The Promise in a Kiss (Cynster 0.50)

“And what is it you wish to tell me?”

Her voice held a haughty chill. She glided beside him, her gaze fixed ahead, her expression betraying not the slightest perturbation.

“That Were is not for you.”

“Indeed? And why is that?”

He could not lie about a friend. “Suffice to say I believe your guardian would not approve.”

“How odd. From all I have learned, the estates Lord Were will shortly inherit are extensive and the income sound.”

Not as extensive nor as sound as his own.

“His lordship is all things amiable,” she continued. “I foresee no problem at all.”

Sebastian bit back a retort to the effect that she didn’t foresee the half of it. Her dismissal of his caveat had been delivered with a regal air—an air few would attempt with him.

The fact that she had done so did not surprise him; his agent’s report had confirmed his supposition. She and her sister were the last of the de Stansions, a very old aristocratic French family. Her mother had been a Daurent, another senior house of the French nobility. Helena’s birth was as good as his; she’d been reared, as had he, to know her worth. Their arrogance was a part of them, bred into them—she had her own brand, as did he.

Unfortunately for her, such feminine arrogance brought out the conqueror in him.

“You would do well to consider, mignonne, that there might be more to a gentleman than meets the eye.”

“I am not a child, Your Grace—I am well aware that most men mask their true natures.”

“Sebastian—and permit me to point out, mignonne, that not all women are as open as you.”

How had they got onto that point? Helena barely had time for the thought before Sebastian whisked her through a pair of curtains she’d imagined were merely wall hangings. Instead, they’d concealed an archway leading into a small, luxuriously appointed salon.

Finding herself in the middle of the room, cut off from the ballroom now that the curtains had fallen shut, she dropped her own mask and frowned—openly.

“This is not, I am sure”—she gestured—“comme il faut.”

She all but glared at Sebastian as he came to stand before her. The infuriating man did nothing more than raise one brow. Why she was so irritated with him she could not say, but she’d had a strong suspicion even before he’d arrived that he’d been deliberately steering her away from Lord Were.

To her mind, Lord Were was looking more and more like the perfect avenue for her escape to freedom.

“I appreciate your help in introducing me to the ton, Your Grace, but I am—how do you English say it?—more than eight, so I will be my own judge. And your veiled aspersions on Lord Were’s character I do not credit at all.”

She capped her dismissal of his arguments with a contemptuous wave; she would have preferred to sweep back to the ballroom on that note, but he was standing directly in her way. She held his blue gaze belligerently.

The aggravating man had the temerity to sigh.

“I fear you will have to readjust your thinking, mignonne. The gentleman to whom I referred was not Were.”

Helena frowned. It took her a moment to replay his statement: . . . there might be more to a gentleman than meets the eye. She looked at him, blinked.

His lips quirked. “Indeed. The gentleman I referred to was me.”

“You.” She couldn’t credit it—couldn’t believe what logic was telling her, nor what she could see in his eyes.

She felt his hand at her waist, sliding, felt a quiver run the length of her spine.

He drew her closer. “You remember that night in the moonlight in the gardens of the Convent des Jardinières de Marie.”

His voice had taken on a mesmerizing cadence; the blue of his eyes was even more hypnotic.

“I kissed you. Once, to thank you.”