Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(26)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“Dismiss them,” he barked at her. He eyed the men. Two were barely old enough to shave, but the third was a big fellow with broad shoulders.

Thomas flexed his hands. In his current mood, he was of a mind to take on all three.

“My lord,” Lavinia drawled. She was wearing another flame-colored dress that should’ve clashed horribly with her outlandishly red hair, but somehow didn’t. In fact, the amount of creamy bosom the décolletage displayed was enough to make a man drool.

Thomas scowled. “Tell them to leave, Lavinia.”

She arched an eyebrow at the use of her given name, and for a moment Thomas thought he really would have to choose between retreat and fisticuffs. Then she whispered something to the big fellow, and with a last nasty look, all three turned heel and left.

“Now, then.” She folded her arms across her chest as if bracing herself for an unpleasant confrontation with a bill collector. “What is it, Thomas?”

“Three, Lavinia?” His hands clenched by his sides. “And all merely boys.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “As it happens, my lord, two of those boys are my nephews. And I doubt Samuel would like you calling him a boy.”

So the big man was her lover. Thomas wanted to drive his fist into something. “He’s younger than you.”

“As are you,” she replied softly. “Yet it didn’t keep you from my bed.”

For a moment he merely stared at her hungrily, remembering her bed and what they’d done there.

Then she looked away. “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” He advanced toward her, confused by his own need to be near her. “You’re the one following me.”

“Following you?”

He didn’t know what reaction he’d expected from his accusation—perhaps protestations or even tears—but it wasn’t this. This looked perilously close to pity, her eyebrows drawing together, her lush mouth turning down.

“Thomas, I am not following you.”

“Explain, then, how you happened to be here on the very night I attend with my fiancée?”

She shrugged—actually shrugged!—at his angry words. “Coincidence, I suppose.”

“And your Samuel?” He was close enough to touch her now, but he daren’t. “Deny, if you will, that you brought him here in a pathetic effort to make me jealous.”

He sneered his words, but she looked at him wonderingly. “Are you jealous, Thomas? I can’t think why, since you’re the one who broke it off when you decided to marry Lady Hero.”

He looked away from her too-perceptive face. “I never said we had to quit, only that we wait a decent amount of time after the wedding. A year at most. I could’ve bought you a bigger house if you wanted it. A carriage and team.”

“The money never had anything to do with it.”

“Then what did?”

She sighed. “However provincial it might seem to you, I don’t wish to carry on a liaison with a married man. It’s rather sordid, don’t you think? Besides, I’ve seen your Lady Hero and she seems a nice girl. I shouldn’t like to hurt her.”

He grit his teeth, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “Are you saying you care more for my fiancée than me?”

She stared back, that wretched look of pity in her eyes again. “Are you saying you don’t?”

“What do you want of me?” he demanded. “I cannot marry you—you know that, Lavinia. Even if we were a suitable match, even if you weren’t past the age of childbearing, I simply cannot marry one such as you.”

“How chivalrous of you to point out my advanced age to me—yet again,” she drawled. “But as it happens, there is no need for such drama. I know we cannot marry, and I refuse to conduct a liaison with you when you are otherwise promised. There really isn’t anything more to say.”

He felt something very close to desperation. “I thought you cared for me.”

Overhead the fireworks began exploding.

“I did. I do.” She sighed and let her head fall back, watching the fiery trails. “But my feelings for you really have nothing to do with this discussion. Anne broke your trust long before I came along. I’m not sure you’d trust any woman again, let alone one with a past like mine. You’ve made that abundantly plain. Really, it’s a wonder you were able to propose to even a virgin like Lady Hero.”

An awful, oily blackness invaded his chest at her words, because she was right, damn her. He’d never bring himself to truly trust her.

“As you’ve already stated, the thing is impossible.” She glanced over her shoulder. “They’ll be waiting for me—we’d decided on ices while the fireworks played.”

He looked at her mutely, unable to find the words that would make this right. The words that would make her stay.

She smiled rather wearily. “Good-bye, Thomas. I hope you have a happy marriage.”

And he could do nothing but watch her walk away from him.

*      *      *

HERO HAD WANTED to know how Reading tasted and now she knew: He was wine and man and need.

Pure, hot need, coursing through her blood like quicksilver, lighting her bones on fire, making her muscles quake until she literally trembled in his arms. He didn’t kiss her like she was the daughter of a duke, reverent and slow. No, he kissed her like a woman. His lips were hard, demanding things from her, not waiting to see if she had the experience to keep up. His tongue pushed against her lips, insisting on entrance. She opened her mouth eagerly. He swarmed in without hesitation, taking as if she was his by right.

“Griffin,” she murmured, her hands clutching at his black domino, unsure of what to do. He pulled her close—so close she felt the muscles of his legs through her skirts. His fingers were in her hair, skimming over her throat, brushing lightly at the tops of her breasts.

She should push him away. What she wanted instead was to take his hand and press those long fingers into her bodice. To guide him until he stroked the puckered tips of her naked breasts. She thought she might very well expire from sheer ecstasy if he touched her there.

A loud bang! made her start and break the kiss. The night sky lit for a moment, as bright as day, illuminating his masked face and his mouth, wet and tempting. He pulled back from her, still holding her shoulders and stared at her as if transfixed. Lord knew what her own expression looked like.