by Kresley Cole
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.
Chapter 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 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 eyeswere 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—becausele 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 themutuels 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 apopular 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 meanaffair ." 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."
Chapter 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 yourkisses "—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.
"Truly?" Her lips slid into that mysterious half grin, and the need to see the rest of her face burned in him. "So the entire time I saw you searching the crowd, you were looking forme ?" Her accent was unusual—English upper class mixed with a tinge of French.
"Aye, for you," he said. "You were watching me from your vantage?"
"Raptly," she said, again straightforward, again surprising him.
The idea of her noticing him gave him an odd sense of gratification. "You're no' from London, are you?" When she shook her head, he asked, "Why are you here?"
"Do you want the truth or an answer fit for a masquerade?"
"Truth."
"I've come to England to search for a rich husband," she said.
"No' unusual," he replied. "At least you have the ballocks to admit it."
"I have a proposal waiting in the wings at home," she said, then frowned. "Though I had hopednot to fall back on that one."
"How is your hunt going?"
"Not as well as I'd wished," she said. "A few discountable proposals."
"Discountable? Why?"
"Whenever I ask them to qualify themselves, they back off."
"Is that so?" he asked, and when she nodded solemnly, he felt a completely unfamiliar tug at his lips. "And how would a man qualify himself to you?"
"By giving me a token that would actually be dear to him, like an expensive ring or a pair of matched bays, or something along those lines."
"You've given this a lot of thought."
"I think of nothing else," she said so softly that he scarcely heard her. Then she added, "I did almost secure one. A truly good man." Her blond brows drew together as she clearly mused about him. "There might still be the slimmest hope with that one."
For the first time in his life and at the age of thirty-three, Ethan felt the unmistakable heat of jealousy.
What the bloody hell is wrong with me?"Then should you no' be working tonight on securing him?" he asked, his voice colder.
She blinked up at him. "Oh. Well, the man I mentioned went out for the evening. I'm his sister's houseguest, so I'm accompanying her tonight."
That generation of Weylands had only one male—Quin. Ethan ground his teeth. Quin had always been a favorite with the ladies.
She sighed. "Ça ne fait rien. It doesn't matter." Her voice was growing a bit slurred.
"No, it does no'." The hell she'd besecuring Quin. Ethan would have to see her around London continually as their paths crossed—and if tonight was any indication, he'd have to continually cuckold Quin. "Forget him. He's no' here and I am."
She gazed up at him and tilted her head. "Take off your mask."
"That defeats the purpose of a masquerade, does it no'?" If he removed it, she would stop looking up at him with a growing curiosity glinting in her eyes, and instead, stare in horror. "I can enjoy you just as well with our masks on."
"And what makes you think I'd allow you to 'enjoy' me?" A flirtatious note had eased into her voice, so subtly he
might have missed it. Not coquettish—but amused, intrigued.
She was playing, enjoying herself, but she had no idea what she toyed with. "I've a sense for these things." He brushed the backs of his fingers below the sapphire silk of her mask, down her cheek, and she allowed it. "Tonight you're aching for a man."
At that, she glanced away. "You might be right, Scot," she said casually, then faced him once more. Her voice a purr, she asked, "But areyou the man I await…where I ache?"
He felt on the verge of grinning. Ach, he liked this excitement. This bandying. He liked that she flirted with him, even knowing she didn't plan to go further. Why hadn't a man like himself been attending masquerades every bloody week?
"I am that man." He took her by her tiny waist and lifted her onto the table along the wall.
"Scot, put me down!" she cried, but he could tell she was excited, well past intrigued now. "Why did you do that?"
"I want to be face-to-face with you when I kiss you for the first time."
Finally, his words drew a small gasp from her lips. "Are you always so arrogant?"
"Aye, always." He wedged his hips between her legs.
"You need to let me down," she said, even as she hesitantly ran her fingertip over his arm—as if she'd struggled not to but hadn't been able to help herself. "I've no time or use for handsome rakes with smooth words."
His lips did curl then, pulling on the tight skin of his face, forcing him to recall that he didn't smile—and that he was no longer handsome. "How do you know what I look like? This mask covers most of my face."
"You have a powerful body and a seductive smile. Gorgeous eyes," she said in a breathy voice that made his shaft throb. "You said you've a sense for certain things—well, I appreciate handsome men. An aficionada, if you will. There's a reason I spied you out tonight."
"Is that so?" When she nodded, he said, "Tell me your name."