Her gaze jerked up from her study of the floor, wide and searching. He saw not a trace of manipulation in her expression, so different from most of the females of his acquaintance—the ladies who wanted a rough man’s hands upon them in the bedchamber but would never acknowledge him by day.
“I have scarcely had any time at all to research,” she protested softly. “Have I displeased you, Mr. Kirkwood?”
Lord God, if she only knew.
If she had an inkling of how much restraint he employed in this moment, how difficult it was to keep from pinning her to the wall and ravaging her sweet pink lips with his. From sinking his tongue inside to taste her, wrapping her legs around his waist so he could grind himself into the center of her as they kissed.
He swallowed. Conjured up images guaranteed to vanquish his fierce reaction to her, the discomfort in his breeches. He pictured his chef’s face. A dead fish being cut open. Recalled, in desperation, the fists of one of his mother’s paramours, smashing into his body when he’d been a wee lad.
At last, the overwhelming grip of lust began to dissipate.
“You have not displeased me,” he said gruffly then. “But you have distracted me. I am a busy man, Lady Frederica. This club will not run itself, and I have much work awaiting me. I have been more than accommodating.”
“Yes, you have.” Her voice was quiet, redolent with an emotion he couldn’t define, something soft and intimate. As if it were reserved for him alone. “I thank you for that.”
Her gratitude made him roll his shoulders, clench his fists. He did not know what to do with it, how to accept it. Duncan Kirkwood was not a man of kindness or generosity. He had spent his youth clawing to survive, and as a man of means, he remained loyal and true to one goal, his need for revenge.
“Think nothing of it.” He gave a flippant shrug. “I merely did not wish to have word of your murder or ravishment taint my club.”
It wasn’t true. He had wanted to see her. From the moment she had begun blustering, spinning her fantastical tale of an ill mother and a Melancholius Ague, he’d been fascinated by her. How bitterly ironic that the one woman he was drawn to as no other was also the perfect means for him to secure the vengeance he desired.
Another emotion crossed her expressive features, and this one he could discern well enough. Hurt. But how could it be that he, the bastard son of a duke and a Covent Garden whore, had the power to wound a true duke’s daughter? Why would she care what utterances he spewed?
But then, her brilliant gaze searched his, probing, and he could not escape the notion she saw him. Saw straight bloody through him.
“I think you may have taken a liking to me, Mr. Kirkwood.” A small smile curved her luscious lips, and he was once more grateful he had filched her ridiculous mustache. A mouth like hers did not deserve to be hidden. “That is why I am here. That is why you not only sent a brougham for me but also accompanied it. That is why you are wishing me to leave in such a rush as well. I make you uncomfortable.”
Beelzebub’s breeches.
Heat rose to his cheeks. He, Duncan Kirkwood—who made grown men weep, who did not possess the capacity for sympathy, whose philosophy of life was to make the first cut with his blade lest he be cut, who had presided over orgies and commissioned chairs upon which his patrons could cavort, who dressed in midnight black because it matched his soul—yes,hewas blushing before her like a maiden in a schoolroom.
“What an imagination you have, my lady,” he said coolly, irritated anew by his unwanted reaction to her, by the feelings she stirred within him. “Little wonder you have decided to try your pretty hand at scribbling.”
He intended for his condescension to nettle her. To send her on her merry way, never to return to his club or his life, never to cause him further distraction.Damnation, he already had what he wanted, what he needed from her. Prolonging the torture was unnecessary.
But Lady Frederica again proved to him she was a woman with mettle and determination.
“What of the other chambers?” she asked suddenly.
He nearly swallowed his tongue. Surely, she did not mean…Christ,but she did, the minx. He could read it in her countenance. She had a wicked, wild side to her he could not have fathomed.
“Other chambers?” he repeated in a hoarse voice, feigning confusion, though in truth he knew precisely what she referred to.Damn it. A raging, rampaging lust threatened to take the reins.
Her tongue darted over her lips, this time leaving a sheen he longed to lick. “The… depraved chambers. I wish to view those in addition to the gaming area.”
Bloody hell.There was no way he could remain in this hall with her if she made use of the scarlet chamber’s viewing window again. Watching her watch others, wondering if the acts she observed filled her with need…damn it all,corrupting her…thrilled him. It sent lightning through his veins, made his ballocks draw tight and his cock press harder against the fall of his breeches. The mere notion he could be the one to teach her. To undo the fall of her breeches as she watched and dip his fingers inside her sweet folds. What sounds would she make if he played with her clitoris? Would she be wet?
Somehow, he knew she would. She would soak his hand, drench his wrist. She would come like the wild tempest she was, loud and unapologetic, owning her pleasure.
The image in his mind had him grinding his jaw.
No.He could not surrender to his need. Duncan shook his head, sending the unworthy, dishonorable thoughts to the ether. “You have already seen them once, my lady, and even then, I ought never to have allowed such a travesty.”
“Why did you allow it?” she asked softly, taking a step closer to him.
Undoing his resolve just a bit more.
He swallowed, fists flexing at his side. “I wanted to shock you. To send you from here with no wish to return.”
