She hadn’t a name for it yet, but whatever it was, the sensation had been so intense and pleasurable, that for a moment, she had been convinced she had been catapulted into the stars. The mere memory of his tongue playing deftly over her flesh was enough to make her ache even now, in a chamber filled with others.
“He is not a hulking beast, and nor does he abuse his powers in regard to the female members of his staff,” she countered. “I cannot deny he runs a den of vice but despite that, he is a good man.”
And he was. She felt certain of it. Felt it all the way to the marrow of her bones.
Her friend gaped at her. “You dare to defend him? He is a monster, Freddy. What has he done to you?”
Heat burned her cheeks. She diverted her gaze to the couples twirling about the ballroom beneath the glinting candlelight. The evening should have been a welcome diversion. A happy excuse to reunite with her friend. Instead, it was an impediment that kept her from being where she truly wanted to be. Her brother, who ordinarily eschewed balls of all sorts, had suddenly decided they all simply must attend this one. Mother had been happy to comply, presented with the opportunity to display her newest fan.
“What has he done?” Leonora repeated, suspicion coloring her tone. “Good heavens, Freddy. Tell me he has not…that you have not…did he hurt you?”
“Decidedly not,” she said coolly, growing rather irked with her friend for her reaction. One would think Duncan was a scoundrel of the first order. A soulless, evil, morally deficient man with an incessant appetite for destruction and greed. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Oh dear. She should not have added the last.
And she knew it the moment her friend pounced. “Freddy! Have you been ruined?”
Leonora posed the last question in a shocked whisper, but Frederica nevertheless made another furtive inspection of their surroundings. The answer to her friend’s question was simple, though she had not thought of it in those terms until this moment.
Yes, she had been ruined. The liberties she had allowed Duncan Kirkwood to take with her body—shocking, wonderful, wicked—meant she would be damaged goods in the eyes of society should anyone discover the truth. But her secret was safe, and no one would ever know.
“Leonora,” she protested softly. “Let us speak of something else.”
Her friend’s mouth opened in a perfect circle of surprise, her eyes going wide. “You have been! Frederica! What can you have been thinking? Something must be done. He must pay for his actions.”
Frederica’s cheeks went hot. “I did not confirm anything untoward occurred.”
“He must marry you.” Leonora ignored her half denial, fanning herself wildly in her agitation. Blond curls that had been artfully arranged to frame her face flapped about. “What if you are enceinte?”
Her friend posed her last question as if she were proclaiming the sentence of death.
“I cannot be,” she said with certainty, for that much at least was true. “Nor will he marry me.”
Though she could not deny the sudden flare of warmth such a notion produced in her. It lit a spark, grew a tiny flame.
“How do you know? Such delicate matters take time to be revealed. Oh! I knew I should never have kept silent about your plan.” Leonora waved her fan even harder, creating a breeze that was strong enough to whip over Frederica’s arms as well.
“My brother has…literature,” she explained. “I discovered it amongst his old coats and breeches when I was searching for my disguise.”
Shocking literature. Literature she had pilfered along with the outgrown waistcoats, breeches, and shirts. Naturally, she had secreted it in her chamber, and she had read it from cover to cover. Twice. The book was quite clear that a man had a seed which emerged from his member, and without such an event, a woman could not bear a child.
“Frederica.” Leonora—sweet, tender, kindhearted, and always above reproach—looked aghast at Frederica’s revelations.
Well, and there was the trouble, was it not? Leonora would make a fine wife to any gentleman. She was proper and perfect, a veritable saint among mere mortals, and yet her limp caused her to be overlooked. Frederica knew how much her friend longed for a husband and children of her own. Whilst Frederica, on the other hand, had been courted more times than she could count until she decided to become a wallflower. Frederica wanted adventure, freedom, the chance to pursue her dream of seeing her words in print.
She also wanted Duncan Kirkwood.
“He has debauched you,” Leonora charged quietly.
