Page 35 of If the Duke Demands

Inhaling a nervous breath as the attention of the room once more descended upon her, she walked with him onto the dance floor.

“Do not dance with the same man twice,” Sebastian continued with his warnings as they took their position opposite each other at the end of the row and despite the frustrated rolling of her eyes. “He’ll assume he means more to you than he does.”

She arched a brow. “You’re dancing with me twice. Will you assume you mean more to me than you do?”

He frowned at her silently, too wise to answerthat. Ha! Her spirits lifted with that little victory.

“I saw you speaking with Lady Jane earlier,” she pressed, now emboldened. She raised her chin as the music began and the opening bows and curtsies were made. “Did you offer the same warnings to her?”

His eyes flickered, although she couldn’t have said whether in annoyance or amusement. The couples swept forward. “Of course not,” he answered between steps as they circled each other. “Lady Jane already knows society’s rules.” As they moved apart, he added, “She’s refined in them.”

They moved back to their original places, then stepped forward again. “She’s boring,” Miranda corrected in a parting jab, before sliding sideways to circle the Duke of Chatham. After all the warnings Sebastian had given her tonight, he deserved to be taunted.

“She’s urbane,” Sebastian countered with an amused glint in his eyes when she returned to once again circle him.

The figures took them away from each other to dance with the other five couples, but each time they circled back, they argued. And Miranda enjoyed it far more than she should have. There was something about getting beneath Sebastian’s skin that delighted her to no end.

“Dull,” she rejoined with a playful flounce of her skirt, then danced away.

When they came back together, he murmured in her ear, “Delightfully sophisticated.”

She raised her nose in her best impersonation of Lady Jane just to irk him as she stepped back. “Definitely snobby.”

He greeted her return to him a few moments later with a smile. “Beautiful…like you.”

When he trailed his hand behind her back as he circled her, she caught her breath at the subtle flirtation. The possessiveness of the light touch startled her, so did the heat of his fingers seeping through her dress. And so did how much she enjoyed it.

Miranda missed a step, the toe of her slipper catching on the marble floor, and she tripped. Instantly, Sebastian’s hand was beneath her left arm and his right hand against the small of her back as he caught her and moved her smoothly into the circle.

He lowered his mouth close to her ear, his voice surely far more husky in his amusement than he intended when he murmured, “Graceful.”

Unable to answer to that without highlighting her own clumsiness, she glowered at him through narrowed eyes as she slipped away to circle with the Earl of St James, the first and last couples coming together for the final figures of the dance. Sebastian turned away in his own steps to lead the countess.

“Graceful?” he prompted when they came back to face each other in their original positions, obviously enjoying their sparring as much as she to goad her like that. Or at least, as much as she had been, until he’d unwittingly compared her to Lady Jane. And found her lacking. And that stung more than she wanted to admit.

With the last flourishes of the orchestra, the couples all made their final curtsies and bows to their partners.

“Spoiled,” she managed to get in, although what she’d wanted to say…Perfectly wrong for you.But then, if someone like Lady Jane was wrong for him, who was right?

He crooked a brow, having no idea of her true thoughts. “Well-behaved.”

Her mouth fell open at that barb as indignant irritation flared through her. Oh, that devil! Before she could think of a cutting reply, the dance ended. Sebastian had gotten the last word. And a stinging one at that.

With her chin raised in defiance, she lowered into a curtsy deep enough to make his mother proud, no matter how aggravating the woman’s eldest son. Then she let him place her hand on his arm as he led her from the floor, to return her to the duchess.

“I suppose,” she acknowledged, the admission coming at great cost to her pride, “that Lady Jane seems like a nice enough woman.”

Clearly surprised by that, he slid a sideways glance at her reluctant approval of his suit. “Thank you—”

“Although madness runs in her family.”

His stride hitched, the only outward sign that she’d surprised him. “Pardon?”

“Must do,” she said with a haughty sniff, “to want a stuffy, old duke like you for a husband.”

With a soft laugh, he grinned down at her. Not just any smile, either. But such a warm and amused smile that he sent her insides melting.

Her heart skipped. No, not the grin. Nothisgrin! Sebastian would never set her heart pounding. Because if he did, then that meant that—No.To be attracted to Sebastian, of all men…How ridiculous! It was the fun of the dance, that was all, because it couldn’t be anything more. Certainly not with him. Pursuing Robert was difficult enough; Sebastian would be downright impossible.