But she was somehow as distinct as the first wildflower one happens upon after a long, brutal winter.

An ache started up somewhere in the vicinity of his rib cage.

Her face was like a heart on a slender pale neck-perhaps that's why he'd thought of flowers?

Her mouth, however, made him think of . . . other things.

Her mouth was a sinful pale pink pillow.

His brothers were staring at him.

"Lyon, what the devil is the matter?" Jonathan demanded. "Aren't you a bit young for apoplexy? What on earth are you look . . ."

He trailed off. He'd followed the direction of Lyon's gaze.

Which terminated in a slim, black-haired Olivia Eversea.

"Who is that?" Lyon's voice was distant. A studied casualness.

"You don't recognize her? That's Miss Olivia Eversea. She of the good works, the too-clever-by-half . . . an Eversea, Lyon."

Jonathan shot a worried look at Miles.

"No, Lyon," Miles said, and this time he was deadly earnest. "You can't be seri- No, no, no, no, no, n . . ."

Because Lyon was already moving toward her, carried like so much flotsam on the tide.

He wove through the crowd, leaving a little wake of turned heads. He might have even smiled and nodded appropriately, for such was his breeding, and such were his reflexes. Feminine hearts lifted and then broke as he pa.s.sed.

Olivia lifted her head abruptly when he'd nearly reached her, as if she'd heard that gong. Her eyes flared for an instant.

And then she smiled.

Slowly.

Incandescently.

But with absolutely no curiosity or surprise.

More as though she'd been expecting him.

That smile . . . it was like walking through a door into a world he'd never suspected existed. He understood, all at once, the word "joy," and why it was so small, just three letters. It was as simple and profound as a sudden flame in the dark.

He stopped about three feet away from her.

For a moment or for a year, they stood silent and smiling like loobies, as if they'd already said everything they were ever going to say to each other, perhaps in some other lifetime.

No one else existed.

And yet later they were to discover that dozens were watching all of this via sidelong glances and outright stares and stricken glares.

"Of course," she said, finally, softly.

"Of course?" he repeated tenderly. Already cherishing those two words as the first she'd said to him. They seemed to capture everything about the moment. Of course. Of course it's you I've waited for my entire life. Of course we're meant to be together forever. Of course.

"Of course I'll dance with you, Mr. Redmond. It's why you're here?"

He recovered quickly. "Among other reasons."

She tipped her head to the side and looked at him through lowered lashes, a look amusingly reminiscent of his own patented sultry one. "I suppose we can discuss your other reasons during the waltz."

Splendid! She was a flirt!

"Oh, I'm certain the discussion will take at least three waltzes. It might even require a lifetime."

He'd never said anything quite so bold.

He'd never meant anything more fervently.

He was alarmed at himself and hoped he hadn't alarmed her, but he hadn't a compa.s.s for whatever this was and he didn't know what else to do besides speak truth.

He held his breath for her response.

She made him wait, and he counted that wait in heartbeats.

"Why don't we start with the waltz," she said.

The words were both a challenge and a promise.

The promise lay in the fact that her words, albeit insouciant, were a little breathless.

Which is how he knew her heart was beating as fast as his.

And then she laid her hand on his proffered arm and led her out to the floor.

OLIVIA HAD NEVER been quite this close to Lyon Redmond, and it was so exotic she felt as though she'd been given an actual lion to dance with. Everseas and Redmonds did not dance with each other. If humanly possible, they did not speak to each other, or about each other, or do business with each other. For as long as she could remember, it was understood that the word "Redmond" would be treated in their house rather as though someone had silently broken wind in company. Its occurrence was distasteful but occasionally unavoidable, and while it could be politely ignored, it was certainly not encouraged or enjoyed.

But he'd appeared before her and a curious thing happened: the entire ballroom had suddenly gone soft at the edges, and it was as though she could see beyond it outward to forever.

She exhaled at length. As if she could finally release the breath she'd been holding her entire life. Waiting for him.

She hadn't yet had a season-she would most definitely have a season next year and it was generally a.s.sumed she would cause quite a stir and a veritable stampede of suitors, which she rather enjoyed picturing-but she'd heard all the things said about him, of course, and she'd been inclined to believe them. That murmurs soughed through ballrooms when he entered, and one would know he'd arrived by the near wind created by fluttered fans and eyelashes and heads whipping round to get a look. That other young men threw back their shoulders and stood straighter, but they couldn't duplicate whatever it was he brought into a room: a self-possession, an unmatchable elegance, and an arrogance that challenged and awed. Something innate.

Now, however, with his hand at her waist and her hand gripped in his, the two of them were quiet, and something about the quality of his silence made her feel strangely protective.

