She also intended to pursue her decision to take a lover.
Taking on a man like Blackmoor had been aiming too high for her first venture, but there was no reason to think she would make that same mistake a second time.
She had liked, enjoyed their sexual encounters. She liked sex. And she wished to enjoy it again.
Even if, at the moment, the thought of being intimately involved with any other man but Julian Remington caused her stomach to churn in revolt.
She would recover from the feelings she had for him. She was determined to do so. She must do so, for her own sake.
She straightened. “It is your prerogative to persuade Amelia not to go out this evening, but I have every intention of attending the Wiltons’ ball.”
Julian frowned his frustration with her answer. “To spite me?”
Her eyes glittered angrily. “Believe it or not, my actions are not, and never have been, dictated by the Duke of Blackmoor! Now, I should like you to leave my private parlor and never come back.”
Had he just described himself as being the controlling and controlled Duke of Blackmoor?
Ha. Thea had the power to rip away that control with one defiant tilt of her head.
She sighed heavily. “I did not have the chance, the opportunity to say the other day…” she spoke quietly. “I am…sorry, for the way in which you suffered in the past—”
“It was my own fault for being so stupid.”
“You were very young—”
“I do not need your pity!” Julian rasped.
“Then what do you want from me?” A frown creased her creamy brow.
“I want… Damn it, I want…” He did. He wanted Thea so badly, he had used the conversation about the Wilton ball as an excuse to see and be with her again. Oh, he considered the threat of Jennifer to be a real one, but he could have sent a note to that effect to Latham. He had no need to call on Thea personally.
Except he wanted…
He had caressed every inch of Thea’s body, had tasted her intimately too, but he had realized these past few days that he had never kissed her on the lips.
Perhaps because he feared to do so? Because, despite those other intimacies they had shared, it had helped to keep Thea emotionally at arm’s length if he treated her with the same impersonality as every other woman he had bedded these past sixteen years. Kissing her on the lips would have changed that.
Lips that he could not stop staring at. Puffy, slightly parted lips, he had enjoyed watching about the girth of his cock as her cheeks hollowed, and she sucked, and her tongue stroked him to climax, but lips he had never felt pressed against his own.
Thea’s eyes widened in alarm as Blackmoor stalked slowly and purposefully towards her. “What are you doing…?” She took a step back, only to find herself with her back pressed against the drapes in the window. “Blackmoor—”
“Julian,” he encouraged throatily, his hands feeling cool as they now cupped her heated cheeks.
“You will call me Julian when you are in the throes of orgasm.”
She gave a shake of her head. “I will not allow you to—”
“A kiss is all I am asking for, Thea,” he assured her gruffly. “Just a single kiss before you send me on my way.”
A kiss. The two of them had shared many things these past few weeks, but never that.
But, oh, how she wanted it.
How she hungered for Julian’s kiss.
She remained still within the confines of his hands against her cheeks, his gaze holding hers as he slowly lowered his head.
Thea’s knees almost buckled beneath her at the first touch of his lips against her own. Lips she had expected to be cold and hard, because he could be so cold and hard, and instead they were soft and warm as they gently explored and coaxed hers into the kiss.
Her gloved hands moved up to clutch at his waist in order to steady herself as the sweetness of the kiss went on and on, until it seemed it drew the very heart from her body and into his keeping forevermore.
I am in love with Julian Remington, the Duke of Blackmoor.
The realization was so startling, so heartbreaking, that Thea pulled sharply away, blinking back the tears she refused to cry in front of him. “Please go now.”
“I—”
“Please.” He had to leave, before Thea broke down completely and started to cry at the utter futility of having fallen in love with him.
His hands dropped back to his sides, his expression once again that of the haughty Duke of Blackmoor. “And the ball this evening?”
She straightened her shoulders. “I have told you I have every intention of attending.”
Then so, Julian decided with frustration, would he.
Chapter 14
How good it felt to be in society once again, after all those years spent in Italy. Banished. Dead, as far as her family and society were concerned.
But no longer.
It had not been an easy task persuading Shilton into bringing her to the Wiltons’ masked ball with him this evening, but the promise to suck his cock sometime during the evening, a service his wife did not provide, had soon persuaded him into accepting the risk of discovery by having his wife and mistress at the same ball together. In the end, Shilton had seemed excited at the prospect.
No one from either the Blackmoor or Latham families had arrived as yet, but Jennifer had no doubts they soon would.
And once they did…
A catlike smile curved her lips as she envisaged the shock on Blackmoor’s face. He could do no more than stand by and watch as his world crumbled in front of his eyes.
Chapter 15
Thea easily recognized Blackmoor, despite the black mask that covered half his face. There was no mistaking that slightly curling and overlong dark hair, as well as the width of shoulders in the black superfine, as Julian stood on the other side of the Wiltons’ ballroom conversing with several of his friends.
How could she not recognize the man with whom she now knew herself to be in love?
