“Out here, I’m…Bee.”

“You’re nothing like you were during the past week,” he rumbled, unable to reconcile the two very different versions of her.

Her shoulders shook and the curve of one cheek rose as she turned in his arms to face him. Blue eyes glittered like aquamarines, a sheen of sweat coating her rosy, overwarm skin. Moonlight wound through her hair and shone off the glistening apples of her cheeks while damp tendrils clung to her brow, her temples, and her neck. He didn’t dare look lower, though her bodice gaped perilously, a glistening ribbon of sweat catching his eye.

“Women have many layers, Your Grace. We don’t give up all our secrets for just anyone. Otherwise, they are not worth the discovery. Surely a man of your persuasion would know such a thing.”

“A man of my persuasion?”

“Are we still playing games, Your Grace?” The taunting words drizzled through him and he frowned at the question. Was Lisbeth right? That she was sharper than she seemed? He fell back to his usual dismissal.

“I am a duke, Lady Bronwyn,” he tossed back, distracted by the renewed motion of her body that followed the slightly quicker tempo than a usual waltz and the purposeful gleam in her gaze. “That is all.”

“Then you’re on your way to Philadelphia for a pleasure trip?”

Valentine studiously ignored the unguarded reaction that word claimed from his already too-interested lower half. “No, I am looking for someone actually,” he said and then frowned, wondering why he’d volunteered that information. Her body seemed to tense, but then she relaxed on the next beat of music and quarter turn.

“So the huntsman is on the hunt, even if he’s been put out to pasture.”

His eyes caught hers, amusement winking in their azure depths. The little minx was teasing him. “I’m not on my last legs yet, my lady.”

“Clearly.”

When the music came to a lilting crescendo and couples separated with enthusiastic clapping as a heart-thumping reel began, she rose to her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, so close to the corner of his mouth that the heat of her breath mingled with his. A miniscule shift and his lips would be on hers. Valentine froze, the brand of her mouth imprinting on his skin like a trail of fire before she broke the connection.

“Why did you do that?”

“Why not? I wanted to.”

The husky reply had him looking at her mouth and then dipping to the pulse that fluttered at the base of her throat. He wanted to taste it beneath his tongue, suck on the cinnamon-apple salt of her skin, follow that tempting, glistening trace that led to the deep valley between her breasts. Valentine’s eyes snagged on the edge of what looked like a piece of parchment tucked into the corner of her bodice, the hint of a waxed seal almost visible, and he frowned.