The Hazards Of Hunting A Duke (4 page)

Another footman appeared holding a lantern high. “Milady,” he said, indicating she should come now. Ava stepped out and hurried forward as best she could with her broken shoe. As they neared the

carriages, a coachman swung down from the bench of the first carriage to open the door.

Ava had only a

moment to see the crest, but she saw an eagle carrying a bra nch in its talons. The coachman held his hand

out to Ava, which she took and quickly ducked inside, landing on a thickly padded velvet squab, the same deep red color of the silk covered walls. The shades —likewise made of silk—were drawn.

“There’s a rug beneath the seat, milady,” the coachman said hurriedly, and shut the door, obviously anxious to be under his pelts and leaving her in total darkness in his haste.

“Drat,” Ava muttered, and bent over to find the lap rug when she heard men’s voices calling out and the carriage suddenly lurched forward, pitching Ava off balance. She put a hand out to the bench opposite to steady herself, but instead of touching velvet, she touched a living, breathing thing.

With a shriek, Ava shot up, flinging herself back aga inst the squabs at the same moment the flare of a

match lit the interior of the carriage and illuminated the Marquis of Middleton. She gasped loudly and for

the air she needed to breathe; he was stretched across the opposite bench, his shoulder against the silk wall, one foot planted firmly on the floor of the coach, but one leg cocked at the knee, his foot perched irreverently on the velvet squab as he reached up and lit the interior lamp.

It took another moment for Ava to find her voice. “What…what are y ou doing in Lady Purnam’s carriage?” she asked, pressing a hand to her rapidly beating heart.

“I’m not in Lady Purnam’s carriage. I’m in my carriage.”

How slowly the meaning of those words penetrated her consciousness. After what seemed like minutes, Ava finally realized she was in the wrong carriage. “Oh my God,”

she exclaimed, mortified, and instantly moved for the door —but Middleton stopped her with a well-placed boot to the handle of the same door.

“If you have stolen inside my coach to apologize for delivering a direct cut to me in front of all of London,

I accept.”

She blinked. “I didn’t come to apologize.” Middleton lifted a brow. “Dear God,” she muttered. “My lord, I have made a horrible mistake.”

He smiled smugly.

“I mean that I was to be in Lady Purnam’s carriage and the footman said there was a bird in the crest,

but as I hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to Lady Purnam’s crest I was uncertain about any bird until I saw the eagle…” she said, gesturing vag uely to the door of his coach. “Although now I seem to

remember a nightingale…” She shook her head, unclear about what she remembered. “I have broken my shoe,” she added quickly, sliding her foot out for him to see.

He glanced down at her foot.

“And Lady Purnam said that her carriage would see me home. So you see it’s all a very unfortunate mistake.”

“Very,” he said low as his dark gaze skated over her to the hem of her gown and back.

Ava swallowed hard. The coach lurched again, only this time, it ke pt moving. “Oh dear,”

she said, gripping the squabs. “Will you please have your driver stop so that I may step out?”

He said nothing, but remained there, sprawled carelessly on the bench, his foot braced against the door handle.

“My lord—”

“Appease my curiosity, will you? Why did you cut me?” he asked idly. “Have I harmed you in some way? Displeased you? Ignored you?”

Ava opened her mouth to assure him he had not, but she was struck with the notion that he was,

incredibly, wounded by her refusal. Lord M iddleton, who had scads of women flinging themselves at his coattails whenever he walked by, was wounded because she had refused to dance with him.

She wanted to savor that thought, but the coach was picking up speed, and suddenly all she could think

of was what Greer had said about him. She lunged again for the door, but Middleton steadfastly refused

to move his boot. “Do you intend to jump from a moving carriage?” “If I must,” she said firmly. “I am to be in Lady Purnam’s carriage.”

“First you refuse to stand up with me before the ton, and now you would jump from a moving carriage. Lady Ava, I am beginning to believe you do not esteem my good company.”

“I do not know you, my lord, so I have no opinion of your company, either good or bad.

This is not what you must think.”

“No? Then what exactly is it?”

“My shoe is quite broken, as I showed you. I couldn’t possibly dance.” “Why did you not merely say so?”

He had her there. She couldn’t confess it was because Lady Purnam had decreed that she should not, or that she knew of his reputation…or that there was something strangely empowering in eliciting his displeasure. “I suppose I thought a polite decline was all that was necessary,” she said pertly. “Now will

you please have your driver stop?”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” he said, almost cheerfully. “I reckon hordes of Lady Fontaine’s guests saw you cut

me in the ballroom. Now I reckon hordes more are standing un der the portico watching the snow fall and wondering together if they should leave now before the roads become impassable. Imagine the endless speculation were they to see you vault from my carriage with your maidenly virtue scarcely intact and run

for Lady Purnam’s coach.”

