by kc
But for some reason, Hugh wasn’t shamed that a woman could make him so weak. And obviously, ten years of being away from her had done nothing to make his feelings ebb.
After Ethan had joined him in the alley, the two of them had begun exchanging terse words—as was customary—only this time they argued in lowered voices.
Hugh had always been disgusted that Ethan hadwanted —and had offered—to kill Grey, who’d once been Hugh’s friend; Ethan had always been disgusted that Hugh had fallen for Jane and opened himself up to such a glaring liability. Ethan’s liability was his protectiveness of his brothers, but he’d been born into that one, and it couldn’t be helped.
“I wager that right about now, you wish my offer to kill Grey had been accepted,” Ethan told Hugh, his smugness conveyed even in hushed tones. “But no’ to worry, little brother, it certainly has now. Weyland will do anything to protect his daughter.” Ethan jerked his chin at Jane and her group as they passed the alley. He faced Hugh, then did a double take back to the group, only to stare.
The fourth woman in the group—a wee lass with shining blond hair—had caught his attention utterly.
The young friend from out of town…
She wore a deep blue gown and cape, tied at her pale neck like a choker, and a matching mask tilted up into points at the corners above her bright eyes. By the flickering glow of the gaslights, Ethan saw her dark pink lips curl intermittently into a mysterious grin, yet not when her friends were laughing. She seemed to be in her own little world.
Though she appeared lively and fresh, he sensed in her a world-weariness—the same that affected him so markedly.
He frowned to find that his heart had started to race—
Hugh had him shoved against a building wall, his forearm lodged against Ethan’s neck, before he could tense.
What is this…?Ethan rolled his eyes. “Rest easy. I’m no’ ogling your precious Jane.”
Hugh finally released him but appeared disbelieving. “Then what held your attention?” he demanded. “Claudia? The one in the red mask?” When Ethan gave no answer, Hugh said, “Belinda? The tall brunette?”
Ethan shook his head slowly, never taking his eyes from the blonde.
The unusual notice clearly stunned Hugh. “I doona know her, but she must be one of Jane’s friends,” he said in a wary tone. “And she looks no’ more than twenty. Too young for you.”
Ethan’s age was thirty-three, and he felt every year of it, but shewas young. So how could she possibly have that weariness about her? “If I’m as bad as you and Court and all of the clan believe,” Ethan began, “then I’ll find her that much more enticing for it, will I no’?” Ethan strove for a bored tone, but he suspected his bitterness came through. Truthfully, he wasn’t as bad as they thought.
He was worse.
He had blood on his hands and a heart so cold that he was considered the evil brother of the three—and the other two were a gunman and a mercenary. Ethan was the sodding laird, and yet most in the clan feared him, wanting nothing to do with him—and that was before he’d been scarred.
Reminded of his appearance, he tried to turn away from the girl. If he approached her, a beauty like that would run in terror at the sight of his face.Drop back in the shadows where you belong. Forget you ever saw her….
But then a loud masquerade-goer neared them, sporting a domino in the latest style, with a drop of cloth in the front. Ethan’s lips slid into a smirk that tugged the tight skin of his face.Perfect.
In the blink of an eye, Ethan’s hand shot out to snare the mask. The much smaller man opened his mouth to object, but Ethan gave him a killing look, and the man dashed away.
“Doona toy with her, Ethan,” Hugh said.
“Afraid I’ll ruin your chances with Jane?” Ethan asked as he donned the mask. “Hate to remind you, brother, but they were ruined before you even met her. And you’ve got a book to prove it.”
“Your fate is just as grim as mine,” Hugh said, “yet you’re going after a woman.”
“Ah, but I’m in no danger of falling in love with her”—Ethan turned to stride into the masquerade, tossing over his shoulder—“so it’s no’ likely my dallying will get her killed.”
With a grated sound of frustration, Hugh followed him to the warehouse entrance, where they tendered admission to a bald man in a pig mask. Inside, the drunken crowd was thick; there had to be over a thousand people crammed in.
Oh, aye, the girl was about to get a lesson. All around them, obscene murals hung on the walls, and half-clad whores were openly fondling men.
Ethan couldn’t see the group immediately in the crush, so he and Hugh strode to the second-story landing for a better view. They spotted the women in front of a small raised stage, scrutinizing anexhibit —which consisted of two women and a man, unclothed and covered in clay, posing as Greek statues.
In such an atmosphere of dissolution, the young chit looked…bored.
When Jane viewed the naked man with an appraising eye, Hugh’s fists clenched. The blonde appraised him, too, but Ethan had no urge to hit anything. Ethan had known he was immune….
The group moved on to a punch service tended by a half-clad courtesan, but the blonde turned back to the stage. With a sensual grin, she languidly blew the male model a kiss. Ethan frowned.I doona like that. Bloody hell.Why do I no’ like that?
“I dinna think blondes were your type,” Hugh said, beginning to sound alarmed.
