One Night With You, Page 2

  She pressed close, granting him a view down the stiff brocade of her bodice, revealing that she wore nothing underneath.

  “It’s been too long, mon cher, why have you not come to see me sooner?” she purred in an accent that was decidedly not French. He wasn’t certain of Fleur’s exact origins, but he would wager Seven Dials.

  “I arrived in Town only yesterday.”

  He had departed his family’s estate to accomplish the inevitable. At eight and twenty, he owed it to Julianne to marry and provide an heir. His sister needed family. Someone other than himself.

  Ironically enough, he had survived pirates, war, pestilence, disease in foreign lands—survived only to return home and find his brother dead. From an ague, no less. No doubt his father cursed that quirk of fate from the grave.

  It had been no secret that Seth’s father purchased his commission in the hopes that he would never return. Rotten luck that Albert had died, leaving the wrong son to marry and bear responsibility for the family.

  Precautions had to be taken to assure his cousin would not get his claws on St. Claire Priory—or his sister—again. If something befell Seth, the right sort of wife would see to that. The right sort of wife would safeguard his sister against villains like Harold. And the darkness. Seth fought to swallow the sudden sourness coating his mouth. He would protect Julianne from the darkness that engulfed her. The darkness Seth had created. He owed her that much.

  He needed a bride unlike the female he had let creep beneath his skin years ago. A female not revolted by the sight of him. If such a lady existed.

  Shaking off his musings, he dipped his finger between the swells of Fleur’s breasts.

  “Hmm, I like this fierce face of yours,” she purred. “My very own pirate.” She trailed a long nail down the white-ridged scar that slashed across his face and cut into his upper lip.

  He shied away, unused to the contact, but bemused that she would think he resembled a pirate when it had very nearly been a pirate to cut his face to ribbons. Half a breath to the left and the Portuguese slave smuggler would have had his eye.

  Fleur lifted her brows meaningfully. “I know just the thing to celebrate your return. What I have in mind may take hours. Days. Weeks.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot linger in Town. I’ve an errand to dispense and then I’m off.” Errand. An adequate description of his task.

  “To rusticate in the wilds?” She made a pffting sound. “You mean you’re not interested in renewing old friendships?” Her eyes shimmered with a wicked light. Only five years older than himself, she had aged remarkably well. Although her hair was an improbable shade of red, her face and body were as tight and smooth as the first day they met. “I’m confident I can provide you with a reason to linger.” Her eyes locked with his, hot with promise, gleaming with a desire that had quite undone him as a lad. Him and Albert both.

  And yet little moved him now.

  “It’s been a long time, mon cher,” she continued, “and you’ve grown into quite the man.” Her heavy-lidded gaze held his eyes, hot with promise.

  “I’m ugly as sin and you know it.” If she didn’t make her living stroking the egos of gentlemen, she’d react as all other women did and steer clear of his menacing mien.

  Her plump, bejeweled hand brushed the front of his trousers, challenging his words.

  “What are we waiting for, then?” he asked.

  Determination had brought him to her. Determination to feel something, anything. He may want nothing to do with tender sentiments, but sex was something else entirely. Especially with a partner who did not have to close her eyes as he leaned over her.

  Sex could make him forget. Make him feel again. Even if only for a short while.

  His gaze flicked to the many alcoves surrounding the ballroom. Moans and cries floated from behind the scarlet damask drapes, mingling with the music of the orchestra. He doubted there was a room in the house not already occupied. Even the dancing couples appeared to be more in the midst of fornication than a waltz. Distaste filled him at the dissolute scene, oddly echoing the feelings he had after a battle, standing aboard ship and looking out over the carnage.

  “Mon cher, give me but a moment.” Her eyes raked him hungrily.

  Seth’s lips twisted in a smile. The scar at his lip tightened and pulled, and he quickly released the smile, letting his mouth fall into a mild line. Grasping her fingers, he raised them to his lips, watching for a sign of revulsion to cross her face. Fleur lifted herself eagerly toward his hand.