It occurred to her that arrogance was an excellent cloak for a sort of shyness.

And now they had no choice but to waltz through a room filled with dropped jaws. Hopefully none of them belonged to any of her brothers. They could usually be counted upon to be off causing dropped jaws of their own. Her parents weren't here tonight. They had clearly a.s.sumed that nothing was more benign than a Pennyroyal Green a.s.sembly and that Olivia would be the last person to do something untoward.

Her head reached to about Lyon Redmond's collarbone.

If she tipped her head up and he tipped his down simultaneously, and she stood on her toes, by her calculations their lips would meet effortlessly.

She'd never had such a thought before in her entire life.

The backs of her arms began to heat.

His face was a glorious geometry of angles meeting planes meeting hollows that seemed specifically designed to make hearts pound and breathing more difficult, as if the observer had suddenly been thrust into a different alt.i.tude. Olympus, perhaps.

Really, he was untenably handsome and alarmingly masculine.

But his blue eyes were warm and bemused.

"It just occurred to me that I may have absconded with you, Miss Eversea. Was this waltz already spoken for?"

"Of course it was. But I'll apologize to the gentleman in question apace," she said airily.

"'Apace'?" He was amused. "Would it be the man who is glaring at us? I can see the whites of his eyes as we sail by."

"That would be Lord Cambersmith."

"Good G.o.d, that is b.u.mble! I didn't recognize him in grown-up clothes."

He lifted his hand from her waist to wave merrily, and b.u.mble reflexively waved back before he realized what he was doing and dropped his hand to resume glowering.

"I used to go fishing with his older brother. Do you think he'll call me out?"

"Would you shoot him apace?"

"I would try not to," he said with mock regret. "It's just that I never miss, and I should hate to ruin his grown-up clothes, given that he is so lately in them."

She smiled up at him. The two of them were being insufferably and uncharacteristically selfish but neither could seem to care at the moment. n.o.body else in the world seemed important.

"Well, he wouldn't be within rights to call you out, and he won't, anyway. I've known him almost since birth. He hasn't any sort of claim on me."

A hesitation.

"Has anyone else?"

A blunt, bold question. Low, and gruff again.

"No."

Though she sensed she had just been claimed.

Another little silence, as the truth of that settled in.

"And you, Mr. Redmond? Did you disappoint a particular young woman?"

"Dozens of them, likely. There are only so many waltzes during any given ball."

This was so arrogant she laughed, and he smiled down into her eyes, teasing her. He was laughing at himself.

His smile faded and he grew serious and almost diffident.

"I will apologize to b.u.mble, and feel I must apologize to you, too. I can't remember the last time I so egregiously abandoned my manners. It's just that I . . . that it seemed important to reach you before you could disappear."

That little hesitation charmed her. "Disappear?"

He paused again. "The way dreams do, when you wake in the morning."

The words were gruff. She knew them to be truthful, because she sensed they'd caused him a great measure of embarra.s.sment.

This was first indication that the matchless Golden Boy Lyon Redmond, who towered over her and had shoulders for miles, could be hurt.

Just let anyone try, she thought fiercely.

She accidentally ever so slightly squeezed his hand.

He returned the pressure subtly.

Never let me go. An irrational thought, especially since she suddenly wanted the waltz to end so she could dash off, run and run like a firework let loose. Or find a corner and think about all the things she felt right now, all of them confusing, all of them dazzling, all of them filling her a trifle too full. She was not impulsive, and she always liked to know the why and how of things, and she did not know how she had come to be dancing with him. Only that she would rather be nowhere else in the world than here, in his arms, in this ballroom.

"You've been away for some time, Mr. Redmond," she said finally. When it seemed he still couldn't talk.

"Oxford."

"What did they teach you there?"

"Quite a number of things. Latin, cricket, how to get rich. Or richer."

"Truly? Is there a professor of wealth, then?"

"They all are, if you listen properly. It's how one applies what one learns. And the friends ones makes."

She hadn't the slightest objection to wealth although she often found its unequal distribution and the results thereof unfair and intolerable, and she was fascinated by this point of view.

"How do you intend to become richer?"

"Steam engines. Clever investing."

"Steam engines?"

"Or rather, railroads. I do believe steam engines are the future of transportation. Imagine, if you will, Miss Eversea, a Great Britain united by rail from end to end. One day you may be in Scotland in a matter of hours. Or Bath. I've also ideas for importing and exporting. I do think the day of the ca.n.a.l will be finite, and-is this inappropriate waltz conversation? Ought I to be complimenting you on your . . ."

A swift glance that took in her coronet, her necklace, the soft fair swell of her bosom peeking very modestly above the lace she'd chosen so carefully for that particular gown.

He said nothing.