He rolled off her at last, gaining his feet with an effortless fluidity of motion she could not help but admire. When he offered her his hand, she took it with great reluctance, allowing him to help her to her feet as well. The connections of their bare palms sent a strange, new flutter skittering through her. She stared at him, swaying on her feet, feeling the effects of the whisky continue to burn through her.
“Will you allow me to continue to conduct my research?” she asked, feeling bold. And shaken. And all manner of things.
“Research?” He raised a questioning brow. “Do you mean will I continue to allow you to avail yourself of the privilege of viewing my club members in the pleasure chambers?”
She swallowed. Yes, that had been wrong of her. Her cheeks flamed with color. She had known it then and she knew it now, but she had enjoyed the shocking act of watching. “All of it, Mr. Kirkwood. I wish to continue my observations so that my story might be bolstered by both accuracy and attention to detail. If anyone is to become swept away in the world of The Silent Baron, I must be as realistic in my presentation as possible. The creative workings of my imagination alone will not suffice.”
His fingers tightened on hers, and he stepped forward, into her body, crowding her. He was all darkness, all black, the embodiment of wickedness except for his golden hair and blue gaze. “Do tell what the creative workings of your imagination might have conjured, Lady Frederica. I admit, you have roused my curiosity, among other things.”
Even her ears burned beneath the combination of his scrutiny and the subtle implications of his words. “Nothing as scandalous as the truth, Mr. Kirkwood.”
“And did you enjoy watching yesterday, my lady?” he asked slyly. “Surely you must not have been disgusted, else you would not have returned today.”
“My return here this evening was caused by my dedication, Mr. Kirkwood,” she lied. “I wish for more information. I require the full picture of The Duke’s Bastard.”
And she did, she told herself. Even if once had been enough to provide her the bones for fleshing out the gaming hell in which her baron would lose his fortune, succumbing to the devils of vice. After all, there was no way she could capture the shocking, flagrant depravity she had witnessed here yesterday. No one would dare publish such an account.
“Ah, but I am not so inclined to allow such a thing.” His thumb caressed her wrist. Just a simple movement—one slow, unending circle—and yet it made her knees nearly give out. “You see, Lady Frederica, this club is how I earn my supper. It is my reputation. My mistress. It is the livelihood of dozens of men and women. I will not have it destroyed by the whims of one spoiled, selfish duke’s daughter who fancies herself an authoress.”
He thought her spoiled and selfish? Why, he did not even know her. She tugged her wrist from his grasp, severing the connection and—she hoped—the ridiculous sensations careening unchecked through her traitorous body. He was toying with her, like a cat batting at a mouse he would eventually make his meal, and she did not like it.
“I am creating a fictional account, sir,” she reminded him, keeping her tone frosty. “Your club will not be named. No one who reads The Silent Baron—should I be fortunate enough to find a publisher—would ever be the wiser. The repulsive acts you countenance within your walls shall remain your secret.”
“Repulsive?” His eyes glinted. “I beg your pardon, my lady. Only yesterday, you did not appear repulsed.”
Because she had not been, much to her everlasting shame. Nor was she now. Her father and mother would be horrified if they were to discover what she was doing in her father’s absence. To know she had fallen prey to such wickedness. That even a lady who had been born and raised to a life of gentility, purity, and ease could become corrupted by vice.
Instantly, an idea for The Silent Baron entered her mind. The baron could fall in love with one of the courtesans in the gaming hell, intrigued by the disparity of their lives. It would be an ill-fated match, of course, with no future. Why had she not thought of it before?
She tipped up her chin, trying to hide the quiver of excitement running through her now. How she itched to flee home and put her pen to paper. But first, she needed to conclude her battle of wits. “Nevertheless, I was quite repulsed. How can you claim to know my inner thoughts and feelings? You do not know me, Mr. Kirkwood, and neither should I know you.”
His sensual lips twitched. “More’s the pity.”
He was a bad man, Mr. Duncan Kirkwood.
A bad man who made her feel wicked things. Things she did not wish to feel. Her breath caught. She thought of his thumb on her skin, how his merest caress could still make her weak. What power did he wield?
She ought to go now. Run from him while her virtue and her dignity both remained intact. She could write The Silent Baron with the handful of details she had gleaned from her brief time in the gaming rooms the day before. It would be far safer. Far wiser to do so.
Frederica swallowed, banishing the feelings he spurred in her. She had far too many matters of import facing her. But then her mind prodded her that a lady of the evening was precisely the character she required to heighten the tension of the baron’s fall from grace. She knew nothing about such females, having been raised to live her life as though the creatures did not exist.
If she was to write a harlot, she really ought to meet such a person. Speak to her. Understand her motivations. Her speech. Her aspirations. She could not leave. She had to convince Mr. Kirkwood to grant her more time at The Duke’s Bastard.
She forced her countenance to soften, offering him a smile and taking care to remove every, last hint of ice from her voice when she spoke again. “Please Mr. Kirkwood, how can I persuade you of the necessity of my research here?”
Chapter Five
Duncan could think of at least five bloody excellent ways Lady Frederica could persuade him to allow her to remain within his club, conducting her research, as she phrased it. One of them involved her pretty mouth. One involved her hands. Two her virginal cunny, and yet another her…
Damnation.