  “It would be a delight,” he murmured, aggravated at the desultory tone of his voice. Here stood a woman ready and willing. Why did he not feel excitement, desire? Something. Anything. Why did he not feel?

  “You remember the lavender salon? It is for my use alone.” Her tongue slowly traced her rouged lips. “I shall be along shortly. A few matters require my attention before I can claim the long, uninterrupted hours I desire with you.” Her kohl-lined eyes slid over him in heated perusal.

  He kissed the back of her hand. “It will be my pleasure.”

  Anything to put off returning to the thick silence of his house across Town, to keep from staring into the dark and thinking about the unrelenting night that ruled his sister—the darkness that he had forced on her in the reckless days of his youth. But that was his cross to bear. One of many.

  Taking a wife was the least he owed Julianne. And it wasn’t as if marriage would affect him to any great degree. It was not as if he were holding out for someone special, someone to love.

  He simply required a bride with expectations similar to his.

  His hand lifted to stroke the scar splitting his top lip, fingering the skin-puckered tear as he contemplated the nameless, faceless female with a heart as remote as his own.

  Chapter 3

  The iridescent gold gown was a far cry from the modest blue she had worn at the start of the evening. Jane tugged at the bodice, hoping to pull it higher. Her face burned from the way the men ogled her. Not only her, but every woman in the room. They assessed and surveyed like hawks searching the horizon for the choicest morsel.

  Costumed gentlemen lurked everywhere: Cupids, Caesars, pirates. They ogled every woman in attendance as if they had the God-given right, as if every female in the room were present for their pleasure, to be touched and fondled at whim. And perhaps they were. None appeared to be ladies overly concerned with their virtue.

  The gold diamonds warmed the flesh of Jane’s bosom. Her hand brushed the stones every so often, taking comfort in their presence—the only extravagance, the only item of value someone thought her worthy to possess. They fed her courage in the face of so many wolves. Not for the first time, she wondered if she had made a mistake in coming here.

  “Taste this,” Astrid said, offering a lobster pasty. “They’re divine.”

  Shaking her head, Jane tugged on the dress again. “It doesn’t fit,” she grumbled.

  “It fits,” Astrid announced blithely, chewing with an intense look of appreciation, oblivious to the admiring stares sent her way. With her fair skin and honey hair, she looked like a sun-kissed peach in her apricot gown. Hardly the coldly reserved duchess most of the ton knew her to be—that even Jane had first thought her to be.

  Astrid held up another pasty. “What about this one?” She squinted at it, her dark brows dipping. “Appears to be stuffed with spinach. And perhaps artichoke, um, no, truffles…” Biting into it, she moaned with approval, the uninhibited sound rather odd coming from such an austere woman.

  Jane raised her voice to be heard over the din. “No, thank you.”

  Somewhere on the dance floor, a woman squealed in loud delight. Jane looked up, watching as a gentleman tossed the lady over his shoulder and carried her off into one of the curtained alcoves edging the ballroom.

  “Astrid,” she began, her gaze darting about the ballroom uneasily, trying to ignore the gentleman not two yards away who leered at her, licking his lips as if she were a bit of dessert
he would like to sample. “Where is Lucy?”

  “There.” Astrid nodded to the dance floor, looking up from her plate briefly.

  Jane turned, watching as Lucy whirled past in the arms of a pot-bellied Viking. She frowned at the way the Viking clutched Lucy close, his hand skating down her spine, inching dangerously close to her derrière. With admirable composure, Lucy grasped his hand and lifted it higher on her back.

  Jane shook her head. This was scarcely what she had imagined when her friends proposed an evening out. Shaking her head she looked away, catching sight of a gentleman at the other end of the table as he fed a woman a morsel from his plate, thrusting his entire finger into her mouth as he did so.

  Heat crawled up her face and neck, burning the tips of her ears as the woman suckled his finger as one would a stick of peppermint. Forcing her gaze away, she muttered, “This is not what I had in mind—”

  “I warned Lucy you would be frightened.”

