Brethen 03 - Temptation & Twilight
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And that moment was lost….
“Forgive me for speaking so bluntly,” she exclaimed.
“A terrible habit, I’m afraid. I have just recently begun reacquainting myself with Society. It’s been rather more BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012
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difficult than I first believed, but I had not thought my manners had deteriorated to this extent.” He laughed. A deep, full laugh that was rich and warm. “No, it is I who must beg an apology. You did shock me, Lady Elizabeth, but I must admit, it was not in a negative way.”
“Oh,” she murmured.
“Oh, indeed. I think you a woman who knows what you’re about, and it’s rather refreshing. Puts a gentleman a bit behind, in a way—we’re only taught how to converse with silly young women who are searching for husbands. There is never any fun in the conversations. I usually find myself drifting off to some other time and place, I’m afraid.”
“I do that frequently, too. Tell me, what place do you drift away to?”
“The Middle East. I spent most of my childhood and youth there. Egypt and Jerusalem, mostly.”
“Ooh,” she whispered, and heard his neck crack as he whipped his head in her direction. “How I envy you. I have long dreamed of travelling to the East. I might have gone, too, with my brother, if I had not lost my sight.” There was a period of silence—not borne of discomfort, but of thought. “If you might permit me to call on you, Lady Elizabeth, I would greatly fancy an opportunity to tell you some stories, and draw you a picture of the East through my eyes.”
She did blush then, a flush she hoped wasn’t discern-ible. While she tried to keep her composure, inside she was dancing for joy. Her emotions were suddenly volatile, something she never permitted herself. But then, she hadn’t allowed herself to think of a future in a long time. “I think that would be most lovely, Lord Sheldon.
I anxiously await your call.”
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“Will tomorrow do, or does that smack of a sort of desperation?”
“Not desperation,” she said with a smile and a slight lift of her chin. “But an eagerness to share a part of the world that few see, and even fewer Englishmen get to experience.”
“Indeed,” he murmured, and the sound slithered down her spine, awakening something dormant deep inside.
Careful now, she warned. It was far too soon for feelings like this. She was being fanciful, allowing herself to be swept away. She had been impulsive and fanciful before, and it had ruined her.
“Zeus appears to be frowning even more now,” he murmured in a most becoming baritone rumble. “Do you think it a reflection upon our unseemly conversation, or is it the way our heads are bent together while we whisper?”
“Oh, dear, are we causing talk?” She heard the smile in his words. “Talk of any sort is much better than the music we were forced to listen to tonight.”
“Do you not like Mr. Mozart?”
He shrugged; she felt the movement. “I have spent too long in the East. I prefer, I think, or perhaps I have just grown used to, the sounds of the doumbek and the dar-buka. There is a haunting sensuality about it. Even having never been there, one may close one’s eyes and listen to the sounds and imagine silk veils and dancers before you. But that is a story for a visit, is it not?”
“Yes,” she said, and frowned slightly when she heard how breathless her voice was. “What is it?” she asked suddenly, aware of a sensation that swept the room. “I hear rumblings.”
“I fear that we were lost to all but our conversation.” BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012
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The earl shifted beside her and Elizabeth sensed that he half turned away from her. “It appears as though the majordomo is preparing to announce someone.”
“Really?”
“Quite a character, it seems. Decked out like a ma-rauding Scot, actually. Has an expression that would have given Genghis Khan fits of apoplexy.”
“Oh, dear,” she whispered. There was only one character of the ton who fit that description, and she wanted to be far, far away from him. “Well, I think it’s grown rather close in here, don’t you? Perhaps we should heed Zeus’s silent counsel and stroll to where a window might be cracked open, or perhaps a strategically placed ter-race door?”
He was very intelligent, the earl was. He took her hand and deftly but discreetly manoeuvred her to the periph-ery of the room, where she could sense a door awaited their escape.
Suddenly, there was an almost violent brush of air that forced their hands apart. Then Sheldon was snatched from her side, right before she heard the thud of his body hitting something solid.
“I doona know who ye are,” Alynwick growled in his unmistakable brogue, “but yer hands are no’ where they belong.”
The earl tried to reply, but his rasping voice alerted Elizabeth to the fact he couldn’t take in air. The wave of shock from the crowd told her that the Highland beast was either choking him with his bare hands, or had thrust his arm, which she knew was as thick as a tree trunk, against poor Sheldon’s windpipe.
“Stop this at once,” she demanded in a hiss. “You’re making a scene.”
She could feel when those dark eyes landed on her.
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“I’m making a scene?” he retorted as if accusing her of making tongues wag.
Prickles of awareness raced down her spine, and Elizabeth knew the cause stemmed from the fact that every guest of the Sumners had their eyes fixed firmly on her and the mad marquis. “I insist you stop this now, Alynwick. Everyone will talk.”
“Doona worry, lass, we’ll give them somethin’ tae talk about, because yer leavin’ with me.”
