She forgot to care when he turned toward her, his strong masculine arms banding around her waist, hauling her into an equally hard, muscled chest. His embrace felt right and wrong all at once. She was eager and yet desperately uncertain. Longing and terrified. She did not dare trust him, though being in his arms felt like returning home.
“What are you about, Montrose?” she forced herself to demand. “This is—”
The rest of what she had been about to say was swallowed by his mouth. He fitted his lips to hers in a sudden, voracious kiss. It began with raw carnal intent, open-mouthed. Starving.
She forgot all about speaking.
Forgot this was wrong and dangerous to her reputation and against every admonition she had peppered herself with on the way to the ball, knowing he would also be in attendance.
Forgot everything but the Duke of Montrose’s mouth upon hers, coaxing her to open. She slid her arms around his neck, pressing herself against his tall, lean body as if she were no better than a common strumpet. His warmth and strength burned into her, along with his delicious scent of musky man and clean, sharp soap.
She opened for him. His tongue slipped past the seam of her lips, tangling with hers. The kiss became erotic. Shockingly wicked. It was wet, ravaging, demanding. He tasted of wine and the sweet, sensual intoxication of possibility.
Hattie had lived her entire life according to the rules. She had never once engaged in an impropriety with a gentleman until Montrose had descended, hell-bent upon marrying her. She had scarcely even been kissed until that night in her chamber, when he had climbed the tree just to reach her.
She kissed him back now with all the furious longing she had tried so hard to bury and ignore. Her emotions—all her wants and needs—were suddenly unleashed. All she could think about was kissing him. Getting closer to him.
It did not matter that they were in danger of being caught at any moment. If anything, that only served to heighten Hattie’s excitement and awareness. Dear Lord, what had gotten into her? This was all the fault of the Duke of Montrose.
And she would be properly angry with him. Later. When he was not kissing her so sweetly, as if she were precious to him, his lips feathering over hers in a series of gentler kisses, giving more than they took. His kiss was velvet and silk, strength and heat and power, the forbidden and the delicious.
Just as he was.
Part of her longed for him so desperately, it seemed she could feel the ache in the marrow of her bones. And another part of her knew that wanting and loving him was utterly foolish, supremely useless. He was a law unto his own. No woman had ever tamed him or claimed his heart.
None would.
She knew all that, just as she knew at any second, their interlude could be interrupted. Her reputation could be blackened forever. Yet still, she kissed him. Still, she stayed in his arms where she could not help but to feel she belonged, clinging to him, wanting him. Being his fool once more.
Nothing mattered but Montrose’s kiss.
His lips left hers, but he stayed close, his breath falling hot upon her mouth in a lingering caress. “I missed you.”
His low pronouncement should not send a frisson of desire down her spine. Nor should it tighten the knot of yearning in her belly.
And yet, it did both.
What a fool she was, clutching him to her rather than pushing him away, longing for one more kiss. “More of your rakish charm.”
“Truth.” He kissed the corner of her lips, then her cheek, before burying his face in her hair and inhaling. “Tell me I am not alone. Tell me you missed me, too.”
She had not even seen him in the crush. He must have arrived late, as he so often did. Her heart beat faster. “Montrose, we cannot be alone like this. If anyone should happen upon us, I will be ruined.”
He kissed the opposite corner of her mouth, then her jaw. “If you are ruined, you will have to marry me.”
He sounded pleased by the notion.
She struggled to summon up some restraint. But then he kissed her ear, and all efforts at resisting him faded like the stars in the night sky when the sun rose. “I have not changed my mind.”
“Your kisses say otherwise, darling,” he murmured.
When he caught the fleshy lobe of her ear in his teeth and gently nipped, liquid heat pooled in her core. “You are an experienced rake. Of course, your kisses are pleasant. Anyone would find them so.”
“Ah, but I do not want to kiss anyone, Hattie.” He licked the hollow behind her ear. “Only you.”
Only you.
She told herself these were more practiced words of seduction from a man who had made a career of collecting bedmates. She told herself he did not mean them.
But the hot glide of his tongue was turning her knees to jelly.
“Montrose.” Her voice was weak. She did not flee his arms. Instead, her fingers had somehow found their way into his hair.
How luxurious it was, sleek and smooth and thick. Touching his hair was not helping her predicament one whit.
She would stop.
In a few seconds.
Or mayhap a minute.
“Mmm?” He made a noncommittal sound as he pressed a string of kisses to her throat.
She fought to keep her wits about her, to remember how very wrong this was. “You must cease this at once.”
There was precious little determination in her voice.
Because all she wanted was more.
“I dislike balls,” he said against her skin, kissing the tops of her breasts exposed by her gown’s décolletage.
So incendiary was the touch of his lips upon her there that it took her a moment to even realize what he had just said. And further, that the words made precious little sense. What had Montrose’s dislike of balls to do with kissing her? Or sweeping her into a deserted room and dismantling all her defenses?
“Pardon?” she managed as he worked his way back up to her neck.
