Free Between the Devil and Ian Eversea by Julie Anne Long

had disappeared more than three years ago.
    Landsdowne threw back his head and laughed at something Miss Danforth, the wallflower, had said.
    “What do you think of her?” Olivia asked.
    “Very pretty and vapid and uninteresting. An awkward ingenue. Ought to excel at being a spoiled wife of a rich aristocrat. And no doubt will be given the opportunity to be one soon enough.”
    Olivia mulled this. “I might agree with all of those words save one. I’m less convinced of the ‘uninteresting’ part. I wonder if she’s . . . strategic. The bit with the lashes. All of that.”
    “I think when one is presented with a cipher, one can assign all sorts of meaning. The way we try to see shapes of things in clouds.”
    “You’re likely correct.”
    Another silence ensued. Miss Danforth was smiling. Her complexion was creamy, faintly gold in the chandelier light, a luxurious, pearl shade. She moved lithely, and it was strangely a pleasure to watch her hop and clap the steps of the reel. She danced as though the music was part of her, and Ian felt something in him lighten as he watched. As if joy was her native emotion.
    Landsdowne laughed again when she crashed into someone and was forced to apologize profusely.
    “I don’t know whether he laughs a good deal when he’s with me,” Olivia said.
    Ian wondered if his sister, accustomed to being the toast of all of Sussex, and London as well, was worried.
    “He’s probably too busy being fascinated by you, Olivia.”
    “That must be it.” Olivia smiled at that.

 
    Chapter 7

    L ANDSDOWNE RETURNED M ISS D ANFORTH to them at the end of the reel, both of them flushed and happy looking. Then he settled down next to Olivia; rather like a regal, faithful hound who would never leave his mistress’s side, Ian thought.
    Which left him with Miss Danforth. Who wasn’t smiling, or fluttering her eyelashes, but who had suddenly gone still.
    When the strains of the Sussex waltz started, he bowed, and extended his arm to a girl whose dress was so white and gossamer she might as well have written “I’m a virgin” across her forehead. Ian thought of the widow in red across the room and let his thoughts stray in her direction, half resenting the opportunity robbed from him by this little girl. He suppressed a sigh.
    Miss Danforth gave her hand to him almost portentously, slowly, as if she were pulling the sword from a stone. Lucky me, to be presented with such a gift, he thought wryly.
    He took it with a certain ironic gravity, and placed his hand against her waist.
    He felt her breath hitch in the jump of her slight rib cage.
    Suddenly, he wondered how long it had been since his touch had felt new, surprising, exciting, to a woman, and a little of that was communicated to him, too.
    A rogue, fierce surge of protectiveness swept in, startling him, and then swept out again.
    He looked down. Into eyes of such a singular crystalline silver-blue color he fancied he could see himself in them. The eyes of a woman who had no midnight trysts or any other stains of any sort on her conscience.
    They really would have very little in common.
    He eased them into the one, two, three of the other whirling waltzers the way he would ease his horse through the traffic on Bond Street.
    She hadn’t yet said a word. She was staring as though she was from one of those distant islands Miles Redmond wrote about and had never before seen an Englishman in the flesh.
    He was tempted to lead off with Boo.
    “How are you enjoying England, Miss Danforth?” he said instead.
    “I like what I’ve seen of it so far very much indeed.”
    It was delivered with such fervor, he widened, then narrowed his eyes briefly. If he hadn’t known better, if a different woman had issued the words, he would have considered that an innuendo. That, combined with the “I’d be honored to dance with you, Mr. Eversea” and the “I hope you’ll call me Tansy.” Perhaps all Americans were just a bit too forward.
    But now she