  Frightened. The heat in her cheeks grew scalding at the thought of her friends discussing her possible unwillingness to remain in such a cesspit as somehow a deficiency—a lack of courage. Jane the mouse, her sister had always called her.

  Jane inched closer to Astrid as a man wearing a toga slid past, using his proximity to trail his pudgy fingers down the length of her bare arm. Shivering, she tucked her arm close to her side. “This has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with good sense.”

  “Hmm,” Astrid offered in reply. Jane was uncertain, but the sound may have been in approval of the tea cake she chewed.

  Jane propped a hand on her hip and glared at Astrid. “Don’t you find this all a little”—she groped for the right word—“unnerving?”

  “Unnerving?” Astrid angled her head as if in heavy contemplation. Her dark eyes scanned the crowded ballroom before looking back to Jane. “Is that not a convoluted way of saying frightened?” Shrugging, she took another bite.

  “Semantics,” Jane snapped, searching again among the throng for a glimpse of Lucy’s strawberry blond hair, convinced that talking to her wouldn’t be half so vexing.

  Her gaze skipped over faces. Then she saw…something, someone, a profile of a man—a ghost.

  Her heart jerked, a painful leap in her chest at the achingly familiar fall of brown hair over a wide brow. Dancers whirled in her line of vision. Gasping, she craned her head, leaned to the side, and tried to catch another glimpse. But he was gone. A name whispered through her head like the flutter of a breeze.

  Shaking her head, she shoved the whisper from her head and resumed her search for Lucy, at last spotting her. The Viking trailed his hand down the arch of her neck, catching the fiery curl draped over her shoulder and bringing it to his nose. Even across the ballroom, Lucy’s cringe was visible.

  Jane felt a pang of guilt knowing that tonight’s escapade was for her benefit, so that she could experience a bit of freedom. And her friend endured that jackanape’s paws all over her. For her.

  “Enough is enough. We’re leaving.”

  Turning, she set her glass of punch on a nearby table with a decisive thud. Standing on her tiptoes, she craned her neck to signal Lucy.

  “Hello, my dears.”

  Jane swung around and her heart shuddered to a painful stop.

  The blood ran cold in her veins. Her mouth went slack as she stared into familiar features—thin lips set in a face bloated and fatigued from a lifetime of overimbibing. Had her thoughts somehow conjured this devil before her?

  At his club, indeed. The wretch.

  Astrid sputtered on her drink and reached for Jane’s arm.

  “You all right there?” Desmond asked, patting Astrid’s back.

  Nodding, Astrid pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, the fingers of her other hand tightening about Jane’s arm. Her eyes, wide and shocked in her cream-colored domino, collided with Jane’s.

  Ever so slowly, Jane inched back a step, then another.

  Astrid, as though sensing her intent, released her arm.

  “Where are you off to, my dear?” Desmond snatched her hand before she could disappear in the crowd and shoved his face alarmingly close to hers. “Something dashed familiar about you.” His fingers stroked the inside of her arm in small circles. “Have we met?”

  “No,” she rasped, heart thundering against her ribs.

  His thin lips stretched into a leer. “Must be my heart recognizing its own match, then.”

  Jane swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. “F—forgive me, but I was just leaving,” she managed to get out, relieved at the strangled, unfamiliar sound of her voice.

  “You can’t leave without first granting me a dance,” he insisted, tucking her against his side.

  She opened her mouth to object, and then closed it with a snap, too fearful that he would identify her voice. Stiff and silent, she allowed him to pull her onto the dance floor, trying to shrink into herself and make herself small, unrecognizable.

  Through whirling figures, she caught a glimpse of Astrid’s dismayed gaze. Lucy soon joined her, and together they watched her with Desmond as though they witnessed some freakish exhibition at a carnival.

  Desmond’s hand slid lower, urging her closer. Her stomach churned as he rubbed his cheek against hers, his fetid breath hot and moist in her ear.

