down to a strange, raw newness. As if he was once again a green boy quivering at the very thought of the touch of a female. His thoughts careened between resentment and bemused wonderment, but came to rest on one certainty: even if he never experienced the glory of touching the rest of her, he’d still rush to help her up if she should ever stumble. If she should ever need him. No matter when. No matter where.
Even if he wasn’t the sort of man she’d dreamed of, with his ignominious history indelibly recorded in newspapers and in the memories of the people he’d fought, raced, or wagered with.
This seemed like a terrible weakness and an epiphany, but he wasn’t quite sure why.
But perhaps this was merely the definition of friendship.
How he wished now he hadn’t agreed to be her friend.
He wasn’t a morning drinker, so a morning walk it was. He’d walk all the way to Exeter’s office.