“The devil I am!” she yelped in outrage. “Alynwick, dear God, pay attention to what you’re doing. I can hear Sheldon struggling for air.”
“Sheldon, is it?”
The sound of tussling, of fine wools brushing together, came to her ears, and she thought about throwing herself forward, hopefully between them. But if she fell to her knees, or worse, the floor, it would cause even more of a scene.
“Here now, what’s all this fuss about?” The masculine growl that came next Elizabeth was relieved to hear.
“Sod off, Sussex,” Alynwick muttered.
“Come now, my lord,” her brother said. His voice was smooth and light, but Lizzy heard the edge of warning in it. “We needn’t have such violence here.” It was a subtle warning to the marquis. The Brethren Guardians, of which her brother and the marquis were both members, did not need this sort of notoriety. Indeed, just by coming to break up the pair, Adrian was putting the Guardians at risk—because no one knew that Sussex, Alynwick and Lord Black shared more than the most polite and distant acquaintance with each other. If the marquis didn’t cease this madness, then everything they had fought to keep from the prying eyes of the ton might very well be in jeopardy.
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“Murder at the Musicale,” Sussex drawled. “I can read the headlines in the morning papers. I doubt you’re interested in giving the masses something other than sugar to sweeten their morning tea.”
Alynwick growled something in that familiar beastly way of his. That was followed by another rustle, a rasping gasp and a brush of masculine-scented air that swept past her—Alynwick being shaken of
f his lordship.
“Apologies, Sheldon. I am quite certain that the Marquis of Alynwick did not mean to introduce himself in such a way.”
“The hell I didn’t!”
“My lord,” Elizabeth whispered, moving a step toward the rasping earl and reaching out for what she thought might be his arm. “Are you all right? Can I summon a footman to fetch you something? A drink, perhaps?”
“Don’t even think to touch him in my presence,” said a dark, menacing voice in her ear. The sound made her shiver, as did the mysterious scent of his Scotch-laced breath washing over her. “If you doona want him torn tae pieces, leave him be.”
She didn’t want this—the marquis standing behind her, crowding her—and she stiffened, discovered the safe barriers she always erected when she found herself in his company. “You are nothing but an animal,” she snapped, careful to make certain no one but Alynwick could hear her outburst. “Unhand me this instant.” But the brute wouldn’t listen, and instead pressed closer to her, his big palm cupping her elbow in a fierce grip.
When he next spoke, he seemed to have put some measure of control on his anger, for his brogue had all but disappeared, leaving behind a silky English accent that worked its way along her body.
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“Animal, am I? Should I throw you down now and cover you, as befitting the animal I am?” he whispered.
She would not encourage his wicked behaviour with an answer. But Alynwick was never one to back away from a challenge, or wickedness.
“In the animal world,” he growled, “the alpha is the leader. He must exert his power and let everyone know he is in charge—and he’s, ” Alynwick said of Sheldon,
“trespassing on my hunting grounds.”
“This isn’t the jungle, and your laws have no jurisdic-tion in the ton.”
“You think not?” he purred. “The ton especially is a jungle, a feeding ground for prey like yourself. I’m merely exerting myself as chief predator.” Oh, she wished she could say what she really wanted to, and wish him to hell for the scene he had created and was bent on pursuing. But she was a lady, and must act the part while every eye of the ton looked on.
“Shall I call for your carriage, perhaps, Sheldon?” her brother enquired of the earl. Then his voice changed, as if he were looking in the opposite direction. “Lizzy, Lady Lucy approaches. She’ll escort you to our carriage. The evening festivities, I am afraid, have come to a rather abrupt cessation.”
Before she could sense any movement or sound, Elizabeth’s arm was taken firmly in hand, and she was whisked away with a rustle of silk, amidst shocked gasps from the Sumners’ scandalized guests.
“Let me go at once,” she demanded in a low voice, but the marquis didn’t hear her, or at the very least pretended he hadn’t, as he all but dragged her out of the salon and into a place that was much cooler and quieter.
“Whatever barbaric law you subscribe to, Alynwick, I am not one of your subjects. Unhand me.” BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012
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Silence. But his hold strengthened on her elbow, and his pace increased, so that she was forced to hurry her steps to keep up with him.
“You devil,” she explained, trying to disguise the alarm in her voice. “You’ll make me fall with this pace!”
“Shall I carry ye, then?”
“Don’t you dare, you heathen!” she spat breathlessly.
“Where are you taking me, pray?”
“Someplace quiet, where I can thrash you in private.” Her mouth dropped open in protest, but no words emerged. Only Alynwick and his fiendish ways could render her speechless and gauche. She hoped he hadn’t seen her expression, or the way she could barely keep up with him.
“This will have to do,” he muttered.
