The upper floor was dimly lit, but even so he could see an open door farther down the corridor. It had to be the study.
As he neared, a footman burst from the room, shouting, “Thieves! Robbers! Help!”
Hugh punched the footman in the jaw, shutting him up, and threw himself into the study.
And heard Alf laughing.
She was by the fireplace to his left, a rapier in one hand, a sheaf of papers in the other, and she was fighting off Exley, Dowling, and three footmen.
Jesus Christ.
Both Exley and Dowling had swords. Hugh grabbed the closest of the three footmen and shoved him headfirst into the wall. The man crumpled. Hugh sensed movement behind him, though, and glanced around in time to see three more menservants rush in the room.
Bloody hell. They couldn’t escape by way of the door, then.
That left the windows.
Instead of engaging the men by the door, Hugh charged the original two footmen and Exley and Dowling. The first of the footmen was a bruiser and tried to throw a balled fist at his head.
Hugh caught it on his left forearm and gave the footman one in return in the jaw. The footman fell back.
Dowling slashed at him with his sword, but Alf parried the blow as Hugh slid by. Which left her side open to Exley.
The earl stabbed at her.
For a moment Hugh thought it was all over, and his heart stopped.
But she swayed, lithe as a willow, and the point of Exley’s sword swept into the empty air beside her.
Hugh drew his sword.
“Glad you could join me,” she said, her voice high and light, and not even out of breath.
He shot her an incredulous glance. “You were late.” He brought up his sword in time to keep Dowling from carving out his liver. “Window.”
She laughed again and he thought, I want her. Now. Tomorrow. Forever.
But that was insane, so he thrust his rapier at Dowling, aiming at the bastard’s gut, and backing toward the blasted window.
Four more menservants came in the room. It was a bloody army advancing on them. He wasn’t even sure what was outside the windows. If it was a sheer drop he’d have to surrender. Or perhaps Alf at least could climb it. If she wriggled out of her damned dress.
He never should have made her do this.
But she was fighting as bravely as she ever had as the Ghost. Bravely and beautifully, a smile tilting up her painted lips under her half mask as she deftly parried Exley’s thrusts.
He felt behind him. Found the latch of the window and opened it. He took a quick look over his shoulder. Thank God. There was a balcony running all along the back of the house.
He flung open the window just as Dowling lunged at him, shouting, “No! Don’t let them get out onto the balcony!”
Hugh felt a slash across his thigh. The footmen rushed them, despite their swords.
Alf was beside him, still fending off Exley, who hadn’t said a word.
“Go!” Hugh ordered.
She hiked up her dress and clambered over the windowsill almost before the word was out of his mouth. Hugh thrust savagely at Exley’s belly, making him jerk back. Hugh leaped out the window onto the stone balcony, turning just in time to prevent Dowling from severing his ear. Exley and Dowling were right on their heels, forcing them back down the balcony. Dowling swore under his breath, his face red and shining with sweat as he swung his sword wildly. Exley was controlled and precise in his movements, and by far the more deadly of the two.
Hugh grunted and parried blow after blow as he and Alf defended themselves down the length of the balcony. The music drifted up from the ballroom, sedate and serene. The clash of blades striking was in odd disharmony. In front of Hugh, his breath was a white fog in the night air, his lip curled in a sneer of exertion and anger.
His hips hit the balcony edge.
They were at the end. He glanced behind him and didn’t see Alf.
He looked back in time to find the point of Exley’s blade at his throat. “Your slut has deserted you, Kyle.”
ALF STOOD ON the terrace that ran across the back of the town house and peered up at the balcony she’d just jumped from. Where was Kyle? What was taking him so long?
Suddenly there was a shout, and a sword sailed over the balcony, clattering to the pavement at her feet. Kyle followed, vaulting over the stone railing. He caught himself only just in time, swinging for a second by his fingertips, even as both Exley and Dowling bent over the railing reaching for him.
Kyle let go and dropped to the terrace, landing neatly as a cat. “Move!”
He picked up his sword as she turned and raced to the wide steps leading down into the back garden.
There was a boom from behind them and the top of a stone vase exploded several feet away.
One of the footmen must’ve brought a pistol.
Alf flinched but kept running. Skirts were a bloody bother to run in. The panniers were an odd jostling counterweight, all the fabric heavy and dragging, and she wasn’t at all used to walking, let alone running, in the pretty little heeled slippers.
They made the gravel path and she nearly turned her ankle as her foot twisted.
Kyle swore. “Don’t you dare fall!”
“Not planning on it, guv,” she shot back as she righted herself and kept running.
Shouts came from behind them.
A crack, and a lovely little tree shattered halfway up the trunk, making the top fall over.
“They’re wrecking this here garden,” Alf said with deep disapproval.
Kyle gave her a disbelieving glance as he opened the gate onto the mews.
They raced out and Kyle turned to the right—toward where the carriage would be waiting.
“No!” She grabbed his arm.
“What?” But he stopped and looked at her, though his face was dark with impatience.
“Do you want them to catch us at the carriage?” she demanded. “Better we go the other way.” She tilted her head to the left.
