The Dangerous Love of a Rogue. Jane Lark

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      “Miss Marlow, I would be extremely honoured if you will allow me this dance.”

      Mary turned and faced Mr Gerard Heathcote, one of her staunch admirers. He bowed deeply. He was a wealthy merchant’s son who’d courted her last season. Her family liked him. He was charming, in a genteel way.

      He’d made her an offer last season. She’d refused, saying it was too soon to settle on a husband. But that had been kindness. He was good natured, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. But her heart craved dark brown locks and laughing brown eyes with a wicked glint.

      However Gerard was a good dancer and he’d become a friend, as were many of her beaux. But none of them were anything more. She felt nothing beyond like.

      Mary swallowed back her growing impatience, letting go of her father’s arm. She offered her hand and Gerard drew her away. Usually she enjoyed dancing, but tonight it was one endless boring whirl.

       Since when did I become so jaded?

      Since the rogue kissed me.

      From this moment on, unless Lord Framlington repeated his kiss, her life would be dull.

      * * *

      Arms folded across his chest, with one hand loose, the stem of his wine glass dangling between his fingers, Drew watched the dance floor.

      She was dancing again. Her hand held that of the young heir to the Earl of Warminster as she skipped along an avenue made by their set. It was a boisterous country dance. The boy was smiling as was Miss Marlow, brightly, giving her beau all her attention, and Drew had none of it.

      He was beginning to wonder if instead of increasing her interest he’d jumped his fences with that kiss and made his horse bolt. He’d not once caught her looking at him tonight. She was instead doing everything she could to avoid looking at him.

      She’d spent the entire night amidst a gaggle of youths – a mix of her female friends and their beaux.

      The child she danced with laughed at every word she said. Drew suspected the boy would laugh no matter what she said, and undoubtedly Miss Marlow was bored. But even so her eyes focused intently on her idiotic companion while her female friends fluttered their fans, along with their eyelashes and cast their gazes about the room seeking to hook some unsuspecting male.

      Irritation burned in Drew’s veins.

      He’d expected Miss Marlow to at least come closer. He’d even given her a clue earlier, by walking past her, suggesting a silent game they could play, passing close without touching, in secret acknowledgement. She had not picked up his gauntlet. She’d left it where it lay, kiss and all, and instead blatantly ignored him.

      He leaned his shoulder against the wall silently seething. He’d thought this the victory leg but despite her youth and innocence Miss Mary Marlow was not going to be easily caught.

      A challenge. He sighed, suddenly, letting the tension in his muscles ease with his outward breath. A challenge was like a chase, it whispered to his male instincts. He liked to be challenged. What fun would there be in life, if everything came easily?

      Raising his glass of wine to his lips he watched her let go of young Warminster’s hand.

      Then she turned to take her place in the line of the set. Her eyes lifted, and her gaze reached across the room. It was literally a glance, only an instant, but in that instant their gazes collided. She had looked for him. She had known he was watching her all along and exactly where he stood.

      A smile curved his lips as she looked away and began to clap, watching another couple skip along the middle.

      You will be my wife, Mary Marlow. You will. And you will beg me to offer for you, when I do.

      He was going to change his tactics, though, perhaps she needed a little less subtlety and a little more urging.

      * * *

      Lord Framlington’s gaze made Mary’s skin prickle on the back of her neck as she looked along the line of dancers. He’d stared at her for an hour. What he expected her to do she did not know. Perhaps he thought she would seek an assignation with him. She could even hear his words in her head, “Come and meet me, Mary, outside where it’s cooler, where it’s quiet”.

      It was nonsense of course, she was not psychic. It was her urge. Yet he’d applaud her weak conscience if he heard it and say, “Listen to it, do what you want to do, not what you should”. It was his voice she heard.

      “I know you feel the same for me as I feel for you! Stop running and come back to me!” he’d called when she’d run away from him, along the pathway.

      How could he know, and how had Lord Framlington managed to invade her thoughts so utterly after one kiss? But it had not just been since his kiss, ever since she’d danced with him she’d heard his voice and seen him in daydreams, and when she slept.

      His gaze left her, like a physical touch slipping away.

      Mary looked to see him set his half empty glass on the tray of a passing footman before he strolled away, leaving the ballroom, and she presumed the ball.

      A sense of desertion tugged somewhere in her stomach and an odd ache settled like a cloak about her heart.

      Was that it then? Was it over? Had she spurned him successfully? That had been her intention, to cut him dead and she’d succeeded until that final moment when she’d dropped her guard and glanced his way.

      Perhaps he’d taken the hint regardless and tired of playing with her. There were a dozen other heiresses on the market, she was not his only choice.

      But you are his choice. Her traitorous, wicked heart thought it a compliment that a man of Framlington’s looks and reputation wanted her as his wife.

      “Idiot,” Mary said aloud, to her heart. Unfortunately as the dance drew to a close, Derek heard it too when he took her arm to walk her to her parents.

      “What have I done to deserve that charge? Did I step on your toes?”

      Patting his arm she shook her head, forming the false smile she’d relied on tonight. “I was speaking to myself, sorry. I agreed to dance with two partners for the supper set, I will have to apologise to someone.”

      He accepted the excuse, without hesitation. Why would he not? Mary had not been in the habit of lying, until the day of the Jerseys’ garden party. Now she had lied twice.

      When she reached her parents Lord Derek gave her knuckles a chaste kiss and bowed. The kiss did nothing to her innards. Unlike the kiss on her lips that had twisted in her stomach like someone hurriedly coiling embroidery threads.

      Physical memories clawing at her soul, the room spun and Mary longed for home. The burden of pretence was too tiring.

      “Mary, is something wrong?” Her gaze lifted to meet her father’s.

      “I have the headache.” If sulking made her pathetic she did not care. “May we go home?”

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