A Duke's Temptation (3 page)

“Come clean,” she whispered. “What have you done? Knocked over a vase?”

He hesitated. “I never finished reading
King Lear
. In fact, I couldn’t make it through the first act. People keep throwing quotes at me about ungrateful children, and I’ve no clue what they mean. I had to take off my crown so that I wouldn’t be recognized.”

“Oh, Jonathan. What am I to do with you?”

He gave her a helpless grin. “Answer for me the next time anyone asks about the plot. I keep acting as if I can’t hear properly.”

She reminded herself of all his good qualities. He didn’t drink. He thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and at times she believed him. He always behaved like a gentleman in her presence, and, obviously, he needed her.

“You should have told me this before,” she whispered. “It’s too late to worry about it now. And it isn’t as if Shakespeare will appear to ask your opinion.”

He looked completely unconcerned. “I wouldn’t have even come here tonight if I didn’t know how much you loved your books. Have your evening, Lily. But know that I’m counting the hours until we share a bed. Give me a kiss for luck before I go.”

“Where are you going?” she asked in vexation.

“I just told you. Kirkham and I have been invited upstairs for cards.”

She lifted her face covertly, then pulled away, aware of an attractive gentleman lounging against the wall. He was dressed as a knight, and although he was too far away to hear what she and Jonathan were discussing, his insolent stare indicated that he found their encounter amusing.

How long had he been watching them?

A strange prickle of warmth stole down her neck into her white-plumed bodice. She forced her attention back to Jonathan’s reassuring face. “Don’t be late for the unmasking. Put the crown on before you come back.”

He nodded. “Stay where Chloe can keep an eye on you until then. I promise I won’t be long. And, Lily—don’t let any rakes steal you while I’m gone.”

L
ily smiled ruefully at Jonathan’s parting remark. He could be overly protective at times and utterly oblivious at others. As if she would let a rake ruin her evening. In the first place, the only gentlemen she had met at the party had expressed more interest in the fine arts than the amorous ones. Which was what one would expect at a literary affair.

Furthermore, it would take an unprincipled scoundrel to pursue a lady in such elite company. If the unthinkable happened and she found herself accosted by a rogue, her cousin would come to her rescue.

The viscountess had been Lily’s official chaperone in London over the past two months and had confided openly in Lily about her past experiences with the opposite sex. A dedicated wife and mother now, Chloe freely admitted that she had not only caused but courted a few scandals in her day. She seemed to regard it as her penance to guard a country relation like Lily from succumbing to the same temptations.

What those temptations had been Lily could only guess. She suspected the greatest of them had been Dominic Breckland, Chloe’s brooding viscount.

Lily spotted Chloe talking to yet another pair of gentlemen, neither of whom was her husband, who had refused to wear a costume. “Lily!” she called gaily. “Don’t stand there all alone like a little lost duckling! Come and meet two of my dearest friends.”

Lily shrugged helplessly. Guests hemmed her in at every angle. She straightened to squeeze toward an opening to escape, only to be bumped forward into the next person in line. Lily was not a petite person. She played a strong game of bowls and ate generous meals. She could have given the rude guest a return shove with her rear end that would have knocked him back a few yards. Instead, she craned her neck and attempted to catch Chloe’s attention to signal her inability to move.

“Would somebody be so kind as to—”

She broke off. No one was paying any notice except the insouciant scoundrel leaning against the wall, who appeared to be enjoying her dilemma. She glanced up at him amid the tricornered hats and frilly caps and bewigged heads that bobbed back and forth before her.

Some sort of spear stood at his side. If he was supposed to be a knight, he struck Lily as more wicked than chivalrous. His lithe figure conveyed a leashed energy that she could feel across the room. He kept nodding at whatever was being said to him.

