To Sin With A Stranger by Kathryn Caskie

Carington, would you do me the very great honor of dancing with me?”
    Isobel gulped, and suddenly she felt as though she might begin to weep. It was ridiculous to feel this way, but, la, in all the years she had been coming to the Partridge ball, no gentleman under fifty years of age had ever asked her to dance. Ever.
    She was the miss who had almost reached the altar—before her beau was sent to battle, never to return. The very young miss who, some matrons surmised wrongly, had likely made it into the handsome lieutenant’s bed, as so many misses had recklessly done before their soldiers headed off to war.
    But when the months passed, and Isobel showed no sign of ripening with child, the gossip finally ended—but the damage had been done. In her father’s heart, and in the minds of the gentlemen of the
ton
, Isobel’s reputation was irreparably tarnished.
    There was a certain freedom to being the miss no one would truly consider. There was no pressure to impress, and her days were full with her charitable concerns.
    Still, she never stopped yearning for love. She just reconciled herself to the fact that the love of a man was something she would never have.
    Isobel peered up at the Scottish lord through rapidly tearing eyes. She had imagined this, her first true dance with a suitor, many times over the years. Dreamed of this exact moment. And now, when a devastatingly handsome man actually offered his arm to take her onto the dance floor, it was the one man she abhorred—Sterling Sinclair, Marquess of Blackburn.
    She glanced at Christiana, who gave her head an almost imperceptible nod, before she finally gave him her answer. “I—I would be most honored, Lord Blackburn”—Isobel gave him an embarrassed smile—“but, my lord, I fear there is no music.”
    Lord Blackburn turned toward the musicians and shook an open palm to them as if in command. It was a gesture they understood, for the violinist plucked a string thrice and the musicians raised their instruments.
    The Scot turned to the crowd behind him and raised his other palm as well. Ladies grabbed their husbands’ arms and dragged them forward, and within a blink of time, the floor teemed with dancers.
    Lord Blackburn returned his gaze to hers and bowed. “Miss Carington, I believe you were mistaken. The next set is about to commence.”
    A flush rose up from Isobel’s middle and flooded her cheeks with heat. She did not know why his command of the ballroom filled her with a sense of pride, but it did. And so she took his arm and allowed him to guide her, past her astonished father and a dozen other equally surprised gentlemen, to the very center of the dance floor.
    Lord Blackburn took his place beside her without a word, but his eyes said more than a comment ever could. For the first time in her life, Isobel felt what she believed it must be like to be desired.
    As the music began, his hand, warm and larger than she would have imagined a hand could be, closed over hers protectively, and they began to move across the floor.
    She could not help but marvel at the grace a man as enormous as Lord Blackburn could possess. And yet he danced with a skill and ease she had rarely seen in London.
    Worriedly, Isobel tore her attention from him and focused on her own dancing, not wishing to stumble or misstep when it seemed clear she was partnered with a master.
    As they turned around each other, he gazed deeply into her eyes, and suddenly she could not hear the music. No longer was she aware of others dancing beside them or great numbers of ladies and gentlemen gazing upon them.
    The dance floor seemed to fade and disappear as surely as if a fog off the Thames had descended, obscuring everything from her eyes…except for
him
.

    It was hard for Sterling to concentrate on the dance, with Miss Carington looking at him that way. Could the wager actually be the reason? It seemed impossible to him.
    Why, though his heart had oft raced at the heft of a full coin bag, no