Never looking away from the girl, Ethan said, “They’re no’.”
“Nor slim, short lasses.”
“Tall and buxom for me,” Ethan said absently. He watched her accept a glass of punch, delicately take a sniff of her drink, then partake heartily.
“Then what is it?”
“Doona know,” Ethan answered in half truth. He knew why he was attracted to her—he could tell she was an extraordinary beauty, even with her mask—but he didn’t understand thedegree of his attraction.
He’d bedded women as lovely as she, so why did he feel an inexplicable sense of urgency to join her—toget her? Ethan knew he could find her again. She was friends with the Weylands. So why did he want herat this moment?
“Are you actually going to approach her?” Hugh asked.
“Bloody hell I am.”
“I thought I was no’ to reveal myself to Jane if I could help it. She’ll recognize you.”
“No’ with this mask,” Ethan said, then asked, “Why are you behaving as if my interest is so bloody consequential?”
“It’s consequential because you’ve never pursued a woman in your entire life.”
Ethan had never had to before that night in Buxton—and he hadn’t bothered to after.
“No’ even your fiancée,” Hugh added.
No, Ethan’s fiancée had been handed to him as though on a platter—and it had cost Sarah her life. He’d had no idea that by trying to salvage his life after what the Van Rowens had done to him he’d be destroying another’s….
Shaking off those memories, wanting to forget, Ethan strode for the stairs to go after the blonde lass, but Hugh shoved him back.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Hugh demanded.
“Doona shove me again, brother, or I will put you down.” Hugh was the only one who’d ever dared to challenge him like this. “Did you never think I just want to bed her?” Christ, he wanted to bed her, wanted her fiercely.Finally! his mind seemed to roar.
“Bed her?” Hugh got an uncomfortable look about him. “No, I dinna think that.”
Ethan narrowed his eyes. So Hugh suspected or knew the truth about him. Ethan should have realized that the secret of his celibacy would have gotten out among the Network. The members gossiped worse than old matrons at the village well.
Ten years had passed since his face had been so horribly damaged. As he’d predicted, the only way he’d been able to bed women had been to pay them, and he’d done so for the first seven years. Yet there were only so many times a man could tole
rate looking down at a woman he was using and seeing her thinly veiled revulsion—especially after he’d paid for her.
One unsatisfying encounter after another had taken their toll, and now his body couldn’t seem to be bothered to desire, to ache, any longer. If he was attracted to a woman, it was tepid, like a shadow of what he used to feel. Though his manhood had been left intact that night, it might as well not have been. He hadn’t had a woman beneath him in years.
And even more disquieting—he hadn’t especially missed it.
Until now…
“She’s a lady,” Hugh insisted. “No’ to be used by you.”
“Then what is she doing here?” Ethan asked incredulously, waving his hand around the warehouse.
“The same thing Jane is—they’re thrill seekers. Typical rich Londoners.”
“In a place like this, even a lady is fair game.”
“You doona know that she’s no’ an innocent.” His expression severe, Hugh added, “Ethan, you’re…you just canna be this bad.”
Ethan raised his eyebrows.
“Damn it, if for no other reason, then you should leave the girl alone to concentrate on hunting Grey.” Hugh ran his fingers through his hair. “If I canna count on you to take out Grey while I’m watching Jane—”
“Have you forgotten who you’re addressing?” Ethan reached the end of his patience and snatched off his mask to stare his brother down. “I’ve wanted to put a bullet between Grey’s eyes for years—a dozen times, I’ve had him in my rifle sights and my finger on the trigger—but I dinna becauseyou thought the man could be redeemed.”
Ethan had stalked Grey repeatedly, always keeping an eye on him. In fact, Ethan was the only one in the whole bloody Network who’d discovered Grey was killing on his own. “Now, when Jane’s involved, you see reason. So how can you possibly think I would waste my opportunity to destroy someone I’ve craved killing?” When Hugh remained unconvinced, Ethan said, “I’m going to scratch this itch, then get to work.” His tone and demeanor were bored.
He turned back, but the girl was gone, separated from her friends. He felt a flare of alarm. This was a dangerous place, and she was alone.
Or was she?
She could be meeting someone. She could even be married and already involved in an affair. He found himself striding down the stairs, donning his mask once more. He ignored Hugh’s last call of warning, then plunged into the crowd.
Ethan was bent on finding her, which baffled him. He liked voluptuous brunettes, earthy women who gave as good as they got in bed. And Hugh was right—he didn’t pursue women.
But if it took a delicate, angelic-looking blonde to provoke his body to this kind of reaction once more, then he’d be damned if he was letting the object of his lust out of his sight.
He promised himself he’d be inside her this very night.
Two
If Madeleine Van Rowen was ever going to lose her virginity outside of a collateralized, signed marriage contract, it’d be with the towering man she’d spied in the black domino. He’d just begun navigating his way through the crowds of the Hive, the gaudily extravagant dance hall in which she found herself tonight.
