“Not that one. Behind her.”
Good Christ in heaven. Quin nearly stopped breathing.
Somehow, the goddess Athena had dropped into the middle of London. Long and lean, with curves begging to be touched. Lady Kiss-Me-Down-There’s bosom blanched in comparison to the ample display before him now. This was no shrinking English rose, destined to be a wallflower all night. Aurora Hyatt had dark, rich hair and eyes as clear as the sea, which stood out all the more because of her darker-than-acceptable skin and the bold shade of her gown. Her skin probably tasted darker, too. Richer. Quin was almost salivating, just thinking about it.
Well. He certainly could do worse for himself. Being leg-shackled to this temptress might not be terrible, after all. “I’m going to ask her to dance.” Quin started across the room, only to be hauled back by Jonas.
“You can’t. Not yet. We need to find her chaperone, gain an introduction.”
If they weren’t surrounded by half of England, he would have planted Jonas a facer. “Bloody hell.” These delays would land him in either Bedlam or Newgate, not at the altar.
“Be patient. Go find a lady you already know. A reputable one.” Jonas lifted an eyebrow in warning. “Dance a set or two. I’ll locate Miss Hyatt’s chaperone.”
Quin made a gesture that could have been a nod of agreement, but wasn’t anything, really, and Jonas left him. When had patience ever been a virtue he possessed? Never. Wasn’t likely to become one at the moment, either.
He crossed his arms over his chest and glared. Dancing was the last thing on his agenda. Christ, he didn’t even know any reputable ladies. Not in Town, at least. No, he would stand where he was and wait for Jonas to locate the minx’s bloody chaperone, and then somehow get an introduction. And then…then what?
Then his life as he knew it would end. A chill washed over him.
A gentleman he had met at the first ball of the Season and then promptly forgotten walked over in his inflexible attire and opened his mouth to speak.
Quin’s icy glare had just the effect he desired. The dandy snapped his jaw closed, turned on his heels, and scurried in the other direction.
Jonas had better hurry. The longer Quin had to sit and wait, the more uncomfortable he grew. And when he was uncomfortable, Jonas knew as well as anyone that Quin was capable of doing downright anything, including any number of things that he shouldn’t.
He continued to watch Miss Hyatt. Perhaps stare would be a more accurate term. Or devour.
Her eyes fairly shone in the candlelight. She leaned in and whispered something into the smaller, fairer young lady’s ear, and then they tittered and faced his direction. Two other ladies sidled up alongside them and divulged what he could only imagine to be some delicious piece of gossip before moving on.
Miss Hyatt and her companion looked boldly across at him. Quin inclined his head to them. He thought—nay, he was certain—Miss Hyatt bobbed a tiny curtsy back in his direction.
Very promising, indeed.
Could that gossip have been warning them to stay away from the blackguard across the way? This might be easier even than he’d anticipated.
A group of men he’d never seen before moved in his general direction. One of them, a tall and lanky fop with prettier eyes than most women, bowed to him. Quin gave no response at all. He had no intention of being distracted from Miss Hyatt. Finally, they took the hint and left.
A squat man with hair in desperate need of being tamed moved in front of Miss Hyatt and her friend. He bowed low to them and spoke for a few moments. Probably some suitor asking for a dance. Possibly even one he’d read about in Miss Hyatt’s scandalous journal.
The orchestra started to play a reel, and couples moved to the dance floor, taking up their positions. The bushy-haired gentleman led Miss Hyatt out, and another cad went over to collect her companion.
Regardless of the short man’s identity, he couldn’t pose much of a threat. Aurora Hyatt would never give him a second thought, based on the reactions she wrote to the men of her acquaintance. Besides, she was in love with Quin. He was more certain of that fact than ever.
Granted, he’d only known of her existence for a few hours. But that was beside the point.
