Because her father had predicted this very situation.
Lord knows, we can’t permit Eliza in company. Trouble-prone thing. Within a fortnight of her debut, she’ll have herself entangled in some mischief and take the rest of them down with her. Then we’d never marry any of them off.
And he’d been right, it would seem. She wasn’t even out, and look at the muddle she’d stepped in.
She cast a beseeching look at the door latch. “Mr. Wright, please. Won’t you let me leave?”
He didn’t answer. Not with words. He simply turned the key in the door lock, removed it, and stashed it away in his waistcoat pocket.
She was trapped.
“Why would you do that?” she asked, staring at the locked door.
“Because you don’t want to go.” His voice was darkly sweet and so forbidden, like rum. “You want to stay here with me a little longer.”
Why would he presume to think that? As she studied his face, she swallowed hard.
The devil must be very handsome, her nursemaid had once told her. Else no one would follow him into perdition.
Too true, too true. She saw it for herself now. The devil had a strong, squared jaw, a straight nose, and full lips with a dangerous, sensual quirk. Dark, wavy hair, as untamable as his spirit. Laughing eyes, green as a Cornish summer. Oh, yes. The devil was handsome indeed.
But it wasn’t just that.
The devil also looked weary. Fatigued by the world—and strangely vulnerable, this close. The devil put silver threads in his sin-black hair. Just a few, so a girl could only see them if she happened to draw imprudently near. He wore his cravat mussed, tempting feminine hands to put it straight.
Eliza’s nursemaid had it all wrong. The devil didn’t entice with perfection. He seduced with flaws.
His green, hungry gaze didn’t say, Follow me into perdition.
It said, Only you can save me from it.
Her skin went hot and tight, and she felt ready to burst free. Ready to become some entirely new creature. One with wings, so she might fly out the window and escape.
“Please. I must leave this room.”
“But you don’t want to,” he repeated.
“You’re wrong,” she insisted. “I don’t know what sort of impression you’ve formed of me, Mr. Wright. But you’re entirely wrong. Perhaps I am frustrated with my seclusion. Perhaps I am envious of my sisters, yearning for my own turn to dance and flirt and go driving in the park with gentlemen. Perhaps you’ve caught me in a defenseless moment—one where I’m ready for a bit of excitement all my own. You’re obviously a handsome man, and I can’t deny it’s a little thrilling when you look at me that way.”
“Only a little thrilling?” he teased. “I must be off my game. What if I look at you this way?”
He glanced aside for a moment, and then back at her—fixing her with an intent, smoldering, knee-melting look. A look that blazed with all the fire and heat of candelabras in velvet-swathed boudoirs, and torches in hidden passageways, and bonfires that were bold tongues of orange against deep, boundless desert nights.
The room began to spin.
His expression relaxed, and he gave a low chuckle. “That’s more like it.”
“I don’t want this,” she whispered, trying to convince herself, if she couldn’t move him. “I truly don’t want a flirtation. I don’t want to be seduced. I don’t want to be in this room with you one moment longer. And if you won’t release me, I…I’ll—”
Desperate, she reached forward and thrust her hand into his waistcoat pocket, fumbling for the key.
“Why, Miss Eliza Cade.”
He clapped his hand over hers, flattening her palm against his ribs. The maleness and solidity of him were shocking. Intriguing.
She pulled against his grip. “You despicable knave.”
He laughed at her distress. “You brazen jezebel.”
“Let me have that key. I want to leave this room, this instant.”
“No. You truly don’t.”
He kept saying that with such certainty.
God help her, maybe—just maybe—he was right.
Eliza wished with all her heart that this could be over. But a small, wild part of her body was hoping it wouldn’t end. She’d never been this close to a man, and she likely wouldn’t be again—not for years. Mr. Wright was dangerous and intriguing. He made her feel uncommonly pretty. He smelled so very good. This might not be a ballroom waltz or a drive in Hyde Park, but it was life. Dizzying, heart-pounding, exhilarating life.
She’d been craving this down to her bones.
And he knew it.
“They don’t understand, do they?” he murmured. “They don’t understand it’s a dangerous thing, to keep a wild creature caged.”
She shook her head. No, they didn’t understand her at all.