“I do not like courting.” Another kiss, this time on the mad flutter of her pulse. “I do not like propriety.” Another. “Or rules.” Another. “Driving on Rotten Row makes my teeth ache.” His lips had traveled all the way back to her ear. “Not being able to touch you makes my cock ache.”
The wicked word made her gasp. He was ravishing her in the midst of a ball. Speaking in a fashion a true gentleman would never speak to a lady.
She should not like it.
His iniquity should not make want unfurl within her.
“You should not say such things, Montrose,” she forced out, but as she admonished him, she arched her neck, giving him better access. “It is sinful.”
“You should not make me suffer,” he countered, kissing the whorl of her ear. “Refusing to wed me is the true sin.”
She shivered, and still, she made no move to escape him. “You do not want to marry me. Not truly.”
“Believe in yourself, Hattie,” he whispered, drawing her closer to him, so their bodies were aligned from breast to thigh.
How perfectly they fit together.
“I believe in my common sense,” she countered breathlessly. “My wits. My pragmatism.”
He raised his head, at last granting her a reprieve. Except, when the all-too-handsome Duke of Montrose was gazing down at her, his eyes glittering with want, it was not a reprieve at all. Because seeing the way he was seemingly affected by their embrace made her yearn for more.
For everything.
Made her want to give in. To tell him yes.
She must not do so. This was a passing fancy. Montrose was easily distracted, forever in search of diversion.
“I need you, Hattie.” He trailed the backs of his fingers over her cheek in a tantalizing caress that was so tender, her heart could not help but to be affected. “Do you not see? For you, I have attempted to become respectable. I only imbibe spirits at my club in the evenings. I am trying to win you every way I know how.”
His impassioned speech was so very Montrose. She had to admit, sh
e had believed he would tire of this game long ago.
But he had not. He was still standing here with her, after pursuing her for so long. She stared at him, searching his expression, his eyes. She would have asked him if he was in his cups, but he tasted of wine, and he did not seem bosky.
He seemed intense. Determined.
He was still the same wild Montrose who did as he pleased. But he was also different. He was the same Montrose she could not help but to love. She told herself her unwanted feelings for him were the reason for her untenable susceptibility where he was concerned.
“Why?” she asked, needing to know the answer.
If there was something more than his guilt…
Nay. She did not dare entertain such a foolish notion. He did not fall in love. He seduced. He courted excess. He was a sybarite. He was notorious.
You love him said that horrid voice within. He could be yours. Tell him you will marry him. Say yes.
But if she was expecting an impassioned declaration of love, she was to be sorely disappointed.
“I need an heir,” he said. “You need a husband. Whenever I kiss you, you turn into flame. What other reason need either of us have?”
Only the most important one.
And the absence of it was just the reminder she needed.
Hattie extricated herself from his embrace. She had to leave this room, leave his intoxicating presence, before he ruined her. This was not the privacy of her bedchamber at Torrington House. There were hundreds of other guests, all the toast of polite society, making merry just down the hall.
He was still the man who had the power to break her heart. She must not forget.
Hattie rubbed her hands over her arms, as if she could remove the imprint of him from her palms. “Those reasons are not enough for me, I am afraid. I do thank you for the honor, Montrose. But it would be best if we keep our distance from now on.”
“Hattie,” he protested, striding toward her.
She moved faster, blindly, in a panic. If he touched her again, she would be at his sensual mercy once more. And she could not afford to take such a risk.
“Please, leave me alone, Montrose,” she managed before yanking open the door and stepping into the hall, closing it soundly at her back.
The hall was mercifully empty.
She did not dare wait to see whether or not he would emerge, further endangering her reputation. Instead, she moved as swiftly as she could in the direction of the ballroom. There was no way he could waylay her in the midst of all the guests.
*
Monty stared at the door Hattie had just fled through, bemused, prick hard as iron.
Beelzebub’s earbobs, where had he gone wrong? The echo of her impassioned demand still seemed to reverberate in the empty chamber, mocking him.
Please, leave me alone, Montrose.
It would be best if we keep our distance from now on.
Like bloody hell he would leave her alone and keep his distance. Who did she think she was fooling? He would wager everything he had that if he had raised her skirts and found her cunny, she would have been dripping for him. The passion between them was as hot and undeniable as the sun in the summer sky.
Where, then, had he gone wrong?
He had been doing his damnedest to earn a yes from the lady’s lips. And all she did was kiss him as if her life depended upon it and then tell him to go to the devil.
Which was decidedly where a rotten scoundrel like him belonged, but that was another matter entirely. Of course, he did not deserve Hattie Lethbridge as his wife. That went without saying. He was damaged. She was innocent. He had made a muck of most of his life. He had almost killed his friend with his recklessness. He had spent more years of his life sotted than aware of what was going on.
He had devoted himself to pleasure and distraction, an endless procession of quim, an eternal fountain of drink. Then, there was the laudanum, which even now slithered through his veins with the delicious torpor of a serpent. The laudanum negus he had consumed prior to his late arrival at the Whitley ball this evening was belatedly having its effect upon him.
But he remained determined to have her.
She would be his.
He waited for as long as his patience would allow, giving Hattie time to go back to the ball. Finally, when he could stand no more of the silent recriminations haunting him in the shadows of the study, he quit the room.