She had finally allowed herself to cry those heartbroken tears once Julian had left her earlier today. Had cried until there were no more tears left inside her and she became filled with a calm acceptance that she could not choose whom her heart loved; it just did.
At least she now knew what it was like to love someone, wholeheartedly and completely. Also futilely, but that was not Julian’s fault. He had never misled her in regard to their relationship, had told her from the beginning that he was only interested in claiming her body and not her heart.
After their conversation this afternoon, she had half expected that she would see him here this evening. Out of his concern for Amelia, if nothing else.
Anticipating his presence, Thea had considered wearing the red silk gown again as an act of rebellion for his high-handed ways. Then decided against it and instead worn a gown of a pale coffee color. She had already worn the red gown twice in the past few weeks. Also, if Jennifer Brown was to be at the ball tonight, as Julian suspected, then Thea wished to remain as inconspicuous as possible so that she might also aid Amelia, if it became necessary.
Was it really possible the other woman could be behind one of these masks? Julian said not to underestimate Mrs. Brown, but even so, Thea could not believe the other woman would be so reckless as to attack Julian or Amelia in public.
The woman who had poisoned her lover because he refused to marry her and had then calmly tricked his younger brother into that same bogus marriage?
The same woman who had abandoned the child she knew to be hers, even if she had no idea who the father was, in exchange for money and safe passage to Italy?
The woman who may have pushed Thea beneath a carriage in hopes of causing her serious if not fatal harm?
Julian was right. A woman capable of doing those things would have no qualms about attending the Wilton ball.
But for what purpose?
To physically harm Julian?
Or, as he believed, Amel
ia?
Thea quickly looked about the ballroom for the young girl, finally locating Amelia on the dance floor with George. A quick glance across at Julian revealed he was also watching the young couple.
For the same reason?
Thea’s heart ached as she saw how strained Blackmoor was about his unsmiling mouth and jaw. It seemed so unfair that he should have to suffer this further torment after all Jennifer Brown had already done to him and his family. She wished—
“Do not show alarm or surprise,” she was warned pleasantly by someone standing behind her, at the same time as something cold and hard was pressed into the small of Thea’s back.
A gun?
Was it possible that the person now standing behind her was Mrs. Brown, and that she had a gun digging into Thea’s back? In the middle of the Wiltons’ ballroom, where anyone might see?
Except they wouldn’t, Thea realized with a sinking heart as she glanced frantically around the room. A masked ball, where no one could know for sure the identity of another, was always a good excuse for people to laugh and talk too loudly without fear of social condemnation. As many of the guests in the crowded ballroom were currently doing.
Her brother had gone off earlier to play cards in one of the other reception rooms.
Her nephew and Amelia had eyes only for each other.
Julian—Julian was still watching the young couple through narrowed lids.
There was just Thea.
And the vengeful Jennifer Brown.
Thea forced down her feelings of panic and made herself speak calmly. “What is it you want, Mrs. Brown?”
“Ah, I see Blackmoor has confessed all to you.” The other woman laughed softly. “A pretty tale, is it not?”
“It is an ugly tale,” Thea spoke firmly. “But it’s yours and yours alone. Julian—Blackmoor did, and continues to do, nothing wrong.”
“He killed my husband.”
“It is my understanding James Brown died in Italy of influenza.”
“Because we had no money left to pay for a doctor!”
“I am sure Blackmoor was more than generous in his settlement to you and cannot be blamed if you and your husband had spent it all.”
“He deprived me of my child.”
“You sold your child,” Thea corrected.
Thea had no experience of dealing with the sort of deranged mind she considered Mrs. Brown’s to be, but she suspected it was not a good idea to be antagonizing her in this way.
Except she could not stand here and listen, as Mrs. Brown maligned the man she had treated so abominably that his heart was now hardened to the point where he found it impossible to love anyone but his daughter. For that alone—
“My God, you are in love with him!” the other woman exclaimed scornfully.
Thea stiffened. “I am going to turn around now. I dislike intensely having to talk to someone whom I cannot see.” She turned slowly so as not to alarm the other woman into squeezing the trigger, if that was indeed a gun pressing into her spine.
It was. A small pistol, mainly hidden beneath the ruff at the end of the other woman’s sleeve. Enough so that no one else appeared to have noticed it.
Jennifer herself was a slender woman several inches shorter than Thea. Very petite in a blue silk gown the exact color of the eyes visible through the white mask she wore. Her blonde hair was drawn up onto her crown, with several loose curls at her temples and nape. Her face, what Thea could see of it below the mask, was beautiful, her neck slender and delicate.
The other woman looked like Amelia, not a murderess—
And how should I know what a murderess looks like?
Was she becoming hysterical, Thea wondered? This was certainly a stressful situation, nor was it rational to be having conversations with herself. Especially when the woman Thea had just decided did not have the look of a murderess was in fact pointing that small pistol directly at her heart.
“How brave you are,” the other woman taunted. “But then, you would have to be to have become involved with Blackmoor.” She gave an unpleasant laugh. “I have heard he has become as cold as ice and as unfeeling as stone. I wonder how cold and unfeeling he will be once I have disposed of you,” she added conversationally.