Since Jonas still had not returned, Quin made for the card room, at least for the remainder of the set. Perhaps he could find a decanter of brandy. Surely Eversley kept some spirits about. He was in luck. A well stocked sidebar sat just behind the Vingt-et-un table. He poured a glass, motioned to the dealer to deal him in, and played away the next hour or more.
Until Jonas found him. “What, pray tell, are you doing in here and not in the ballroom dancing?”
Quin took another sip of his brandy before answering. “Enjoying myself. You’d do well to do the same. If anyone is in need of a drink to loosen up, it would be you. Care to join me?” He moved to get up and pour Jonas a drink.
Jonas appear somewhat less than amused. He turned to the dealer. “Deal him out.”
When everything had been settled at the table, Jonas took hold of Quin’s arm and rather forcibly pulled him from the room. When they were out in the hall and away from eavesdropping ears, Jonas faced him and wrinkled his nose. “Devil take it, Quin, you’re well into your cups. I’ve just spoken with Miss Hyatt’s aunt, Lady Sedgewick, and she had agreed to an introduction after dinner. But now…”
“Now what?” He’d be damned if anything or anyone was going to ruin his plans that evening. Especially some crabby old biddy.
“She’ll never agree to it. You’re completely ape-drunk. She’ll smell you from halfway across the ballroom.” Jonas shook his head. “I think you’ve gone and done it this time.”
Quin didn’t like his friend’s tone. Like he’d given up. Just like everyone else. “Gone and done what?” His words were slow, even.
When Jonas finally looked up at him, his eyes were pained. “I can’t rectify everything for you. Not when you keep throwing everything I’ve done away.”
“No one asked you to rectify anything. You did this.” Quin pushed away and ripped at his cravat, tossing it to the floor. “You insisted on making me presentable, honorable. You put me into these blasted clothes and dragged me all over Town.”
How could this be happening? His one friend. The one person in the world that was always on his side. It was almost unbelievable.
Quin wanted to run. He wanted to throw his bloody coat in Jonas’s face and leave. Like he always had. Like he always would.
He had to get out of there. Before…
“Don’t run away. For once in your life, be a man.”
No. No, Quin wouldn’t be that bastard. Not tonight. He had a purpose tonight. A mission. He’d be damned if he let anything stand in the way of finishing what he started, at least this one time. Least of all himself.
He shoved past Jonas, almost knocking him over with the force of his shoulder.
“Stop, Quin.” Jonas tugged on his arm, but Quin shrugged it off.
“Go to the devil.”
But instead of going out the front doors and leaving, he turned at the grand hall. Quin plowed into the ballroom, daring anyone and everyone with his eyes to try to stop him. No one did. They all scurried out of his path like rats in sudden light, clearing his way to the one thing he would stop for.
Aurora Hyatt.
~ * ~
“Oh, dear good Lord.”
Lord Quinton was walking toward her and looking positively murderous. Not to mention looking straight at her.
He was devilishly handsome. Her imagination had done the man no favors at all. His black overcoat pulled sinfully tight across his chest and arms, revealing muscles taut as leather. And that hair—it had to have been streaked by the god of the sun. It was long enough to fall loose around a rough, square jaw, dipping even lower to brush against the open neck of his shirt.
She’d never seen anything like it in all her life. As he barreled closer to her with fluid and purposeful strides, Aurora noticed a few dark hairs
peeking out above the open shirt collar. Good gracious, where was his cravat? The gossip rags would rip him to shreds in the morning. And then—then—her eyes moved lower, to the ripples displayed above his Hessians. Lord Quinton’s thighs looked to be as big around as her waist.
Everything about him seemed so formidable. So dangerous. So possessive. His eyes were trained upon hers, blue so dark it nearly matched the midnight sky. Hungry. Piercing.
“This is not good. Not at all,” Rebecca hissed in her ear, all the while tugging at her arm.
But Aurora couldn’t move. Her slippered feet were stuck in place, like the roots of a giant oak that had been growing for so long they nearly reached the Orient. “He’s going to kill me. Why is he going to kill me?”
