One Night With The Major - Bronwyn Scott

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began to dance, slowly, evocatively, drawing all eyes towards her with the ringing, rhythmic click of her cymbals. She worked through the crowd deliberately, gracing a man here, another man there, with the tease of her attentions. She couldn’t be obvious about her target, couldn’t race over to him or it would be too transparent. But it must be him. Only the best would do for Pavia Honeysett.

      The last made her smile behind her veils. She’d been raised in wealthy privilege, the only child of a tea merchant. She’d been taught to expect the best. Tonight would be no different. A man reached out for her as she passed. She moved beyond his grip, scolding him by turning her attentions towards another. But she understood the warning. She’d teased them with her glances and swaying hips; they would expect her to deliver on those promises. She’d reached the divide between the milieu of the long trestle tables and the soldier’s table at the wall. He seemed intent on not looking at her, the only man in the room who wasn’t looking. She would change that.

      Pavia dropped a veil from the gold-coin belt about her waist, revealing a full glimpse of smooth leg. That got his attention. He was a man, not marble, after all, despite what his chiselled features suggested. She caught his eye and held it—demanded it, actually, with her hips. With a step forward closing the meagre distance between them, she smiled with her eyes, letting him guess at the lush mouth hidden from view beneath the silk draping.

      Her candidate was a handsome man up close, golden haired and well kept. A firm mouth went with that strong, straight jaw, topped with sharp blue eyes that matched the strength of him. This was better than she’d hoped for. He’d be moving on, unlikely to linger in London. If she was lucky, he was already on the move to fulfil orders. The world was a big place. They would never see each other again after tonight. But first, she had to entice him and she had only six veils remaining. She couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

      * * *

      Major Cam Lithgow was not a man who made mistakes, but he was making them in droves tonight. The first mistake was coming down to the taproom, wanting to drown his sorrows in ale, only to discover there was live entertainment. He should have left then. Not leaving was his second mistake. His third was making eye contact with the exotic dancer. His fourth was not looking away. How could he? She was dressed in carefully draped veils that simultaneously revealed and concealed the exquisite body beneath, all held carefully in place by a gold girdle that spanned a slim waist and rested on the delicious curves of her hips, jingling provocatively as those hips swayed their promises.

      To his dismay, his body was becoming ‘interested’ in those promises, his mind interested in the dark eyes that held his. He’d not bartered on this when he’d come downstairs to the taproom.

      The dancer loosened another veil from her belt with sensual skill, drawing the fabric across her body before letting it pool in his lap in blatant invitation. Behind her there were hoots and catcalls from the deserted crowd. There were growls of disappointment, too. Cam tensed. Jealous, disappointed drunk men were dangerous. Did she understand that? She’d played with them and then turned her back quite literally to choose the one man in the room who was least apt to accept her invitation. They weren’t likely to be very forgiving of the slight. Hell, he could see it now. If he didn’t claim her and take her upstairs, the taproom would brawl over her, competing for the right to be her second choice whether she wanted any of them or not. And he’d end up defending her whether he wanted to or not because a man of honour could do no less.

      The dancer leaned backwards an impressive degree, letting her hips undulate in a sinuous, vertical line, like the hypnotic writhe of a cobra, skeins of silky black hair cascading from beneath the veil that hid her face except for the dark, wide, almond-shaped eyes. The man in him was aroused against his better judgement. She righted herself, her hips returning to a horizontal sway, and she reached for him. More precisely, she reached for his sword, pulling it from its sheathe in a lightning snatch before he could react. He’d let his guard down—he’d thought she was reaching for him or for the scarf in his lap. Now he was unarmed in a potentially dangerous environment.

      She leaned backwards again and began the undulation, this time balancing the sword on her hip. Cam held his breath, torn between warning her how sharp the blade was and remaining silent for fear that speaking out would ruin her concentration. Miraculously, the sword lay steady. She became a dervish, then, taking the sword in hand and whirling about, a swirl of colours and veils in time to the music. When the music slowed and the whirlwind abated, his sword was balanced atop of her head. The room was alive now, the crowd clapping to the rhythm of her movements and the music; all of it pushing him towards a decision. Save her from the mob, or leave her to her self-imposed fate. He’d not come down here looking for adventure but it seemed adventure had found him anyway.

      She turned a fast circle, the sword never slipping from her head and Cam made up his mind. Perhaps his mind had already been made up the moment their eyes had met. Her circle stopped. He rose and held out his hand. Good lord, he didn’t even know if she spoke English. This was madness. But he couldn’t leave her here when it was clear she had no idea of how much danger she might be in from men who might not hesitate to strip those veils from her, who might decide to make a plaything of her for their own amusement, who might not ascribe to the idea that a person was a person no matter the colour of their skin. There were too many ‘mights’ for his taste. Too much to leave to chance.

      She dipped him an English curtsy, returned his sword and without a word let him lead her up the stairs. How did this happen to him? How did he find himself in the most unwanted circumstances? This was not an adventure he would have sought for himself. He was probably the only soldier in the British army who didn’t want to be back on English soil. Balaclava had been a bloodbath and he’d been the one to live to tell about it, a prospect so daunting, he couldn’t sleep at night—he still woke up screaming about it. But here he was—back in England and with one more responsibility to carry out when all he wanted was to be back with his troops and a life he understood, a life that pleased him.

      At the top of the stairs, he ushered her into his chamber and shut the heavy oak door behind them. Cam leaned his head against the door frame, closing his eyes for a moment of clarity, savouring the coolness of the wood against his brow. Good lord, he had an exotic dancer in his room. His grandfather would die if he knew. Exotic dancers were not part of his grandfather’s plan for him.

      Aside from the pleasure that came with the thought of niggling at his grandfather’s limited sensibilities, this was not how Cam had expected the evening to go. He’d gone down to the taproom in the hopes of forgetting everything, to put off his duty one more day. He could have easily ridden on to London tonight before dark, but that would have meant facing his grandfather, playing the returning war hero and the doting suitor to Caroline Beaufort, his intended, a young woman selected by his grandfather as worthy of a Lithgow with her exquisite looks and immaculate pedigree, but a woman who engendered nothing more than polite interest from him.

      It was no wonder he loved soldiering. It was full of the adventures he thrived on—new places, new people, new tasks—where there was little time to spend worrying over the delicate concerns of etiquette, while life here in London spread before him like a vast empty wasteland full of useless occupations. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite an empty wasteland just yet. There was still the dancer to deal with. He needed to make it clear to her that she had his protection, that nothing else would occur in this chamber tonight. Despite what his body might have argued, he wasn’t in the mood. His mind was too fixed on the things he’d have to do tomorrow, like telling the Duke of Cowden his son, Cam’s own best friend, Fortis Tresham, wasn’t coming back.

      Cam turned from the door, ready to make his pronouncement, and his mouth went dry. His dancer stood before him beautifully naked, her discarded veils at her feet, a tanned goddess come to life with high, bold breasts and a gentle hand over her shy nether pelt, a delicious contradiction of seduction and innocence. Had he really been about to refuse her? His body’s reaction laughed at the prospect, but his conscience pricked. How dare he think of pleasure when Fortis was dead.

      He strode towards her, purposefully shrugging out of his coat and draping it about her. ‘You needn’t offer yourself to me. You are safe here.’ The coat was big,

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