Thea forced a pitying expression. “I hope you are not under the misapprehension he cares for me?” She shook her head. “If so, I am sorry to disillusion you, madam.”
Those blue eyes narrowed behind the mask. “The two of you have been meeting secretly.”
“Not recently. Or had you not noticed?”
“He came to see you just this afternoon.”
It made Thea feel nauseated to know that this woman had been watching her and Blackmoor so closely. “To discuss last-minute details of the wedding, nothing more.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am afraid not.” She grimaced. “You seem to know so much about Blackmoor, I’m surprised you did not learn his…interest in any woman is only ever fleeting.”
“You are different.”
“I assure you I am not. We had a…pleasant interlude together, but now it’s over.”
Jennifer’s face twisted with rage at the unmistakable sincerity in Thea’s tone. “You’re lying!”
“No—”
“Enough!” The other woman pushed the pistol painfully into Thea’s ribs. “Whether you and Blackmoor are still involved is irrelevant. You are aunt to the young man Amelia is to marry. Your death at the hands of Amelia’s mother, the woman Blackmoor has told everyone is dead, will cause a scandal he and his family will never recover from.”
“And is that what you want?” Thea frowned. “To ruin Amelia’s life as well as Blackmoor’s?”
Blue eyes glittered behind the mask. “Even as a baby, she preferred him to me.”
Perhaps because Julian had always loved Amelia unconditionally, whereas her mother… “You would also be made to pay for your crimes, for both the death of Robert Remington and my own.”
“You cannot kill someone who is already dead,” she scoffed harshly.
Thea frowned. “It is sad that you have lost your husband, the man you loved, but you are young yet—”
“I am dying,” Mrs. Brown said flatly.
Thea looked more closely at the other woman, noticing for the first time that she was excessively and unfashionably thin beneath the blue gown, her skin as white as the mask she wore. There was also a slight trembling to the hand holding the pistol.
“I have consumption,” the other woman told her offhandedly, “and likely to be dead before any court of law could find me guilty of killing Robert or you.”
Thea realized how wrong she and Blackmoor had been about this woman’s motivation. Mrs. Brown was not only suffering from a sense of helplessness and a deranged need for revenge, but there was also a death sentence hanging over her own head.
She really did have nothing more to lose.
Thea gave another quick glance about the ballroom.
Amelia and George were no longer dancing but talking with a group of their friends.
Safe.
Blackmoor was—
She could no longer see Julian!
He was not standing where he had been earlier, nor could she see him on the dance floor—as was to be expected when he did not dance.
Except he had danced. With her. Only the once. But it had been in public, and had caused a sensation amongst the ton.
Would he have done that with a woman he crudely claimed he only wanted to fuck?
Thea was sure she was far from the first woman in society Julian had been sexually involved with these past sixteen years. And yet he had not danced publicly with any of them.
He disappeared for weeks after I was involved in the carriage accident.
But only after he was satisfied she had suffered no lasting harm, and because he had suspected Jennifer Brown might be involved in her accident. Something he had gone to Rome to confirm for himself.
He was cruel to me that
night in his study.
But only after taking her with a savagery that bordered on desperation.
Was it possible he had been deliberately cruel afterwards? As a way of pushing her away? As a way of protecting her?
He kissed me earlier today with such gentleness and longing.
Oh God, could she have been so stupid? Have allowed herself to be so blinded by her own hurt and wounded pride, she had not seen what Blackmoor was doing?
And now this madwoman thought she was going to kill her before she had the chance to talk to Julian again, to ask him for the truth. Whatever that truth might be.
Better I know the truth than die wondering.
An irony, considering her present circumstances.
“At least let us take this to one of the other rooms,” she suggested with a calm she was far from feeling. “After all, it will not matter where you kill me, only that you do so. I am sure there will be a fire and refreshments in the Wiltons’ library.”
“For the convenience of those lovers wishing for privacy?” Jennifer said knowingly. “I know the ways of the ton, Lady Dorothea. My family was only on the fringes of society, but we were still invited to some of the balls and dances. Of course, Blackmoor will come looking for you once he realizes you are missing from the room.” Those blue eyes gleamed malevolently. “At which time, I will take great pleasure in making him beg, on his knees if possible, before I shoot you in front of his eyes.” She gave a wave of the pistol to indicate Thea should lead the way out of the room.
Thea’s palms were damp inside her gloves, her heart racing wildly as she led the way out of the ballroom and down a hallway to where she knew the Wilton library to be.
There was no doubt in her mind that Mrs. Brown did not intend to kill only her, but also Julian. She could not allow that to happen to the man she loved.
She turned to face the other woman again once they had entered the library. As she had expected, a fire glowed warmly in the hearth, and several candles were alight about the room. “I have told you, I meant nothing more to Blackmoor than a few hours of pleasure. Any more than he means anything to me—”
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