Love Islands…The Collection. Jane Porter
she was pretty fit, for the dance was vigorous and not a few couples finished panting. But Max wasn’t the slightest out of breath, and neither was she.
‘Thank goodness for early-morning runs!’ she exclaimed.
‘It’s hot work, this elegant dancing,’ Max agreed, running a finger around his distinctly damp collar.
Ellen smiled. ‘My father used to say that his father, when they went to dances before the war, had to take spare collars with him because they wilted during the night.’
Max laughed. ‘Well, I envy you your bare shoulders and arms, I can tell you. Will it cause a scandal if I shed this very hot evening jacket, I wonder?’
‘You’ll be blackballed instantly!’ she warned him with a laugh.
‘Oh, well, I’m just a foreigner and a parvenu, so I won’t care,’ he riposted, and took her back into his arms as the music started up again.
It was a much slower waltz now, and Ellen was relieved. Or at least she was until she felt Max’s hand tightening at her waist. It was hard to feel much through the whalebone bodice, but there was something in the way he was imprinting his hold on her that made her breath catch despite the slowness of the music. Made it catch again when she saw the expression in his eyes, looking down at her. She felt colour run out into her cheeks. She tried to stop it, tried to hope that he would take it only for heat, no other reason. She tried to pull her gaze away, but it was hopeless...
‘Glad you came to the ball?’ he asked, a faint smile ghosting at his mouth.
His long lashes swept down over his eyes and he smiled at her. Were there gold flecks in those eyes? She could only gaze into their depths, captivated and entranced.
Her lips parted in a wide, joyful smile. ‘Oh, yes! It’s just...wonderful! All of it. Every bit!’
A wicked glint gleamed in Max’s eyes. ‘Even the whalebone in your bodice?’ he asked.
‘OK,’ she allowed. ‘Not that.’
‘Though it does give you the most superb figure,’ he said, and now...oh, most definitely...now there were golden flecks in his eyes.
He pulled a little away from her so his eyes could take in the glory of her narrowed waist, the full roundness of her hips, and then, moving upwards, the generous curvature of her breasts. His gaze lingered...then he dragged them away.
No. The voice inside his head was stern. No, he must not. This evening was about liberating Ellen Mountford from the chains that weighed her down. Freeing her from the mental burdens that blighted her life, made her want to hide herself away in her safe place, her childhood home, where she could moulder away, never emerging into the world.
Well, she was emerging now, all right. Male eyes were all over her. Max had seen that the moment he’d walked into the ballroom. They were on her still, and he didn’t blame them.
Mine are too...
No. The stern voice inside his head came again. No—he must not permit that. This evening was for her, not him! Oh, it was for himself too—of course it was—but only because showing Ellen how wonderful her life could be once she joined the world, instead of hiding herself away at Haughton, would mean that he could acquire what he was set on acquiring. Which was not Ellen Mountford—it was the house she would not willingly sell to him.
But you could have her as well...
The siren thought was in his head, as sinuous and seductive as the slow pulse of the music he was moving to.
Ellen was in his arms, her body so close to his, her weight pressing in on him as they turned, his arm around her waist, her rich ruby mouth smiling up at him. Tempting him...
The music ended and he was glad. He led her back to their table and immediately the charity director was on his feet. Ellen was led away, and Max watched her go. Was there a reluctance in her now? Would she rather have not danced again but sat with him and watched the dancers? He didn’t know—knew only that there was a kind of growl inside him...a growl that made him reach for the cognac bottle and pour himself a glass.
The two other couples at the table were taking a break as well, and were chatting, drawing him into their conversation. He joined in civilly but his gaze, he knew, kept going back out to the dance floor, searching for Ellen.
I want her.
That was the voice in his head now. Stark, blunt and simple. His jaw set. He could want her all he liked, but fulfilling that want would lead to complications.
The question was—did he care?
And right now, watching her in another man’s arms—this woman he’d released from the bondage of her mental chains, freed to revel in the natural beauty that was hers—and feeling that deep, primal growl rising in him again, he knew as the fiery liqueur glazed his throat and fuelled his heated blood that he didn’t care at all...
THE WORLD WAS whirling pleasantly around her—oh, so pleasantly! Ellen felt herself swaying slightly, as if she were still dancing, humming a waltz tune, hearing her long silk skirts rustling. The ball was over, midnight long gone, and now she was back up in the penthouse suite. The orchestra was still playing in her head. And everything was wonderful! Oh, just wonderful! Her gown was wonderful, her hair was wonderful, the dancing had been wonderful, the evening had been wonderful!
Max had been wonderful...
She gazed at him now, blood singing in her veins. He was twisting open a bottle of water, looking so tall, so strong, so utterly devastating in his Edwardian evening dress, and her eyes just drank him in as the room swirled around her and the music played in her head and on her lips. All she wanted to do, all she longed to do, was to be back in his arms, dancing and dancing...
‘Drink this—and drink it all,’ Max’s deep voice instructed her as he came to her and handed her a large glass of water. ‘You’ll thank me in the morning, I promise you.’
‘I feel fine,’ she said. ‘Absolutely fine.’ Still, she gulped down the water, never taking her gaze from Max—wonderful, wonderful Max!
How gorgeous he is—how incredibly handsome and gorgeous and wonderful and devastating and...
Then she yawned—a huge, exhausted yawn. Her eyes blinked.
‘Time for bed,’ said Max.
But not, alas, with him. He knew that. The champagne, the wine, the liqueurs she’d drunk made that out of the question. Should he regret it? He shouldn’t, he knew, but he did all the same.
Maybe it’s for the best. That was what he needed to tell himself. Remind himself of all the complications that might arise were he to follow what he knew his body wanted right now...the new-found desire that had swept over him.
I want to celebrate her new-found freedom with her. I want to take the final step of her liberation with her. I want to be the man who does that—
Well, not tonight. Frustration could bite at him all it liked, but that was that. And he—he’d be back in his own bedroom in the hotel suite, heading for a cold shower.
But first he had a real ordeal to get through. One that was going to test him to the limits.
‘Hold still!’ he instructed her, catching the back of her shoulders to steady her.
It was a mistake, for the warmth of her bare skin under his palms was an unwise sensation for him to feel right now. He pulled his hands away as if burnt, made his fingers drop down to the fastenings of her dress instead. Thee mou, there were a million of them! As he started the finicky work of undoing them he could feel