“Don’t say that,” she whispered.
Don’t be nice to me.
Don’t make me love you any more than I already do.
Don’t hurt me any more than you already plan.
He pressed a kiss to the soft pad of muscle at the base of her thumb before he fastened the buttons and made his way to her wrist, where he pressed another soft kiss, and fastened more.
And so it went, on and on, up the inside of her arm with light, delicate kisses, each sending a shock of heat through her, each locked in by silk. By him. Each one a ruination of its own, as it made her want to crawl into his lap and do his bidding without question.
When he reached the final stretch of buttons, the one that would encase her elbow, he lingered on the bare skin there, pressing his warm lips to that sensitive place that she’d never before known, lingering when she gasped at the pleasure of the caress. Parting his lips. Stroking his tongue in a long, languorous circle of glorious heat.
She couldn’t stop herself from sliding her free hand into his hair, holding him there, at that wicked, wonderful place.
Hating the damn glove that kept her from touching him.
Cursing it aloud.
She felt his lips curve against her skin, the smile chased away by a painless, unbearable scrape of his teeth before he finished his torture, and then his task.
In that moment, he could have had anything he asked.
She would have given it with deep, abiding pleasure. Which was what made this man more dangerous than anyone in London thought.
He could control her with a touch, and his control was more serious, more dangerous, than that of any of the men who had controlled her before.
And it was terrifying.
“Temple,” she whispered in the dark, “I . . .”
She trailed off, a million things wishing to be said.
I’m sorry.
I wish it could be different.
I wish I could be the perfect woman you want. The one who will erase the past.
I love you.
He didn’t give her a chance to say any of it. “It’s time for you to put on your mask.” He sat back against the carriage seat, looking utterly unmoved by the entire experience. “We’ve arrived.”
Chapter 16
The gloves had been a mistake.
He realized that the second he started buttoning her into the damn things. Not that he hadn’t imagined buttoning her into them the second they arrived at his home.
Not that he hadn’t imagined unbuttoning everything else and leaving her in nothing but those long, silk gloves.
Except imagination paled in comparison to reality, at least when it came to Mara Lowe, and he hadn’t been able to stop himself from touching her. From kissing her. From tasting her skin. From making himself impossibly distracted and unbearably hard in the process.
In his life, he’d never been so thrilled and so furious to arrive somewhere. Except, as he climbed down from the carriage, reaching back to help her descend, the silken glove sliding through his grasp, he realized that he’d made an enormous mistake. After all, he’d have to touch her all evening, and every stroke of silk against his skin would be a lick of flame.
A reminder of what he’d touched.
Of what he would never touch again.
He guided her up the extravagantly decorated steps to Leighton House and inside, where he watched as a footman removed the fur-lined cloak from around her shoulders, revealing an extraordinary expanse of smooth, pale skin.
A too-bare expanse.
Shit.
He never should have pushed Hebert to keep the line of the dress so low. What had he been thinking? Every man in attendance would be watching her.
Which had been his plan all along.
Except now, as she adjusted that stunning golden mask that only highlighted her strange, beautiful eyes, and faced him with a quiet smile, he did not like the plan at all.
But it was too late. He had handed over his invitation, and they were inside the ballroom in moments, part of the teeming mass of revelers, all of whom had made special return to the city to attend this event. Which was why he’d chosen this event for her unveiling.
For his own return.
His hand fell to the curve of her lower back, and he shepherded her through the throngs of people clustered around the door, resisting the urge to throttle the men nearby whose roving eyes lingered on the high swell of Mara’s breasts.
He cast a sidelong gaze at the bosom in question, considering the perfect pink skin there, the three small freckles that stood sentry just above the edge of the jade green silk. His mouth went dry.
Then watered.
He cleared his throat, and she looked up at him, eyes wide and questioning behind the mask. “Well, Your Grace? You have me here now—what do you intend to do with me?”
What he wanted to do to her was to take her home and spread her bare in his bed and rectify the missing events of that evening, twelve years prior. But that was not the answer she was expecting. And so instead, he captured her gloved hand in his and led her into the crowd. “I intend to dance with you.”
She wasn’t in his arms for half a second when he realized that the idea was nearly as bad as gifting the woman gloves. Now she was warm and smelling of softness and citrus, and she fit perfectly in his good arm as he fell into the steps he shouldn’t remember. And there, in thinking of the steps, he hesitated over them.
He captured himself, but she noticed the misstep as she had his prior smoothness. She met his gaze, her eyes light inside gold filigree. “When was the last time you were somewhere like this?”
“You mean inside a legitimate aristocratic ballroom at a legitimate aristocratic event?” She inclined her head as he executed an elaborate turn to avoid another couple. “More than a decade.”
She nodded. “Twelve years.”
