Page 78 of Scandalous

“Are you feeling quite all right, Miss Fisher?”

“Yes, thank you. Have you met Captain Bouchard, my lord?” she asked, desperate to turn his solicitous gaze away from her beet-red face.

“No, I haven’t. But Exley has told me a lot about him. I’m very pleased to meet you, Captain.” Danforth smiled at the other man with genuine enthusiasm.

“The pleasure is mine,” Martín murmured, his eyes narrow with suspicion. He shifted his gaze to Sarah. “As is the next dance.” He offered Sarah his arm and led her away from the surprised-looking viscount.

“That was rude of you.”

He shrugged.

“He was only trying to make pleasant conversation.”

“I am not interested in pleasant conversation.”

Sarah ground her teeth. He was impossible. She was grateful that the first dance she’d committed to did not allow for much conversation.

Naturally, he was an exquisite dancer. He moved far more fluidly than either Ramsay or Danforth, the arrogant angle at which he held his head making it obvious he was aware of his skill. Sarah refused to compliment him. Why swell his head any further? He was already receiving more attention than was good for him, and his presence was causing a frisson among the young ladies around them.

No other man in the room—not even Baron Ramsay, with his scar and black eye patch—exuded such dangerous, alien allure: Martín Bouchard was in a class of his very own.

Sarah collided with a broad, solid chest, and a pair of powerful arms came up to steady her. She looked up into the grinning face of the man she’d been contemplating.

“Mademoiselle Fisher, are you trying to start the waltz early? Is that why you are throwing yourself into my arms?” He inclined his head apologetically to the couple beside them as they adjusted their steps to accommodate Sarah’s fumbling.

“If only your manners were as polished as your dancing, Captain Bouchard. Don’t you know that criticizing one’s partner is not done?”

Martín laughed, and they didn’t speak again until the dance was finished and he led her back to where Daphne was deeply in conversation with a man sporting a puce silk coat and clocks on his stockings. Words and phrases like rights of man, materialism, and Diderot clouded the air around the two philosophers like a haze of gnats.

“I shall be back to claim my waltz.” Martín sauntered off like a man who’d conquered the world.

Sarah fumed and watched the dancers, trying to ignore the mind-boggling conversation occurring beside her.

She danced the next dance with the frigid Lord Exley and the one after that with his more gregarious stepson, Gabriel.

The redheaded young man had barely escorted her from the dance floor when Martín appeared beside her as if he’d sprung from the intricate parquet flooring. “You are no longer necessary, Jibril.” He turned from the stunned, fuming younger man to Sarah. “I believe this dance is mine, Miss Fisher.”

He led her away from Gabriel Marlington, who stood rooted to the spot, staring at Bouchard with a look that should have reduced him to cinders. Sarah didn’t have the energy to scold Martín, nor would he listen if she did.

To say his hand on her side was distracting was an understatement. It wasn’t merely his hand; it was the memory of the last time his hands had been on her.

“This is much nicer, eh?” His warm breath near her ear made her shiver.

Sarah ignored the comment as well as her body’s annoying reaction and concentrated on the steps.

“Relax, Mademoiselle Fisher,” he whispered. “Let me do the work instead of yanking me about so violently.”

“Yes, you’re quite the expert, aren’t you, Captain Bouchard?” she asked waspishly.

He chuckled.

“I wouldn’t have imagined dancing was a popular pastime at the places you choose to frequent, Captain.”

“Oh,” he said, pulling away slightly so he could look down at her face. “Tell me, what places and activities do you imagine me to enjoy, mademoiselle?”

“You willfully misunderstand me, sir. I don’t spend any time at all imagining what you do. In fact, thoughts of you are something I actively suppress, should they occur.”

“Oh, mademoiselle,” he said, giving her a look of mock lament. “Telling such untruths. Surely your father would be most displeased to find his teachings had so little purchase in his daughter.”