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 the degree of his attraction.
He’d bedded women as lovely as she, so why did he feel an inexplicable sense of urgency to join her—to get her? Ethan knew he could find her again. She was friends with the Weylands. So why did he want her at 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 tolerate 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 because you 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 to stay 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.
Her secret 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 of her.
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. A hungry 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—she was the only one seated here—Maddy lowered her glass. He must 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 eyes were dark—and she’d never seen such intensity. She inhaled a shaky breath.
Le coup de foudre.
Bolt out of the blue. No, no. No bolts for me! Maddy was ever practical, never fanciful. She had no idea why that thought had arisen—because le coup de foudre had a second, more profound meaning.
The urge to take his hand was overwhelming. She clutched her glass in one hand and her skirts in the other. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m not who you seek, nor am I, er, one among these other women.”
“I ken that.” He took her elbow—gently, but firmly—and helped her to her feet. “If you were like these other women, I would no’be seeking you at all.” He had a marked Scottish accent and a voice so deep and husky that it gave her shivers.
“But I don’t know you,” she said, sounding breathless.
“You will soon, lass,” he answered, making her frown. But before she could say anything, he took her glass and set it away, then caught her hand to pull her from the dais into the crowd.
For Maddy, two flaws warred with each other for the title of What Would Prove to Be Maddy’s Downfall: an overly developed sense of curiosity and a marked pride. She imagined the traits to be in a race, like two horses in the mutuels on which she occasionally gambled. Right now, curiosity took the lead, demanding that she hear what the Scot had to say—even when she realized he was taking her toward the rooms lining the back wall of the warehouse. She quirked a brow. The rooms where prostitutes more fully serviced their patrons.
He opened the first door they came upon. Inside the dimly lit area, a woman was on her knees before a young man, taking him with her mouth while he leaned down and pinched her swollen, rouged nipples.
“Out,” the Scot ordered with quiet menace. “Now.”
The woman obviously sensed a threat better than her patron did, and she pushed the drunken man back to tug up her bodice and scurry to her feet.
The Scot swung a glance at Maddy as the pair lurched out, no doubt to gauge her reaction to what they’d just witnessed. She shrugged. One of her best friends and across-the-hall neighbor was a popular girl, and scenes like this took place constantly where she lived. Turn any corner and find a different vice on display.
At twenty-one years of age, Maddy had seen it all.
As soon as they were alone, he closed the door and retrieved a chair to wedge against it. Where was her alarm? Where was her well-developed sense of self-preservation in a place like this? The room was dominated by a massive bed—twelve feet square at least—draped in glaring scarlet silk; no one could hear her scream back here, and they would ignore it even if they could, thinking a prostitute was giving a good show.
Yet, for some reason, she sensed this man wouldn’t hurt her, and she possessed unfailing and proven instincts with men—a priceless gift to have in La Marais.
In any case, if things played out badly, this wouldn’t be the first time she’d kindly introduced her knee to a man’s groin and her fist to his Adam’s apple. He would be shocked at how dirty and fiercely this dainty mademoiselle could fight.
When he returned from securing the door, he stood before her, far too close to be polite. She had to crane her head up to face him. “As I told you before, sir, I’m not one of these women. I don’t belong back here, nor should you be…collecting me as you did.”
“And as I told you before, had you been a courtesan, I would no’ have collected you at all. I know you’re a lady. What I doona know is why you’re at this masquerade.”
I’m trying to forget that soon I’ll have to return to hell….
She shook herself and answered, “I’m here with my friends. We’re out for adventure.” At least, the others were. She planned to pick pockets once the punch was flowing freely.
“And by ‘adventure’ you mean affair.” His tone seemed to grow irritated. “A bored young wife looking for a bedmate?”
“Not at all. We’re merely here to be scandalized so we’ll have something to write in our little diaries.” As if she could afford either the diary or the time to write.
“Is that why you allowed me to lead you back here? Because you thought I’d make good diary fodder?”
“I allowed you because it would have been fruitless to resist,” she replied. “I’ve seen intent like yours before. Would anything have stopped you from taking me to one of these rooms?”
“No’ a thing in the world,” he said, catching her eyes.
“Precisely. So I decided that instead of being hauled over your shoulder and carried, I might as well follow you to a quiet spot so I could explain to you that I am not interested in this.”
He stalked closer to her, forcing her back to a narrow table along the silk-papered wall. “My intent was no’ only to get you alone, lass. And it has no’ waned.”
&
nbsp; Three
Her demeanor was surprisingly composed, her brilliant blue eyes calmly measuring behind her mask, as if a six-and-a-half-foot-tall Highlander accosting her in a darkened room made for sex was commonplace.
Up close, Ethan could see that she was probably no more than twenty, but she was possessed of herself—and even more impossibly lovely than he’d believed when she’d passed him on the street outside.
“And what is your intent?” she asked. Her breaths might have shallowed at his undisguised attention, especially when his gaze dropped to flicker over her breasts. She was slim, too much so for his customary taste, but her small breasts were expertly displayed, her cleavage plump above her tight bodice. He wanted to rip off his mask and rub his face against that creamy flesh.
“My intent is to”—have a woman beneath me for the first time in three years—“kiss you.”
“You’ll have to get your kisses”—she stressed the word as if she doubted that was all he wanted—“from one of the hundreds of courtesans out there.”
“Doona want them.” When his gaze had met hers in the crowd and her pink lips had parted, Ethan had been stunned to find himself swiftly growing hard as stone. Now as he leaned his face in closer to her hair—a mass of white-blond curls, swept up to bare her neck—he smelled her light flowery scent and shot harder, his shaft straining hotly against his trousers. He savored the rare feeling, wanting to groan at the unexpected pleasure. “I followed you in here from the street.”
“Why?” Her tone was straightforward, and he silently thanked her for not being coquettish.
“I saw you outside under a streetlight. I liked the way you smiled.”
“And you just happened to have this with you?” She reached up, skimming her fingertips along the edge of his mask, but he caught her wrist, lowering it before releasing her.
“I liberated it from a passing patron when I saw you enter.” The drop of his mask fluttered above his upper lip, and he’d quickly determined that no one could discern the extent of his scarred visage when courtesans had sought his attention in the crowd filling the Hive. When they’d hindered his progress, he’d been tempted to lift his mask to frighten them away.
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