“Come with me, Blanden,” he said, the devil within him breaking free as he turned on his heel.
This would earn him his place in hell. But it would be worth an eternity. He had no doubt.
“I beg your pardon?” she called after him. Her attempt to keep her voice gruff and low faltered, revealing the sultry notes of her own mellifluous tone.
He stopped, sparing her a glance over his shoulder. Once again, her loveliness hit him with the force of a fist to the gut.Christ on the cross, she was beautiful. A few tendrils of her dark hair had escaped its confines to curl about her face.
Every instinct within him screamed to keep her here. To keep her to himself as if she were a rare treasure. He wanted to kiss the sweet fullness of her lips. To worship her limbs, from ankle to thigh. He wanted to open the fall of her breeches and set his tongue against her. To work her until she shivered and shook beneath him, finding her release with his name on her pretty lips.
But none of those things were meant to be. He would not touch her.
He flashed her one of his most charming grins instead. “Come along if you please, my lord. There is something I wish to show you.”
Her brows rose. “N-no thank you, sir. I must take my leave at once.”
It was time to give her games a try himself. “I understand your dear mother is in ill health, but on your last visit to my club, I was told you made a discreet inquiry. If you accompany me now, I shall take you to the secret rooms as you asked. I seek only to offer you solace in your time of trials, my lord.”
She blinked, her spectacles rendering the action exaggerated. “I do not recall making such an inquiry, and I must be on my way.”
“Nonsense.” His grin deepened. He was enjoying himself. It had been some time since he had been intrigued by anyone. This woman, this madcap duke’s daughter with her penchant for fantastical falsehoods, had somehow managed to garb herself as a man and inveigle her way into his club for reasons that currently eluded him. But he would have his answers, and she would accede to his whims. “I insist, my lord. Just a few moments of your time is all I require. Then you can return to your darling mother’s side. Though I must say I find it rather perplexing that the Duchess of Westlake should be attended by only a gouty, one-legged, blind manservant.”
A flush tinged her cheeks. “Indeed, I fear my family has experienced a reduction of circumstance in recent years. Naturally, we prefer not to discuss our private concerns unless the situation requires it. I would appreciate your discretion.”
“Of course, my lord. I am the soul of discretion whenever merited.” Truer words were never spoken. He bowed. “Now, if you will accompany me?”
He could almost hear the wheels inside her mind spinning as she attempted to plot further means to deny him. What an odd, fascinating creature she was. Pity he could not do as he truly wished with her.
She swallowed. “I…perhaps I might accompany you for just a few moments, sir. But I cannot be detained much longer, I fear.”
“We shan’t need much time at all,” he promised, feeling like a fiend and utterly unrepentant in spite of it.
He predicted she would flee within seconds of pressing her eye to the viewing hole in the scarlet chamber. Duncan strode to the hidden panel in his office that allowed him access to the secret corridor running behind the club’s public pleasure rooms. His fingers found the mechanism that opened the door, and he stepped into the dimly lit hall.
In addition to providing his members with all the gambling, excellent French food, and illegal Scottish whisky they desired, he also catered to their sexual whims. The polite world thrived upon clandestine excess, and he happily indulged his wealthy patrons in every vice they could imagine. Birching, orgies, binding, two men together, two women…it mattered not. Occasionally, he watched.
Watching was the only way he would allow himself to participate, and even that was a solace for rare occasions. When the black mood struck him. When no one could slake his needs. When he looked inside himself and saw nothing but darkness where a soul should be.
“Where are you taking me, sir?”
Her hesitant voice—not even an attempt to disguise its lilting femininity now—stayed him. He turned to find her hovering at the threshold, and with the light of his office at her back, she glowed. How like Persephone she was, on the brink of entering his dark underworld. But unlike Hades, he had no need of force. His inquisitive goddess would follow him because she was curious, and because she could not find another means of extricating herself from her tangled deceptions.
“Come and see,” he invited. “Not every member of The Duke’s Bastard is granted entrée here. It is a privilege.”
She was intrigued. He could read her so easily. But she was also afraid of what she would encounter, hence the hesitation. Her sheltered mind could not possibly imagine the depths of depravity to which he could introduce her. For a moment, he imagined leading her into the sapphire room, using the silken bindings kept there to tie her to the bed. Stripping her of her masculine clothes.
Or better still, opening only the fall of her breeches so he could slide inside her. He would watch himself take her in the mirrored walls. He would make her scream his name. He would…
Bloody, bloody hell.
He would do none of those things.
“Blanden,” he snapped, irritated with himself for his lack of control. A man did not reach the height to which he had scrabbled, fought, and clawed without being as rigid and orderly as a soldier. Duncan Kirkwood did not relinquish his power over himself or others. Not for anyone. Not for any reason.
Ruthlessly, he tamped down the desire burning through his veins. He had always been aroused by the forbidden, and Lady Frederica Isling was no different. Ladies stirred his blood and his cock. Even when they wore dreadful spectacles and the ill-fitting garb of a gentleman, it would seem.
She made her decision and stepped into the corridor at last, walking with a natural sway to her hips he could not help but admire. Her thighs were shapely beneath the fluttering drape of her coat, and damn him if the sight of her in those boots did not make his prick rigid once more.
She reached him, eyes blinking behind the thick lenses, magnified and vibrant even in the low lighting. “What is it you wish to show me, sir? Let us make haste so I can return to my mother.”
