by Evie Dunmore
Surprise almost made her misstep. “She’s a friend, my lord.”
An odd expression crossed his handsome face. “How wonderful,” he said. “Does she still have her cat?”
“Her . . . cat?”
“Yes, Boudicca. A fierce, clever little thing, much like its owner.”
She hadn’t known Lucie had a cat, so how did he know?
She realized then that the music had ceased and that he was still holding her hand.
She gave a light tug.
Ballentine placed her hand onto his arm. “Where may I escort you, miss? I’d suggest the terrace.”
“I’d rather sit down again.” She scanned the ballroom from the corner of her eyes. Where was safe, manageable Peter?
“Come now,” Ballentine said, perusing her face with his half-lidded gaze, “we both know you are utterly wasted as a wallflower.”
He began to walk unerringly toward the terrace doors, and she had to follow.
“My lord,” she said tightly, but he only grinned.
Ballentine never takes no for an answer.
Panic raced down her spine, and her heart began to drum. She would have to cause a scene. She would have to dig in her heels and it would cause a scene, but she couldn’t end up alone with this randy giant . . .
There was a movement in the crowd, and her head turned inexorably, like a compass needle turning north.
Montgomery was scything across the dance floor toward them, his cold bright eyes trained on Lord Ballentine like a marksman aiming a rifle. Ballentine’s arm turned rigid beneath her hand, his body immediately responding to the threat.
When the duke reached them, the air around him was snapping with barely checked tension.
“Miss Archer,” he said, his eyes remaining on Lord Ballentine.
“Your Grace?”
“Ballentine.”
Ballentine bobbed his head. “Duke.”
Montgomery offered his arm to her, still staring at the young viscount. “Allow me.”
Ballentine didn’t miss a beat; he did not quite fling her hand away, but he released her speedily and bowed. “Miss, it was an honor.” He turned to Montgomery and nodded. “Duke.”
“Ballentine.”
Annabelle stared at Lord Ballentine’s retreating back, then at her hand, now curled over Montgomery’s forearm. He had rescued her in the middle of the ballroom.
She did not dare to look at him. She felt the tightly coiled tension in his muscles through layers of silk and wool, felt the eyes of a hundred people on her. Her skin was burning hot. Would that the floor opened and swallowed her now.
The merry tunes of another quadrille picked up, and Montgomery led her away from the dance floor as the stomp stomp stomp of the dancers’ feet echoed the frenetic pulse of her blood.
Chapter 15
The reception room was a blur, and then the cacophony of voices and music faded and cool air touched her heated face. Montgomery was still staring ahead as he walked, displeasure swirling around him like steam.
“I advise you to stay away from Ballentine,” he said.
“I had no intention of keeping him close, Your Grace.”
“You danced with him.”
“Because he and Lady—”
She bit her lip. She didn’t have to explain herself; she was her own woman.
“The next time he comes for you,” he said, “turn him away. His company is a risk for you.”
She dropped her hand from his arm, her throat tight with frustration. “Then perhaps Your Grace should take the matter up with Lord Ballentine.”
He stopped in his tracks and manners, Hades take them, forced her to face him.
An angry heat filled his gaze. “I just did,” he said, “take it up with Ballentine, though given the way you look tonight, he might yet forget all about his self-preservation.”
She raised her chin. “What is wrong with how I look?”
His gaze dragged over her bare throat, and something dark flashed in his eyes. “Wrong?” he echoed.
She glared at him, almost willing him to say something awful.
“Hell,” he said softly, “you aren’t playing coy, are you?”
“I—”
“You are the most alluring woman in the ballroom tonight, and obviously unprotected”—he cut her off—“flirt with the worst libertine of London, and every man here regards you as available.”
Flirt?
She had never liked him less than in this moment. “Please do not trouble yourself on my behalf,” she said. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
His brows lowered. “Now that is where we disagree.”
He was walking her backward, and the light dimmed and the walls were closing in.
She sobered in a blink.
She was in an alcove. With a man looming over her. The music of the ballroom hummed faintly from a hundred miles away.
Botheration.
She had been so focused on squabbling with him, she had followed him here trustingly like a calf to market. Because this was Montgomery. He was dutiful, and sincere . . .
He was still a man.
And he was close, so close she could smell the clean, soapy scent on his neck.
Instinctively, she stepped back.
Her bare shoulders bumped against cool plaster.
She swallowed, her throat working audibly in the silence.
She had not seen the predator in him. Until now. Now she could almost taste his intent . . .
It took him one step to close the distance between them.
She raised her hands.
They landed flat on a solid chest.
“Your Grace—”
He braced his forearms to either side of her head against the wall.
“Enough,” he murmured, “enough.”
He lowered his head, and she felt his lips, smooth and silken, against the side of her neck.
Was that a kiss?
She stared over his shoulder unseeing as the heat of his skin touched her throat.
This man and I are going to kiss.