He turned that way with her. “They’ll catch up with us.”
“Oh, aye, that they will,” she said. “Here. Hold this.”
She thrust the bundle of papers she still held into his hands. He shoved them into his waistcoat. Then she tore the layers of beautiful, beautiful lace from her sleeves. Lace like this, why, it probably came from somewhere lovely over the seas. Took months to make. Cost more than most people saw in a year.
And she threw it into the mud and stamped on it so it couldn’t be seen by any passing light.
She hauled up her skirts and untied her panniers. Those she threw over a wall.
By now Kyle had figured out her plan. He pulled his domino over his head and tossed it aside and took her half mask from her. He didn’t even blink when she wriggled her hand under her stays and pulled up her small breasts just enough so that her nipples showed above the neckline.
His eyes glittered.
They’d made the end of the mews now. The street beyond flickered with one or two bonfires, and it was crowded with carriages and waiting coachmen.
They could hear the pounding footsteps of their pursuers already. She didn’t have time for nerves or second thoughts.
Make a plan, stick with it. Ned had always said that.
Alf snatched his sword and hers. She sank down with her back against a stone wall, the swords hidden under her pooled skirts, and knelt on the cold ground.
She looked up and saw the glint of his black eyes widening as he muttered, “Bloody hell.”
His face taut, his beautiful lips parted in shock or desire or both.
Then he leaned over her, one hand on the wall, the long sides of his coat swinging forward and hiding her face and shoulders.
She worked at his falls with shaking fingers as the footsteps neared. He was hard, and she couldn’t stop her lips from curving in anticipation.
Despite the danger.
Maybe because of the danger.
He and she were more alik
e than she ever would’ve guessed, that first time she’d seen him.
She got his smalls open as light flashed through the shroud of his coat, and she felt strong, stretched flesh. So close.
So hot.
She didn’t think.
She put him in her mouth and breathed in his musk.
“What are you doing here?” A stranger’s voice. One of the footmen?
“What does it look like?” he growled back.
She smirked at that, even with her mouth full of his hard cock. It tasted odd, it did, but not half as bad as she’d thought it would. Mostly it simply tasted of him. Of skin and man and salt.
“Have you seen a gentleman and lady run past?”
She sucked and moved her head up and down because that was what she’d seen the molls in St Giles do. Of course she’d seen this done. Many times. You didn’t grow up in St Giles without seeing such. But she’d never done it herself and she’d never known…
Oh.
Never known that an act like this could give pleasure to the one doing the sucking and licking. And wasn’t that an odd thing to discover here on the frozen ground, surrounded by their enemies?
Surrounded by danger.
Above her he groaned and she felt it between her lips. “God’s blood, man, the King himself could run past and I wouldn’t give a damn.” His hand was suddenly in her hair. “Yes, luv, like that. Use your tongue.”
She obeyed, licking around his stretched foreskin, tasting bitter fluid, and he responded by thrusting his hips, the broad head of his cock plowing against her tongue.
One of the men around them muttered something, someone laughed, and they moved off.
She could hear his rough breathing in the night air.
With her hand she squeezed the part of his cock that didn’t fit in her mouth and then began stroking up and down.
“They’re gone,” he muttered, his breath hitching, his hips rolling in little pushes he couldn’t seem to stop.
Oh, he wanted her. He wanted her.
She looked up at him and sucked harder.
It was dark, but she could just make out the glitter of his eyes. He was watching her. Down on her knees, with his cock in her mouth, sucking him.
His nostrils flared and that beautiful upper lip curled.
She rubbed the tip of her tongue underneath the head of his penis and he gasped. Slid his hand down her face in a caress.
Touched the corner of her wet, stretched lips with his thumb.
And came, flooding her mouth with his bitter seed.
She closed her eyes, feeling the pulses, listening to his grunts, trying not to taste what was on her tongue, wishing she could touch herself.
“Alf,” he whispered.
His cock slipped from her lips and come and spit dribbled down her chin.
She felt him press a handkerchief to her mouth.
She spit into it and wiped her mouth, watching as he fastened his falls. His fingers were shaking as if he had the ague.
She smiled and stood, the swords in her hand.
He put his hands on either side of her face and kissed her hard and fast. “What in hell am I going to do with you?”
He took one of the swords and pulled her back down the alley, retracing their steps. When they passed Viscount Dowling’s house again, she was surprised to see that the garden was dark.
They hurried past and were soon at the other end of the mews. Another turn, and there was the carriage.
As they neared, Talbot called softly, “Where’s Lady Jordan?”
Kyle stared at him up in the driver’s seat next to Jenkins. “She’s not here yet?”
Both men shook their heads.
“Christ,” Kyle whispered. “Iris is still inside.”
THE THING WAS, she really oughtn’t to be talking to, let alone dancing with, a gentleman she hadn’t been introduced to, Iris thought a little desperately. She had declined his invitation to dance, she was quite certain.
And yet here she was, decorously moving through the steps of a dance with His Grace the Duke of Dyemore, who, despite a dukedom, was obviously no gentleman.
