LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Two

      “Tell me, how did you explain your...loss of innocence to your elderly husband on your wedding night?”

      Sylvie’s spine stiffened upon hearing that soft and cruelly mocking voice just behind her as she stood alone in the candlelit ballroom in the Dowager Countess of Chambourne’s London home. A voice, and man, standing so near to her that the warmth of his breath slightly ruffled the loose curls at her temple and beside her pearl-adorned earlobe. So near that she could feel the heat of that gentleman’s body through the silk of her gown...

      She would have been foolish not to have expected some response from Lord Christian Ambrose, Earl of Chambourne, after arriving at his grandmother’s ball some half an hour earlier and finding the countess’s coldly arrogant grandson at that lady’s side as he acted as host to her hostess.

      Yes, Sylvie had known, and expected, when she had accepted the invitation to this ball, some sort of acknowledgment of their previous acquaintance from Christian, but she had not expected it to be quite so cruelly pointed in nature!

      She stiffened her spine and drew in a slow and controlled breath before turning to face him, her outward expression one of calm disdain. At the same time, her pulse gave an alarmed leap as she had to look up at least a foot in order to meet familiar moss-green eyes set in a face of such stark male beauty it might have been carved by Michelangelo. Arrogant dark brows above those moss-green eyes, high cheekbones either side of a long and aristocratic nose, chiseled lips above a square and determined jaw, raven-dark locks falling rakishly across the wide and intelligent brow.

      She did not need to lower her gaze to know that Christian’s black evening jacket had been tailored to fit like a glove over the wide expanse of his shoulders and muscled chest. His linen snowy white beneath a pale-silver waistcoat, black satin breeches encasing the long and muscled length of his thighs.

      No, Sylvie did not need to look to know all of those things, having taken in Christian Ambrose’s appearance fully upon her arrival earlier. And cursed herself for noticing that Christian had only grown more handsome—disturbingly so—rather than less, in the years since she had last seen him.

      Four years, to be precise. Years that had seen Sylvie change to the coolly composed woman she presented to Society this evening, rather than that young girl of eighteen summers who had been totally besotted with this gentleman’s rakish good looks.

      That same young girl who had so trustingly given this man the innocence which he now dismissed so contemptuously...

      * * *

      To say that Christian had been disarmed to discover that Lady Sylviana Moorland, widowed Countess of Ampthill, was one of the guests at his grandmother’s ball this evening would have been deeply understating the matter. He could not have been more surprised if that upstart Napoleon, presently and hopefully forever incarcerated on St. Helena, had arrived on his grandmother’s doorstep brandishing an invitation!

      Not that he had not been fully aware of Sylviana Moorland’s

      return to Society, now that her year of mourning her husband was well and truly over—indeed, it was closer to two years since Colonel Lord Gerald Moorland had been struck down at the battle of Waterloo. And having heard that gentleman’s widow had returned to town at the start of the Season, Christian had taken the steps necessary to ensure that they were never in attendance at the same social function.

      Steps that had been shattered this evening by his own grandmother, of all people!

      Unintentionally, of course, for surely his grandmother was as much in ignorance of Christian’s previous acquaintance with Sylviana as was the rest of Society.

      If anything Sylvie was more beautiful than Christian remembered, no longer that young girl on the brink of womanhood but now fully matured into a beautiful woman. The gold of her hair was arranged in artful curls upon her crown, with several loose tendrils at her temples and nape. Brown eyes surrounded by long dark lashes, and as deep and impenetrable as the golden molasses they resembled in her heart-shaped face; a small and delicate nose, with full and pouting lips above a small and determined chin. Her body was no longer coltishly slender, either, but lush and sensual, the fullness of her creamy breasts spilling over the low neckline of her green silk gown.

      A gown of the same moss-green color as Christian’s eyes...Deliberately so?

      The challenge in her dark gaze as she gazed up at him so

      disdainfully would seem to imply so. “How unfortunate, my lord, that the passing of the years appears to have done nothing to improve your manners!”

      Christian gave a hard and derisive smile. “Did you expect them to have done so?”

      She eyed him coolly. “One might have hoped so, yes...”

      “Why did you come here this evening, Sylvie?” He snapped his impatience with that coolness. “Or perhaps you prefer the grander Sylviana

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