Ann Lethbridge – An Innocent Maid For The Duke (страница 5)

For months he’d been numb to everything around him, going through life by rote, fulfilling required duties and responsibilities hour after brutal hour. Keeping himself busy. But now, here, with this vision of loveliness, he could actually feel the blood coursing through his veins. It was as if he had left a cold dark place to enter a land of light and warmth.

Her light. Her warmth. He basked in it, even though he knew he did not deserve it.

He swept her around a turn at the end of the room, gazing down into her face. What did she look like beneath the mask? Her lips were lush and full, her eyes dreamy, her loose hair a river of thick gilded waves that curled in little tendrils on her faintly flushed cheek.

His body responded to that shadowed glow of pink on her skin. The blood in his veins beat a tattoo of desire.

Her lips parted as if she, too, felt the connection between them. The rise and fall of her generous breasts quickened with each indrawn breath. A pulse beat rapidly at the base of her throat. A place he longed to taste with his tongue.

Awareness sparked in the air. Their steps slowed. Their gazes locked. Hers dropped to his mouth.

With all the old reckless impulsiveness he’d been determined to curb these past many months, he drew her flush against his body. She tensed and, though he wanted to curse, he eased his hold, preparing to let her go. Unbelievably, she smiled up at him and relaxed into his embrace.

A brief kiss was all he intended, a thank you for the respite she’d brought to the darkness of his world, but as the plush full mouth yielded beneath his lips, he lost himself in the pleasure of kissing a willing woman.

Deeper and deeper he delved the soft recess of her mouth, while he felt the warm breath of her sigh against his cheek. A tentative dart of her tongue into his mouth sent a jolt of lust ripping through him.

A groan rumbled up from deep in his throat and he pulled her hard against his body. Feeling pleasure as her belly pressed against his groin.

She gasped and pulled away, staring at him in shock, startled out of her daydream by the evidence of his arousal through the wisp of silk she wore. He cursed his stupidity. Lost in sensation, he’d forgotten the rules of the game. Never rush a woman, especially one he did not know.

He stepped back and bowed. ‘I beg your pardon.’

Fingertips went to her lips, covering her mouth, her eyes wide behind her mask, wary, distraught, but also hazy with desire, which gave him a vague sense of satisfaction.

‘I mean you no harm,’ he hastened to assure her, taking another step back.

‘I must go,’ she said breathlessly, her glance finding the door. ‘I should not be here.’

A married woman then, out for a night of discreet fun. A strange sense of disappointment filled him. Really? This was exactly the sort of entertainment his friends had been recommending would get him out of the doldrums. Before he settled down to find a duchess.

‘Allow me to escort you to your carriage.’

She looked startled. ‘My carriage?’ She swallowed. Smoothed her hands down the front of her gown, caressing the lovely shape that only a moment ago had seared a memory into his skin. ‘Oh, yes. My carriage. No need for escort, Your Grace.’

Inwardly he cursed. She knew who he was. Of course she did. There wasn’t a person in London who didn’t after all that had happened. No wonder she didn’t want to be seen with him. To be seen leaving a place like this on his arm would create yet another scandal.

He schooled his expression into cool reserve and looked down the renowned Westmoor nose. ‘As you wish.’

She cast him a shy little smile. ‘Thank you for waltzing with me.’

That tiny upward curve of her lips, her soft voice with its odd little accent he could not place, caused a pang behind his breastbone. ‘You are welcome, my lady. May I see you again?’ He froze, startled by the words that had left his lips before his brain caught up to them. Yet he waited for her answer with a sense of hopeful anticipation.

Her jaw dropped a fraction. ‘Me?’ she squeaked.

He couldn’t help but chuckle at her surprise. He took her small hand encased in a silky glove and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. ‘Naturally, you.’ There was no denying it to himself. He wanted her. And since he hadn’t desired a woman since the night of the accident, it came as something of a relief to know he could still feel desire. ‘I would like to get to know you better. If it would suit you.’

Heart pounding strangely hard, he waited for her answer. God, he felt like a schoolboy all over again. Shy. Nervous of rejection, yet full of hope.

She looked wildly around as if expecting someone to leap out at her. ‘I couldn’t.’

