He would know she was there. If he was blindfolded, he would know she was in the vicinity. The scent of violets would forever make his prick go stiffer than a marble bust.Holy God, he was altogether certain the mere knowledge she was somewhere in London would be enough to make his cock hard.
He gritted his teeth. All the more reasons why he had to deny her. Her usefulness to him was at an end, and she was nothing to him now but a temptation and a distraction he could ill afford. He had worked too hard, for far too long, amassing his empire with one goal in sight.
It was all within his reach now. Glittering. Glimmering. Taunting.
Why, then, was he allowing the Duke of Westlake’s chit to distract him?
“No,” he bit out.
“No?” she repeated, her inky brows creeping up her creamy forehead. Her lips pursed.
He ignored how much he wanted to kiss them. He especially ignored means number one in which she could persuade him, by sliding his cock between them. “No.”
She blinked, those thick lashes fluttering. “Forgive me, Mr. Kirkwood. I fail to see how my presence here could be such an imposition. You need not even speak to me. Simply grant me access to your club and I shall flit about with no one the wiser, observing and taking notes.”
“There is the problem, Lady Frederica.” He urged his cockstand to dissipate to no avail. How the hell could he deny her with the evidence of how much he wanted her scarcely restrained? Duncan cleared his throat. “I discovered your ruse within moments of first laying eyes upon you. Others will do the same. I cannot have the Duke of Westlake’s daughter ruined within my establishment. No gentleman will dare to cross the threshold in the event of such a trespass.”
She pursed her lips, and he could see her mind spinning. “But perhaps no one would need see me. You have viewing slots for your…chambers of ill repute. Surely you have the same sort of thing overlooking your tables.”
She was a clever wench. He had to grant her that. Far wilier and sharper than he had imagined a sheltered duke’s daughter could ever be. And damn him if it didn’t make him want her all the more. He bloody well loved an intelligent woman, one who would argue politics, one who was well read, one who was unashamed of her mind, who wielded it like a weapon.
“I do have such viewing slots,” he acknowledged. “But that has no bearing upon my decision. You must leave here this evening, never to return.”
“Four more visits after this evening,” she returned, unflinching.
“What manner of bargain is that?” He could not quite keep the note of incredulity from his voice. “Mere minutes ago, you requested three.”
Those bright eyes sparked into his. Even with the hideous strip of false mustache affixed to her upper lip, she was beautiful. “Your delay has increased my price.”
The minx possessed gall. He had to acknowledge that as well. “You may remain for one hour this evening. That is all.”
She took a step closer, her scent and her heat hitting him. “An hour today and four more visits thereafter.”
His curiosity got the better of him then, and he cocked his head, considering her. “Tell me something, Lady Frederica. How is it you are able to escape from your father’s home, dressed as your brother, no less, and venture to my club two evenings in a row?”
“My father is attending a matter of some import in the country on one of his estates,” she ventured. “My mother is easily distracted, and my brother is young and ordinarily otherwise occupied.”
“He is older than you are, my lady,” he reminded her, for though he had never taken particular interest in the Marquess of Blanden, he had nevertheless memorized the details of his patrons and their families.
“Perhaps then he is merely easily distracted as well.” A small smile curved her lips.
Again, he wished to pull the mustache from her skin. It seemed a travesty of the worst order that his view of her lovely mouth should be adulterated by the ludicrous thing. Whilst Lady Frederica in breeches appealed to his inner sense of depravity, the mustache presented a firm limit. It truly had to go.
He moved forward, his hand reaching out. Before he was even aware of his intentions, he had snagged the thing and pulled. It clung to her with tenacity, but a firm tug and it was gone, leaving a red line across her skin in its wake.
She clapped a hand over her mouth. “How dare you?”
The strangest thing happened then. There he stood in his office, opposite the key to his vengeance who had fallen—almost bodily—into his lap. She looked like an actress from a theatrical troupe that traveled the countryside, making a poor imitation of a gentleman with her half-unbound hair and her ill-fitting garb. It was all so ludicrous, so fantastical, that he could do nothing to suppress the laugh that rose in his chest, bursting forth, loud and unchecked.
He could not stop it. He laughed until his gut ached. Laughed until tears welled in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Laughed until he bent over, struggling to regain his breath. Laughed as he had not done ever before.
“Are you well, Mr. Kirkwood?” she asked above the din of his mirth, eying him as though he were a Bedlamite newly escaped and she was not certain if she ought to pity him or cajole him back to the prison he’d fled.
No, he was not well, in answer to her impertinent question. Else he would not be contemplating offering her a compromise. He should be ordering her to leave and forgetting she existed, not laughing at her haphazard attempts at deception. Not stuffing the scrap of a mustache inside his coat pocket. He already had one pair of her spectacles, so he supposed this latest acquisition could join the first well enough.
He caught his breath. “Perfectly well, my lady. It is merely the lightness of the moment. The sight of you…”
He allowed his words to trail off when he realized they said something rather different than what he had intended.