But his eyes glittered at Lily from the slits of his black silk mask. A lady’s hand reached through the crowd to caress his shoulder. To Lily’s amazement, he showed no reaction to this impropriety. It did not appear to provoke him in the least. Nor did he seem pleased by it. But then Lily had let Jonathan kiss her on the cheek, and she had pretended not to notice in the hope no one else would either.

Who would want to steal her?

She wasn’t the sort to excite that much passion, even in a rake.

Lily blinked. What had come over her? She would not drink another glass of champagne. At least not until after she ate. And she would not sneak another glance at the man whose stare had practically singed her skin.

She lifted her gaze. Her last look, she promised herself. It wouldn’t hurt. No one else would ever know. One. Final. Look.

Relieved and a little disappointed, she realized that he was no longer looking at her. She assured herself it was for the best. Heartbreak might as well have been emblazoned on his forehead. She wasn’t surprised that females made up the innermost group of guests that he’d attracted.

Still, how he managed to appear lost and affected with lethal boredom was a skill that Lily could only admire from a guarded distance. His negligent elegance announced to the room that he accepted his influence and felt no guilt in wielding this gift as he desired.

Lily might not have recognized such inborn arrogance if she had not possessed some weaponry of her own. Nothing of his magnitude. But she adored the thrill of secret flirtations. And—

She wasn’t merely looking at him now. She was studying him like a masterpiece in a museum. How on earth did he manage it? He gave the impression of a masked god who had dropped in on the party only to let the world of mortals worship in his shadow.

Was that air of dark indolence part of his disguise? Perhaps he was an actor and that was why he had an audience that basked in his presence. She liked that notion. The longer she appraised him, the more she wondered whether he was holding court as part of a well-rehearsed performance.

Demon, actor, or social darling, she found him captivating, too, judging by her furtive analysis of his person. And then it dawned on her that the weapon at his side was a rusty lance, and he wasn’t an ordinary knight-errant. He was Don Quixote de la Mancha, mad and self-appointed protector of the helpless.

“Lily!”

She turned reluctantly toward the sound of Chloe’s voice, her musings interrupted. Then it happened again. Unexpected, breath-catching. Like watching a star tumble from the midnight sky.

He lifted his head and stared at her, as if he’d been waiting to catch her off guard again. What impeccable timing. His lean form straightened. His hard-lipped mouth curled at one corner.

A farewell to their brief flirtation or an invitation to something far more dangerous? Lily couldn’t decide.

She started to look away. She knew better than to encourage this sort of nonsense. A man who stared at a lady like that and didn’t mind who noticed only offered trouble. But all of a sudden her own instinct for mischief took over. Lily could flirt, too, and the fact that she was wearing a costume gave her a false sense of anonymity.

Just for tonight she wasn’t the unsophisticated Miss Lily Boscastle of Tissington, who in a month would become a bride and settle down to a respectable life as Captain Grace’s wife.

She would never see this knight-errant again. The unabashed attention he paid her begged for an answer. But what kind? An alluring smile to admit that she was intrigued? A firm shake of her head that meant a definite no? Or perhaps a little shrug to indicate that while he flattered her, she wasn’t willing to reciprocate with anything riskier?

Would that be too wicked of her? It wasn’t as if he could leap into the air and snatch her up in full view of innumerable witnesses.

She smiled back at him, a playful coquette’s smile, over the shoulder, straight in the direction of his handsome face.

And he did, inclining his head in open approval, the devil acknowledging his due. What had she done? She took a breath, transfixed, as he raised his helmet in a tribute that tempted and immobilized her in the same delirious moment.

Several members of his group turned their heads to identify her. He hadn’t been subtle at all. She barely felt the person behind her give her another shove. This time she was too distracted to take offense.

In fact, she was so unbalanced that she allowed herself to be propelled directly into an opening in the line, into temptation’s path, and heaven only knew how far the shameless man would have carried this scandalous exchange had a firm hand not caught hers and an urgent voice not whispered in her ear, “
Lily.
”

She tumbled back to earth, recognizing the raven-haired enchantress who was rightfully attempting to restore her common sense. “What has come over you?” Chloe demanded under her breath. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not doing anything.” Not that she would readily admit.

