“And who isyourchoice, my lady?” he asked, his voice as strained as his expression.
What an odd dialogue to be having with the wicked Mr. Duncan Kirkwood. If she did not know better, she would almost swear the man cared for her. But, of course, she knew better. She knew he only cared for his own gain, his own pleasure.
She considered his question for a beat. “Someone who is caring, who is kind. Someone who will not frown upon my writing. A man who will champion me rather than attempt to silence and stifle me. A man who is bold and adventurous of spirit.”
For some ludicrous reason, the man she pictured inside her mind resembled Mr. Kirkwood in much the same manner the character inThe Silent Barondid.Oh, dear. This would never do.
“Does this paragon have a name?” He stiffened, his entire body going rigid, a hardness that had not been previously present underscoring his words. “You need but tell me, and I can vouch for his integrity or lack thereof.”
Frederica shook her head swiftly. “He does not bear a name. There is no one.”
A slow, beautiful smile lifted his lips. “Good.”
She did not understand. “You are pleased a worthwhile husband does not exist?”
He shook his head, stepping forward, crowding her with his large, warm body. She retreated a step, uncertain of his intentions, every part of her screaming to remain where she was and raise her face to beg for more of his kisses. But then she recalled why he had been absent for so much of the evening. She remembered a beautiful, golden-haired woman named Tabitha, who had been the cause of his defection.
“I am pleased you do not have a suitor you are enamored of, Lady Frederica.”
His revelation was not what she had expected. It stripped her down, cut to the marrow. The question that had been eating her alive could be contained and ignored no longer. She set it free. “Where were you this evening, Mr. Kirkwood?”
His lips flattened, nostrils flaring, but the intensity of his gaze could have scorched her, set her aflame. “I was settling one of my ladies. She and a patron had an unfortunate clash. If you are looking for shame or an apology, you may continue your search elsewhere, my lady. I run a den of vice. The Duke’s Bastard is not a church, though men may come here to worship at the altar.”
“At the altar of sin,” she finished for him, her blood growing cold.One of my ladies.This reminder, like his absence, struck her in a way nothing else could. How easy it could be to forget their disparate circumstances. But she must not confuse her interest in him, his club, and the life he led for anything more.
“Sin indeed.” He stalked forward, sending her backward once more.
One step, two, three, four, until there was nowhere left to flee. The sharp edge of his wooden desk bit into her tender flesh. Her hands found the polished surface.
He planted his hands on the desk alongside hers, bringing the missing page within her reach at last as he pinned it to the surface. But all thoughts of repossessing it fled when he lowered his head until their gazes clashed at the same level. Heat and danger smoldered from him. He had never been more glorious.
“It is the reason for every patron’s attendance at my club, Lady Frederica. Sin. Depravity. Wickedness. Unless you have failed to realize it, you are so far from your sheltered world of balls and soirees and evening musicales. No one here gives a damn about propriety or dancing the minuet or sipping orgeat. The men here have assembled for one reason and one reason alone. It is how I have earned my bread all these years.”
The bitter sting of jealously was eating her alive from the inside out. “Did you kiss her as you kissed me?”
He stared at her, darkness rolling off him in waves. It was almost a tangible thing between them, the part of him he held at bay. “Who?”
“Tabitha,” she whispered, hating the name, hating the woman, her angelic face and her dampened skirts and her hands that seemed intent upon stroking a man’s…Good sweet God, she fervently hoped the woman had not…that Mr. Kirkwood had not… He did not seem to be the sort of man who sampled the wares of those beneath him, but it was true that many such men existed. “Did you kiss her?”
Please say you did not.
Please.
Please.
What a shocking demand to make of him. Did she have no shame? And why did she care so much whether or not he had dallied with the beautiful Tabitha? Why did the wait for his response seem to take a century? Why should the notion of Duncan Kirkwood kissing another woman make her feel ill?
His gaze glittered with emotion. “Nothing I did this evening is any of your concern, my lady. You are temporary. Fleeting. Like a candle’s flame. After tomorrow, you will be gone, never to return, and you shall have to find another unfortunate soul to torture.”
His words made her feel as if the floor had opened up beneath her.
But she persisted. His body, strong and lean and hard against hers, injected her with a rare fearlessness. “Did youkissher?”
“No,” he bit out. And then in the next instant, his hands were cupping her face, insistent and yet gentle, so large and capable of inflicting hurt but nevertheless so tender. “You are the only woman I want to kiss.”
His words should not have thrilled her, and yet they did. Something warm and delicious shot straight to her core, reverberating in waves throughout her entire being. He had not kissed Tabitha, but he wanted to kissher. Frederica Isling, wallflower and oddity. Female who felt more at home in gentleman’s garb, sneaking her way into clubs, spending most of her time on penning stories until her fingers were stained with ink and her vision went bleary.
Duncan Kirkwood had seen her—the true Lady Frederica Isling—in a way no other man had before him. In a way, she knew instinctively, no other man would after. She fell into his fathomless gaze. Lost herself in the intensity of the moment and the thrill of his regard boring into her.