No need to torture himself.
This little game of theirs was at an end. Of necessity, it had to be.
“You cannot persuade me, my lady.” He shook his head slowly, unable to keep his gaze from dipping once more to her loose coat, wishing he could see the true swell of her breasts. Just once. How tightly had she bound them? And why did the notion of her bound breasts make his cock rise hard and full in his breeches? Thinking of her in nothing but breeches, boots, and her bound breasts robbed him of the power of speech.
Those luscious midnight curls unleashed from their pins, trailing down her back. His hands cupping her arse. He would direct her to unravel the bindings as he watched. And then, when her bubbies sprang forth, he would suck an erect nipple into his mouth. His fingers would make short work of the fall on her breeches. The breathy sounds of her need would fill the air as he moved to her other nipple, nipping this time with his teeth. He would part her folds, find her wet and hot…
Blast. Blast. Beelzebub. Hades.
A trail of epithets unleashed themselves in his mind. He had to stop this nonsense.
“Mr. Kirkwood, I beg of you,” she pressed, those eyes, brilliant and glorious, wide upon his. “All I require is some additional research this evening, and then three evenings more at the most. A few hours of your time. You shall not even know I am here.”
He would know she was there. If he was blindfolded, he would know she was in the vicinity. The scent of violets would forever make his prick go stiffer than a marble bust. Holy God, he was altogether certain the mere knowledge she was somewhere in London would be enough to make his cock hard.
He gritted his teeth. All the more reasons why he had to deny her. Her usefulness to him was at an end, and she was nothing to him now but a temptation and a distraction he could ill afford. He had worked too hard, for far too long, amassing his empire with one goal in sight.
It was all withi
n his reach now. Glittering. Glimmering. Taunting.
Why, then, was he allowing the Duke of Westlake’s chit to distract him?
“No,” he bit out.
“No?” she repeated, her inky brows creeping up her creamy forehead. Her lips pursed.
He ignored how much he wanted to kiss them. He especially ignored means number one in which she could persuade him, by sliding his cock between them. “No.”
She blinked, those thick lashes fluttering. “Forgive me, Mr. Kirkwood. I fail to see how my presence here could be such an imposition. You need not even speak to me. Simply grant me access to your club and I shall flit about with no one the wiser, observing and taking notes.”
“There is the problem, Lady Frederica.” He urged his cockstand to dissipate to no avail. How the hell could he deny her with the evidence of how much he wanted her scarcely restrained? Duncan cleared his throat. “I discovered your ruse within moments of first laying eyes upon you. Others will do the same. I cannot have the Duke of Westlake’s daughter ruined within my establishment. No gentleman will dare to cross the threshold in the event of such a trespass.”
She pursed her lips, and he could see her mind spinning. “But perhaps no one would need see me. You have viewing slots for your…chambers of ill repute. Surely you have the same sort of thing overlooking your tables.”
She was a clever wench. He had to grant her that. Far wilier and sharper than he had imagined a sheltered duke’s daughter could ever be. And damn him if it didn’t make him want her all the more. He bloody well loved an intelligent woman, one who would argue politics, one who was well read, one who was unashamed of her mind, who wielded it like a weapon.
“I do have such viewing slots,” he acknowledged. “But that has no bearing upon my decision. You must leave here this evening, never to return.”
“Four more visits after this evening,” she returned, unflinching.
“What manner of bargain is that?” He could not quite keep the note of incredulity from his voice. “Mere minutes ago, you requested three.”
Those bright eyes sparked into his. Even with the hideous strip of false mustache affixed to her upper lip, she was beautiful. “Your delay has increased my price.”
The minx possessed gall. He had to acknowledge that as well. “You may remain for one hour this evening. That is all.”
She took a step closer, her scent and her heat hitting him. “An hour today and four more visits thereafter.”
His curiosity got the better of him then, and he cocked his head, considering her. “Tell me something, Lady Frederica. How is it you are able to escape from your father’s home, dressed as your brother, no less, and venture to my club two evenings in a row?”
“My father is attending a matter of some import in the country on one of his estates,” she ventured. “My mother is easily distracted, and my brother is young and ordinarily otherwise occupied.”
“He is older than you are, my lady,” he reminded her, for though he had never taken particular interest in the Marquess of Blanden, he had nevertheless memorized the details of his patrons and their families.
“Perhaps then he is merely easily distracted as well.” A small smile curved her lips.
Again, he wished to pull the mustache from her skin. It seemed a travesty of the worst order that his view of her lovely mouth should be adulterated by the ludicrous thing. Whilst Lady Frederica in breeches appealed to his inner sense of depravity, the mustache presented a firm limit. It truly had to go.
He moved forward, his hand reaching out. Before he was even aware of his intentions, he had snagged the thing and pulled. It clung to her with tenacity, but a firm tug and it was gone, leaving a red line across her skin in its wake.
She clapped a hand over her mouth. “How dare you?”
