Justin wearily kicked off his boots and sat on the enormous bed. He gazed around the ostentatious wine-colored room that Madame Sullyard liked to refer to as “the king’s room,” because, she furtively had whispered, it reminded her of the king’s style. Justin would never admit it aloud, but he could see why. Everything was over the top, overdone, and almost vulgar. It used to offend him for Prinny, the ugly things people would say to Justin about the king. People who didn’t know that he was the king’s spy, which was the entire world except for the other five men who worked for Prinny.
Now the comments amused him, and because of that, he couldn’t decide if he’d become smarter or coldly cynical. It didn’t matter. He reclined against the mound of pillows, propped his legs on the bed, and shut his eyes, stealing one brief moment of peace—likely the only one he’d get tonight—before the next demirep he needed to question entered the room. He leaned his head left to right, but the tense muscles in his neck stayed knotted. Between Lady Conyngham’s incessant ranting when he’d gone to see her this morning and a long day of ferreting out details that had proven useless in discovering where the woman’s painter, Fitzherald, might have vanished to, the vein on the right side of Justin’s temple throbbed.
If Lady Conyngham’s butler had not said he’d seen Fitzherald putting the bejeweled box into his bag, Justin would not have been inclined to believe the lady’s assertion that Fitzherald was the thief. She was vindictive and manipulative, and she had been quite obviously unhappy with the painting Fitzherald had done. Justin laughed recalling the portrait that Lady Conyngham had shown him. It made her look less than lovely, which was a fair but dangerous depiction. Fitzherald had painted the bump on the right side of her nose to perfection and mirrored the too-thin upper lip exquisitely. In painting her exactly as she appeared, the man had sealed his doom.
Justin had grown to admire Fitzherald over the course of the day. Cleary he was a bold man to have created an exact likeness of such an obviously vain woman and then to have stolen the jewelry box as the payment Lady Conyngham had denied him. Justin firmly believed the man richly deserved that payment. In fact, he decided, slowly opening his eyes, when he located Fitzherald and retrieved the jewelry box, letters, and the queen’s necklace, he would personally pay the man and help him to truly disappear out of the king’s reach. Justin didn’t even have a twinge of hesitation about what he was planning. Sometimes the greatest service he offered Prinny was protecting him from himself, though the king would never think so. Justin had learned that valuable lesson from his father, who’d served Prinny’s sire and watched the man lose his mind while foolishly insisting he was fit to continue ruling.
Justin readjusted the uncomfortable pillow under his head, and the overpowering scent of flowery perfume filled his nose. It smelled like the one his mother had often worn. His pulse ticked up, and he began his counting ritual. When he got to fifty in Japanese, he purposely thought of his mother. It was a test he liked to perform occasionally to see if he was still the master of his memories. Since his recollections related to her were mostly bad, she was the perfect instrument with which to see if he could still control how his worst reminiscences made him feel. She’d left Father for another man and, in doing so, had left Justin, as well. She had not loved him enough to stay and endure Father’s coldness. The betrayal that had once felt as if his heart had been ripped out no longer even made his pulse increase. It beat a slow, steady rhythm. He smiled grimly to himself. Test complete, he returned to thoughts of today.
The trail to get here had been tediously winding. An earlier gentle threat to Fitzherald’s uncooperative former landlord had uncovered the fact that Fitzherald had moved out in the dead of night last evening, leaving payment for the remainder of the rent and a note that he’d not be back.
Justin had then tracked down a string of people who knew the man—a confectioner, a suit maker, a shoe-shop clerk, and, finally, a seamstress named Madame Chauvin. Madame Chauvin had just so happened to make a glorious—her words, not his—yellow silk gown for Fitzherald, who was purchasing it for one of Madame Sullyard’s demireps, Ruby Rose, clearly an alias. Justin made a derisive noise in his throat.
Fitzherald had taken the dress that morning to give to the woman with whom he’d confessed he was in love. All that had occurred while Justin had been stuck listening to Lady Conyngham complain. He clenched his teeth, but when he realized he was doing so, he forced himself to relax.
