Chapter One
Kindle not a fire that cannot be extinguished.
(English proverb. 1584)
Lady Castlethorpe’s ball. No. 15 Berkeley Square. April 1815.
Full. Chiselled. Resolute.
Those delicious lips drew near. Slow, too slow, and her heart thudded with apprehension and hope. His eyes, a deep emerald, gleamed with want in the faint lantern light.
It would be perfect.
The gentleman breathed her name, husky and low in the sombre shadows, and he leaned closer, pressing her body to the fluted column at the concealed edge of the terrace, hands raised to her shoulders with an assured touch.
Her eyes fluttered closed in anticipation as breath drifted over her skin, warm and with a hint of…
Liver?
Aideen cracked open an eye.
The viscount’s boyish face appeared comically contorted as he pursed those full lips, rather like a pug straining for a sausage. The scent of liver puffed over her once more, causing her nostrils to twitch, but this time it intermingled with citrus cologne and a faint hint of damp linen.
Memories of a more potent kiss surged before her eyes, and with it came the scent of chocolate and leather.
Clean. Darkly bitter-sweet. Male.
Aideen hurriedly pulled away. “I’m so sorry, Lord Sherburn, but I just…cannot.”
Stuttering, the poor chap opened befuddled eyes, arms dropping to his sides. “No, no. I… I should not have presumed, Miss Quinlan. Your Irish beauty has quite stolen my wits.”
Pretty words to be sure, but Aideen sighed nonetheless.
The best part of a year ago, she’d been the recipient of her first kiss. A kiss she couldn’t seem to forget, no matter how hard she tried.
Indeed, never did she think to receive such an embrace ever again as there was always something wrong with the gentlemen she met: too short, too broad, blue eyes, fat nose and now this. Liver and damp linen.
Lord Sherburn coughed, straightening his pleated cuffs. He was such a nice boy – eager and kind.
So why did visions of that enflamed kiss invade her mind so? Especially as the benefactor had been the glowering, priggish, pompous Duke of Rakecombe.
Perhaps it was because the top-lofty man had kissed in the same way he conducted himself – fierce but controlled. Ruthless. Those teeth grazing her neck, bruising passionate lips, his strong hands tang–
“Shall we make our way to the light, Miss Quinlan?” The viscount’s gentle face smiled, eyes considerate. “We have tarried but a moment, and guests will presume we’ve merely been promenading. I can find your chaperone, should you so wish?”
Shaking her head, Aideen twirled a curl betwixt her fingers. “I believe I’ll stay in the darkness a tad longer…to compose myself. Besides, do I hear your mother calling?”
The young man’s countenance creased in worry and, sketching a hasty bow, he darted towards the glow spilling from the French doors.
Aideen slumped against the Doric column, wishing she’d never come to this awful ball.
Except for Lord Sherburn and a scarce few others, most of the gentlemen viewed her status as lower than a strand of slimy Irish seaweed, and she’d been regarded through female quizzing glasses so many times in the candlelight that surely her dress was scorched with little burn holes.
Mama may have been an English lady, but Aideen’s wild black hair and Irish lilt proclaimed her da’s lineage loud and clear.
Proper English ladies, of course, didn’t wander onto terraces with young viscounts either, but all the guests had been too busy either disparaging or enjoying the scandalous waltz to notice a stray nobody.
A swift movement in the sooty night caught her eye and she straightened, peering into the austere garden. Topiary seemed to be the prevalent fashion in this abode and tortured bushes twisted and strained, casting shadows of dragons and demons fighting their eternal battles.