“Where is your minder?” he demanded of her in that voice, so dark it reminded her rather of brimstone, when the progression of the dance brought them together again.
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”
He sighed as if he were talking to a ninny. “The gentleman whose arm you were adorning when I entered the room.” He glanced at her as he took her hand and they paraded down the center of the ballroom. She had to repress a shudder at the cold darkness in those gray eyes. “A lover, perhaps?”
She stared at him. “You are very mistaken.”
“Am I?” He shrugged carelessly as if he hadn’t just maligned her virtue. “You must admit it was a possibility.”
“No, I don’t think I need make that admission at all,” she replied calmly.
“Ah.” His lips curved, which was a rather disconcerting sight considering the scar deforming the right side of his mouth. “You’re just a poor innocent, then.”
She was still contemplating why his words should sound so terribly insulting when the movement of the dance separated them.
Iris spent the next several whirls trying to think of a cutting reply, which was why it was so demoralizing when they came together again and all she could say was, “What do you mean by that?”
“You’re an innocent,” the duke said, his eyes holding all the humanity of a lump of crystal, “because you don’t appear to understand where you are.”
Iris arched her brows. “And where do you think I am?”
“Hell.”
She should laugh at him—his words were entirely too dramatic. They were in a ballroom, an overheated, crowded, slightly stale-smelling ballroom.
But the thing was, he was perfectly serious. And she knew that at least two members of the Lords of Chaos were here in this house.
Three, if the duke himself was a member as well.
Iris was fairly sure she kept her face expressionless—though her heart was beating extremely fast—as she simply looked at him.
His eyes narrowed when she did not reply. “What I’m wondering is why your companion left you here all alone like a pretty little ewe in a den of wolves. It must have been very important, whatever it was that called him away.”
The horrific red scar seemed to make his lips sneer as his wintry eyes bored into hers.
She felt a thrill of pure fear as they circled one another, their palms held aloft, together, but not quite meeting. She very carefully did not look at the door leading out of the ballroom.
Iris inhaled. “Did you just call me a sheep?”
His eyebrow—the one not destroyed by the scar—lifted. If he draped the right side of his face, he might be the most comely man she’d ever met.
“Perhaps I ought to inquire why you are here tonight, Your Grace.” She made herself keep her voice even. Almost bored. “Do you have special business with Lord Dowling? Something that can’t be done by the light of day?”
The music ended and she sank into a curtsy.
He caught her hand as she rose and pulled her close.
Too close.
His breath, smelling of brandy, washed over her face as he growled at her, “Your companion is a fool to’ve brought you here, and a rank idiot to’ve left you alone. Run, little lamb. Run for your life.”
He stepped back and bowed. Then pivoted and strolled away.
Well.
Iris swallowed and opened her fan.
Well.
She rather wanted to take the Duke of Dyemore’s advice, but instead she calmly—at least outwardly—walked toward the entrance of the ballroom. She smiled and inclined her head. Even stopped and made small talk with a trio of ladies she knew vaguely.
And the entire time her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
She came to the door and spoke to a footman. Mentioned her wrap and that she had a headache. That her escort had already
gone ahead to find the carriage.
A dreadful feeling that she might be followed out made her turn and glance back into the ballroom then.
No one was looking at her.
No one save the Duke of Dyemore, across the room, standing alone. He nodded to her and turned away.
She hurried down the stairs.
A footman waited by the front door with her wrap. She took it and thanked him and then was out the doors.
The carriage wasn’t there.
She inhaled. This was to be expected and nothing to be worried about. She mustn’t panic. Not now. The agreed-upon meeting place was around the corner. She picked up her skirts and began walking. There were carriages sitting idle in the street, waiting for the guests of the ball. The coachmen and footmen were gathered around bonfires to keep warm while their masters and mistresses danced inside.
Some cast glances at her as she passed.
She walked faster.
Where were Hugh and Alf? Were they still inside? Had they been caught? If so, she needed to find the carriage as soon as possible and send Hugh’s men back. Well. If three men were enough to rescue them.
She bit her lip and realized that footsteps were echoing her own behind her.
Iris turned the corner into the lane where the carriage should be, trotting now, her skirts held up. It was darker here, away from the lights of the main road, and the cobblestones were icy. A carriage was lumbering toward her, moving slowly. Perhaps she should cross the street or—
She glanced up in time to see a big shape just beside her. “M’lady.”
She gasped, flinging her arm up instinctively. “Talbot. Oh, dear Lord, you gave me such a fright.”
“I’m sorry, my lady.” He took her arm, an extraordinary breach of etiquette, but then it was a rather extraordinary night. “Come, the carriage is just ahead.”
She nodded, but couldn’t help a glance behind her.
No one was there.
They were at the carriage now and Talbot helped her inside before shutting the door.
Only Alf was inside, looking like she’d been dragged backward through a hedge, though she seemed well enough. “Where’s Hugh?”
“He went back to look for you,” the other woman said, even as the carriage rolled forward. “When we found you weren’t already here, he was worried.”
Duke of Pleasure Page 19