Fitzherald had vanished. Ruby had vanished early this afternoon, too, leaving Madame Sullyard a note that she’d fallen in love and was never returning. Madame Sullyard had been only too glad to allow him to question the other demireps to see if any of them knew where Ruby might have gone, and the madam had vowed, for a hefty sum, to keep what he was doing a secret. Not that she really knew what he was doing. She was made to believe he was searching for Ruby because the girl was his sister. The demireps, however, had been told he was here to procure a new, experienced mistress. He’d stressed experienced. There was no point talking to any of the new girls because they’d likely know less, but none of the girls he’d questioned so far had been able to tell him anything. Or maybe they’d simply been too wary to divulge one of their own secrets.
It was time to change tactics and employ seduction. He yawned. He was not at all in the mood to bed a woman; he was that damned tired. He just wanted a bed—an empty, comfortable one. He let out a weary sigh. Usually, he successfully circumvented the need to seduce, preferring to choose his bed partners out of desire and not duty. Besides that, he never let a calculated seduction progress beyond the necessary kisses and caresses to gain the information he needed, unless the woman was no innocent and desired the encounter as much as he did.
If he was going to play the rake, he needed to get his blood flowing. He rose off the bed, raised his hands over his head in a stretch, and slowly laced his fingers before bringing them behind his head and arching his back. It didn’t help in the least. He could have been knocked over with a feather at this moment. Weariness had lodged itself in his bones. The warm room didn’t help the sleepiness, either. He strode over to the window and attempted to open it, but the thing was stuck. Swearing, he began to work at the lock, letting the curses flow in a calculated pattern of English, French, Russian, English, French, Russian…
Arabella peered through the cracked door into the distasteful bedchamber and gawked at the man who stood with his back to her. He jammed his hand against the window lock while cursing in English, then in what she thought was French, and as for the other language, she had not a clue. This foul-mouthed creature with the anger problem was the gentleman whose interest she was supposed to capture?
The doubt in her mind compounded tenfold. Her stomach dipped as she followed the line of his broad shoulders, to his trim waist, and continued downward over his spread, powerful legs. Her breath caught. She recognized those legs! This was the man she’d been caught staring at earlier when she’d come into Golden Square. The one who’d been talking animatedly to Madame Sullyard.
Oh heavens. She couldn’t go through with it. She took an inadvertent step back, only to have Mary’s firm hand come to her back.
“Be brave,” she whispered, her hot breath hitting Arabella on the shoulder as she spoke. Over the last hour of Mary fixing her hair, dressing her in an alluring gown, painting her face, and teaching her a few things about seduction, Arabella had learned the woman had a blind devotion to Jude, who she’d claimed had saved her by making her his mistress. A relationship like theirs would never work for Arabella. Mary was clearly dedicated to Jude, but considering Jude’s affair with Lady Conyngham, his commitment to Mary clearly did not run as deep. That was typical in Arabella’s limited experience of men.
Arabella twisted to say something to Mary, but the woman pressed a finger to her lips and motioned for Arabella to face forward again. When she did, her body stiffened. The duke had his shirt halfway off to reveal the lower part of a very muscular back.
Curiosity overpowered her nerves, and she stared as he drew his shirt slowly upward. The air around her seemed suddenly electrified. His shirt came all the way off, his corded muscles rippling under the dancing lights of the candles. His thick arms lowered, and an odd flutter filled her belly. It was not nerves, but awe. He was beautiful. She frowned, squinting at the strange markings on both of his shoulders. Were they painted? They appeared to be words.
He raised his arms again, jamming his hand against the lock with a thud. Something clicked, and the window popped open with a loud screech.
“Bravo!” Mary said from behind her, announcing their presence. Arabella froze, unable to look away as the Duke of Dinnisfree swung around.
For a moment, he appeared utterly surprised, and then the look was gone, replaced by an open smile. “I didn’t hear you knock,” he said, striding toward them with easy, confident grace. The closer he came, the more painfully aware Arabella grew of his shirtless state and the well-developed muscles of his chest.
