“I would like to be better than I was raised to be, I think,” George said softly, thinking of his father’s mistresses over the years and how the existence of them had hurt his mother. The earl had slowed down in his later years and his parents had seemed to have come to an accord as of late, but it didn’t erase the betrayals. The hurts. The humiliations. Their bond, whatever it had been at the beginning, had been damaged. George’s mother hadn’t even yet told his father that same awful secret she’d shared with him.
“Then this is your last night? Your last hurrah, it seems,” Rivers said, which thankfully jolted George from his thoughts.
“Indeed.” George drank the second drink as quickly as he had the first. Already he felt the little tingle of his senses dulling. Just enough to take the edge off.
“Then I suggest you go enjoy it rather than sitting at my table looking like a man about to be led to the gallows,” Rivers said. “There is pleasure aplenty to drown your sorrows in.”
He got up and George joined him. Rivers clapped him on the arm and said goodnight before he slipped off into the crowd. George let out a great sigh and looked around, this time with more purpose. Rivers was right. He could brood anywhere. The reason he’d come here tonight was to drive out his troubles in the warm body of some willing lady. He had to go on the hunt, for the last time, perhaps.
He drew a breath and looked around the room. There were women galore to choose from. Unlike him, most of them were masked, but he knew there were all kinds here, from the highest duchess to the cyprians using the safety of this place to establish their relationships and settle themselves. Some he recognized as women he had indulged with before, but none drew his eye, even if he’d enjoyed his time with them. It was intensely frustrating, to be here for his final meal before the execution and find himself not hungry.
At least untilshewalked through the crowd. A woman in a deeply cut red gown and plain black mask, dark hair bound up loosely, soft curls bobbing around her cheeks and shoulders in a tempting waterfall that made a man want to trace the same path with his lips. He leaned forward, almost not of his own volition, tracking her graceful movements. Did he know her? It felt like there was some connection there, something instantaneous and hot that made him think he might have bedded her before. But no. He searched his memory and couldn’t find her there in the tangled, foggy collection of merging bodies and mouths.
It was just that she drew him to her. Like a siren. He stepped a little closer, ignoring anything and everything else in the room but her.Shewas not as focused. Her dark eyes drifted from one place to another and beneath the edge of her mask, he could see her cheeks were pink with high color. Arousal or shock? Perhaps both. There was a tremble to those full lips that gave him the impression. Perhaps it was her first night here, perhaps she’d never seen such shocking things as the debauched pleasures going on around her.
He knew only one thing: he was going to find out. And if she was an innocent to the Donville Masquerade, he was very happy to be her introduction to all it had to offer.
He moved toward her, drawing a hand over his clothing to smooth it. One step, another, and he noted the moment she became aware of his approach. Her eyes met his. Stunning eyes. Brown, but they sparkled in the candle and lamplight of the hell, filled with life and emotion. Her lips parted as that same gaze drifted over him from head to toe and made his body react along the same line as her stare.
He hadn’t had such a strong response to a woman in a very long time. He’d almost forgotten how intoxicating that could be.
“Good evening,” he said as he reached her.
That pretty gaze flitted away toward the door and escape for a moment before she pushed her shoulders back and swallowed hard. “Good evening,” she said, but her voice barely carried and was rough.
He smiled in the hopes it would soothe her. “It’s a little overwhelming your first time, I know.”
She blinked and there was no mistaking her surprise at the statement. “How—how do you know it’s my first time here?”
He leaned a little closer. “You have the look about you. A little like a rabbit trying to avoid a trap.”
“And would that make you the hunter, sir?”
He shrugged. “Anyone can be a hunter in the Donville Masquerade…” He hesitated in the hopes she would provide a name. It wouldn’t be her real one, but it would give him something to moan into her ear if this night ended as he hoped it would.
She worried her lip, forcing him to look at the fullness again. Wonder what it would taste like if he nipped it gently as she rose beneath him in pleasure. “I can’t—it’s?—”
He cocked his head. “Not your real name.”
“Oh. Yes.” She let out a shaky sigh. “I suppose Idoreveal myself as naive, don’t I? My name…or at least my name here…is Aphrodite.”
His brows lifted. “Aphrodite?”
Her cheeks brightened further. “Very silly, isn’t it? I didn’t pick it.”
He drew back at that statement. He’d thought this woman was a lady based on her hesitation, but now he wondered if she was a lightskirt. And perhaps not one here of her own volition if she hadn’t even chosen her own secret name.
“If you’re in trouble,” he said softly. “You have those here who would help. I can bring you to Rivers. He and his wife would never let you be harmed.”
She shook her head. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”
“You said you didn’t choose your name, I thought you might have been forced to come here,” he explained.
“That is a surprisingly protective reflex, sir,” she said after a brief hesitation, and her tone was now speculative, as if she had seen something in him she hadn’t expected. “Do you often play the hero to distressed damsels?”
“I do my best not to play the villain.”
She nodded slowly. “Let me put your mind at ease. Iwasn’tforced in any way to come here. At least not by someone monstrous who wielded power over me. A dear friend encouraged me to attend, one who is far more experienced in the ways of the world than I.Shechose my name, much to my chagrin once she told me what to use at the door and throughout the night.”