Had he? Frederica pursed her lips. Yes, she supposed so. In the last five days, she had lived more, seen more, and understood more of life than she had in all her two-and-twenty years combined.
She regretted nothing.
The realization made her stomach go fluttery, as if inhabited by butterflies. She reached out a staying hand, capturing Leonora’s agitated fan. “You must stop bandying about such incendiary words, my dear. I am merely conducting research for The Silent Baron. You know better than anyone how important this is to me. Pray do not grow cross. If I do not have you, I do not have anyone.”
Leonora was her only true friend. She had her father and her brother Benedict, both hopelessly inept at conducting meaningful conversation with the fairer sex. Her father’s idea of speaking with her involved a rapid succession of questions, an inquiry into the use of her pin money, and a reminder that she was expected to make a great match. Soon. Her brother’s conversation was abbreviated, often punctuated by distraction. They were six years apart in age—their mother had lost three babes and buried one stillborn child in the time between their births—and given her penchant for ignoring anything that did not give her immediate gratification, Mother was not any more comforting a figure.
Leonora fixed her with a pointed look and a frown. “I am not cross, Freddy, so much as I am outraged on your behalf. You are the Duke of Westlake’s daughter, for heaven’s sake. That man is the illegitimate brother of your future husband, and he has earned his fortune by capitalizing upon the misfortune of others.”
Frederica preferred not to place the Earl of Willingham and the phrase “future husband” anywhere in the same vicinity. She could not suppress her shudder at the thought, but she feared sooner rather than later, it would become her reality.
Yes, there was a part of her that well knew what she was doing was wrong. That it was not fair to Duncan to allow him liberties whilst knowing she was almost promised to his half brother. Just as it was not fair for her to flagrantly ignore propriety and allow another man such intimacies when she knew she was bound for the altar with Willingham.
“He has made his fortune in the means that were afforded to him,” she defended Duncan then, realizing as she said the words just how true they were. “Just as any gentleman in his place would. He has built something truly incredible, Leonora. You would be horrified if you saw it, I know, but it is breathtaking. It is garish and beautiful, horrible and thrilling all at once. I cannot quite describe it. The air of the place is so alive, thrumming with the forbidden.”
Leonora stared at her, mouth agape, her fan stilling in its frenzied motion. “It is worse than I feared, then.”
“The club is not as bad as you may think.” Frederica frowned, growing rather irritated with her friend for all her naysaying. Did she not understand Frederica wanted to dream? She had lived more excitement in the last few days than she had experienced in the entirety of her days on earth.
“I do not speak of the club,” her friend said lowly, through gritted teeth. Her gaze flitted over Frederica’s shoulder for a moment. “I speak of you, Freddy. You have feelings for him.”
“Of course I do not,” she denied hastily, shocked Leonora would even suggest such a ludicrous possibility. She had known him for mere days. That was not time enough to…a sudden ache in her breast told her she was wrong. She should know better than anyone the heart did not care about time, distance, funds, titles, or any of the other trapp
ings of society.
“Hush now, here comes Lord Willingham,” Leonora murmured, lifting her eyebrows meaningfully.
Bother. “Have I time enough to feign a need to attend the lady’s withdrawing room?”
One could always dream.
Leonora gave a small shake of her head.
Frederica stiffened just as the earl appeared before them, offering a bow.
“My Lady Frederica, Lady Leonora,” he greeted in that signature manner he possessed, as if he were paying them the utmost compliment by his mere presence.
His purple coat and emerald breeches were an affront to the senses, in keeping with his usual attire. His thinning brown hair was untamed, the ends reaching skyward as if pleading for the intervention of a higher power. His cravat nearly touched his chin. It had been precisely six days since she had last laid eyes upon this preening rooster of a man, and his appearance before her now was far too soon.
She curtseyed. “My lord.”
“Would you care to take a turn about the room, my lady? We shall fetch some lemonade if you prefer.” He turned to Leonora, condescending. “Pity you cannot accompany us, my lady. Shall we bring a glass back for you as well?”