The strangest thing happened then. There he stood in his office, opposite the key to his vengeance who had fallen—almost bodily—into his lap. She looked like an actress from a theatrical troupe that traveled the countryside, making a poor imitation of a gentleman with her half-unbound hair and her ill-fitting garb. It was all so ludicrous, so fantastical, that he could do nothing to suppress the laugh that rose in his chest, bursting forth, loud and unchecked.
He could not stop it. He laughed until his gut ached. Laughed until tears welled in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Laughed until he bent over, struggling to regain his breath. Laughed as he had not done ever before.
“Are you well, Mr. Kirkwood?” she asked above the din of his mirth, eying him as though he were a Bedlamite newly escaped and she was not certain if she ought to pity him or cajole him back to the prison he’d fled.
No, he was not well, in answer to her impertinent question. Else he would not be contemplating offering her a compromise. He should be ordering her to leave and forgetting she existed, not laughing at her haphazard attempts at deception. Not stuffing the scrap of a mustache inside his coat pocket. He already had one pair of her spectacles, so he supposed this latest acquisition could join the first well enough.
He caught his breath. “Perfectly well, my lady. It is merely the lightness of the moment. The sight of you…”
He allowed his words to trail off when he realized they said something rather different than what he had intended.
But she did not miss a word. Her brows snapped together. “The sight of me, Mr. Kirkwood? Are you laughing at me?”
Yes. No. Also, yes.
He was laughing at her. At himself. At the silliness of this predicament in which he now found himself. He was laughing because there had not been cause for much levity in his life, and he was grateful for this rare moment of indulgence.
But he did not wish to reveal any of that to the feisty, daring duke’s daughter before him. Instead, he cocked his head, studying her. “I may be reconsidering your bargain, my lady. But first, you must answer another question. Precisely how have you managed to travel from your father’s residence to my club each evening?”
The thought of her flitting about, so ridiculously costumed, a plump pigeon for any villain with a discerning eye to pluck, nettled him. He did not like it, not one whit.
She blinked at him, the spectacles magnifying her crisp emerald gaze. “I hired a hack, sir. It was reasonably easy. Far easier than I had imagined. Once again, it has proven an invaluable boon for my research.”
A boon for her bloody research.
Did the foolish chit have no inkling of how much danger she was placing herself in with each of her rash actions? And it was not merely her reputation at stake but rather her innocence. Her body. How easily she could be broken. He had seen too many times the horrible consequences of a woman being taken against her will. His own mother had been one such victim, and he would never forget. It was one reason why he took such great care with the ladies he employed.
He stiffened, a protective surge overtaking him. “If I agree to allow you to return after this evening, my lady, it will be for one more occasion only. I will send a private carriage for you, and it will await you a discreet distance from your home. There will be no more hired hacks or wandering about the city unprotected.”
Fire sparked to life in her vivid eyes. “I will accept nothing less than four visits, as I have already established. If you continue to debate the matter with me, I shall raise the number to five.”
He barely held his laughter in check at her cheek. “Madam, I do believe you have no notion of the means by which a compromise is reached.”
“Nonsense,” she blustered. “Of course I do, else you would not be entertaining a compromise at all.”
Damnation, the lady had a point.
He inclined his head, a new respect for her blossoming in his chest. She was not just lovely and brave, but intelligent and unafraid of pursuing what she wanted. Admirable qualities in anyone, whether male or female, but particularly so in a lady of her station. She could have entertained herself with balls, routs, soirees, and suitors. Instead, she was writing a bloody novel and infi
ltrating the ranks of the most notorious club in London, strutting about garbed as a gentleman, in the name of research.
His attraction to her was growing by the moment, and not just to the physical beauty of her body or the undeniable lure of her unattainable status—the forbidden had ever appealed to him—but to her. She interested him. He wanted to learn her the same way he had learned gambling: calculating the odds, learning which games of chance reaped the greatest reward, understanding just how much a risk to take without the chance of losing all.
How dangerous. Here was all the more reason to send the troublesome Lady Frederica on her way.
“Two visits and my carriage,” he countered. “I will bar you from the door if you refuse to accept my means of conveyance.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Three, and I shall continue the use of the hired hack. It does give one such a delightful sense of independence and freedom, the sort which I daresay I shall never again enjoy.”
The sadness in her voice disturbed him. “Never again seems rather a hyperbole, my lady.”
“To you, perhaps.” Her chin lifted. “You are not the one whose father wishes to marry her off to any gentleman who will offer, regardless of how odious he may be.”
His father had not wished anything to do with him. His father would not even acknowledge him or look him in the eyes. She was fortunate hers only wished to see her settled. His had never given a good goddamn about him.
“Have you no suitors?” he asked, curious. He could not fathom that a woman like her would not have every gentleman in London at her feet. She was as lovely as she was original. What man could look upon her without envisioning the bounty of her dark hair on his pillow?
“Not any I would wish to spend the rest of my life with,” she said quietly. “I am approaching the age of spinsterhood. My father grows tired of waiting for me to make a match, and one of my suitors has been insistent. I am sure my future holds no interest to you. However, this may be my last opportunity to have such freedom of movement. The research I could conduct here at your club could last me for years. Or perhaps even a lifetime. That is why it is such a necessity.”
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