He smoothed a stray tendril of midnight hair from her forehead and pressed a kiss to the smooth flesh, ignoring the pang in his heart he had never felt before. Tamping down the tender surge of protectiveness. Lady Frederica was not and would never be his, but he had been the first man to help her experience passion, and he would always relish that knowledge.
“Your research for this evening is at an end, my lady.” He kissed her forehead again, then her furrowed brow before straightening and forcing a stern expression to his face. “It is time for you to go.”
Chapter Nine
“Good heavens! FredericaRose Isling!”
“Do hush, Leonora,” Frederica chided her friend, blushing furiously and casting a glance around to make certain the outburst had gone unnoticed. “I have no wish to be the target for scurrilous gossip.”
Thankfully, in the crush of the Aldersley rout, two wallflowers in their usual place on the periphery of the entertainment did not garner much interest. The orchestra was insufferably loud this evening, the ballroom was unseasonably warm, and the lemonades were weak and watery.
Not much to recommend the affair in Frederica’s mind.
But the temperature of the chamber and the quality of the beverages were not her greatest concern. Her friend’s shocked countenance was. Or rather, the reason for Leonora’s shocked countenance was.
Had she truly believed, even for a moment, that confiding in her beloved friend—who had always been more practical and proper than she—would be a wise idea?
“I simply cannot believe you returned to that den of vipers,” Leonora hissed, her tone lower, less strident. Still accusatory, however. “I warned you against it, and you promised you would not, Freddy.”
Frederica pursed her lips, searching for the proper response before deciding upon honesty. “I lied.”
Leonora’s eyes went wide, her incredulity incapable of being restrained. Her lovely face was ever expressive, and anyone who gazed upon her in this moment would recognize her undisguised outrage. “How dare you lie to me? We are sisters, are we not?”
Their unlikely friendship had begun two years before when the Season’s reigning belle, Lady Maria Athcourt, had begun spreading tales of “Limping Leonora.” Frederica had deliberately spilled her punch all over Lady Maria. They had been inseparable ever since. In Leonora, Frederica had found a calmer, pragmatic foil to her eccentric nature. They complemented each other, and together they were a formidable team, always looking out for the other.
But that loyalty did not necessarily mean they always agreed.
“Of course we are sisters,” she reassured her friend. “But you are also a sister who tends to disapprove of my inclination toward…adventure.”
Leonora’s brows shot upward. “Adventure or ruin, Freddy? For ruin is precisely what you are inviting by returning to a cesspit of vice with that horrid man.” She shuddered. “They say he is a hulking beast who ill uses all the ladies of the evening he employs. That he is without a hint of kindness or compunction. Do you know how many men he has left destitute?”
Frederica ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips, her gaze darting about once more. She did not like to think of Duncan’s profession or the nature of his business, for if she did, then she could not like him. And if she could not like him, she could not welcome his kisses. Nor could she allow him to sink to his knees and…do what he had done to her.
She hadn’t a name for it yet, but whateveritwas, the sensation had been so intense and pleasurable, that for a moment, she had been convinced she had been catapulted into the stars. The mere memory of his tongue playing deftly over her flesh was enough to make her ache even now, in a chamber filled with others.
“He is not a hulking beast, and nor does he abuse his powers in regard to the female members of his staff,” she countered. “I cannot deny he runs a den of vice but despite that, he is a good man.”
And he was. She felt certain of it. Felt it all the way to the marrow of her bones.
Her friend gaped at her. “You dare to defend him? He is a monster, Freddy. What has he done to you?”
Heat burned her cheeks. She diverted her gaze to the couples twirling about the ballroom beneath the glinting candlelight. The evening should have been a welcome diversion. A happy excuse to reunite with her friend. Instead, it was an impediment that kept her from being where she truly wanted to be. Her brother, who ordinarily eschewed balls of all sorts, had suddenly decided they all simply must attend this one. Mother had been happy to comply, presented with the opportunity to display her newest fan.
“What has he done?” Leonora repeated, suspicion coloring her tone. “Good heavens, Freddy. Tell me he has not…that you have not…did hehurtyou?”
“Decidedly not,” she said coolly, growing rather irked with her friend for her reaction. One would think Duncan was a scoundrel of the first order. A soulless, evil, morally deficient man with an incessant appetite for destruction and greed. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Oh dear.She should not have added the last.
And she knew it the moment her friend pounced. “Freddy! Have you beenruined?”
Leonora posed the last question in a shocked whisper, but Frederica nevertheless made another furtive inspection of their surroundings. The answer to her friend’s question was simple, though she had not thought of it in those terms until this moment.
Yes, she had been ruined. The liberties she had allowed Duncan Kirkwood to take with her body—shocking, wonderful, wicked—meant she would be damaged goods in the eyes of society should anyone discover the truth. But her secret was safe, and no one would ever know.
“Leonora,” she protested softly. “Let us speak of something else.”
Her friend’s mouth opened in a perfect circle of surprise, her eyes going wide. “You have been! Frederica! What can you have been thinking? Something must be done. He must pay for his actions.”