“That would be lovely, thank you,” said her friend, not showing a hint of insult at Willingham’s thinly veiled reference to her limp.
Frederica narrowly resisted the urge to stomp on his instep in retribution. Instead, she allowed the earl to guide her on a meandering journey around the outskirts of the festivities.
“That was most unkind,” she snapped when they were beyond Leonora’s earshot.
He leaned toward her, and the scent of his cologne—cloying and spicy—tickled her nose. “Forgive me, but I have been in a dreadful state these last few days, missing you, my dear. I was most disappointed when you were not at home after I called to take you for a drive two days ago.”
With her father absent and her mother a flimsy guardian easily distracted by the beacons of Bond and Oxford Streets, Frederica had taken advantage of the opportunity to refuse Willingham’s overtures. She feared a ride with him would only mean more unwanted kisses from which there was no escape, and so she avoided him instead.
“I do believe the turtle soup I ate at the Farthingale supper was spoilt,” she lied blithely. “I fear I was far too ill for a jaunt.”
“Of course, my dear lady,” he said, but there was an ill-disguised note of disgust in his tone. “I am indebted to Blanden for bringing you to this ball at my request.”
Blast her brother. That explained his sudden desire to be in attendance this evening. Et tu, Brute?
“Yes,” she drawled, taking great effort to keep her irritation from her expression and voice, “it was lovely of him to intervene.”
Frederica’s gaze roamed over the earl’s face, searching for signs of resemblance to Duncan, and found none save the dimple marking the tip of his chin. How could one brother turn her body to flame whilst the other made her stomach curdle? Duncan was taller, broader, stronger. His was a lean, powerful grace cloaked in elegance and dipped in darkness. Lord Willingham was, by comparison, a court jester.
“I am hoping, my lady, to speak to your father when he returns from Oxfordshire,” Lord Willingham said then, stopping to retrieve a watery lemonade for Frederica, one for himself, and another for Leonora.
He wanted to speak with her father. As soon as he returned.
Why, that would be in just two days.
Two days until her freedom ended. How could it be? She tried to envision a life in which she was married to the earl. In which she was Lady Willingham. In which he could press his cool, flat lips to hers and do to her as he wished. Her gaze dipped to his mouth, which was unsmiling and glinting with saliva. Why were they always so wet?
Frederica took a lengthy sip of the lemonade, finding it far too tart. Nothing but bitterness, much like the emotions blossoming inside her. She felt as if she was going to be ill. Her stomach clenched, bile rising in her throat.
“My lady? Would it please you?” he pressed.
No, it would not please her. She thought of his hands on her, how tight his grip had been, the purple half-moons left behind by his fingers. His words. You will learn to enjoy it, my dear. I will make certain of it. More threat than promise, she feared.
She swallowed another sip of lemonade, wishing it was Duncan’s fiery whisky. Wishing she was there, at the Duke’s Bastard, trading wits and kisses. Wishing, for once in her life, she could be free.
But she was Lady Frederica Isling, daughter to the Duke of Westlake, soon to be married to the Earl of Willingham, and she could never be free. She forced a smile to her lips, stared into his flat brown eyes, wishing they were blue. “Nothing would please me more.”
*
She had not come.
Duncan sat in his chair, gulping a whisky, rage burning through him like the fires of hell. But the whisky did not numb him. Nor did it do a damned thing to mitigate the fury scorching him alive. Around him, his club bustled, business as usual. The dice dropped. Cards shuffled. Laughter, clinking glasses, and the hum of voices barely seeped into his awareness. All he could think was that she was not there.
It was to have been their final evening. The last time he would ever see her. He had attempted to resign himself to that unwanted reality ever since he had watched her delicious arse flounce out of his office the night before. Without success. And now, she was the only one in his thoughts. Plaguing him. Calling to him. Taunting him.
