Except that wasn’t true. What Robert wanted from him felt exactly like a betrayal of the woman he had once loved, the one he’d lost. And that’s why he had no intention of doing it. Not even when surrounded by “temptation” at the wicked Donville Masquerade.
Isabel Hayes straightened her mask before the door to the hack opened and a bored servant offered her a hand down. He took a few coins from her for the driver and motioned her toward the entrance of a dull looking building with an elaborately carved door.
Only Isabel knew that there was nothing boring about this place. And nothing ordinary.
She stepped into the foyer and found the regular man standing at a high table, a book balanced on its surface. “Good evening, miss. Your name or arranged name?”
Isabel shifted. She certainly wasn’t going to use her real name here of all places. “Miss Swan,” she said, and her cheeks felt hot with the lie.
He scanned over the book and made a little mark. “Good evening, Miss Swan. Welcome to the Donville Masquerade.”
As he said those words, he came around to a secondary door and swung it open wide, allowing her in to the inner sanctum of the place.
Immediately, she tensed. That was always her reaction when she entered this home of sin and seduction and wicked pleasures that women such as herself were not supposed to crave.
And yet she did. Desperately.
The first room was a wide, open gambling hall, and she stepped inside. She’d been here three times, if she counted tonight. And she was still nervous as her eyes scanned the hall.
Some of it was what one might expect. There were tables scattered about and men and women playing games at them. Normal, if scandalous. But there was more, too. Against one wall, a lady and a gentleman leaned together, kissing wildly as his hands ran over her body. On one of the tables, a couple was copulating like animals right out in the open as a handful of men watched and cheered.
Isabel’s stomach fluttered at the sight, her own body aching as she edged around the room, trying to stay small so she wouldn’t be noticed as she watched.
She liked to watch. She’d discovered that scandalous secret about herself some time ago, and this was one place to feed that desire. Theonlyplace, considering how time was running out for her.
She shook her head, pushing away those unwanted thoughts, and instead leaned against the wall to watch the patrons around her. Watched them talk and kiss, watched anonymous hands go under skirts and cocks be pulled from trousers, watched as some of the couples disappeared down the hallway to slake their needs in the private rooms they paid extra to access, while others didn’t wait and had their fill out in the open.
Her knees were already weak and her sex throbbed, but in that moment the atmosphere in the chamber changed. There was a murmur that seemed to touch every part of the crowd and people began to crane their necks toward the entrance. She did the same and saw three masked men had entered the room.
“Excuse me,” she said, motioning to one of the servants.
“Yes, miss?” he said, and it didn’t escape her notice that his gaze moved up and down her frame. She blushed, for it was one thing to look and another to be seen.
“Wh-who are the men who just entered?”
He looked and shook his head. “I know the one in the middle is the Duke of Roseford. He makes no effort to hide his identity, even though he wears a mask. The others? I don’t know, miss. Excuse me.”
He moved back off to the crowd and Isabel worried her lower lip as the men entered the chamber. They were all three tall. One had brown hair that was a bit too long and thick with wild curls. The one in the middle, identified as a duke, had an air of confidence and a wicked quirk to his mouth.
But it was the third who caught her eye. He had hair as dark as pitch, close cut. She could not see his eyes thanks to the distance and the mask that shaded them, but he had a well-defined jaw with a hint of a beard, and fine lips.
She jolted. Fine lips? Who in the world called a man’s lipsfine?
She watched as women from the crowd swarmed up to the new arrivals. Most seemed enamored of the duke in the middle, leaning over to him, putting themselves on display as he grinned.
She noted that her mystery man seemed the least interested of the three. Oh, he looked, but he stepped away, as if he wanted to avoid the trouble about to be started by hungry hands and experienced mouths.
She had a less experienced mouth, of course, but she wondered what that man would taste like.
Pivoting, she lifted a hand to her suddenly trembling lips. Great God, what was wrong with her? She came here to watch, not participate. She hadn’t the courage to do so, nor the ability to forget all she had been taught as a lady. Well, something like a lady, at any rate.
She certainly wasn’t here to wax poetic about a stranger, or determine his taste. That would be unseemly.Hewas here for the lightskirts.
He moved away from his friends into the crowd and she forced herself to put her attention back to what she’d come for. The night was drawing later, and as always, that meant the activities in the room were growing more heated. Gaming became desperate, more and more of the people gave up on it entirely to surrender to their hedonistic needs. She heard the music from the back of the room, where there was a stage for acts so scandalous that they made her knees weak.
And yet, as she watched the games, her mind kept returning to that man at the door. When she watched a man strip a woman’s dress open at the front and bury his face in her breasts, she pictured herself in that position, only with a masked man with full lips.
“Hello, pretty lady.”
