“Oh, Daemon, it’s so wonderful. I can’t wear it here, of course.”

He started to untwist. “Wear what?”

“My dress.” She squirmed in his tight triangle and almost sent him through the wall. “It’s floor-length and it’s made of spidersilk and it’s black, Daemon, black.”

Daemon concentrated on breathing. When he was sure his heart remembered its proper rhythm, he reached into his inner jacket pocket and took out a small square box. “Then this, I think, would be a proper accessory.”

“What is it?” Jaenelle asked, hesitantly taking the box.

“Your Winsol gift. Your real Winsol gift.”

Smiling shyly, Jaenelle unwrapped the box, opened it, and gasped.

Daemon’s throat tightened. It was an inappropriate gift for a man like him to give a young girl, but he didn’t care about that, didn’t care about anything except whether or not it pleased her.

“Oh, Daemon,” Jaenelle whispered. She took the hammered silver cuff bracelet from the box and placed it on her left wrist. “It will be perfect with my dress.” She reached up to hug him and froze.

He watched her emotions swirl in her eyes, too fast for him to identify. Instead of hugging him, she lowered her hands to his shoulders, leaned forward, and kissed him lightly on the mouth, a girl child testing the waters of womanhood. His hands closed on her arms with just enough pressure to keep her close to him. When she pulled back, he saw in her eyes a whisper of the woman she would become.

Seeing that, he couldn’t let it finish there.

Gently cupping her face in his hands, Daemon leaned forward and returned her kiss. His kiss was as light and close-lipped as hers had been, but it wasn’t innocent and it wasn’t chaste. When he finally raised his head, he knew he was playing a dangerous game.

Jaenelle swayed, bracing her hands on his thighs for support. She licked her lips and looked at him with slightly glazed eyes. “Do…do all boys kiss like that?”

“Boys don’t kiss like that at all, Lady,” he said quietly, seriously. “Neither do most men. But I’m not like most men.” He slowly pulled in his seduction tendrils. He had done more than he should have already tonight; anything else would harm her. Tomorrow he would be the companion he’d been yesterday, and the day before that. But she would remember that kiss and compare every kiss from every weak-willed Chaillot boy against it.

He didn’t care how many boys kissed her. They were, after all, boys. But the bed…When the time came, the bed would be his.

He removed the bracelet from her wrist and put it back in its box. “Vanish that,” he said quietly while he disposed of the ribbon and paper. When the box was gone, he unwound his legs and led her back to the drawing room, where Graff immediately hurried the girls off to bed.

Philip glared at him. Robert smirked. Leland was fluttery and pale. It was Alexandra’s jealous, accusing look that unsheathed his temper. She rose to confront him, but at that moment the guests began arriving for the night-long festivities.