He did not like the exactness of the answer, but he could not say why. When Temple rubbed elbows with the elite of the ton it was most often on the floor of the casino after a fight, when he’d proven his worth with muscle and force. He was the strongest of them. The most powerful.
No longer.
His bad hand flexed in the sling, unfeeling and unsettling. And he hated it, in part because of the woman in his arms. Because he might never feel her skin with it. Her hair. And if she discovered his new failing, he might be less than a man for her.
But he should not care; after all, he would never see her again after tonight.
It was what he wanted.
Lie.
“Tell me about it,” she said, and he wished she hadn’t. He wished she was not interested in him. Wished she did not so easily draw his attention. His regard.
Wished she did not make him feel so goddamn out of control.
“Now is hardly the time for a conversation.”
Her beautiful gaze turned wry and she looked around the room at the couples dancing around them. “You have somewhere to be?”
She was entirely at his whim. He could tell her to remove her mask that moment. He held all the cards, and she none of them. And still, she found room to tease him. Even now, minutes from her destruction, she stood her ground.
The woman was remarkable.
“I was forced to attend the coming-out party of a neighbor.”
Pink lips curved beneath the mask, underscoring the provocativeness of her costume. “You must have enjoyed that. Being forced into little mincing quadrille steps to even the ratio of males to females at the ball in question.”
“My father had made it clear that I had no choice,” he said. “It was as future dukes did.”
“And so you went.”
“I did.”
“And did you hate it? All the young ladies throwing their handkerchiefs at your feet so you’d have to stop and retr
ieve them?”
He laughed. “Is that why they did it?”
“A very old trick, Your Grace.”
“I thought they were simply clumsy.”
Her white teeth flashed. “You hated it.”
“I didn’t, actually,” he said, watching her grin fade to a curious smile. “It was tolerable.”
It was a lie. He’d adored it.
He’d loved every second of being an aristocrat. He’d been thrilled at all the mincing and my lording and the sense of pleasure and honor that he’d had as all of London’s youngest, prettiest women had chased after him for attention.
He’d been rich and intelligent and titled—all privilege and power.
What wasn’t to love?
“And I am certain the ladies of the land were grateful that you did your duty.”
Duty.
The word echoed through him, as faded as the memory, gone with his title when he’d woken in that blood-soaked bed. He met her eyes. “Why the blood?”
Confusion passed through her gaze, chased by understanding. She hesitated.
It was not the place for the conversation, in the home of one of London’s most powerful men, surrounded by hundreds of revelers. But the conversation had come nonetheless. And he could not resist pressing her. “Why not simply run? Why fake your death?”
He wasn’t sure she would answer. And then she did. “I never planned for you to be saddled with my death.”
He’d expected a number of possible answers, but he hadn’t expected her to lie. “Even now, you won’t tell me the truth.”
“I understand why you do not believe me, but it is the truth,” she said quietly. “They weren’t supposed to think me dead. They were supposed to think me ruined.”
He couldn’t help the bark of shocked laughter that escaped at that. “What kind of perverse acts were you expecting them to think I’d performed?”
“I’d heard there was blood involved,” she said, clearly not amused.
His brows rose behind his domino. “Not that much blood.”
“Yes, I rather gathered that once you were accused of murder,” she grumbled.
“It must have been—” He thought back on the morning.
“A pint.”
He laughed in earnest then. “A pint of pig’s blood.”
She smiled then, small and unexpected. “I have made up for it by treating Lavender very well.”
“So I was to have ruined you.” He paused. “But I didn’t.”
She ignored the words. “I also never expected you to sleep so long. I drugged you to keep you in the room long enough for the maids to notice. I’d been careful to make sure we were seen by two of them.” She met his eyes. “But I swear, I thought you would be up and escaped before anyone found you.”
“You’d thought of everything.”
“I overdid it.” He heard the regret in the words as she paused as the orchestra stopped playing, instantly releasing his hands. Wondered if it was regret for her actions, for their repercussions, or for now—for the revenge he had promised her.
Wondered if it was for herself, or for him.
He did not have a chance to ask, as she stepped backward, colliding with another masked man, who took the moment to have a good look at her. “If it isn’t the fighter from The Fallen Angel,” he leered.
“Find someone else to admire,” Temple said, darkly.
“Come now, Temple,” the man lifted his mask, revealing himself to be Oliver Densmore, king of idiot fops, the man who had offered for Mara as she’d stood in the ring of the Angel. “Surely we can make an arrangement. You can’t keep her forever.” He turned to Mara. “I’ll pay you double. Triple.”
Temple’s good hand fisted, but she spoke before he could strike. “You cannot afford me, sir.”
Densmore cackled and returned his mask to his face. “You would be worth the trouble, I think.” He tugged on one of Mara’s auburn curls, and was gone into the crowd, leaving Temple seething with anger. She’d protected herself.