She had known, hadn’t she?
She had been aware of him since she had first seen him, aloof and commanding on Parliament Square, and this . . . this was the natural conclusion.
They seemed suspended in time, cheek to cheek, his scent in her nose, as he held himself still and waited, waited for something . . .
Her hand curled into the lapel of his jacket.
He pulled back, took one hard look at her face, and then his mouth was on hers. His fingers thrust into the soft hair at her nape, the warm pressure of his lips parted hers, and his tongue delved in, slick and demanding.
Liquid heat poured through her.
She was being kissed by Montgomery.
And she was pressing closer, tasting him, letting him in.
He wasn’t aloof now. A tug angled her head back, and the kiss became voluptuous; soft, urgent strokes of his tongue against hers, firm, knowing lips guiding hers . . . She sagged against him and his arms tightened around her, and the feel of his controlled strength brought all her sensitive places pulsing to life. She moaned softly into his mouth, and she heard his breathing fracture. His hands began coasting over her bare arms, the tender sides of her breasts, the dip of her waist . . . palmed her hips . . . clasping, kneading . . . he froze. His fingertips dug searchingly into the tops of her thighs. Lord. No corset there, no drawers.
She tore her lips from his. “I didn’t—”
He made a gruff sound in his throat. His hands clamped over her bottom and hitched her up against him, and she felt him between her legs, hot and heavily aroused. Her thoughts shattered. She arched against him on instinct, needing to offer her softness to his hardness.
His head tippe
d back and he groaned, low like a man in pain, urging all that was female in her to both torment and soothe him with her body, her hands, her mouth . . .
He released her and eased back.
No. She followed him, chasing the intimate friction.
His hands wrapped around hers and flattened them against his chest. “Annabelle.” His voice was hoarse.
No.
She hadn’t thought she’d ever know reckless, ecstatic desire again, and now he had filled her to the brim with it. She wanted him inside her, and that feeling could not end, not yet.
She rose to her toes to fasten her mouth to his again, but he turned his head, and her kiss landed on his jaw. A gentle rejection, but a rejection still.
Her heart seemed to plummet down into her stomach.
“Annabelle.”
She didn’t dare face him. But she felt the wild thud of his heart beneath her trapped hand. His breathing came in gulps. So did hers.
Sweat cooled on her skin.
From afar, she could again hear fragments of the music.
Holy hell.
She had tried to climb Montgomery like a cat.
She took a step back. “I . . .” Her voice was thready. “I don’t normally . . .”
“Shh.” He leaned his warm forehead against hers. “I forgot myself.”
He hadn’t. If it weren’t for his self-control, where would this have gone? There was no curtain. She was not even wearing undergarments . . . What must he be thinking?
He turned her around.
His hands gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t move.”
She heard his knees crack softly, and she understood that the duke was picking up scattered hairpins from the floor, and then he set about reassembling her coiffure. With astonishing alacrity, too. He knew a thing or two about women’s hair. He certainly knew a thing or two about seduction; she would have let him have his way with her in an alcove, where anyone could have walked past.
His fingers slid around her neck, his thumbs stroking lightly over her spine.
“I can hear you thinking,” he murmured. “Your word, that you will not go haring off into the night now.”
She huffed.
“Your word, Annabelle.” His voice was low and insistent.
She gave an indignant nod.
“Good.” He pressed a kiss to her nape, soft and quick. “Tomorrow, we will talk.” He gave her a gentle push. “Now go.”
She left the alcove on unsteady legs, blindly following the sound of the music. The feel of his mouth on her nape lingered, sizzling like a branding . . . Someone touched her arm, and she flinched.
“Annabelle.” Catriona was staring back at her.
“There you are,” she said, wincing at the unnatural pitch in her voice. “Where were you?”
“Your hair is mussed,” Catriona said.
Her hand went to the back of her head. “Oh. It must have come loose while I was . . . dancing.”
Catriona’s eyes were concealed, behind her glasses. So she had found them. Still, she looked alien.
It’s me.
Her mouth was tingling violently from Montgomery’s kisses. Next time she saw him, she would remember how he felt and tasted. This knowledge threw the rest of the world off center.
“You danced?” asked Catriona.
“Lord Ballentine asked me for a waltz.”
Her friend’s brow furrowed. “He’s a rake,” she said. “Did he behave?”
“Like a rake.”
So had she. She had moaned and rubbed herself against Montgomery’s impressive erection, oh God, his erection—
“Will you help me fix my hair?” she asked, suddenly desperate to not go back into the ballroom, to sit on a chair and pretend nothing had happened.
Catriona slid her arm through hers. “Of course. The powder room is this way.”
* * *
Sebastian absently offered matches to the Marquess of Whitmore, who had come to join him on the balcony to discuss the election campaign. He hesitated before putting the matches away. While he craved a cigarette himself, he wanted to savor the taste of Annabelle more.
