Pity.
“I know enough,” she murmured, more to herself as she skimmed her palm over a nearby rose-inlaid table.
“Oh?” he drawled.
The lady froze mid-movement, glanced about, and then dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “He’s something of a rake, you know.”
He’d spent years reveling in that very role. If this lady knew the extent of the wickedness he’d been rightfully accused of through the years, she’d have torn out of the room, sore feet be damned. “Actually I do know,” he said dryly.
“Not that I know personally,” she spoke quickly, a red blush staining her enchanting, heart-shaped face.
“Ah,” he said stretching out that single syllable. “The gossip columns.” His name had been quite bandied about those rubbish pages. Where most information contained on those sheets was, no doubt, at worst, lies, and, at best, exaggerations, every scandalous tidbit printed about him had been shockingly accurate.
Genevieve With-No-Surname picked up a nearby porcelain shepherdess. She turned the piece over in her hands, eying it contemplatively. “I have it on the words of someone I trust greatly.” She set the piece down and quickly lifted her head. “Not that I would form judgments on a person based on another’s opinions.”
She should. To not do so would be folly that saw her prey to an even more caddish lord than himself. If such a man existed. Although he’d made it a habit of avoiding those pinch-mouthed, proper companions over the years, something about this rigid lady in her gray muslin skirts and her tendency to ramble held him enthralled. Cedric inclined his head. “What else do you know of our distinguished host?” He was suddenly eager to know just what this innocent slip had uncovered.
She opened her mouth and then closed it. She opened it again. “It is in bad form to speak ill of one’s host.”
Speak ill of? “Now you have me intrigued.” He favored her with a wink and dropped his voice in a like whisper. “Then, it is his father who is the host.”
A frown tipped her lips down in the corners. That subtle movement plumped the flesh of her lower lip. He narrowed his eyes. Well, for her rigid, unassuming appearance, there was nothing proper about that pouty mouth. A surge of lust ran through him as he imagined the wicked delights and pleasures to be found with—
“It is in bad form to speak ill of anyone,” she said chidingly, dousing his ardor with the solemnity there.
He blinked. “Oh, I am sure the marquess is not a man who’d much care.”
The lady drifted closer and stopped before him. “I’m sure, despite the rumors, even he cares, Cedric. Even those that Society believes incapable of feeling anything, care.”
He studied her, momentarily sucked in a spell cast by the light quality of her whispered words. When they at last registered, he gave his head a shake. The lady in her innocent-spoken words revealed her naïveté and also revealed why he’d avoided those naïve ladies. Despite her whimsical belief, he didn’t care. He’d spent the better part of his nearly thirty years not caring: about Society’s opinion, about his father’s ducal expectations and disdain, about the mother who’d forsaken him even before her death. None of it. He’d come to live for his own pleasures and take material and physical gratification as he would.
She again captured that porcelain shepherdess and ran her fingertip over the frilled porcelain skirt. “Regardless, I do not pass judgment on the marquess on mere gossip alone,” she added. Why did he suspect it was important that he knew she was not one of those ladies to judge a person by those words printed on a page?
He perched his hip on the back of a leather button sofa. “What else have you formed your judgment on?” What, if not the gossip that she spoke of with such disdain? Did that mean the lady herself had been the victim of those scandal sheets? He scoffed. The ton would never cut their teeth on an innocent such as her.
“Well, as you’re probably aware by your attendance this evening, the gentleman cannot be bothered to be timely to his own ball.”
He finished his drink and lowered the empty glass to the floor at his feet. “That is an unforgiveable crime?” If that was the manner of offenses this one would take exception to, then what would she say of the outrageous parties he’d delighted in throwing over the years at his bachelor’s townhouse? Except that only conjured an image of her in a silk, dampened gold gown, as the feast at those forbidden parties, while he very deliberately removed every inch of that stiff, ugly dress, revealing her flushed, naked skin to the candle’s glow. Cedric groaned.