His name on her lips had been pure poetry. He could still hear it now, the throatiness of her voice. Duncan. And Christ if it didn’t make him hard, right then and there in the midst of all his patrons on a bustling evening, with not a woman in sight except for the one haunting his mind.
Bloody, blazing Beelzebub.
The carriage he sent for her at the arranged time had returned empty. His driver offered no explanation. His lordship had failed to appear, reported Marmot to Hazlitt. The conveyance had lingered for three-quarters-of-an-hour. Finally, needing to take a piss, Marmot had returned to the club.
Can’t take a piss on the street in Mayfair, wot?
Hazlitt had guffawed as he related the last, expecting Duncan to laugh as well. On another day, in another time and place, had the empty carriage not been missing one Lady Frederica Isling—the woman he had brought to a deliriously lovely spend the night before—he may have been amused. As it was, he could still taste her on his tongue, could still smell the sweet, musky perfume of her slick flesh.
To say Duncan was in a foul mood would be an understatement. He was furious. Outraged. In the blackest humor of his life.
He could not remain in his office, for sitting at his desk reminded him of the sight of her upon it, legs spread, sex pink and glorious and ready for his tongue. He could not stalk the hidden hall with viewing slots, for her ghost was there as well. It was where he had first kissed her.
Even in the main gaming hall, she was there. It was where he had laid eyes upon her. And though it had been mere days before, she had already become an inextricable part of his world.
He was not sure how it happened. Christ knew he had not wanted to allow her to affect him, had not wanted to soften toward her. He, who had prided himself upon having no softness in his life. She was the means for his revenge, the retribution he had been seeking for twenty years as hatred and bitterness had eaten away at him.
Why?
The question, unbidden, surged. He could not tamp it down, no matter how hard he tried. Why did it have to be her? Why was the one woman who set him aflame also the one he needed to gain what he wanted, his worthless sire begging him on hand and knee?
He drained the remnants of his glass, about to signal for another, when his gaze lit upon a familiar figure. An arse, to be specific. Curved and full and high, ill obscured by the coat tails. Luscious calves beneath white stockings, trim ankles. No spectacles perched on her delicate nose because she had left her second pair in his office the day
before, and those, too, he had scavenged alongside a forgotten manuscript page like a vulture, two more objects in a growing collection he would use against her. His prick went even more rigid, springing against the fall of his breeches. His body knew before his mind—it was elemental. Inevitable. Unavoidable.
There. She. Was.
And she had come without the benefit of the safety his enclosed carriage and driver would have provided her. He shot to his feet, his empty glass and need for another whisky abandoned. His body and his mind collided. Mine said something deep inside him. Mine. Each footfall that brought him closer to her rang with finality. Mine. Mine. Mine.
Until she was close enough to touch. He wanted his arm sliding around her waist, her soft curves nestling into his hardness. Wanted to draw her against him, stake his claim, but at the last moment, he recalled she was dressed as a man.
Instead, he drew alongside her and lowered his lips to her ear, in such proximity his lower lip brushed over the delicate whorl. “Are you looking for someone, my lord?”
She stilled. Swallowed. “Yes, in fact, I am. The owner of this establishment.” She sent him a flirtatious glance that landed in his cock and ricocheted throughout his body. “Do you know him?”
He ground his jaw, lust for her rising so strongly within him he could scarcely maintain his focus. “Aye. Promise me something first?”
Her expression turned wary. “What promise would you have from me?”
“If you ever take it into your foolish head to traipse about London alone again, come to me first. You need but to send a servant. I will make certain my staff is aware Lord Blanden and Lady Frederica both have the use of any carriage they wish, on any day, at any time.” The notion of her gadding about in hired hacks made his skin break out in a cold sweat. Even if he would never see her again after this night, he would have the solace of knowing she was safe.
Her brows rose. “That is a generous offer indeed. One I cannot accept.”
Duncan was not in the mood for opposition. “You can and you shall. Promise me, or forfeit your final day of research, and I will send you home at once.”
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