An Affair Without End Read Online Free

seemed almost a challenge.
    Well, a challenge was certainly something Vivian never turned down.
    Her lips curving up into a smile, she placed her hand in his. “Of course, my lord. I would be honored.”
    They took their place on the dance floor. Couples were forming around them, and Vivian realized that they were taking up the position of a waltz, not a cotillion or a country dance. She faced him, aware of a heightening of nerves inside her. Had she ever waltzed with Oliver? She could not remember doing so. Of course, the dance was no longerconsidered so shocking; it was even done in country assemblies now. She had danced it with many men over the years. There was no reason to feel this faint sense of unease.
    Yet, she had to admit, Oliver had always had the ability to intimidate her a little. That was a rare quality, she reflected, for at twenty-eight years of age, she was a woman who knew her own mind and in general did mostly as she pleased. Wealthy in her own right and the only daughter of a duke, she was under no man’s control. She had spent the last decade being pursued by many men, but none had ever won her over, and she was certain by now that none ever would. She enjoyed a light flirtation now and then, and she had a wealth of admirers from whom to choose when she wanted an escort to a play or a ball. But she could just as easily decide not to take any of them, as she had tonight. In short, Vivian felt she could hold her own with any man.
    But Oliver . . . somehow Oliver was a little different. Perhaps it was that she had known him when she was young and unsure of herself, and he had seemed to her far older and more mature. Perhaps it had been the adolescent yearning she had felt for him—not only unreciprocated, but unnoticed. Or perhaps it was simply that he was the sort of man who was invariably, maddeningly correct—in words, in action, even in thought. She had once heard Fitz complain of the ‘burden of perfection’ that having Oliver for a brother had placed on him, and she knew what he meant. The Earl of Stewkesbury set an imposing standard, and she could not help but feel a niggling doubt sometimes that his side of any argument was, if not necessarily right, certainly the most correct .
    Of course, that he could intimidate her did not mean Vivian intended to allow him to. She lifted her chin a fraction as she looked up into his face. His eyes held an expression that she could not quite read, and she felt the oddest littleflutter in her stomach. At that moment, the music started up, and he took her hand in his, the other going to her waist as he moved closer to her.
    The sensation in her stomach increased, and suddenly Vivian felt flushed, almost embarrassed at being this close to him. She glanced away, concentrating on her steps as they moved into the music. It was silly, she told herself, to feel so disconcerted at dancing a waltz with Oliver. She had known the man forever, after all. While it was as close as one could get to being held in his arms, nothing in his demeanor was loverlike. It was like dancing with her brother . . . except that it wasn’t at all like dancing with her brother.
    She was intensely aware of the way his hand curved around hers, of the way his fingers felt against her waist. Even though the material of her dress lay between her skin and his, the touch felt curiously intimate. The masculine scent of his cologne teased at her senses. She could not help but remember how giddy she had felt when she was in his presence when she was younger.
    Vivian lifted her face to look at him, unaware of the slow, dreamy smile that curved her lips and lit her eyes. Oliver’s hand tightened on her waist, and he pulled her almost imperceptibly closer, but then he turned his head away quickly, and his fingers relaxed their grip. As he looked out over the other dancers, a frown started between his eyes.
    He glanced around, then said, “We seem to be the object of a number of gazes.” His eyes