Page 6 of Dangerous

“I am not staring daggers at him.” He turned and stared daggers at Mia instead, his eyes narrowed and his mouth a compressed pink line.

Mia bit back a smile at his almost comical outrage. “Why is every person in this room trying to appear as if they were not staring at him?”

“They are staring because it is unheard of to see him in such an environment.”

“In a house?”

Cian gave her such a withering look Mia couldn’t help laughing.

“No, at a respectable event with decent people. He hasn’t been to a ton function since . . .”

“Yes, since?” Mia prodded.

He gave an impatient shake of his head. “It doesn’t matter. Not for a very long time.” His eyes snapped back to the marquess, who was now saying something to their father. The duke, who had already been frowning, suddenly appeared thunderous.

“Goodness. What could he be saying to make Father look so cross?” Mia asked.

“Whatever it is, Father deserves it.”

Before she could ask her brother to explain his cryptic comment, the marquess raised his glass and fixed it on her.

Cian swore. “What bloody cheek.” He edged his body in front of her.

Mia took her brother’s arm. “I do not require your protection, Cian.”

He ignored her and inched even closer. “Damnation,” he hissed. “He’s coming this way. Don’t speak to him, Mia. Let me handle this.”

Aunts, cousins, and prospective suitors vanished into the nearby furniture like quail into tall grass as the Marquess of Exley came toward them, moving with the languid grace of a predator on the prowl. He was no more than medium height, his body slim, but sleekly muscled. His austere black-and-white clothing looked as if it had been stitched to his graceful frame. His coat tapered from broad shoulders to narrow, compact hips and well-developed thighs and calves—the legs of an active man. By the time he reached their side of the room, only Mia and Cian remained to greet him.

Mia wrenched her gaze away from his snug black breeches and looked up into eyes that were a startling pale blue—an unusual color made even more striking by the thick, dark lashes that fringed his lids. He smiled slightly at her obvious scrutiny and turned his unnerving eyes on her brother. “Perhaps you would introduce us, Abermarle?” His voice was low, velvety, and precise—as attractive as his person.

Cian stood mute, his hands fisted at his sides. The marquess scrutinized the younger man the same way he might study a spot on his cravat. The longer his eyes lingered, the more Cian’s face mottled.

Mia itched to cuff her brother. What was wrong with him?

Instead, she stepped around him and held out her hand, hoping to interrupt the hostile tableau vivant before Cian attacked the other man. “I am Euphemia Marlington.”

The marquess bowed low over her proffered hand. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Lady Euphemia. I am Exley.” His lips, which looked as hard and cold as stone, left a burning imprint on the cool satin of her glove.

Mia dropped into her lowest curtsy, the one she’d reserved for the sultan. When she rose, it was to find his icy eyes glinting with approval.

His lips flexed into something that almost passed for a smile. “Are you pleased to be back in the bosom of your family, my lady?” It was an innocuous question, but she sensed the irony behind it.

Mia glanced at her father; the duke was watching her with eyes every bit as stony as his bosom. Did every person in the room—every person in London—know how much her return had mortified her father?

If they did, there was no point in letting them all know how much it hurt her.

She beamed up at the marquess. “Very much so, my lord. I am especially thrilled to be reunited with my little brother.” They both turned to Cian. Her brother was glaring at the marquess as if he were a dangerous and unpredictable reptile.

Mia’s smile began to falter and she grasped at the first thought that came to mind. “My brother tells me your presence here tonight is something of a rarity, Lord Exley.”

His dark brows arched, as if he was surprised to hear Cian could actually speak. “I do not care for this type of social occasion in general, but your father convinced me I would miss tonight at my peril.”

In case she might misunderstand his meaning—that her father was conducting a public auction with Mia on the block—Exley began a deliberate examination of her person, the same way he might inspect bloodstock at Tattersall’s. His eyes licked over her like blue fire, burning her skin through her clothing, scorching her from head to toe and leaving no part of her body unscathed. He dwelt longest on her chest, which was rising and falling as if she’d just run a footrace. His expression shifted subtly from cruel and calculating to . . . pleased, but still calculating.

The brazen appraisal was enough to bring Cian out of his trance, and he stepped toward the marquess. “Look here, Exley, just what the devil—”

“Dinner is served!” the duke’s butler proclaimed in a stentorian voice.