“Don’t worry about that. Just come with me right this instant or your father will most certainly do it instead.”
But it was too late.
Her heart felt like a thousand frogs trying to leap up through her throat. If she wasn’t careful, she might cast up the contents of her stomach all over those gloriously polished boots.
“Miss Hyatt?” He bowed low to her, taking the tips of her gloved fingers into his hand and bringing them to his lips for the most chaste of kisses. “Might I request the honor of the next dance?”
A dance?
He wanted to dance.
Not string her up by her toes and drag her behind his horse for miles in order to drop her from the side of a cliff. Not send her out to be trampled by a sea of frenzied cattle. Not burn her alive at the stake.
Thank God.
She breathed, for the first time in what must have been almost a minute. But then again, he also didn’t want to grab her by the knot in her hair and drag her bodily back to his cave.
Too bad.
“Aurora,” Rebecca said firmly at her ear. “This is madness. My lord, this is entirely inappropriate”
“Yes, I’d love to dance with you.”
His eyes, which she had yet to look away from, flashed with what could only be described as satisfaction. He took the whole of her hand into his own. The scandalous heat of palm against palm threatened to burn straight through her glove to her very soul. Finally, her feet moved beneath her and she fairly floated alongside him, dislodging her other arm from Rebecca’s grasp.
“I believe,” he said to her softly, “this dance shall be a waltz.”
A waltz.
She was bound to burst into flame if any more of their bodies touched. Even with the small distance between them, his warmth engulfed her. Somehow, her body wanted to be closer, as though it had a mind and wants and needs of its own.
He turned her to face him and placed her hand against his shoulder, pulling the other more fully into his. And then his free hand was at her waist, drawing her into the inferno of his arms.
Aurora heard no music. She saw nothing but him, Lord Quinton, staring down at her with an intensity she’d never experienced. He smelled of brandy and heat. She was nearly intoxicated just from his sheer proximity.
After moments or hours, she would never know, she finally found her tongue. “My lord, how did you know who I am?” What a foolish, silly question. She was a ninny. What did that matter? Not a whit.
“I would imagine in the same manner you knew who I am.” His eyes bored into her. “You do know, do you not?”
She would be perfectly content to never take another breath so long as he never stopped looking at her like that. Aurora tingled everywhere he touched her, with the delicious gooseflesh spreading through her limbs, up to her head, and then plummeting all the way down to her toes—which somehow curled beneath her.
“Yes. You are the mysterious Lord Quinton.” And he would think her an utter dolt if she did not manage to remove the derisible grin from her face. There was also the rather embarrassing problem of a blush spreading over her cheeks and all the way to her bosom. The heat flowed like gauze in the wind. She looked down to see how bad it was, only to realize too late she had drawn his gaze to that very same place.
“That I am.” He stared at the low bodice of her gown, or rather at the display just above it, for an inordinately long period of time. Finally, his eyes moved slowly up her chest to her neck, to her chin, to her lips—where they paused yet again.
She felt parched. She needed something—something—something to calm her nerves and to cool her off. Yet all she wanted to do was move closer, still.
Aurora licked her lips.
Lord Quinton’s hand at her waist flinched and grew tense, pulling her in as though on command.
“I am also, Miss Hyatt, not the kind of gentleman a proper young lady should have anything to do with—not if she wishes to keep her reputation intact.”
“I am aware of that.” Too aware. But that was the last thing she wanted to think of at the moment. She preferred to focus on the day’s growth of stubble lining his jaw and to imagine how it might feel if she drew her hand across it.
The corners of his lips quirked up in the slightest hint of a rakish grin. It looked lascivious. Fiendish. And entirely too appealing. “Then you must also be aware, Miss Hyatt, that every eye in the room is trained upon the two of us. Including those of your chaperone. Perhaps even your father.”