Because she could not trust him to protect her.
Because he had vowed to do just the opposite.
As though the run-in had never happened, Mara returned to the conversation. “I know you don’t wish to hear this, but I think it’s worth telling you nonetheless. I really am sorry.”
“You are ignoring him.”
She paused. “The man? It’s best, don’t you think?”
“No.” He thought it was best for Densmore to lie facedown in a ditch somewhere. Right now he wanted to chase the man through the crowd and put him there.
She considered him, her beautiful eyes clear and honest through the mask. “He treated me like a lady of the evening.”
“Precisely.”
She tilted her head. “Is that not the point?”
Christ, he felt like an ass. He couldn’t do this to her.
“At any rate,” she continued, unaware of his riotous thoughts. “I am sorry.”
And now she was apologizing to him, as though he hadn’t given her a dozen reasons to hate him. A hundred of them.
“It’s nowhere near a decent excuse,” she pressed on, “but I was a child and I made mistakes, and had I known then . . .”
She trailed off. I wouldn’t have done it.
No, he might not want to hear the apology, but he most definitely wished to hear that she would take it all back if she could. That she’d give him back his life. He couldn’t help himself. “If you had known then . . . ?”
Her voice grew soft, and it was as though it were just the two of them in that ballroom, surrounded by half of London. “I would not have used you, but I still would have approached you that night. And I still would have run.”
He should have been angry. Should have felt vindicated. Her words should have chased away all his doubts about his plans for the evening. But they didn’t. “Why?”
She looked to the wall of doors, opening out onto the Leighton House gardens, several left slightly ajar to allow the stifling air in the ballroom out. “Why, which?”
He followed her, as if on a string. “Why approach me?”
She smiled, quiet and small. “You were handsome. And in the gardens, you were irreverent. And I liked you. And somehow, in all of this, I still rather do.”
Like was the most innocuous, tepid of words. It did nothing to describe how she should feel for him. And it did absolutely nothing to describe how he felt for her.
He couldn’t stop himself. “Why run?”
Tell me the truth, he willed. Trust me.
Not that she should.
“Because I was afraid your father was like mine.”
The words came like a blow, quick and in his blind spot, the kind that made a man see wild stars. Bright and painful, like truth.
She’d been sixteen, and set to marry a man three times her age. A man whose last three wives had met unfortunate fates. A man who counted her bastard of a father among his closest friends.
A man whose son was an inveterate womanizer, even at eighteen.
“I would never have let him hurt you,” he said. She turned at that, her eyes liquid.
He would have protected her from the moment he met her. He would have hated his father for having her.
“I didn’t know that,” she said softly, the words filled with regret.
She’d been terrified. But more than that, she’d been strong.
She’d chosen a life in the unknown over a life with a man who might well have been her father’s second.
Temple had been collateral damage.
She was frozen, all long limbs and grace, poised at the edge of the ballroom, staring at the doors, leading into blackness, and the metaphor was not lost on him. It was another time. Another threat. Another moment that had revealed too much of Mara Low
e. And she was no longer afraid of the darkness beyond.
She had lived twelve years in the darkness.
Just as he had.
Christ. It did not matter how they had come to be here. How different their paths had been.
They were the same.
He reached for her, her name soft on his lips, not knowing what came next. Not knowing what he would say or do. Knowing only that he wanted to touch her. His fingers slid over her silk-clad wrist even as she pulled away from him, already in smooth, graceful motion.
Already heading to the doors.
He let her go.
It was bitterly cold, and she wished she’d thought to fetch her cloak before escaping the stifling ballroom, but she couldn’t very well head back inside.
She wrapped her arms tight across her chest, telling herself she’d been colder and worse off. It was true. She was comfortable with cold. She understood it. Was able to combat it.
What she could not combat was his warmth.
I would never have let him hurt you.
She took a deep breath and hurried down the steps from the stone colonnade to the dark gardens of Leighton House, disappearing into the landscape, thanking Heaven for the shadows. Leaning back against a large oak, she stared up at the stars, wondering how she had come to be here, in this place, in this dress, with this man.
A man against whom fate had pitted her.
With whom she was intertwined.
Forever.
Tears threatened as she heaved great, cloudy breaths in the fading light from the ballroom, as she wondered what would come next. She wished he would go ahead and unmask her and be done with it, so she could hate him and blame him and get on with her life.
So she could get on without him.
How had he become so very vital to her in so short a time? How had he changed so much? How had he come to say such things to her, to be so kind and gentle when they’d started their recent acquaintance with his vowing to destroy her? How had she come to trust him?
How did he remain the only person she would betray?
As if summoned by the traitorous thought, her brother stepped from the blackness. “This is fortuitous.”
Mara took a step back, away from him. “How did you know I was here?”
No Good Duke Goes Unpunished Page 27
