The fruit remained suspended from her raised hand.

It amazed her that he remembered her name, though his sister had introduced them less than an hour ago.

All she had to do was the sensible and truthful thing-to tell him that she had not been listening to his conversation with Lady Beaton. But her mind was flustered.

“Yes, indeed,” she said, and watched the smile deepen wickedly in his eyes while Lady Beaton looked at her in some surprise. She had made the wrong response. “Or, rather…”

And it struck her as if out of nowhere that it would be very easy indeed to fall head over ears in love with someone like Lord Montford. With someone forbidden, unsafe. Dangerous.

Definitely dangerous.

Or perhaps it was not someone like Lord Montford with whom she could fall desperately in love if she was foolish enough to allow herself to do it. Perhaps it was precisely him.

The thought caused a strange tightening in her breasts and an even stranger ache and throbbing that spiraled downward to rest between her inner thighs.

It was then that the thought occurred to her that perhaps love was not safe. That perhaps it was her very attempt to find it in safe places that had prevented her from finding it at all. That perhaps she would never find it if she did not…

If she did not what?

Take a leap in the dark? The very dangerous dark?

He held her eyes rather longer than was necessary before returning his attention to Lady Beaton, and the evening proceeded more safely and predictably and altogether more comfortably. Lord Beaton danced with Katherine in the space before the tiered boxes after they had all dined, and then, with another couple, they went for a short stroll along the grand avenue beneath the colored lamps that swayed magically in the tree branches overhead, dodging crowds of revelers as they did so.