The pit in her belly told her this was a terrible mistake. If she hadn’t been able to pull a benefactor from amidst her father’s–admittedly small–pool of acquaintances, what had made her believe, even for a second, that she could find a financial saviorin this ocean of opulence? These aristocrats in their pristine cravats and glittering diamonds wouldn’t give a damn about the Lisbon Theater. Why, they’d probably cheer its demise if a gentleman’s club or a modiste shop took its place.
She wasn’t going to find rescue tonight. This was a den of dragons guarding their treasure, not a field of knights prepared to dash into battle to save the weary princess. But since she was already here…
“To hell with it.”
Throwing her head back, Lillian drained her champagne in one swallow and blindly plucked a second flute off a passing tray before plunging recklessly into the crowd. She was an actress, after all. A chameleon adept at playing different parts. Which was why, for this evening, she wasn’t a business owner teetering on the brink of ruin. No. Under the glow of a thousand candles, she was…she was a woman of mystery. The heiress of a grand fortune. The unknown daughter of a duke whose mother had run away with her when she was young. Now the duke was dead, and she’d returned to claim what was rightfully hers…but only if she married before Christmas Eve, or all would go to her terrible cousin!
Oh, yes.
She quite liked that.
And the best part?
She could make up her lines as she went.
Chapter Three
As his gleaming town coach crept up the long, winding, tree-lined drive of Foxhaven House, Abel gave serious consideration to opening the door and jumping out of it. Surely in all the chaos, no one would notice one mad duke dashing off into the woods. But then he’d have Ester to contend with. While he wasn’t afraid of the nanny–he was nearly twice her size and a duke, for God’s sake–he had grown tired of her nagging. And, all right, maybe she was alittleintimidating.
No, Abel sighed, best he get this night over and done with. The quicker he found a suitable wife, the better. Then he could return to his beloved daughters and his quiet life away from the mayhem of theton.
Adjusting his cravat and affixing a grim smile upon his face, he waited for the coach to come to a proper halt and the door to be opened by a footman before he departed. Ignoring the immediate rush of whispers and stares that his unexpected arrival had provoked, he strode straight into the front hall, took a cursory glance around–was that a bear made of ice?–and walked right out the back through a glass set of French doors.
Heart thumping, Abel ducked out of view and pressed his skull against the manor’s cool, rough stone exterior.
He was wrong.
This was a bloody terrible idea.
All of those people looking at him…old schoolmates from Eton, friends he hadn’t spoken with since Catherine’s funeral, strangers salivating at the thought of gaining a public audience with the reclusive Duke of Dorchester…it was too much. Five years wasn’t enough time to prepare. Hell,fiftyyears wouldn’tbe enough time. He needed to leave, Ester’s inevitable cluck of disapproval when he returned within the hour be damned. He’d just wait until the dancing began and everyone was distracted. Surely no one would bother him out here. But no sooner had the thought entered his mind than he heard the distinctclickof the doors opening and a spill of golden light unraveled across the terrace, followed by the unmistakable rustle of satin as a woman in a gown the color of perfectly aged clairet walked out.
She went to the edge of the curved balcony and stopped, her small hands, enclosed in white gloves, anchoring themselves to the railing. Abel watched from the shadows as she tilted her head back, affording him a crystal clear view of her silhouette and the pile of tawny brown curls atop her crown.
She had a smooth forehead and a nose that tilted at the end, followed by a lush mouth with a lower lip that was slightly heavier than the top. A pointed, some might say stubborn, chin. A long, elegant neck and prominent collarbones exposed by the low décolletage of her dress that also revealed the ample swell of her–
“I can feel you staring,” she called out, her velvety voice caught somewhere between amusement and annoyance. “If you’d like to caress me with your eyes, at least come over here and keep me warm while you’re doing it.”
Abel startled, caught off guard as much by her bold invitation as his body’s immediate response to it. Fire licked through his veins; tendrils of flame racing across an icy field that had laid fallow for far too long. When was the last time he’d experienced a flood of desire? Even when Catherine was alive, their intimacy had been…soft. Quiet. Comfortable. By her request, they’d kept separate rooms, and whenever he’d knocked on her door she had opened her arms but kept her eyes closed. They were each other’s first. They were each other’s only. And afterward, if he’d wanted more in the solitude of his own room, he’d used his handto sate any lingering urges while Catherine slept on the other side of the wall.
But as he gazed at the woman in the red, he couldn’t help but think that if he were to ever visitherbed, he’d been too exhausted afterward to even lift his arm. And that sense of arousal, that lust, felt good. Like the first raw punch of heat after coming in from the cold.
“Well?” she asked, tapping her foot impatiently. “I haven’t all night.”
Of its own accord, Abel’s gaze dropped to her bottom. Cloaked in a silk bustle that only served to accentuate her already voluptuous frame, it was plump, round, and practically begging to be squeezed. When the fit of his trousers suddenly became far snugger, he swallowed. Hard. Then he pushed off the wall and stepped out of the shadows, unbuttoning his jacket as he went.
“Who are you?” he rasped, putting his jacket over her shoulders.
“Who do you want me to be?” she said coyly, still gazing out over the terrace at the frozen rose garden beyond. His jacket was enormous on her. The sleeves fell almost to her knees and the collar was three sizes too big for her slender neck. But there was something about seeinghisclothing onherbody that stirred a sense of protectiveness inside of him. Even as her rebuttal to his perfectly reasonable question had him grinding his teeth.
“Why aren’t you inside?” he asked.
“Why aren’tyouinside?” she countered.
“I came out here to be alone. This is the first public event I’ve attended in quite some time and I find the crowd to be…overwhelming.” The truthful admission came as a surprise. His eyes narrowed. What sort of power did this bewitching female have over him that she could tease his secrets from his tongue while divulging none of her own? “Your name, my lady. I shall take that or my jacket. You cannot keep both.”
“Lillian.” The three syllables floated off her lips like warm honey drizzled into tea. “Lillian Snow. I came outside for a breath of fresh air before the ballroom doors open and I spend the rest of the night dancing. Do you like to dance, Lord…?”
“Abel Taylor Roberts, Duke of Dorchester. And no, I do not like to dance.”