She sounded so genuinely regretful, it made him all the more determined. ‘You could if you really wished to.’

Her bottom lip drooped. ‘It is not possible.’

He’d not flirted and bedded the most beautiful women in London without learning a trick or two. ‘It will be our secret. No one will ever know. Not from me. Not if you do not wish. I give you my word.’ He ran a fingertip along her jaw and ended up touching her bottom lip still flushed red from his kiss. ‘Please.’

‘I cannot risk—’

‘No risk. I simply want to talk, that is all. There is a garden at the back of the club. Very quiet. The windows on that side are all nailed shut.’ He and his fellow owners had decided early on that they would make very sure the club was inviolable to peeping toms and nosy newspapers. Nor did they wish to upset their more respectable neighbours. ‘Meet me there tomorrow evening at seven. I will leave the gate beside the mews open for you.’

She looked adorably confused. ‘I shouldn’t.’

He reached out to touch her mask. ‘You came here and you shouldn’t.’

Her shoulders sagged and he felt a little spurt of triumph, tinged with a dash of guilt.

‘If I can...’

Again the careful diction. Perhaps a foreigner trying to sound English, but not an accent he recognised. ‘If you can’t come tomorrow, then I will wait for you the next evening and the next until you do.’

‘I don’t know.’ On those words, she turned and fled.

But she would. He was sure of it. He’d seen the longing in those amazing spring-green eyes.

He followed her at a leisurely pace, not wishing to scare her. By the time he reached the front door and looked out, the carriage was gone.

‘Anything I can do for you, Yer Grace?’ Snyder asked.

Jake smiled at him. ‘Nothing.’

The man’s eyes widened in shock.

Feeling just a tiny bit smug, Jake walked away, humming.

Chapter Two

‘’Ere you are!’

Heart in her throat, Rose swung about, water and suds splashing on the floor. Those were not the deep drugging tones of the man she’d lived in fear would discover her, but Flo’s strident angry tones.

She sagged back against rim of the sink. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

Flo folded her arms across her chest. ‘’Oo else would it be?’ Her expression changed from anger to worry in a heartbeat. ‘Wot’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ She swallowed the dryness in her throat that had been there since two nights ago. ‘I’ve had extra work,’ she mumbled. ‘I haven’t been able to get away. Perhaps I will see you later.’

Flo narrowed her eyes. ‘Oh, no. You’ll just go sneaking off again.’ She grabbed Rose’s wrist and dragged her into the pantry. ‘Tell me wot’s ’appened. You look like someone died.’

Misery climbed Rose’s throat and stuck there in a huge lump at the memory of His Grace the Duke of Westmoor’s large hand on the small of her back. The sensation of the tease of his lips danced across her mind and sent chills rushing across her skin. He’d been lovely. So handsome in an unkempt way, his hair a little longer than it should be, his cheeks hazed in stubble, his appearance slightly rumpled. As if he needed someone to care for him.

But, oh, his kisses, they had been truly amazing. Never had she suspected a kiss could be so pleasurable. It was all she’d been able to think about in her bed of a night.

How could she have let him kiss her? Knowing he was one of the owners of the club. Knowing how far above her he was—a duke, no less. How wanton she had been in her enjoyment of his mouth on hers. Worse yet, how she longed to kiss him again.

And she could, if she met him as he’d asked.

She didn’t dare, yet the thought of him waiting... She pushed the thought aside. ‘Was the dress to your liking?’

‘Of course it was. Why do you think I was looking for you?’ Flo shoved a handful of coins at her. ‘Why haven’t you popped in to see us tonight? No one does hair the way you do and the girls have been asking after you.’

She should never have ventured into the Green Room in the first place. If she hadn’t, she would never have met His Grace and she wouldn’t be walking around with her mind in a whirl and her heart aching.

They’d told her and told her at the orphanage what happened when girls let their emotions and feelings get the better of them. Most of those left there were the product of illicit relationships. As she was. Wanton blood ran through her veins. She’d refused to believe it, until two nights ago. ‘I have to go. If Mrs—’

‘The sooner you tell me wot’s wrong, the sooner you can go back to your dirty dishes.’