Read Online One Final Season by Elizabeth Beacon - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth Beacon
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primitive instincts in the hope they might give up in the face of bleak reality.
‘Don’t flatter yourself, my lord,’ she warned him softly.
‘No need, when you’ve done it for me by refusing to pick up any of the challenges I cared to throw out in the past.’
‘I am not a coward, and you’re the one who retreated from the fight.’
Suddenly the air was crackling with something more than the slightly bitter teasing of two people who’d once had such promise of linking and entwining their lives, yet failed to take that vital step together. Kate’s mouth felt inexplicably dry and her pulse was racing, but she made herself meet him glare for dare. Half-conscious they were in all too public a space for such a contest of wills and wishes, she still couldn’t let her eyes fall modestly and step away from him. Giving an involuntary sigh as she continued to hold his jade-and-steel gaze without flinching, she allowed herself the small concession of licking her lips to slick their inexplicable dryness and marvelled at the feral heat that flared in his eyes as he changed from confident, taunting challenger to offer a darker and deeper world of sensual threat instead.
‘I think you’re going to miss the first waltz if you don’t hurry, my dears.’ Eiliane intruded a little too brightly on their silent, too-significant struggle for some victory Kate didn’t even understand wanting to achieve so desperately in the first place.
‘And what a shame that would be,’ she managed to say as acerbically as everyone seemed to expect her to, even if her lips felt numb and her tongue oddly stiff in her parched mouth.
‘Have you already promised yourself to someone else, Miss Alstone?’ Edmund asked relentlessly, for some reason best known to him refusing to do what she fully expected him to and walk away to find the pretty little miss he’d been talking to earlier.
‘No, but I dare say you have.’
‘You’d be wrong and not for the first time then, so perhaps you’d best hurry up and join me for it, before we attract even more attention to ourselves,’ he replied.
‘I never dance with noblemen who order me to do so, attention or otherwise.’
‘Then pray do us both the favour of joining me on the dance floor, before the tabbies make all sorts of mistaken assumptions about our tardiness, Miss Alstone,’ he demanded more than asked.
Seeing that he was right and they were attracting far too much notice for comfort, she took his offered hand and let him lead her onto the floor, as if she could imagine nothing more pleasant than to dance with the rude, contradictory, disturbing man. Instead it felt as if he’d just snapped the tethers of the polite pretence that should have held them both in check and left them perilously adrift in a world where she had no bearings or familiar landmarks to chart it by.
‘Why do you suddenly seem to hate me, my lord?’ she heard herself ask as soon as they were launched into the dance. She was silently cursing herself for agreeing to be held so close to him, so curiously in sympathy considering their new antipathy and the odd fact that he’d never affected her like this in the past, when he’d just been a skilful partner who didn’t tread on her toes.
‘I don’t hate you, Kate, would that I could,’ he answered her with no hint of a smile to soften his hard-eyed scrutiny of her upturned face.
‘Perhaps it would be easier,’ she agreed rather wistfully.
‘For you or for me?’
‘For both of us.’
‘Then you are a coward,’ he murmured, but still he held her as if she was precious and their steps harmonised with such ease it felt as if they’d been born to dance together.
‘How so?’ she managed to murmur, fighting a stupid urge to lay her head on his shoulder and dream her way through this waltz, as if all that mattered was being held so close to him nothing could come between them. At least imagining how that shocking spectacle would appear was enough to
‘Don’t flatter yourself, my lord,’ she warned him softly.
‘No need, when you’ve done it for me by refusing to pick up any of the challenges I cared to throw out in the past.’
‘I am not a coward, and you’re the one who retreated from the fight.’
Suddenly the air was crackling with something more than the slightly bitter teasing of two people who’d once had such promise of linking and entwining their lives, yet failed to take that vital step together. Kate’s mouth felt inexplicably dry and her pulse was racing, but she made herself meet him glare for dare. Half-conscious they were in all too public a space for such a contest of wills and wishes, she still couldn’t let her eyes fall modestly and step away from him. Giving an involuntary sigh as she continued to hold his jade-and-steel gaze without flinching, she allowed herself the small concession of licking her lips to slick their inexplicable dryness and marvelled at the feral heat that flared in his eyes as he changed from confident, taunting challenger to offer a darker and deeper world of sensual threat instead.
‘I think you’re going to miss the first waltz if you don’t hurry, my dears.’ Eiliane intruded a little too brightly on their silent, too-significant struggle for some victory Kate didn’t even understand wanting to achieve so desperately in the first place.
‘And what a shame that would be,’ she managed to say as acerbically as everyone seemed to expect her to, even if her lips felt numb and her tongue oddly stiff in her parched mouth.
‘Have you already promised yourself to someone else, Miss Alstone?’ Edmund asked relentlessly, for some reason best known to him refusing to do what she fully expected him to and walk away to find the pretty little miss he’d been talking to earlier.
‘No, but I dare say you have.’
‘You’d be wrong and not for the first time then, so perhaps you’d best hurry up and join me for it, before we attract even more attention to ourselves,’ he replied.
‘I never dance with noblemen who order me to do so, attention or otherwise.’
‘Then pray do us both the favour of joining me on the dance floor, before the tabbies make all sorts of mistaken assumptions about our tardiness, Miss Alstone,’ he demanded more than asked.
Seeing that he was right and they were attracting far too much notice for comfort, she took his offered hand and let him lead her onto the floor, as if she could imagine nothing more pleasant than to dance with the rude, contradictory, disturbing man. Instead it felt as if he’d just snapped the tethers of the polite pretence that should have held them both in check and left them perilously adrift in a world where she had no bearings or familiar landmarks to chart it by.
‘Why do you suddenly seem to hate me, my lord?’ she heard herself ask as soon as they were launched into the dance. She was silently cursing herself for agreeing to be held so close to him, so curiously in sympathy considering their new antipathy and the odd fact that he’d never affected her like this in the past, when he’d just been a skilful partner who didn’t tread on her toes.
‘I don’t hate you, Kate, would that I could,’ he answered her with no hint of a smile to soften his hard-eyed scrutiny of her upturned face.
‘Perhaps it would be easier,’ she agreed rather wistfully.
‘For you or for me?’
‘For both of us.’
‘Then you are a coward,’ he murmured, but still he held her as if she was precious and their steps harmonised with such ease it felt as if they’d been born to dance together.
‘How so?’ she managed to murmur, fighting a stupid urge to lay her head on his shoulder and dream her way through this waltz, as if all that mattered was being held so close to him nothing could come between them. At least imagining how that shocking spectacle would appear was enough to
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