“I need to change from my costume, Your Grace,” she told him. “I have not the time to get acquainted, for I am weary after my performance.”
“Of course.” He was still watching her with that green cat’s gaze, moving the gloves slowly over his palm, the action unbearably erotic.
She imagined him trailing those wisps of satin over her naked flesh. Over her nipples. And beneath her corset, the peaks of her breasts pebbled and ached. If his eyes were cat’s eyes, she was the mouse. Somehow, she did not think she would mind if this big, powerful man played with her.
The acknowledgment filled her with a renewed sense of purpose. She must get him to go. To leave this space. To leave her in peace. Too much was at stake for her, and she could not risk more ruinous complications.
“If you will excuse me, the hour grows late, and I must remove all traces of Miranda,” she prodded, irritated at herself for the breathiness of her voice, a perpetual problem in his presence.
“I can assist,” he offered, the intensity of his regard making a jolt go straight through her.
“I have someone who aids me,” she forced herself to say, wondering, quite belatedly, where Jenny was. “Thank you, Your Grace, but I must decline.”
“Ah,” he said slowly, drawing out the word, as if he had just reached a tremendous realization. “You do not trust yourself in my presence. I should have realized. Forgive me.”
Her lips tightened. Precisely what was he suggesting? She was not so weak she was unable to succumb to his handsome, ducal face. “You have it wrong, Your Grace. It is you whom I do not trust.”
Removing Miranda’s dress was not terribly difficult—tapes in the back, to facilitate removal between scenes. And like most theater garb, it had been repurposed at least a dozen times by a seamstress with a deft hand, which meant it was loose and free-flowing. Beneath it, she wore her corset, chemise, drawers, and a petticoat.
She had been seen wearing far less by dozens of others. In her early days of theater, before she had built the clout she now possessed, before she had been The Rose of New York, she had been forced into innumerable situations in-between scenes which had necessitated a lack of inhibition.
“I assure you, I am perfectly capable of offering you aid without ravishing you,” he told her then, a smile working at his lips.
His mouth was beautifully sculpted, she noted, the lower lip full and lush. The bow firm and quite masculine. A delightful dichotomy. She liked that small smile of his. The urge to see it deepen, to watch it bloom, hit her with sudden force. Along with the desire to be the reason for it.
She dashed such ridiculous notions away, for they would only hinder her purpose.
“Nevertheless, I must insist you go now,” she told him, pleased with how firm her voice sounded.
“Very well, Mademoiselle Beaumont.” He offered her the most elegant bow she had ever received. “I shall tell Mr. Saville to find your woman. Forgive me for mistaking your boldness for daring.”
Johanna stiffened. She prided herself upon her daring, her mettle, her consequence. These few, precious traits, aside from her ability to become whomever she wished, whenever she wanted, were her only sources of vanity. Indeed, they were all she had left. And she was grasping them with both hands in a life that had left her with precious little beyond the belongings she had packed into a trunk and two valises back in New York.
“Wait,” she ordered him when he made to leave.
He stopped, his expression questioning. “Mademoiselle?”
“You may assist me.” The capitulation left her before she could think better of it.
Her vanity was speaking for her, but her vanity was not what she fretted over. All the rest of her was. The dangerous tasks before her were. It would be best, she knew, to keep herself from everyone. She had no wish to embroil anyone else in her misery.
“Splendid.” He moved swiftly back to her, tucking the gloves inside his coat before eying her sternly. “Turn.”
His terse directive took her by surprise. For a moment, she could do nothing but stare at him, drowning in his fathomless gaze. “Turn?”
“Turn,” he repeated. “Your tapes are at the back, are they not?”
“Yes,” she agreed, swallowing against a rush of unwanted sensation this abrupt suggestion of intimacy brought with it. “They are.”
And then some small part of her wondered, once more, how and why he knew so much about an actress’s costume. She was almost certainly not the first, though why the thought should disturb her so, she could not say.
“Then aid me in aiding you, if you please,” he said, his voice low.
She felt the gruff timbre of his voice in every part of her. Every instinct she possessed warned her to flee. To run. To never let this dangerously handsome duke with a voice of sin assist her in disrobing.
But her pride was stronger than her common sense. Perhaps it always had been. And so, she turned, presenting him with her back. “How is this, Your Grace?”
“Excellent.” He stood so near, the heat of his breath fanned her nape.
