Amelia’s lips parted, and although she ought to have done something with her arm (using it to return her hand to her own side would have been an obvious choice), she just stood there like an imbecile, slack-jawed and limp, wondering why he…

Well, just wondering why, to tell the truth.

“Shall I dance with you now?” he murmured.

She stared at him. What was he up to?

“It’s not a difficult question,” he said with a smile, tugging gently at her hand as he moved closer. “Yes…or no.”

She caught her breath.

“Or yes,” he said, chuckling as his free hand found its place at the small of her back. His lips approached her ear, not quite touching, but close enough so his words drifted across her skin like a kiss. “Yes is almost always the correct answer.”

He exerted a bit of pressure and slowly…softly…they began to dance. “And always,” he whispered, his mouth finally brushing her ear, “when you’re with me.”

He was seducing her. The realization washed over her with equal parts excitement and confusion. She couldn’t imagine why; he had never shown the least inclination to do so before. It was deliberate, too. He was unleashing every weapon in his arsenal, or at least every one allowable in a public garden.

And he was succeeding. She knew that his aims had to be Machiavellian—she was quite certain she had not turned irresistible during the course of one evening—but still, her skin was tingling, and when she breathed (which was not as often as she ought), her body seemed to lighten and float, and maybe she did not know so very much about relations between men and women, but she knew one thing…

He was making her silly.

Her brain was still working, and her thoughts were mostly complete, but there was no way he’d know that, because it was all she could do to gaze at him like a lovesick calf, her eyes begging him to move his hand, press at her back.

She wanted to sink against him. She wanted to sink into him.

Had she uttered a word since he’d taken her hand?

“I never noticed how lovely your eyes are,” he said softly, and she wanted to say that that was because he’d never bothered to look, and then she wanted to point out that he could hardly see the color in the moonlight.

But instead she smiled like a fool, and she tilted her head up toward his, because maybe…just maybe, he was thinking about kissing her, and maybe…just maybe, he would actually do it, and maybe…oh, definitely, she would let him.