Valentine swallowed, muscles clenching and unclenching with indecision as he watched her dance. Watched her body undulate in ways that made his abdomen constrict and did away with the fact that she was his best friend’s sister. She was a woman. A beautifully dangerous one whom he was beginning to crave with a visceral, endless, avid need.

When the music shifted to something different—resembling a slower Viennese waltz that had couples moving scandalously close, including Rawley and Bronwyn’s slip of a maid—Valentine found himself pushing through the crowd. He stared down anyone who dared to get near to Bronwyn, baring his teeth. Men retreated, understanding that there was a much larger presence in the room. She, however, was oblivious, eyelids hooded, gilt-tipped lashes leaving shadows over flushed cheekbones as she swayed with a radiant smile on her face.

When he slid a palm over the warm, damp fabric covering her torso and drew her back to him, she didn’t shove him away, only continued to sway gently to the three-count measure. It took his stupid brain a second to see that her slender body was unencumbered by its usual ring of petticoats. His other hand went to her hip and the confirmation of what he suspected nearly unmanned him. No other layer rested between the satin and her hot, bare skin.

The sweaty heat of her sweet-apple fragrance seduced him as much as the shape of her did, but then Valentine blinked when she remained silent. Did she know who he was? Her lashes were still downcast. Would she be this familiar with anyone? With Rawley?

A husky voice pierced his thoughts. “Did you enjoy the show, Your Grace?”

His breath rushed out on a tide of relief. “Valentine.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My name is Valentine,” he rasped. “And yes. Was that for me?”

Valentine had been all over the world on his travels in service to the Crown, and while he’d encountered many different cultures and their styles of dance, the sight of Bronwyn—the demure, sheltered, haughty English daughter of a marquess and sister to a duke—dancing with such unbridled enthusiasm had been a shock to his senses.

“It was for me, sir.” She turned in his arms to face him, one palm going to his shoulder in the standard waltz position. “Did you know that the locals in the West Indies, in countries like Antigua and Trinidad, took English country dances, quadrilles, and reels, and turned them into their own according to their cultural traditions?” That low, rich laughter so unlike the tones from upstairs reached him again. “My sister-in-law said that she loves to dance in bare feet.” Without warning, she kicked off her own slippers.

He frowned. “Don’t. You could cut your soles.”

“Yes, I could, and this ship could get caught in a freakish storm and sink. Sometimes, Valentine, you must seize the moment.”

His fingers flexed on her hip. “Who are you?”