It was then that Anne-Marie realized Madame Picard was staring in her direction. Her hostess grasped the arm of Lucien Roquelaire and started forward.
The blood drained from Anne-Marie’s face. She glanced around for an avenue of escape, but there was none other than undignified flight. Panic invaded her chest in a choking wave.
She should have been dancing; her stepmother, the wife taken recently by her widowed father, would scold later for the way she had hidden herself away from prospective partners. Yet following the antics of her friends and neighbors from a distance had far more appeal than venturing onto the floor in the company of awkward partners with sweaty hands and no conversation beyond horses and hunting dogs. Unfortunately, that preference now left her available.
“My dear Anne-Marie,” Madame Picard said as she came to a breathless halt before her, “here is someone who needs no introduction since the entire neighborhood has known for days that he was visiting cousins at Bon Sejour. Will you be so kind as to make him welcome, chère?” The older woman gave the gentleman at her side a nervous smile. “And you, Monsieur Roquelaire, must prepare yourself for a treat. I assure you our Anne-Marie is something unusual in young ladies.”
The Dark Angel had little choice except to invite her to dance; Anne-Marie saw that. She was under no obligation to accept, of course, and might easily have declined if she could have forced her brain to produce a reasonable excuse. Nothing came to her. Meanwhile, Madame Picard was standing there looking so ridiculously hopeful that it was impossible to disappoint her. Anne-Marie murmured something that might be taken for agreement. Lucien Roquelaire proffered his arm. As she accepted his support and rose to her feet, she felt the heat of his body and the rigid muscles covered by his coat sleeve.
A peculiar tremor ran along her nerves to lodge in the center of being. She looked up to meet her partner’s intent, assessing gaze. She stopped, standing quite still in the way she might at facing some unexpected danger.
Of above average height, Lucien Roquelaire possessed the classical features and perfect form of a Greek statue allied to the polished grace of a courtier. At the same time there was an elemental air about him, as if beneath the outward gloss of his appearance he was not quite civilized, something less than tame. The impression came in part from his eyes. Satirical and penetrating, they were a rich brown that caught the light with shifting gold reflections. Intelligence gleamed in their depths, along with the calm that comes from supreme self-confidence. Above them were thick dark brows that arched at their centers so that the least play of amusement across his features caused his expression to turn diabolical.
“I see you have noticed the eyebrows,” he said. “Are you going to comment on the likeness to Lucifer, or be truly unusual and refrain?”
The wry inquiry released her from her odd, transfixed state. With a brief glance upward, she said, “I don’t believe discussion is required.”
“Just so,” he said, as he swung her effortlessly out onto the floor.
It was incredible to Anne-Marie that she was moving to the music in the arms of Lucien Roquelaire. Her hand was held in his strong grasp and his gloved fingertips rested at the narrow turn of her waist. Once she would have been in transports; now she was appalled. Of course she was. The odd, unwanted sensations that chased themselves down her spine were mere animal instincts which must be ignored. She fastened her gaze at the level of his cravat while she sought composure.
It was a distinctive cravat, she saw, one made of silk in a soft and unusual shade of amber. She wished abruptly that she wore a ball gown of that color. She longed for anything, in fact, except the virginal white chosen by her stepmother that gave her the look of a sacrificial maiden. It was embarrassing to be costumed so fittingly for her part.
She was looking far from her best; she knew that with depressing certainty. Her father’s new wife had offered the services of her personal maid for the evening—an honor that could not be avoided without giving offense. Under the new Madame Decoulet’s forceful instructions, the thick and curling abundance of Anne-Marie’s hair had been controlled with slatherings of pomade, an oily concoction which dimmed the rich golden highlights to a dull brown. It had then been braided and twisted into a ridiculously complicated arrangement. In addition, rice powder had been used to coat the creamy skin of her face, giving her a sickly pallor. Though she had been less than pleased by these deficiencies before, they had not seemed especially important until this moment.
Her partner, she realized abruptly, was gazing down at her with a quizzical smile on his chiseled lips. It was a moment before she could attend to what he was saying.
“I believe polite conversation is usual in this situation,” he suggested. “Have you no bright conversational gambit with which to entice me? Is there nothing you have been practicing to say to your partners this evening?”
“Nothing,” she replied through tight lips.
He tipped his head. “You are not precisely delighted to be dancing with me, I think.”
His perspicuity was startling. “How can you say so?”
“Easily. You give no indication of being intrigued, seem in no danger of rushing like a moth to my flame.”
“I should hope not.” He was held in no great regard as a prospective husband, she knew. There were whispers of bad blood in his family; his father had killed his mother in a drunken rage, or so the story went. Moreover, his many affairs of honor did not bode well for a comfortable future as his wife. Though most fathers stopped short of ordering their daughters to decline his invitations, their mothers regaled them with frightening warnings. Not surprisingly, this made him wildly attractive to the more heedless belles.
“Then you are repelled,” he said evenly.
~~
END OF SAMPLE
Does the Dark Angel in Jennifer Blake’s Out of the Dark have you seduced? Visit the Steel Magnolia Press website at www.steelmagnoliapress.com where you can purchase this novella and other passion-filled romances direct from your favorite outlet.
The Warlock's Daughter Page 7