From her spot on a raised dais, decorated with swans and lusty satyrs, Maddy watched him over the rim of her second glass of punch. She was growing light-headed and suspected the drink was spiked with more than rum—the spirit du jour—but she didn’t particularly care. She wouldn’t mind getting foxed after the day she’d just endured.
Today she’d learned that she’d failed to secure the man she’d journeyed from Paris to London to marry. “Madeleine, I’m just not the marrying type,” he’d said.“I’m sorry. ”
Preferring to drown her sorrows in private, she’d wandered off from her group of friends, the Weyland women: Maddy’s childhood friend Claudia, her sister Belinda, and their cousin Jane. The three Londoner Weylands were always craving the next forbidden thrill, and the Hive was supposed to be…thrilling.
Jane Weyland, the de facto leader of their group, had told the younger Maddy not to wander off again. After all, gentlewomen needed tostay together at all costs when out in London at night. Maddy rolled her eyes even now.
Please, innocent girls, Maddy had wanted to say. Though this masquerade was packed to the rafters with not only prostitutes and their lecherous patrons but also thieves and swindlers, it still paled in comparison to her everyday life.
Hersecret life.
Maddy told everyone she lived in the wealthy Parisian parish of St. Roch with her mother and stepfather, but she actually lived alone in a slum called La Marais—translated as the Swamp—and every night she drifted to sleep to the music of gunfire and brawls.
She was a sneak thief, a pickpocket who would steal a diamond as easily as an apple, and she wasn’t above an occasional burgle. In fact, if Maddy hadn’t considered the Weylands her friends, they’d do well to be wary ofher .
After adjusting her sapphire cape behind her and then her blue glacé mask, Maddy relaxed on the dais bench, settling in to enjoy her view of the tall man. He stood well above most everyone in the room—six and a half feet in height, at least—and he had broad, muscular shoulders filling out his jacket.
The black domino he wore had a fluttering drop in the front, and though she could see his brow and lips and strong chin, the rest of his face was covered. He had thick, straight jet hair, and, she’d bet, dark, intense eyes.
He was clearly searching for someone, striding with aggression, his head turning this way and that, fighting the crush of what looked like thousands of people. When a gaggle of bare-breasted tarts blocked his path, angling for his attention, his brows drew together—with consternation or irritation, Maddy didn’t know.
What she wouldn’t give to bed a strapping man like that for her first time. After all, she was an aficionada of male beauty. Her friend Claudia would chuckle each time Maddy tilted her head and peered at a passing man on the street. Maddy grinned into her glass. Making men blush as she so obviously sized them up was one of the things she lived for.
But if today was any indication of her luck, her husband and first lover was to be the Comte Le Daex, an obscenely wealthy roué who was three times her age. He was so antiquated he still wore a wig, forgodsakes. She tried to look on the bright side—he wanted to wed her—and to ignore the fact that he’d handily survived all three of his previous young wives.
In a last bid to avoid marrying that man, Maddy had journeyed to London, calling on her childhood friendship with Claudia, specifically to snare her brother, Quinton Weyland. Unfortunately, Quin—with his curling hair, laughing green eyes, and robust finances—refused to marry.
It was time to face her three remaining choices.
First, she could continue on her own in La Marais as she had for years; second, she could reveal her litany of lies to the Weylands, confess her current pitiable situation, and beg them to make her their charity case; or third, Maddy could marry Le Daex.
The mere idea of admitting to Quin and Claudia everything she’d fabricated about her life made her flush with mortification. She could imagine Quin’s laughing eyes narrowing with disgust. Maddy shook her head hard, resolving that she’d never tell them.
But to continue in La Marais, she faced a mountain of debt and a cold, uncertain winter. Ahungry winter. Maddy loathed hunger.
So Le Daex it would be. How dismal….
To distract her thoughts, she focused once more on the tall one as he made the perimeter of the building. His methodical and determined hunt, even the way he moved, fascinated her. He finally stopped, raking his fingers through his hair, turning in a circle in the crowd. She felt sad that he couldn’t find the paramour he sought so urgently, and she drank to him, wishing him luck—
He raised his head to where she sat, and his gaze locked on her. At once, he turned that aggressive stride toward the swan-and-satyr dais.
Frowning in confusion—shewas the only one seated here—Maddy lowered her glass. He mus
t have mistaken her for someone else. She wondered if she should take advantage of his mistake and enjoy a few kisses with him. How delicious that would be. Just to squeeze those muscular shoulders while his lips brushed hers…
As he neared, his gaze held hers until she was captivated. Everything else dimmed. The drunken men were unseen; the high, false laughter of the courtesans below her was silenced.
He took the steps to her two at a time. When he stood before her, she stifled a gasp. She was eye level with his groin, and there was no disguising the fact that he was…aroused. She slowly tilted her head up.
He stared down at her, silently offering his big hand. His eyeswere dark—and she’d never seen such intensity. She inhaled a shaky breath.