Her world was one of black obsidian, and she could not tell if he had brought her somewhere equally as dark, or merely shadowed. It was quiet, she knew. The distant clang of silver and china told her that they were closer to the servants preparing the midnight luncheon, and farther away from the salon. Whether they were in a room or a hall, she could not tell. She hated not knowing, of being blind to everything, when she had never been anything but these past twelve years. That she was not in control while in Alynwick’s company sent a jolt of panic down her body. Of anyone, she most feared being vulnerable when he was near.
The wall was cool against her neck and bare shoulders as he swung her around and pressed her against the plas-ter. She sensed him before her, his heat, the scent of his body. He loomed over her, his heavily muscled, tall frame standing so near her short, voluptuous one that she was forced to share the very air with him. She should lift her chin up, an act of defiance. Try to meet his gaze head-BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012
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on. But she had no knowledge of her eyes, and what they might do, where they might be directed, and she would not give him a glimpse of her weakness, no matter how fleeting it might be.
So she stood quietly, willing her breathing to slow and become controlled. Her head was lowered, her face averted, turned away from him. His breath kissed her skin as she maintained her stance, knowing she was not meeting his gaze, but showing him indifference. He touched her, the faintest graze of his fingertips along her cheek, and she struggled against him, pushing away from his touch. It only made him press closer to her—
obscenely closer, for she could feel the way his abdomen moved against her gown with each of his breaths.
“Say something,” she declared, despising the fact that she couldn’t see his face and expression. Was he looking at her? Smirking? Having a good laugh at her expense?
“What would you have me say?”
In a fit of frustration she stamped her foot. “How could you!” she demanded, thinking of how she must have looked to the Sumners’ guests as he dragged her out of the salon. “Oh,” she whispered, “what have you done?”
“Protected you,” he replied. “Sheltered you from the company of one who could never know you—not like how I know you.”
Refusing to pay any heed to the last of his statement, or the intimacy that seemed to be created between them, Lizzy forged on, thinking it best to steer him away from any reminders of the past. “Whatever were you thinking to do such a thing? Have you grown so uncouth?”
“Truth?” he murmured, and she refused to melt at the sound of his silken voice.
“Are you capable of speaking it?” she taunted.
“Aye. Are you capable of hearing it?” BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012
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Snorting with indignation, she motioned for him to continue. She did not, however, expect him to whisper into her ear, “I thought I might carry you off, back into my den, where I would play with you, paw at you, before devouring you whole.”
She shivered as she felt his hand brush along her gown.
“And there is quite a bit to devour, isn’t there?” he went on. “You’ve turned into a right armful, haven’t ye? Plump as a Rubens’ model, ye are,” he said, his deep voice rumbling in his chest. His comment only made her more vulnerable —and incensed. Churl! To speak of her figure in such a way was positively unforgivable. She had gained a few stone over the years, it was true, but it was grossly ungentlemanly for the man to mention it.
Using some of her anger, she said in a haughty voice,
“I demand to know what you are about, sir. The truth. ”
“And I demand the same. What the devil,” he growled back, “are you about
?”
“Not that it is any of your concern,” she sniffed in her best matriarchal tone, “but I am at a musicale, enjoying myself. I didn’t realize it was a crime.”
“Oh, aye, ’tis a crime, all right, looking the way you do, making every eye in the room turn your way. Making them stare at the picture you present.” She gasped, unable to help it. Such a cruel, cold bastard. She was a mature woman who could think what she wanted, say what she desired, and what she thought of Alynwick was nothing but the truth. She, more than anyone, knew just how cold and cruel, and every inch a bastard, the Marquis of Alynwick truly was.
His comment was beyond shocking, and she had to struggle to put herself to rights. She was an independent woman, a strong woman, and she would not let a member of the opposite sex demean her in such a way. She might BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012
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be blind, but she always carried herself with dignity and decorum. If the occupants of that room were gawking at her, that was their problem, not hers.
Just as she opened her mouth to give him a scathing set-down, he leaned forward, and she felt a faint wave of heat against her cheek.
“How can you go about like this, knowing everyone is watching?” he growled. He was closer now, his breath fanning her mouth. She could smell the Scotch, almost taste the sweet spice on her tongue. “I canna bear to see it.”
When she would not answer, he pressed closer, the heat of his body greedily absorbed by her traitorous one.
His mouth was even closer now, next to her ear, his voice almost a caress. “You show too much, Lady Elizabeth, reveal what is meant to be kept hidden, to be indulged and shared only with one that may appreciate the gift.”
“As I am completely blind, my lord, I have no idea what you are talking about. Just what am I showing?”
“I refer to the garment you have chosen to arrive in.”
“What could be the matter? It is an evening gown, sir.
Or have I had the misfortune to leave the house without my dress? Is that it? Am I naked?”
“You might as well be for what little it covers up.” His voice had changed. It still held anger, though she could not fathom why, but there was something else there, and she reached up, smoothed her hand along her throat, to discover for herself what atrocity Alynwick saw displayed before him.