“I am going to give you a belated warning,” Chloe went on in such a breathless voice that Lily was forced to listen. “I assumed that because you flirted so well, you fully understood what a dangerous game it can be.”

Lily bit her lip. From the corner of her eye she observed an older, distinguished-looking gentleman entering the room to a chorus of warm cheers. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” she lied. “But perhaps you ought to lecture me later. Isn’t that our host, Lord Philbert, just making an appearance?”

Chloe was clearly not to be deterred. She pointedly stared at the gorgeous creature standing up against the wall. Lily wasn’t positive, but she thought Lord Philbert had broken through the ranks that surrounded the charismatic one, which indicated that while the other man might be a rake, he was, as she suspected, an important one.

At least Lily hadn’t smiled at a nobody. There was some consolation in that.

Chloe released her grip on Lily’s hand. “Do you have the vaguest idea who that gentleman is?”

“Which gentleman? The room is full of them.”

“I saw you smile at only one.”

Lily realized it was self-defeating to deceive a lady as observant as her cousin. “I couldn’t help it, Chloe. I mean, I couldn’t help noticing him. It was wrong.”

“Everyone notices him,” Chloe continued in a forgiving voice. “There is nothing to be done for that. But the problem is that
he
is making a point to notice you. And that is why it is crucial that I warn you. He is the Duke of Gravenhurst.”

Lily knew this announcement should have given her a scare.

“Does the title signify some inherent evil?” she asked cautiously.

Chloe straightened the gold circlet that pressed her fringe of black curls to her forehead. “I don’t know all that much about him myself. He is said to have inherited it after some family tragedy when he was a boy. As the story goes, he went a little wild as he reached his maturity. His supporters attribute his rebellious nature to the responsibilities he took on at a young age.”

“Supporters?” Lily said, lifting her brow.

“In the House of Lords. He gives persuasive speeches for causes that other people pretend don’t exist.” Chloe studied her in concern. “He’s
very
persuasive, from what I’ve gathered.”

“That isn’t a crime, is it?”

“It depends on whom you ask. The opposite party thinks so. As do several parents whose daughters have formed a society to follow him around the capital with telescopes when he visits. His foes consider him a traitor to the peerage.”

“Well, I don’t plan on joining any admiration societies in the near future, and it’s doubtful Jonathan will ever land in the House of Lords. Especially since he cannot even be bothered to finish a book, and his brother is going to inherit the family title.”

Chloe calmed down a bit. “At least your captain is a decent person.”

“And the duke is not?” Lily asked before she could censor the question.

“A man that handsome, who has only to smile to mesmerize, cannot be unaware of his charm.”

“Is it his fault that he is beautiful?”

“He is rumored to run through women like . . . racehorses.”

Lily reared back at this appalling image. “That is disgusting. And not beautiful in the least.”

Chloe drew a breath, clearly mollified by Lily’s reaction. “
If
it is true,” she added in an apparent bid to be fair. “I can’t honestly say that I’ve had personal experience with the man. But I seem to recall a bit of gossip—Oh, dear.”

“ ‘Oh dear,’ what?”

“I think I read that he wakes up at midnight with one woman and blazes through the streets until dawn in his cabriolet with another. And that he has appeared at three routs in a single hour.”

“No wonder he’s lean.”

“Lily,
listen
. When other gentlemen come home to change into their evening clothes, he is removing his. Do you realize what that means?”

It could mean anything, Lily thought. He could be nocturnal by nature. He could be allergic to daylight or city fog. It could mean he preferred the intimacy of the night. Perhaps he was simply one of those men who came alive when the sun went down. Lily knew only that his presence irradiated the room, and that it could be morning or midnight right now and she would not have noticed the difference.