“I’d come to you,” he repeated, as if taking a solemn vow. “I wouldn’t be able to stay away.”

“I could change rooms. I could move to—”

He shook his head. “It wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter if you locked yourself in the highest, farthest tower. I’d find you. I’d come to your door in the night. And then . . . You know what would happen then.”

She couldn’t breathe. “What would happen then?”

“You’d answer.” He moved closer, until she was faint with his heat and the clean, male scent of him. “You’d let me in, Clio. Wouldn’t you? You couldn’t turn me away.”

She nodded, entranced by the low, dark thrum of his words.

He was right. If he knocked at her door in the middle of the night, she would let him in. And it didn’t have anything to do with kindness or generosity. It had to do with yearning and desire. The wild chase of blood through her veins whenever he drew near. The pang of need that answered whenever he looked at her like this.

The power of the emotion in those bold green eyes . . .

If this man were ever to love—truly love—a woman could spend her whole life reeling from the force of it.

But he was here to say farewell, and the sharp pain of losing him was enough to make her dizzy.

He slowed them to a stop. “You’ve gone pale.”

Had she? Now that he mentioned it, the ballroom had gone dark at the edges. And her head was still spinning, even though they’d stopped dancing several moments ago.

Her heart was just so full. And pounding. His suit, those words, the waltz . . .

How could any mortal woman bear it?

“Perhaps I just need some air,” she said.

Rafe shored her up with an arm about her waist. Then he steered her to the edge of the room, back to the corner where Daphne and Teddy were waiting with Phoebe.

“Lady Cambourne.” He nodded. “You should take your sister to the retiring room.”

“No.” Clio scooped in a shallow breath. “Don’t leave me. I’ll be fine. It’s just all that twirling on an empty stomach. Tight corset laces. You, in that coat.”

You, you, you.

He didn’t acknowledge the compliment. “Why is your stomach empty? Didn’t you eat before the ball?”

“Of course she didn’t,” Daphne said. “A lady never eats before a ball.”

Rafe looked only at Clio. “When’s the last time you had a proper meal?”

She hedged. “That’s not . . .”

“Answer me.”

With reluctance, she admitted, “Breakfast.”

He swore under his breath.

“It’s a bad habit.” A habit Clio knew she needed to break. If she was going to guard Phoebe from damaging expectations, she had to extend the same protection to herself. “All I need is a cup of lemonade or barley water, and I’ll be fine.”

He pulled her to her feet, lacing her arm through his. “You need proper food. I’m taking you in to supper.”

Daphne held them back. “But you can’t. Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

Goodness. Clio had never seen him wear an expression so stern. The furrow in his brow could have crushed walnuts.

But Daphne, being Daphne, shrugged off his obvious anger. “There’s an order to these things. Perhaps you’ve been out of circulation so long, you’ve forgotten it. But we don’t all flock to the buffet like gulls. We go in to supper according to precedence. Beginning with the highest ranked, down to the last.”

“Then I can take her in first,” Rafe said. “I’m the son of a marquess. No one here outranks me.”

Daphne corrected him. “We go by the ladies’ rank. And my sister, as unmarried Miss Whitmore, is near the end of the queue.”

“She’s engaged to marry a lord.”

“She’s not married to him yet.”

Rafe clenched his jaw. “This is bollocks.”

Daphne smiled. “This is society.”

“At the moment, Lady Cambourne, I don’t see a difference between the two.” He tightened his arm, drawing Clio close. “We’re going in to supper. Precedence be damned.”

“Truly, I can wait,” Clio murmured.

“But you won’t.” His deep voice shivered to the soles of her feet. Barely controlled anger radiated from him. “Not tonight. When I’m around, you don’t wait out dances. You don’t go hungry. And you sure as hell don’t come at the end of any line.”

Good heavens. It was a struggle not to swoon all over again. But she didn’t want this to mean the end of their evening.

“I promise, I can wait. I’m already feeling better.”

“That’s a good girl,” Teddy said. He nudged Rafe in the side. “We do have to permit the ladies their vanities, Brandon. It’s like I’ve told our dumpling again and again. Best to go easy on the supper buffet. Lord Granville already has one heavyweight in the family.”

Her brother-in-law chuckled merrily at his own joke.

Clio wanted to disappear.

“That’s right,” Rafe said, sounding amused. “Lord Granville does.”

Thwack.

No one saw the punch coming. Not Clio, not Daphne. Certainly not Teddy, whose head whipped to the side with the force of Rafe’s blow.

He blinked. Then he staggered backward and fell, dropping on his arse with a weak, undramatic “oof.” A dull thud that seemed to sum up the man’s whole existence.