Her brain forgot to make her aware that she was staring again, though a fact that registered when his green gaze captured hers, and in a deep voice traced with amusement, he asked, “Do you like what you see?”
Mercifully, her good sense returned with a bang, and she jerked her eyes to his shoulders. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” she murmured, nodding to the markings and praying he did not notice the blush heating her face. Behind her, the swish of Mary’s skirts let her know that the woman was departing. Arabella had the urge to run after her, but a simple thought of her mother and father kept her in her spot.
The Duke of Dinnisfree watched Mary as she departed. Arabella used his distraction to sweep her gaze over his profile once more. His russet wavy locks were cut short, but not so short that a hint of curl did not form at his neck. It made her smile, but she pressed her lips together as he refocused on her. If he knew she’d been assessing him, he didn’t indicate it in the slightest, or maybe he was just that used to being assessed. He exuded power and a knowledge of it that made her belly tighten.
“They’re tattoos,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. His voice was courteous but patronizing. He thought her simple, did he? She leaned close to his chest to read the words, but her senses began to spin when the heat he gave off caressed her, and his scent… She inhaled sharply.
“You smell like fresh-cut wood and warmth,” she blurted, then bit down hard on her lip. She had to try to sound more seductive and not like a naïve dolt.
He leaned so near to her that his unshaved whiskers brushed her cheek, making her shiver as he swept her hair back and took a long, deep inhalation. He did not pull back as she expected, but pressed his lips close to her earlobe. A chill raced down her neck, and she immediately brought her hand up to rub it.
He pressed a fraction closer. “You smell like—” His words stopped immediately, and he pulled away and scrutinized her. His brows dipped together. “You smell like horseradish and turpentine, a rather unique fragrance choice.”
She burst out laughing. “That’s not my fragrance of choice.” She held her hands up. “I must not have washed away all the rheumatism medicine. I promise I don’t smell like that everywhere.”
His gaze slid slowly down to her décolletage, and a sinful smile spread his lips, but when he leaned in, he sniffed her hair, and the wild urge to giggle rose up in her throat. Mercifully, she choked it down. When he was done, he drew back once more, and the genuine interest sparkling in his eyes surprised her. That couldn’t be. Men searching for new mistresses didn’t care about the women’s lives, did they?
He startled her again when he took her hand in his much larger one, while deftly shutting the door with his foot. A whoosh of air and a click of wood resounded in her ears. “Come,” he commanded and led her toward the bed.
Her legs were trembling so much that she stumbled and would have fallen to her knees, but the duke was there before she could blink, sweeping her up into a standing position and placing her hand on his arm. He turned his head and glanced down at her. “That’s the first time my presence has ever made a lady almost swoon,” he teased.
“I was falling forward, not backward,” she said, unaccountably irked to be thought of as a woman who swooned. “When one swoons, one goes backward.”
“Really?” he drawled. “Are you a swooning expert?”
She scowled. “Certainly not. I’ve never swooned in my life, and if I were going to faint it would not be over a beautiful man. It would be over something important, such as the death of a loved one.” She flinched at her words and the reminder they brought.
He studied her for a long moment, a deep assessing look. “You are the most unusual demirep I’ve ever met.”
Could he see that she was unlearned in the ways of mistresses? She had to do better. This man was her best hope. She wet her lips slowly with her tongue as Mary had taught her not half an hour earlier, and a sense of satisfaction coursed through her as the duke’s gaze followed her movements. She drew her own gaze up to his slowly.
“I personally think being different is so much more interesting than being ordinary.” His appreciative smile emboldened her to continue. “I’d daresay you feel the exact same way.”
“Very bold of you, my dear. Tell, me”—he took her by the shoulders, his touch at once thrilling and frightening, and turned her to face him—“what makes you think you know how I feel about anything?”