“Are you all right?” she asked, concern lacing that question.
“Fine,” he managed, his voice garbled. “You were speaking of our distinguished host.”
“Well, not our host,” she reminded him of his earlier correction. “Rather, his son.”
“The gentleman who can’t be bothered with punctuality.” Another thing he’d never given a jot about through the years. He arrived when he wished and departed on his own terms, and not really given a thought as to how others might feel about it.
Genevieve turned her palms up. “It indicates much about his character, does it not?” No, he rather thought it said nothing of importance.
He swung his leg back and forth in a lazy manner. “Explain it to me in a way I might understand, love.”
Her mouth parted, even as her eyes formed round, moss green saucers that conjured country fields and summers days. He stilled. God, how he’d always loved the long, summer days in Leeds. He’d been so immersed in the debauchery in London that all those memories had faded to the distant chambers of his mind. Only to be brought forward by the green of her eyes. He choked again. What manner of madness was this, lusting after a barely pretty companion who’d snuck off to remove her slippers?
“You were saying?” he managed, his words garbled.
She shook her head. “Yes,” she said matter-of-factly. “Well, if the marquess cannot bother to honor the time of others, it merely means he sees his time as more important.”
There was merit to her unwitting accusations. He’d been schooled from the cradle to expect the world was his due and to move as he pleased, when he pleased.
Genevieve flared her eyes, horror filling their expressive depths. “You are not friends with the marquess, are you?”
A wry grin twisted his lips. “I am not.”
She breathed an audible sigh. “Oh, thank goodness. What a disaster that would be.” The lady might have muttered something under her breath about disapproving parents…
Cedric stared at her with the long-case clock ticking away the moments. There was nothing disastrous about this meeting. Rather, this frank Genevieve With-No-Surname made joining an infernal affair he’d had no intention of visiting something he was suddenly eager to attend. And yet, not the festivities of the ball but rather this prolonged exchange with her here, now, away from prying eyes.
Genevieve wetted her lips and his gaze fell to her mouth. He swallowed a groan. No woman had a right to a mouth like that. It was a walking temptation that no man could resist. The kind of seductive offering that had led Adam down the path of ruin and men to wage wars. “Now, I really must go,” she said softly. “Before my absence is noted.”
He did not know the guest responsible for this woman’s presence this evening from Eve, but loved the bloody woman for her negligence. “Yes,” he whispered.
Except neither of them moved. They both remained locked in this charged moment that not even the earth being knocked off its axis could break. Cedric lifted his free hand and cupped the back of her neck. Soft as satin.
The muscles of her throat bobbed as he lowered his head with a deliberate slowness, allowing her to pull away and retreat. “I should not.” Her voice emerged on a hoarse croak that spoke to her inner battle.
For all the crimes he was guilty of as a rake, never had he bedded a virgin and never had he forced himself on an unwilling woman. He’d not begin now. The quick rise and fall of her chest and the little whispery spurts of
air escaping her lips sent a thrill of masculine triumph through him. He touched his lips to hers and the intoxicating taste of strawberry and mint washed over him. “You taste of summer berries,” he breathed as he dragged his mouth down the length of her neck to the place where her pulse beat madly.
“Th-the duke had trays o-of strawberries,” she panted with an innocent sincerity that raised a soft smile. Her lashes fluttered as he molded his mouth to hers, exploring the contours of her lips.
“Your lips are made for kissing,” he said, between kisses.
“They a-are too big.” From any other woman those would have been words to elicit pretty compliments. Yet, with this young lady who spoke her mind freely, she was lacking in all artifice and there was something so potent in that honesty.
“They are perfection.” He slanted his lips over hers, first gently and then more incessantly. A little moan escaped her and Cedric slipped his tongue inside to stroke hers in a possessive manner that sent her arms twining about his neck. She pressed her chest against his and he cupped the generous curve of her buttocks dragging her against his throbbing shaft.
They knocked into the table and a porcelain urn tumbled over the edge. It exploded into a spray of splintered glass.
