The Louise Allen Collection: The Viscount's Betrothal / The Society Catch. Louise Allen
with your colouring. Besides,’ Decima confided, lowering her voice, ‘I am regretting this neckline—I have never felt so exposed in my life.’
‘It is a little bit daring, but you do have such nice shoulders,’ Olivia said.
She is sweet, Decima thought, smiling at the compliment. Would she make Adam a good wife? She would be sure to try and do her duty. How chilly that sounded.
‘Is Sir Henry—?’ Olivia broke off, blushing. ‘Do you and he have an understanding?’
‘Goodness, no!’ Decima laughed, then saw Adam turn to look at her as the sound cut through the babble of conversation. ‘No, indeed not,’ she added, lowering her voice. ‘We are just very good friends. He is one of the nicest people I know.’
‘Oh.’ Olivia dropped her gaze to her hands and fell silent, only rousing herself when the men returned with plates full of delicacies.
‘Lemonade, Miss Channing?’ Henry asked, bending over Olivia solicitously. No one had asked Decima what she would like, but when the men returned Adam placed a champagne flute in front of her. Startled, she looked from one man to the other, but Henry was chatting easily to Olivia and all Adam did was to raise one dark brow.
‘Do you prefer lemonade?’
‘Not really, if I am to be honest.’ Decima picked it up and took a sip, loving the way the bubbles fizzed up her nose. And the way her blood fizzed in her veins. Adam was so close she could feel the heat of him where his arm rested on the table next to hers.
‘Oh, let us be honest at all costs,’ he agreed softly, his eyes resting on their companions. ‘Tell me Decima, is Freshford…entangled with anyone?’
‘No. Not that I know of.’ She was startled into answering without thinking. ‘And it would be no business of mine if he were—I am certainly not going to answer personal questions about my friends!’
‘Just curious.’ The champagne swirled in his glass. Decima found herself watching it, watching the long, strong fingers holding the fragile stem and remembering them on her body.
Adam seemed to snap out of his abstraction and shifted in his seat, reaching for a fork. ‘These patties look good.’
Decima agreed, nibbling at a corner. Where had her appetite gone? She took another sip of champagne.
‘Am I forgiven yet?’ Adam had speared an asparagus roll, but his gaze was resting on the swell of her breasts in the low-cut gown.
Decima fought the instinct to hunch her shoulders and managed not to enquire coldly what exactly he meant. ‘Of course. We discussed that this morning. I have quite put it from my mind.’
‘I wish I had. I suspect I was somewhat…prickly this morning.’ One dark brow slanted upwards. Decima could not decide whether he was being satirical.
‘You were, certainly. Why?’
It really was hopeless trying to disconcert him with direct questions. He did at least have the grace to lower his voice as he answered, ‘Because I assumed that you and Freshford were attached.’
Decima glanced at Henry and Olivia, but they were happily engrossed in an animated conversation. Olivia was pleasingly flushed and was waving her hands around in a way that seemed quite out of character while she described something. ‘Well, we are not,’ she snapped. ‘We are very good friends. And anyway, whatever concern is it of yours?’
‘I can see you are not, now I see him on foot,’ Adam commented, low voiced. ‘After all, he only comes up to your…’ He waved a hand graphically at her upper-chest level.
‘If I loved him, height would not be an issue,’ Decima retorted stiffly. ‘And I repeat, what business is it of yours?’
‘Why, I am jealous, of course.’ He said it in exactly the tone he might have used to comment on the weather.
Decima gazed at him blankly, realised her mouth was open and shut it. Henry was quite correct—Adam had added her to his collection and was feeling proprietorial about her, despite his being engaged to another woman.
‘Do I have to remind you that you are an engaged man?’ she whispered fiercely.
‘I know. What a pity that harems have not caught on in England.’
‘You are outrageous,’ Decima scolded, feeling quite ridiculous, lecturing a man in a whisper over lobster patties. The wretch was no doubt only teasing her, but she could not let him get away with this. ‘Poor Olivia—’
‘Is flirting,’ Adam whispered back, inclining his head towards his fiancée.
‘Of course she…is.’ Goodness, who would have thought it? Meek little Olivia was gazing into Henry’s eyes and positively batting her lashes at him. What would Adam do? Expecting him to intervene at any moment, Decima watched aghast.
‘The poor child never managed to get away from her mama long enough to indulge in a little harmless flirtation,’ Adam murmured into Decima’s ear, making the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise and tingle deliciously. ‘I am certainly not going to start lecturing her in the same spirit.’
So, he was so confident about Olivia that he was relaxed about her flirting with a man of Henry’s quite exceptional good looks. Why, then, had he been so prickly when he thought she and Henry were in some way involved?
‘Why are you frowning?’ Adam snapped his fingers at a passing footman and secured two more glasses of champagne.
‘Because I don’t understand you,’ Decima admitted frankly. ‘You seem positively inconsistent.’
‘Thank you.’ Adam bowed slightly. ‘But ladies are inconsistent. I strive to be enigmatic.’
‘Piffle,’ Decima retorted. ‘You know perfectly well that you don’t put on airs to be interesting, so stop trying to tell me you do.’ She had forgotten to keep her voice low and both Olivia and Henry turned to regard her in surprise. ‘Lord Weston is bamming me,’ she explained, taking a restorative draught from her wine glass.
‘Would either of you ladies like an ice?’ Henry said, hastily flashing Decima a warning glance. She wrinkled her nose at him. Goodness, the champagne was making her positively light-headed. It was a delightful feeling, so unlike the way she had always felt at balls in the past, huddled in the wallflowers’ corner with the spotty, the fat and the poorly dowered.
She took another sip and shook her head. ‘No, thank you, Sir Henry.’
‘Then perhaps you will dance with me?’ Adam asked her, catching her dance card as it hung on her wrist and flipping it open. ‘The next dance is a waltz, if I am not mistaken.’
‘I am not dancing, my lord.’ The words slipped out before she realised she no longer had that defence.
‘Obviously not. Just at the moment you are partaking of supper. But as you say, you have finished—’
‘You choose to misunderstand me.’ Decima felt the blush mounting and fought it. ‘I am not intending to dance.’
‘But you have been—all evening. Are you rejecting me as a partner, Miss Ross? I am wounded.’
‘I…no…I mean…’ Decima gazed hopelessly at his bland countenance as he waited patiently for her to dither herself to a stop. She had been dancing. Rather a lot. With a number of different men. And there was absolutely no reason—short of becoming suddenly indisposed—why she should refuse Adam. She gave in. ‘Thank you, Lord Weston.’
Beside her she realised that Henry was asking Olivia to partner him and the four of them reached the floor just as the first notes sounded. Decima stood uncertainly, the confidence that had filled her ever since Mr Mays had led her out quite deserting her.
‘Decima?’ Adam was waiting patiently, and with a sensation of breathlessness she stepped into his arms and took his hand. When