It was the first time he had seen her dressed as a woman, and she was so beautiful he ached. If he had been drawn to her in her ill-fitting male costume, he was bloody well slavering over her now, even as he stalked closer, agitation and irritation mounting.
The instant she noticed him, her eyes went wide behind her mask. He did not stop until he reached her side, inserting himself between her and the unlucky gentleman who was going to meet an untimely end if he did not step away from Duncan’s woman.
His woman?
Beelzebub’s ballocks, he had to do something about this foolish infatuation, this untenable weakness she caused in him, the fever she lit in his blood. His jaw tensed. He bowed to her, ignoring the interloper he had maneuvered to the side. She was all he saw, her eyes glittering, her full pink lips glistening, her long, graceful arms, throat bedecked with winking gems, her bosom…holy hell, her bosom at last. Perfect handfuls straining against her bodice.
“Madam.” Into that lone word, he infused every emotion roiling through him. Outrage, frustration, jealousy, and desperate need.
“I beg your pardon, Kirkwood,” sputtered the fellow behind him. “I was about to have my waltz with Angel.”
He spun on his heel and pinned the masked gentleman—the Earl of Darby, unless he missed his guess—with a meaningful glare. “I am afraid you are poaching, my lord. This ladybird is mine.”
Duncan hoped like hell the earl read his imminent murder in his expression. It would seem he did, for he lingered but a moment before conceding. With a bow, he melted into the crowd. Snarling, Duncan turned back to her.
Damnation, she was gorgeous. “Angel?”
Her creamy skin flushed red. “What would you have me tell him? My true name?”
“No, my lady.” He stepped nearer, so close her skirts billowed about his legs, almost ensnaring him in as cloying a grip as Lady Frederica herself did. He lowered his face to hers, wishing he could snatch away her mask so he might see her in her full, womanly glory. “I would have had you stay at home where you belong. How the hell did you find your way here?”
The thought of her attempting to hire a hack made him want to smash his fist through a damned wall.
Her generous lashes lowered over her vibrant eyes, shielding her from him for a moment. “You promised me the use of your carriage whenever I wished it, did you not?”
Beelzebub’s breeches.She had outmaneuvered him. Had routed him with the cunning persistence of a military genius. “Not to come to this masque, damn you. This is not a proper ball where your infatuated swain will fetch you a ratafia as you’re being watched by the careful eyes of a dozen dowagers. This is a glorified Cyprian ball. The gentlemen in attendance are either in search of a mistress or have arrived with one. The women in here are the feasts laid before a herd of starving wild boars.”
The analogy made him grit his teeth, but it was true. To think someone could have touched her. Kissed her. Led her to one of the pleasure chambers.By God, what would she have done?
She stared at him, licking her lips slowly.
He tracked the movement of her tongue, feeling every bit the starved boar he had likened the other men in the chamber to. Where she was concerned, he wanted nothing more than to claim, possess, taste, touch.
Lick. Bite. Suck.
His cock went inconveniently hard, and he had no one to blame but himself and the lecherous bent of his thoughts. Damnation, his body was on fire for her. Everything in him crying out to haul her in his arms, throw her over his shoulder, and take her away from this debauched crowd.
“Arthur seemed rather kind,” she said softly. “Not at all like a wild boar. I do believe he may have made a thinly disguised reference to my bosom, however, now that I think upon it…”
A growl tore from his throat. He was going to bloody well huntArthurdown and end him. Tonight. Duncan took Frederica’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together in a grip that was not as gentle as he intended. But he was a man consumed by lust and jealousy and the violent need to protect her, to remove her from this den of iniquity before it tainted her. Before she was ruined.
Ah, yes. There you are, Duncan, you fucking fool. Save her reputation so she can be married off to the milksop who forces kisses upon her and brings her watery lemonades.
He ignored the voice inside him and hauled her through the crush, intent upon getting her alone so he could send her on her way. She did not wear gloves, and why would she to an affair such as this, where many of the female attendees were practically naked beneath their dampened skirts? But damn it if the contact of her skin upon his did not feed the hunger for her that had already rendered him ravenous.
“Mr. Kirkwood,” she protested.
But any other words she may have said were drowned out in the din of revelers and the orchestra as it struck up another waltz. He did not care to hear them anyway. Inside, he was in tumult. She had defied him. Had returned. And for what purpose had she put her reputation and her innocence in such jeopardy?
Through the sea of faces, painted lips, bared bosoms, and black masks, he led her. Finally, he found the almost unnoticeable door in the western corner of the chamber that would lead him to the intricate series of inner halls that were the veins of his establishment. He opened it and pulled her through, closing the door at their backs. Tonight, the hall was dimly lit in keeping with the nature of the evening.
He could not see her in as great a detail as he wished, but it would have to do because he did not think he could make it another step. He whirled her so her back pressed against the wall. He followed her, pressing his body mercilessly to hers, knowing she could feel every hard, hot part of him pressing against her. His cock was rigid, and he did not spare her modesty. There was no room for anything less than the visceral betwixt them now.
“Why have you come?” he demanded, dipping his head until their foreheads met in a parody of the kiss his body screamed to claim.
She expelled a breath, and it was warm, champagne-scented. “I do not know.”
He recognized the tone of her voice. Understood that Lady Frederica Isling was not a female who ever took a step without rationalizing it and planning where it would lead her.