“Yes,” she said, with a slight tremor in her voice. Blast him for reminding her of all the reasons she should run screaming from him. And blast her for not doing as she ought.
Lord Quinton’s eyes smiled at her then, a smile only a true rogue could muster. “And yet you remain with me. Dancing.” He twirled her about so fast she would have lost her feet, but for his strong arm at her waist pulling her ever closer. “Waltzing.”
At this new distance she smelled his cologne, much like she had imagined it in her story. “Yes,” she whispered, no longer trusting her voice not to fail.
He stood still and held her steady before him. “Lovely,” Lord Quinton growled just before his lips descended upon hers in a kiss. A kiss nothing like what she imagined.
This was nothing tender or chaste. It was needy and possessive and hot.
He pulled her closer until her body was melded into his, her curves tucked neatly into his angles and planes like they had been made just for that purpose. One hand moved up into the chignon at the nape of her neck, fisting and tugging and drawing her ever closer.
His lips were hard and demanding. The stubble along his jaw assaulted her tender skin in a way that left her panting for more. He bit her lower lip and she cried out, but it was muffled against his tongue as it moved inside her mouth.
Aurora tasted his brandy—smooth and dark.
Lord Quinton moved his tongue in and out and around. When he suckled, her toes sang and the tips of her fingers trembled and something both terrible and wonderful happened between her thighs.
She wanted more.
She wanted to do the things to him he was doing to her, to make him feel these wanton feelings.
She wanted it never to end.
But then he pulled his head back, the absence of his lips leaving hers aching for their return.
Lord Quinton stepped away from her. Removed his hands from her. He bowed his head briefly. “Miss Hyatt. I bid you good evening.”
And he left.
Chapter Six
2 April, 1811
Oh, dear good Lord, I only thought my life had ended yesterday. Now I know it has. But oh, what a way to die. I wonder, can one still kiss in heaven? And would a kiss in heaven feel as fiendishly sinful as that kiss? If not, perhaps I would prefer not to go to heaven when I die later today. Perhaps somewhere else would be preferable.
~From the journal of Miss Aurora Hyatt
“Up. You must get up now, Aurora.”
From Aurora’s position fully buried beneath her bedclothes, Rose’s voice sounded eerily like it belonged to Rebecca. And since when did the maid think she could use her first name, anyway?
“What’s the point in getting up only to march to my funeral? Kindly inform Father he can handle
such matters in here. I’ll not assist him.” Truthfully, she’d already done enough.
What on earth had come over her last night? She’d flirted outrageously with Lord Quinton from across the ballroom, danced with him without being properly introduced (and a waltz, at that!), ignored her dearest friend, and become totally and irrevocably smitten with the scoundrel (for what else could he be considered?). All right. Fine. The totally smitten part occurred the moment she heard mention of his existence and then intensified when she heard he had a pirate-like demeanor. But the irrevocable part did only just occur last night. And to cap off the utterly disastrous night, she had allowed the rogue to kiss her.
In the ballroom.
In front of half the ton.
With her stupendous luck, Father had returned to the ballroom just in time to see the kiss. He had been too stunned by what he saw to confront Lord Quinton as the blackguard made his escape.
Instead, it seemed he intended to take out his wrath upon Aurora.
She, however, intended to remain precisely where she was until the moment of her impending death. Never in her life had she felt such sheer, utter mortification as she did when Lord Quinton had walked away from her last night, leaving her alone on the ballroom floor with the entire world reveling in her social demise.
Perhaps the entire world was a bit of an exaggeration. Still, Aurora noticed: their slack jaws; their bold stares, followed by a deliberate turning of their backs; the matrons shooing their daughters away from her presence; the sudden lack of gentlemen hoping to place their names upon her dance card; the forced, heavy silence gradually being overwhelmed by a calamitous medley of whispers, most all of them containing her name.
The look of bewildered defeat upon Father’s face.
A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle Page 6
