Until You

29

Originally, Stephen had been amused at the thought of forcing Nicholas DuVille to spend a large part of his evening at Almack's-and under the watchful eye of Charity Thornton, no less-but now that the moment for their departure was near, he was far less pleased with his joke. As he sat in the drawing room, listening to Miss Thornton and DuVille chatting while they waited for Sherry to come downstairs, Stephen noticed that the elderly peagoose seemed to hang on to DuVille's every word and to beam approvingly at him as he uttered each syllable-an attitude that struck Stephen not only as highly inappropriate in a chaperone but damned incomprehensible, considering that DuVille's reputation as a womanizer was legendary. "Here they are now!" Charity Thornton said excitedly, tipping her head toward the hall and bolting to her feet with more enthusiasm and energy than she'd displayed all week. "We shall have such a wonderful evening! Come along, Monsieur DuVille," she said, gathering up her shawl and reticule.

Stephen followed them into the entry hall, where DuVille stopped to gaze at the staircase as if transfixed, an appreciative smile working its way across his face. Stephen followed the direction of his gaze, and what he saw filled him with bursting pride. Coming down the staircase, wrapped in a gold-spangled gown of ivory satin, was the same woman who'd dined with him in an overlarge peignoir and bare feet. Considering how delectable she'd looked that way, he should have expected her to be a sensation in a formal gown, but somehow he wasn't prepared for what he saw. Her hair was pulled back off her forehead and entwined with slender ropes of pearls at the crown, then it spilled over her shoulders in a tumble of molten waves and curls. She took his breath away.

She suspected it too, Stephen realized, because although she'd looked through him as if he were invisible for most of the last four days, she was finally looking at him… not for long of course. Only a fleeting glance to see his reaction, but he let her see it.

"Madam," he said, "I shall have to hire an army of chaperones after tonight."

Until that moment, Sherry had almost managed to forget that his whole purpose for this expensive charade was to lure suitors so that he could hand her off to someone else, but his unhidden pleasure in the thought that she might attract considerable notice came as an agonizing reminder. It cut so deeply-coming in the precise moment when she had thought she actually looked nice, and hoped he might also-that she went numb inside. Extending her hand for his kiss, she said with quiet, but unmistakable, determination, "I will endeavor to make certain you need to do exactly that."

Inexplicably, that rejoinder made his dark brows snap together into a frown of displeasure. "Don't 'endeavor' too much; that is how reputations are made."