Genevieve cried out and stumbled out of his arms. She blinked and the haze of desire clouding her green irises lifted, leaving in its place a slow-growing horror. They stood unmoving, their chests rising in a matched rapid movement. As she pressed her fingertips against her swollen lips, he braced for her virginal protestations. “W-We’ve destroyed the duke’s piece.”
Through the pain of unfulfilled desire, he managed to speak. “I’m sure he won’t even notice.” And he wouldn’t indicate just how he knew that. The duke didn’t care about anything; his own children, included.
Oh, God. Standing here with her lips still burning from this stranger’s kiss, her body ached to know more of his touch. Genevieve acknowledged the truth she’d not known, the accusation leveled against her by the ton for five years now—she was a wanton. How else to explain this powerful energy thrumming inside her and desire for more of this man’s tender ministrations. Nay, of a stranger.
If an imagined act had found her banished, what fate awaited her for this hungering to turn herself over to the power of his embrace? She dug deep for the proper shame and horror. She was the wanton Society believed her to be, for nothing other than her scandal. All she knew, however, was feeling. A desire to be close to him once more, in ways she didn’t fully understand. “I must go,” she whispered.
“Good evening,” he murmured.
Good evening. She wrinkled her brow, hating herself for being a contrary creature. She’d wanted him to protest her going. Alas, he’d offer nothing more than a parting greeting? How could he be so wholly unaffected when this had been the most magical, earth-shattering moment of her three and twenty years? Well, except for the moment he’d slipped her shoes back on her feet. That had been the second most singularly magic moment. Genevieve worried her lower lip and inadvertently drew his gaze back to that flesh. She stopped abruptly. “Cedric,” she said and then reluctantly turned to go.
“Wait,” he murmured and her heart leapt at his quiet command.
Genevieve looked questioningly up at him.
He stalked over and then stopped beside her. “Here,” he spoke in that husky baritone that washed over her. With swift, purposeful movements, he tucked several loose strands into the artful arrangement her maid had worked. She stood breathless, as he quickly put her hair to rights and then smoothed the fabric of her slight puffed sleeves.
She should be appalled; with him, with herself. The sureness of his actions bespoke a man far too familiar with these stolen trysts behind strange doors; the dishonorable, disloyal sorts. So why did she crave more of his embrace? She paused with her fingers on the handle and cast a look over her shoulder. Cedric remained fixed to the spot where she’d received the most passionate kiss of her life. She sought to commit him to memory as he was just then. For in the stilted misery she’d dwelled these two weeks in London, this man had reminded her that she was very, very much alive. And oh, how she loved being alive. “Will I see you again?” Even as the question slipped out, she recognized the foolishness in wanting to see him again.
Another half-grin tipped the left corner of his mouth. “Oh, I suspect you shall.”
With fingers that trembled, Genevieve, unlocked the door and hurried from the room. All along, she’d dreaded the Duke of Ravenscourt’s ball. Only to find herself looking forward to the remainder of the night. Excitement danced inside her belly and added a jaunt to her step as she fled down the halls. The din of the ballroom increased with each footfall that brought her closer and she forced herself to stop.
Sore toes forgotten, she closed her eyes, and drew in a steadying breath. She should be shamed by the wantonness of that stolen exchange with Cedric, who, with his chiseled perfection, could rival any one of da Vinci’s carved masterpieces. He was a man whose full name she still did not know, but whose kiss she’d shamelessly returned, and desperately craved even now. Genevieve touched tremulous fingers to her lips. The handful of words he’d murmured as she’d left, more promise than anything, danced around her mind. Oh, I suspect you shall…
And suddenly, she, who’d longed for a frisson of romance and wonder, knew it with a stranger, in the Duke of Ravenscourt’s home, no less.
“What are you doing?”
