A Matter of Sin by Jess Michaels Page B

her and made itself known in the worst and ugliest ways. So she found herself angry and out of sorts.
    Denying Seth his request for a dance was the only childish way she could express those unwarranted feelings. Even if it didn’t reflect well upon her to be so peevish.
    She smoothed her hands over the silky fabric of her gown as she drew in deep breaths. A few more moments to collect herself and she would return to the ballroom and carry on as if nothing had happened. Later, perhaps, she would apologize to her host and that would be the end of it.
    She heard the door behind her close and spun toward it with a gasp of surprise. One she repeated when she saw that the person who had intruded upon her moment of self-reflection was Seth.
    “I thought you were checking on your sister, that that was why you couldn’t dance with me,” he drawled as he leaned back against the barrier that now separated them from both propriety and the safety of other people. He cocked his head. “I don’t see your sister here. Unless she is hiding behind the drapery.”
    Isabel folded her arms so he wouldn’t see her hands shake. “Of course not. I simply needed a moment to myself.”
    “So I am intruding?” Seth asked as he took a long step toward her.
    Isabel forced herself to take one of equal distance back. “It is your home and you can go wherever you like, of course, but yes, I would prefer to be alone.”
    “But you weren’t alone tonight,” he said, his tone low but somehow still accusatory.
    Isabel shook her head, truly confused by that statement. “What?”
    “You heard me,” he pressed. “You were anything but alone.”
    “I don’t understand. I stood with Serena a while and Grace, but—”
    “You danced ,” he interrupted. “And you have been surrounded by men, leering, wanting men, for the entire evening.”
    Isabel’s eyes went wide. This was the one conversation she had never thought to have. “I-I beg your pardon?”
    “You told me you wouldn’t dance with me because you were here as a chaperone to your sister,” he pressed, moving forward again. “But you danced with at least three other men who I counted.”
    Isabel swallowed. He had been counting her partners? Why, that implied that he was every bit as jealous of her evening as she had been of his.
    “You are one to talk,” she managed to squeak out. “I did not go so far as to count your partners, but there were a great many women who took a turn around the ballroom floor in your arms.”
    A lie. There had been fifteen. She had been counting.
    Seth’s shook his head. “Every woman I danced with had some purpose. Either she is a potential bride or a chaperone whose good graces it is imperative I court.”
    Isabel stared at him a moment. “How very romantic of you, sir. To dance with all those women with a purpose .”
    His eyes narrowed. “And are you saying the dances you engaged in had none? Were you not looking at the men who partnered you, the ones who brought you punch, who all but drooled all over you, as potential lovers for when your sister’s situation is resolved?”
    Isabel’s mouth dropped open at his statement and she drew back slightly. “How dare you, Lord Lyndham? When I made that slip of the tongue in your garden and told you I was thinking of taking a lover in the future, it was told to you in confidence. I never thought you would throw it in my face later in order to soothe your somehow ruffled ego.”
    Seth continued to advance on her and his face was growing increasingly angry. “So you admit that you were considering them as lovers?”
    She folded her arms. She hadn’t been doing anything of sort, of course. Sir Gregory and Lord Monthaven were very nice gentlemen, but they stirred no interest whatsoever in her. However, she had no intention of telling Seth that.
    “And why shouldn’t I consider them?”
    He threw up his hands in apparent disgust. “Great God, Isabel, you could do leagues better than either of those