“As far as you know, Lady Rose?” he questioned with a chuckle. “I do not believe that your knowledge on the subject is likely to be extensive. One day, when you are well married, perhaps you will laugh about tonight. Until then, I suggest that you do not wander alone in dark gardens, incognito or not.”
The duke’s black laughing eyes flickered briefly over Rose and she again observed that there was something positively wolfish in his countenance – dark and wild and hungry. His gaze lingered at her throat where his mouth had nuzzled and his teeth had lightly bitten. Unexpectedly, Rose felt something of a strange and corresponding hunger in herself, as though transmitted by his earlier embrace.
“Why do you look at me like that?” she demanded accusingly, rather than interrogate her own feelings further.
“I am thinking that you had better fasten that wrap about yourself when you go inside, Lady Rose. It is too dark here to tell whether I left any mark.”
“Oh my!” Rose exclaimed, not even having thought of this, and almost dropping her shawl as she tried unsuccessfully to feel her neck. “What will I do?”
“Plead a bad cold for a few days and wear a scarf constantly,” Dorian Voss advised. “It is what most ladies and gentlemen do under these circumstances.”
Rose looked back at him with wide eyes.Under these circumstances?Was it really so common for people to go around biting one another?! On the one hand, it seemed absurd. On the other, she remembered that lightning sensation that had shot through her body with the first touch of the duke’s teeth and began to understand why they might.
Shivering both with cold and the confusion of that intense remembered sensation, Rose wished she had never run out here into the garden and never got herself into this mess. How could the duke be so unbothered?
“Come into the light,” he sighed then. “Let me check for any damage and then you may also tell me whether my face looks freshly slapped or not. No one is likely to ask questions about that, thankfully, as long as all the ladies are happy, but I should still like to know.”
Cautiously, Rose followed the tall, dark man towards the torches on the main path and stopped beside him.
“Now, show me your neck,” he instructed her and stepped nearer.
Her breathing a little fast, Rose tilted her head back and exposed her throat, her body tingling as he examined her. This act felt dangerous but also made sense. It occurred to her that if the duke leaned in only a few inches more, he could place his lips again on the spot he had bitten…
This did not happen, however.
“I’m sorry,” the Duke of Ravenhill said with another sigh and a smile as he raised his head again. “That is a real apology, Lady Rose. There is a slight mark on your throat. It will be gone within a day but you must take care tonight, lest anyone see.”
Rose nodded, disturbed by this news, but still tingling, seemingly in response to the duke’s proximity.
“Let me see your face,” she said, backing him into the light and looking up into his handsome countenance as she tried to ignore her own body’s signals.
“Am I marked?” the duke asked after a few seconds of silence but Rose only bit her lip and frowned.
“I am not sure. You do look rather hot and red but it is all over your face, not only where I hit you.”
At this, the black-haired man laughed yet again, as if she had said something very funny indeed.
“Yes, I dare say I am somewhat flushed, and I dare say you are the cause, Lady Rose,” he chuckled. “But we need not concern ourselves with anything that is not an obvious injury. Now, for both our sakes, please cover your exceptionally comely décolletage and return to your people inside. I will follow after a short interval.”
While Rose was still puzzling over this strange compliment, Dorian Voss reached out and adjusted the sleeve of the dress that had slipped from her shoulder. Rose found herself looking into his eyes and feeling an unbidden thrill from this further impropriety, although still unable to make sense of her own reactions to his slightest touch.
The Duke of Ravenhill seemed about to rearrange the shawl about Rose’s shoulders and throat too, but it was at that moment that the voices rang out and her heart almost stopped.
“Rose? Is that you?”
“Rose! What are you doing down there?! Your Grace!”
“Step away from my sister, damn you!”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s the Duke of Westvale’s daughter!”
“Good God, Ravenhill has gone too far this time…”
Looking up towards the house, Rose saw Edwin and Magnus who had come looking for her, along with several other guests, presumably taking the night air and then attracted to the scene by the sudden clamor. Every one of them had seen her standing there with Dorian Voss in the moonlight as he adjusted her dress in a most intimate fashion.
“Damn,” said the Duke of Ravenhill quietly, but still proceeded to wrap the shawl around Rose nonetheless, even while Edwin and Magnus were dashing down the path towards them. “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, I suppose.”