His husky tone reminded her of the way the wind sounded when a storm was brewing in the sky. It rolled over her and whispered of a barely contained power within him. She could not afford to be meek or allow herself to be confined by the rules of propriety that had governed her life up to this very moment. She raised her hand and traced a finger over the tattoo on his right shoulder. His body showed no reaction to her touch, except his eyes. They tracked her movement like a seasoned hound hunting a fox. She was proud of herself for not trembling.
“Any man who has the word Honorem carved on one shoulder and Justice on the other is no man who embraces the commonplace.”
His face closed as if guarding a secret, and his hand came to hers and moved it away from his shoulder. “Who taught you to read Latin?”
She caught the inside of her cheek, unsure why he suddenly seemed tense. “My father. I live with him.” She nearly smacked her forehead with her hand. Mary had very clearly told her no personal details of her life. She was to maintain an aura of mystery. “I mean, I used to live with him,” she blurted, her face burning from the lie.
“Don’t lie to me, Miss—”
“Carthright. Miss Arabella Carthright.” She curtsied, and his eyes widened infinitesimally.
“A curtsying demirep whose name means Answer to a prayer,” he supplied as if she didn’t know what her name meant. “You grow more interesting by the second. Tell me who you really are.” It was a forceful command and a confusing one. Did he think she was lying?
“I really am Miss Arabella Carthright. And I really do live with my father. He has rheumatism,” she said as proof.
“I thought all the demireps lived here.”
“I’m new.”
“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said in felicitous but hard tone, “but I told them I only wanted to interview the experienced demireps.” He took her gently by the elbow and guided her toward the door.
He was getting rid of her! She was going to lose her chance to save her parents! She planted her feet, but it was useless. His gentle grip grew tighter, and he moved her forward with the ease of one moving a chess piece on a board. They got all the way to the door, and in desperation, she blurted, “I’m experienced!”
He made a derisive noise from his throat. “I mean experienced in this establishment.”
She nodded furiously. “I am. I’ve been here a year,” she lied. “I know all the ins and outs of the business. All the secrets.” Heaven above, the sea of lies was going to soon be too thick to wade through. She’d just have to seduce him and make him forget tha
t he wanted an experienced girl. She prayed to God she didn’t toss her lunch. Her body went clammy at the thought.
He paused with his hand hovering above the door handle. “Do you know Ruby?”
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “We were very good friends, but she’s gone. She fell in love,” Arabella added gently. Mary had mentioned he had a particular affinity for how the Ruby woman performed in the bedchamber, and if asked about her, Arabella was to say she knew her well and that the woman had trained her in the art of being a demirep. So Arabella did, without so much as a stutter, but with a hefty amount of distaste for the lies. She despised lying, but she detested the thought of her mother in Bedlam or her father homeless much more.
Something that looked very much like doubt flickered in his eyes and filled Arabella with a sense of urgency. With her stomach swirling, she turned into his chest as much as possible, since he still had a firm grip on her arm. She ran a hand up his chest, his muscles twitching in response as she made her way to his neck. What the devil had Mary told her to do? Kiss his chest? She couldn’t remember for certain. Instead, she twined her hand into his short hair and raked her fingernails ever so lightly against his skull. A low growl emanated from him. That was good, she thought.
“Do you like my touch?” she whispered.
“Too much.” He released her elbow and set his hands on her hips, then slid them slowly over her waist and up her sides, his fingers brushing her breasts as he went. She stilled in shock at his intimate but gentle touch. His hands traced a teasing path over her chest, barely skimming her hard nipples, and came to stop at her shoulders. He trailed a finger over her collarbone and paused at the hollow space where her pulse beat. “You are stirring my blood.” His voice had grown thick and heavy. Was this what a man filled with desire sounded like?
She swallowed. “Is that a bad thing?”
“No.” His galvanizing look sent a tremor through her. He moved his hands to her lips and ran his fingertips—as light as a feather—over them. Her eyes closed of their own volition at the strange pull in her stomach that his touch elicited, but she opened them at the sound of his voice. “So Ruby fell in love?”
The Dangerous Duke of Dinnisfree Page 6