The shocked question brought Genevieve’s eyes flying open. Her heart dipped at the unexpected appearance of her sister. Concern radiated from her sister’s emerald green eyes. She mustered a smile. Mayhap if she feigned nonchalance her sister would abandon any questions she might have. “I just required a moment.” Drat for that slight tremor.
Her sister came to an abrupt stop before her. Gillian peered at her beneath appropriately suspicious eyes. “You required a moment?” Heavy skepticism underscored that question.
Genevieve’s mind raced. “My slippers.” She tugged up her skirts and revealed the miserable satin pair. Her sister looked down. “My toes ached and you do know how Mother is about properness, and I wanted to remove the slippers because they ached. Terribly,” she added.
Gillian continued to scrutinize her with regard better reserved for a Bow Street Runner. “Why were you leaning against the wall in that manner?”
Oh, blast, she’d always been relentless. “My toes,” she said with another forced smile. “They’re still deuced awful.”
Her sister said nothing for a long moment and then she nodded. “Mother is looking for you.”
Genevieve silently cursed. If Mother had seen Gillian, she’d well know there had never been a meeting between friends, and the last thing Genevieve cared to answer or could answer without thinking of Cedric, was where she’d been. She looped her arm through her sister’s and made their way to the ballroom. As they reached the end of the corridor, she cast one lingering glance back.
Was he waiting in the shadows even now? Would he seek her out and request a dance?
“What are you staring at?” Gillian asked, furrowing her brow.
Her cheeks warmed. “Nothing, I am merely reluctant to return to the ball.” Which was not altogether untrue. She’d greatly prefer the company of Cedric, alone in the duke’s too-large library.
“Well, I am of like opinion on that,” Gillian muttered as they stepped out into the crowded hall. Together, they skimmed their gaze over the crowd. “There is Mother.” She motioned to Mother’s position alongside Lady Erroll.
She sighed. She’d rather walk through burning coals on a hot summer’s day than spend any time with her always-miserable mother. By Papa’s absence at the same affairs, he was of like opinion. Alas, Genevieve was left alone to endure her mother’s machinations to wed her off to…well, anyone with a respective title. Given her betrayal, one would think Mother would seek out an honorable gentleman for her marriageable daughter. Alas…
Her mother looked to
her and frowned.
No doubt, she wondered where her shameful daughter had been off to. With reluctant footsteps, she made her way through the throng of guests over to her mother.
“At last,” her mother said to Gillian through tight lips, ignoring Genevieve altogether. “You might have missed the marquess’ arrival.” Mother’s relentless dedication to see Gillian wed spoke volumes of her desperation. A loud buzz went up around the ballroom. “He is here,” Mother said with an uncharacteristic excitement in her usually bored tones.
As one, ladies throughout the ballroom looked to the entrance of the hall.
Genevieve gave her head a wry shake. How silly they all were, seeking a title and wealth, and not having the sense to crave so much more. And I had a very brief taste of it and now that will never be enough. A tiny fluttering danced in her belly as, unbidden, she sought Cedric amongst the crowd.
“…Oh, my goodness. The marquess is looking directly at you, Gillian.”
“No, he is not, Mother,” Gillian said with a roll of her eyes.
And then their mother blinked. “Why…why…no he’s not! He is looking at… Genevieve.” That furious whisper pulled her attention to her flighty parent.
Was it a wonder a woman with such flawed logic should imagine glances and interest from the rakish marquess? “He is not looking at me,” she said under her breath, resuming her search of the crowd for another. What if she did not see him again? Then, what good could come from seeing him again?
“No. I believe he is.” Her mother’s angry words interrupted her musings.
An exasperated sigh slipped from her lips. Could she not even just have the pleasure of her thoughts? “Why would the marquess be staring at…?” She followed her mother’s none-too-subtle point to the six-foot four-inch, very familiar gentleman at the top of the stairs, standing alongside the Duke of Ravenscourt. Over the heads of the other guests, their gazes locked, and the ghost of a smile hovered on his lips.
Her heart sank. That is why he would stare. And from across the ballroom, Cedric winked.
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 35