She was back on the chair by the wall. Her glossy hair was tousled, and her cheeks and throat were flushed pink. She looked like a woman who had been debauched in an alcove, and the fact that other men could see her like this urged him to prowl circles around her like a primitive creature.
She had awakened that creature. It had begun to stir when he had galloped across the fields with her delectable backside bumping against his crotch, and it had finally snapped its leash when she had faced down Marsden with nothing but her rapier-sharp mind. Strange thoughts had begun invading his head, and stranger feelings still were now roiling in his chest. Last year, when the Earl of Bevington had fallen from grace by marrying an opera singer, he had cut all contact with the man. Bevington had to be mad to sacrifice everything that mattered over an unsuitable woman: his standing in society, his political career, the respect of his half-grown children. The man now vegetated in a dump in Verona with the singer wife. And just now, in the alcove, with Annabelle’s soft curves and lips pressing against him, feeling her need . . . for a few mad seconds, he had understood why some men did it, risked everything.
The unlit cigarette between his fingers was trembling slightly.
He had nearly lost control—over a kiss.
Was that how disaster had begun for Bevington?
“Lovely creature.” Whitmore was leaning over the banister. For the past few minutes, the marquess’s lecherous stare had followed Annabelle around like a dog after a juicy bone.
“Good Gad,” Whitmore muttered, “behold those tits.”
The banister near cracked in Sebastian’s grip. He must not hit the man. He was an important political ally. “You are speaking about a lady.”
“Oh, I heard she’s just a country girl,” Whitmore said, oblivious of the imminent danger to his jaw. “Though it is a pity when a prime piece like that happens to be a pleb, is it not? Look at that poise—just think, the same girl would have been a diamond of the first water, had someone slapped a title on her father in time.”
“What a sentimental notion,” Sebastian said. The words emerged cold and flat.
“I’m not complaining,” Whitmore said, his belly quivering with a silent chuckle. “Who is her protector, do you know?”
Everything inside Sebastian went quiet. Like the quiet after a shot had been fired, when the birds had stopped singing and the wind held its breath.
He took the matches from his chest pocket and lit the cigarette.
“You are not going to be her protector, Whitmore.”
The older man gave a little start.
Older, younger, fellow duke or prince. He would have said it to any one of them, Sebastian realized. It was almost as if the words had said themselves.
“I, ah, did not realize that was the way of things,” Whitmore said.
“There is nothing to realize.”
Whitmore held up a pacifying hand. “Of course, of course, and I wouldn’t fancy trespassing on ducal property. That’s not what a clever chap does now, is it.”
He watched the marquess retreat, his muscles still taut with tension. Whitmore wouldn’t be the only man present who was laboring under misapprehensions where Annabelle was concerned. From his vantage point, he could see them circling her, restrained only by a flimsy fence of etiquette. But they would make inquiries. She might have callers all the way to Oxford.
The cigarette snapped between his fingers. Manners and honor be damned. He could not do what Bevington had done, but he could take the next best option.
He gestured for a footman, and one promptly detached from the shadows.
“A pen, and a card,” Sebastian said.
He had the card delivere
d to her room while she was chatting with Greenfield’s daughter and studiously avoiding his eyes.
Annabelle,
Meet me at the entrance of the evergreen maze at 2 pm.
Yrs,
M.
Chapter 16
A Mendelssohn matinée the day after a ball,” Julien Greenfield grumbled to his wife. “Only a sadist would devise such a program.”
It was one o’clock and groups of lords and ladies were trailing toward Claremont’s music room, all in various stages of fatigue. The ball had concluded around three in the morning after the consumption of copious amounts of champagne, cognac, and cigars. By the time the last couples had limped off the dance floor, the flower decorations had wilted and conversations had become slurred and inane.
Sebastian moved among his guests like a panther among sheep. He was wired, filled with an impatience he only knew before important negotiations, during that precarious stretch before he was finally in the arena doing battle.
“Montgomery.” Caroline moved away from a trio of ladies and fell into step beside him, and he reflexively offered her his arm.
“My lady. You had a good morning?”
“Quite,” she said, “but I’m of a mind to be cross with you. How do you do it? You are the only one to not look even remotely shattered this morning.”
Because I never sleep much anyway.
He glanced down at her upturned face. As usual, she was immaculately made up, but because he could never overlook a detail even if he tried he did notice the bags beneath her eyes.
He knew that if he were to meet her gaze directly, he’d see the question she’d never ask him: Why did you not come to my room last night?
He stared straight ahead.
God knew he needed a woman; unspent desire was crawling beneath his skin like a swarm of mad ants, and Caroline was everything he had come to appreciate—mature, sophisticated, and not shy to express her likes and dislikes. Dealings with her resulted in mutual satisfaction instead of drama.
He also knew that taking her to bed a hundred times would not make his frustration go away. No, this went deeper than the natural urge for release, and relief was hopelessly pegged to one green-eyed bluestocking.