And nearly ran into Searle.
His cousin raised a brow, casting a pointed glance to the closed study door behind him, as if he knew what had happened within not long ago. “Up to the devil’s mischief again, Monty?”
God’s fichu, what had he seen?
“I was looking for blue ruin,” he lied.
“You will not find it in Whitley’s study. He is a whisky man. Always has been.” Searle paused, giving him an assessing look. “That is not truly the reason you were hiding yourself within the study, is it?”
His cousin was ever too perceptive for his own bloody good. But Monty had no wish to tell the truth. He felt strangely protective of Hattie. As if she were already his.
Because she is mine.
He banished the voice within, which was wrong. Hattie had yet to give him the only word he wanted to hear from her pretty, pink lips.
“You sound like a protective mama, clucking over her debutante,” he mocked instead, keeping his tone light. “Why so suspicious of me, cousin? You ought to know me better than to think I was wetting my prick in Whitley’s study whilst a ball raged on. By the good Lord’s chemise, I am almost a betrothed man.”
“You and your nonsensical curses.” Searle shot him a rueful grin, not even flinching at Monty’s crudity, which had been meant to distract. “How is the ankle?”
“It pains me.”
That was not a lie. It was also an excellent reason to continue adding drops of laudanum to all his beverages. Or at least, that was what he told himself.
“How goes the plan to make Miss Lethbridge your bride?” Searle asked next.
Another sore subject, as it were. “Has my betrothal been announced yet, Searle?”
His cousin’s lips twitched, as if he struggled to suppress his mirth. “No.”
“Then that is how the plan bloody well goes,” he growled. “Do you intend to stand here in the hall, Searle? I cannot imagine your marchioness will be happy at being abandoned for so long. Moreover, she will undoubtedly be beset by partners.”
Searle’s jaw clenched. “None of these fops are worthy of dancing with my wife.”
And neither were any of them worthy of dancing with Hattie.
Alas, he could not claim her for every set as he longed to do. Such a strange reaction, that, from a man who did not even like to dance. He would fret over the implications later.
“Let us return to the festivities, shall we?” He started in the direction of the ballroom, where the strains of the orchestra emerged.
“Quite right,” Searle agreed, walking with him. “I cannot allow the pups to slaver over Lady Searle.”
“No, you cannot,” he agreed. And neither could he bear the thought of anyone leading his Hattie about the ballroom. He would glare daggers at them until they fled if need be. “Searle, have you any sound advice for persuading a lady to accept a proposal of marriage?”
“Oh, ho.” His cousin laughed because he was enjoying this, the blighter. “I never thought to see the day. The Duke of Montrose, greatest scoundrel in London, has been laid low by love.”
“It is not love,” he was quick to deny. “You know I do not believe in such a foolish emotion. For myself, it is not possible. It is merely a need. I require an heir. I also seek to make amends with her brother. The lady in question is in need of a match.”
“All excellent motives,” Searle agreed as they entered the ballroom. “But I do think you may be surprised to realize everyone is capable of love, regardless of how great an implausibility such a tender emotion seems. When I was in the depths of my despa
ir, revenge the only thing spurring me to live another day, I never could have imagined what I would find with my Leonie.”
The lovesick expression on his cousin’s face set Monty’s teeth on edge. He well remembered the dark days when his cousin had been lost at war and had been presumed dead. “Thank Christ you are here now. Maudlin sentiments and maggot-laden brain aside.”
“Love is not a maggot, Monty.”
Monty’s gaze was already searching the assemblage, seeking Hattie. Where the devil had she fled to? Perhaps she hid behind the potted palms once more, and he would need to rescue her. If any of the witless chits present were gossiping about her, he would deliver them the most crushing setdown he could fathom.
“Romantic love is absolutely a maggot,” he countered, glancing back at his cousin once more. “It will inevitably spoil whatever it has infected.”
“With such romantic sentiments, one must wonder at your difficulty in ensnaring Miss Lethbridge,” Searle said cuttingly. “I would have expected her to be swooning at your feet by now. Whatever is the matter with her?”
“To the devil with you,” he said without heat. “You do not think me fool enough to call love a maggot to her directly, do you? Despite my opinion of such an impossible emotion, I will not lie to her. I am who I am, and she knows it. Indeed, I expect that is the reason for her reluctance.”
“Her reluctance or her refusal?”
Searle was knowing. Damn him.
“Both,” he bit out.
Where the hell was she? Still no sign of her. Not even a hint of her dark hair and ivory gown. To be fair, there were a host of ladies in ivory gowns, whirling with partners, chattering on the periphery of the glittering spectacle, rendering it difficult to discern one from the next, at least initially. But his gaze made short work of them. None was Hattie. None could hold a candle to her beauty.
Each time he saw her, each time he held her, her allure only increased.
She was the opposite of every woman he had ever known. Past conquests had lost their luster when they had melted in his arms. The moment he had kissed a lady and known her willing, his interest had begun to wane, so that by the time he and his bedmate had finished, he was ready to leave, never to think of her again.
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