Page 47 of If the Duke Demands

Applause filled the opera house and reverberated inside her. She stepped back from the circle of his arms as disappointment swept over her. “No, I don’t want that.”

He stared down at her, his expression a mix of heady arousal and utter bewilderment, as if he simply couldn’t fathom her. An expression that ripped through her chest.

The softness of his voice couldn’t hide the bitterness lacing through his words as he latched on to the only explanation he could find. “Because of Robert?”

“No,” she breathed, and his handsome face blurred behind the hot tears welling in her eyes. “Because of you.”

CHAPTERNINE

Two More Frustrating (and Utterly Confusing) Days Later

Miranda leaned over the railing and laughed joyfully at the jugglers performing on the alley in front of their box at Vauxhall Gardens.

“Don’t you dare ask if you can learn to juggle,” Sebastian warned in that same grumpy voice he’d used with her all evening. For the past two days, in fact. Since he kissed her backstage at the opera and she rejected him, apparently wounding his male pride.

And tonight was proving no different.

She gave an insulted sniff, irritated at him herself for kissing her so wonderfully when he knew nothing could come of it. Kissing? Oh, the aggravating devil had dared to do so much more! “I would never ask such a thing.” Then, because she couldn’t help tormenting him the way he’d tormented her for the past two days, she added, “But knife throwing! Nowthere’sa skill I’d lov—”

He shot her a murderous glare that silenced her in mid-word.

She swallowed, thinking better of finishing that sentence after all.

The man was incomprehensible. At one moment warning her not to do anything that would cause a scandal, and at the next kissing her in such a way as to ruin her reputation if anyone caught them. At one moment, treating her as if she were a child, then touching her until she moaned with the passion of a woman. First agreeing to help her with Robert, then behaving as if he were jealous. Jealous?Ha!Not when he had the lovely Lady Jane at his side tonight as his personal guest. Yet instead of paying attention to Jane and engaging her in the same rakish conversation he’d held with Miranda at the opera, he’d spent his evening grumping and growling over every move she made.

Good heavens.The conundrum that was Sebastian Carlisle could drive a woman mad.

With a heavy sigh, she rose from her chair. He grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

She arched a brow, daring him to challenge her, here amid all their family and friends. “I want a glass of punch.”

He released her arm. “Do not leave this box.”

“Your talents are being wasted as a duke.” As she slid past him, she lowered her head as close as possible to his ear without drawing attention. “You should have been a gaoler.”

He turned in his chair as if to make a second attempt to stop her, but she was already gone, slipping around the dining table where they’d taken supper as guests of the Earl of St James.

The countess had sent invitations to Audley House and Park Place for all of them to join the couple in a private box at Vauxhall for the season opening of the pleasure gardens. So the entire Carlisle family and their guests—minus Josie and Chesney, who preferred to enjoy a quiet evening at home—had piled into several carriages and made their way through the city and across the Thames to the gardens.

Oh, the place was simply magical! The gardens were awash in colored lanterns, cascading fountains, and illuminated transparencies and filled with people wearing all manner of costumes and dress. Performers paraded down the alley at the heart of the gardens, while acrobats performed on ropes and wires strung between the galleries where private supper parties were held by those lucky enough to rent boxes. Farther away, Chinese lanterns lit the way to the pagoda at the park’s center where a band was finishing its concert. Behind the pagoda lay a dark maze of narrow, winding paths through the trees where Sebastian forbade her to go the moment they’d arrived at the entrance gate.

Despite Sebastian’s grumpiness, Miranda was enjoying herself. In fact, she’d hoped to convince Quinn to take her up in the hot-air balloon, but he was having too much fun with his friends from Boodle’s and wouldn’t be pulled away. And then there was Robert, who sat in the back of the box and had no time for anyone but Diana Morgan, who sat next to him.

Tonight, Miranda wasn’t happy with any of the Carlisle men.

She smiled gratefully at the box attendant as the man handed her a glass of arrack punch from the tray, then grudgingly returned to her seat beside Sebastian. With all of them crowded into the box, the chair beside his was the only one available, unless she wanted to remain standing beside the attendant. Which was a surprisingly tempting idea.

Especially when Sebastian warned, “And don’t eventhinkabout tightrope walking.”

Men.She was beginning to think they were of no worth whatsoever except for reaching for items high on tall shelves and changing carriage wheels.

“If you must insist on being in a foul mood all evening,” she countered, reaching the limit of her patience, “then I wish you would find someone else to torment. I am not deserving of it.”

When she was answered only by his silence, she glanced sideways and caught him staring at her, an inscrutable expression on his face. His dark eyes studied her closely, contemplating her long enough that she fidgeted beneath his blue gaze.

But she wasn’t naïve enough to believe he felt either remorse or guilt for the way he’d been treating her. Oh no—not the man who used her slippers for blackmail.

Then he stood. “If you’ll excuse me. I’ll be gone only a moment.”