  “You are certain we have not met before?” her brother-in-law asked.

  Did he know? Did he toy with her?

  She swallowed hard and fast, heart hammering wildly in her chest, a caged bird desperate for escape.

  Her voice emerged, strained and hoarse, thankfully still unrecognizable. “One’s identity is secret at a masquerade.”

  “Ah, torment me then,” he said in a pouting voice that reminded her very much of any one of his daughters when they did not get their way.

  “I’m sure I’ll work it out.” He maneuvered her more snugly against him, fitting her to him and rocking her against his pelvis, his reed thin legs sliding between hers. She closed her eyes in a long-suffering blink.

  The irony of her situation left an acrid taste in her mouth. For over a year, she had managed to stay out of Desmond’s clutches, knowing he saw her as some sort of trophy to be won—his late brother’s wife to be bedded and conquered. And here she found herself, trapped in his arms at a courtesan’s ball. Instead of freedom, she suddenly felt caged.

  With surprising nimbleness for a man who spent most of his time at cards and drinking, Desmond swept her from the dance floor and down a long corridor. Her feet slid over the slick marble, unable to gain purchase as he dragged her. She tried to peel his fingers from her wrist, but they clung like a creeping vine.

  Her voice squeaked with indignation. “What are you—”

  He pushed her against a wall, shocking her into silence. The bulge of his belly crushed her, his skinny knee shoving between her thighs through the many folds of her skirts.

  His fingers traced her lips and the stink of fish and onions wafted to her nose. With a cringe, she recalled his penchant for using his hands while eating.

  His touch changed, became urgent, fierce. He pinched her mouth, silencing her save for her hiss of pain.

  “Enough. No more maidenly protests. Only one kind of woman would come here. I’m not going to do anything that hasn’t already been done to you.” His lips twisted into a semblance of a grin. “Only I’ll likely do it better.”

  Releasing her face, he grasped her wrists and forced them over her head, thrusting his hips against hers in an emulation of sex.

  Tugging fiercely on her hands, she bit out, “Why don’t you release me and find someone who appreciates your efforts?”

  His features twisted. “You’ve quite the mouth on you. Perhaps I’ll put it to better use.”

  His hands tightened on her wrists until her hands grew numb and bloodless. She whimpered as he lowered his mouth to hers. Panic rose, swirling hotly in her blood.

  Recognizing that her protests weren’t getting her anywhere, she decided t
o try another course. However much it turned her stomach.

  Meekly, she submitted to his kiss, suffering his fishy tongue in her mouth, allowing him to think he had won her over. After a moment, she broke free and murmured coyly, “You cannot mean for us to engage in a liaison here in the corridor?”

  With a slow satisfied smile, he dragged her down the corridor. “I know a room.”

  “Why not fetch us drinks?” she coaxed. “A bit of cheese? Fruit?”

  He paused, blinking small, feral eyes at her.

  “I find”—she swallowed to stop herself from choking on the words—“love play makes me famished.” Forcing her voice into a low, seductive pitch, she tempted him further. “And nothing loosens my inhibitions more than spirits.”

  He stared at her lips for a long moment before blurting, “Rum punch, then?”

  “Yes,” she agreed, nodding hastily, so relieved that she had convinced him to leave. “I’ll wait right here.”

  With an obliging dip of his head, and one final lascivious look, he spun on his heels.

  She was on the verge of moving when he spun back around.

  “Don’t move from that spot,” he admonished. “I shall be watching to see if you return to the ballroom.”

  Then he was gone, swallowed up by the throng of revelers edging the mouth of the corridor.

  She had only a moment. Not enough time to plan a solid escape. With his warning ringing in her ears, she darted into the nearest room as if the soles of her slippers were afire, hoping to find a way out through a terrace door.

  Once within the room, she shut the door and leaned against it, inhaling deeply as she attempted to still the wild beating of her heart. The door’s firm length at her back—a much-needed barrier to Desmond and the revelry beyond—offered some measure of solace, but she knew she couldn’t tarry.