Suddenly she was anxious, and, truth be told, more than a little intrigued. “I fear I’m drawing a blank at the moment,” she admitted, surprised how breathless she sounded as she pulled her hand away from his.
He seemed to loom over her, a menace affecting a purposefully nonthreatening air. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, perhaps? Though he was fair-skinned and light-eyed, he evoked a current of darkness. As though he carried the shadows with him in case he needed their protection.
However, Millie was fair certain that there was precious little that didn’t need protection from him. A chill raised her skin, even though warmth suffused other parts of her. Parts she studiously tried to ignore.
“How did you say you came to be here?” she asked.
His expression changed from mild to sheepish, which sat uncomfortably on a face as brutal as his. “I was invited by a friend of a friend, actually. I forget her name. Quite tall, fair hair. Younger than she looks, but then older than she claims.” He winked at her, his eyes crinkling with endearing groves. Not yet a smile, but the promise of one.
“Oh, do you mean Gertrude?” she asked.
“That’s the one.” He nodded, then scanned the crowd as though halfheartedly looking for the lady in question. “We have a mutual acquaintance by the name of Richard Swiveller, do you know him?”
Millie shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
He shrugged a gigantic shoulder and the movement rippled over his expensive evening jacket. “No matter. These private parties are hardly intimate, are they?”
Millie took a moment to scan her surroundings, taking in the hundred or so dancers and revelers in various stages of drunkenness and excess. “I suppose that depends on your interpretation of the word,” she remarked wryly.
There was that sound of amusement again. It hailed from deep, deep in his cavernous chest. A sound more suited to the shadows of the jungle than an English ballroom.
“Would you care for a waltz, Miss LeCour?” He stepped closer, invading her space, towering over her like a wall of heat and muscle.
Millie hesitated. Not because she was afraid, but because she very much doubted that a man of such height and width and—she looked down—large feet, could waltz worth a damn.
One tread of his heavy soles upon her feet and she feared he’d break them.
“I’ll step lightly,” he murmured, reading her mind.
She looked up, and up, into those unsettling eyes. There. Not a feeling, not an emotion, per se, but a glimmer. One of enjoyment … or regret, she couldn’t be sure.
Lord, but he was fascinating.
“See that you do,” she teased. “One cannot act if one cannot walk, and so, Mr. Drummle, I am at your mercy.”
“So you are.” He took her gloved hand in his—enveloped it, to be accurate—and led her to the floor. She paused to wait for an opening amongst the swirling couples, and gasped as he pulled her forward, seizing a place and twirling her into it with powerful arms.
It became instantly obvious that her fears regarding his dancing skills were completely unfounded. Indeed, he was the most graceful, skilled man on the floor … or perhaps on any dance floor in London. He held her close, scandalously close, his hand on her back securing her to him like an iron clamp. The warmth of that hand seeped through the layers of her clothing and corset, an undeniable brand. Yet, the hand that held hers was gentle, but just as warm.
The arms beneath his suit coat were even harder than she’d guessed. The swells of muscles where her hands rested flexed and rolled with his movements, and Millie found herself entranced by them. So much so, that she stumbled and lost her footing around a turn.
He pulled her even closer, allowing her to seamlessly recover while supported by the strength of his astonishingly solid body. Regaining the rhythm of the waltz, she threw him an appreciative glance.
“It seems, Miss LeCour, that it is I who should have been worried about injury to my feet.”
She laughed, dipping her forehead against his shoulder. Her heart sped along with the tempo of the waltz, sending warm flurries of nerves flooding through her. Perhaps her scruples about him had been as mistaken as her worries over his dancing capabilities.
“Tell me, Mr. Drummle, what is it you do?”
“I’m a longtime partner in a business enterprise,” he answered.
“Anyone I’ve heard of?” she pressed.
“Undoubtedly. My partners handle the day-to-day running of the business, meetings, mergers, acquisitions, and so forth. I’m over contracts, damages, and … personnel.”
“My,” she flirted. “You sound like an important man to know. Tell me more.” She used this ploy often. Men loved to talk about themselves. But this time, she found that she truly was curious about him. About how he spent his days. His nights.
And with whom.
“It’s all rather dull and workaday compared to what you do.” Millie felt, rather than saw his head tilt down, inching closer toward her. The din and atmosphere of the Sapphire Room suddenly melted away. Everything seemed darker, somehow. Closer. Their feet waltzed over shadows and their bodies synced in a flawless rhythm that felt, to her, sensuous. Sinful, even.
His scent enveloped her, a warm, masculine musk of cedar trunks, shaving soap, and something darker. Wilder. Something that smelled like danger and sex. The kind of sex that marked you afterward. The kind she’d heard in the wailing of ecstatic obscenities and pounding of headboards against thin walls in the days before she could afford her own apartments.