Oh dear God, he was right. Ava bit her lip and glanced at the door. When she turned her gaze to him again, Middleton was smiling with an expression that was entirely too self -

satisfied.

He was enjoying the scandalous lies that were cer tainly being spread at this very moment, the roué. “I shall, of course, take you home at once,” he said, graciously inclining his head. “To protect your chaste reputation.”

The way he said it made her think that he had in mind the exact opposite. Lord in heaven, she could

imagine what Lord Downey or her mother would say! Undoubtedly, they would have expected her to

remove herself from his carriage by now.

“Or perhaps the crowds will be gone by the time we have circled Hyde Park,” he suggested. “And then you will be quite safe in changing coaches.”

“Hyde Park?” she echoed weakly.

He grinned wolfishly. “I do beg your pardon, Lady Ava, but I was expecting someone else. My driver wasn’t told there’d be two handsome callers.”

Her face flushed hot, but at the same time, Ava felt a shiver of anticipation. Or perhaps it was fear.

Honestly, she wasn’t quite certain what she felt, really, other than an overwhelming curiosity that collided with foolishness as all the dangerous, devil ish things she’d ever heard about Middleton crowded into her brain.

And then he picked up the edge of her cloak as casually as he might pick up his own and rubbed it between his fingers. “Have you a direction? Or do you intend to come home with me?” he asked, watching her.

Heat flooded her face again. “Fourteen Clifford Street. Thank you.”

He smiled as if he’d expected her to give in and reached up, opened the small door beneath the driver’s seat that allowed him to communicate, and said, “Fourteen Cliff ord Street.”

Ava smiled thinly, clasped her hands tightly in her lap.

He shut the trap and then suddenly sat upright, boxing her legs between his. In fact, his legs were so close

to hers that she squeezed hers together and rearranged her skirts so there was no danger of their touching.

The skin around his eyes crinkled with a smile and he leaned forward, looking into her eyes. “Do you want to know why I think you declined my invitation to dance?”

No. Yes. No, no—“Why?”

“Because you meant to trifle with me. You do like to flirt, do you not, Lady Ava? You enjoy being a bit

of a coquette, hmm?”

She choked on a small laugh of surprise. This man, possibly the most sought after man in all of England, believed she had declined to dance so that she might flirt with him? It was apparent that his ego was as large as it was fragile, and that knowledge put her on solid footing. “I suppose I do flirt a bit…with some

people,” she said, smiling. “Which people?”

She shrugged. “Friends.”

“But not me, is that what you w ould imply?” “Oh no, not you.”

“Why not?”

“Because…were I to flirt with you, my lord, I have no doubt you would presume a better acquaintance.”

He chuckled a little and leaned in closer. “Would I indeed?”

Ava shifted backward, away from the pull of his smile. “Of course you would. You are far too accustomed to flirting with the gentler sex in her entirety…if one can believe what is printed in the newspaper or whispered in drawing rooms. My unfavorable respo nse would surely disappoint you.”

“And you have this from the gentler sex in her entirety, eh?” He chuckled. “That’s rather a lot, isn’t it?” “Not in her entirety, for you cannot count me in that number.”

He smiled as if they played some sort of game. “Is my reputation as randy as all that?”

His dark hazel eyes, she decided, were the very color of the hills in autumn around Bingley Hall, where she’d spent her childhood. Quite attractive eyes, really. “I think you are being coy, sir. I suspect you

know your reputation far better than I could ever hope to know it.”

His grin broadened and he inclined his head. “All right, I will concede that point. But I should like to know—if it is true I have such an effect on the gentler sex in all her entirety…then why aren’t you counted in that number?”

“I suppose I prefer the admiration to be bestowed upon me…as opposed to being the one who must bestow the admiration.”

He laughed; the rich, deep timbre of it gave Ava another little shiver of delight. “How very rich and how very honest of you.”

“I am indeed honest, my lord.”

“Then I must bestow my admiration on you, Lady Ava, so that you will not cut me so openly again. But first you must tell me,” he said, leaning forward again, his face only inches from hers, “how d o you prefer

to receive your admiration?”

“I beg your pardon?”

He leaned even closer, so that now Ava could see the curl of his dark lashes as his eyes casually took in her features. “Do you prefer to be admired in word…or in deed?”

The question, posed with such a sinfully delicious smile, caused her pulse to quicken, and Ava sank back

into the squabs, regretting her brash flirting. “I can’t possibly know what you mean.”

Middleton playfully bumped her knee with his. “Now who is b eing coy?”

Before she could respond, before she could even think of a response, Middleton suddenly moved forward, close enough to kiss her. Ava reflexively gasped with surprise, to which he gave her a boyish smile as his gaze dipped to her lips and caused her belly to sink a little.

“I did not hear your honest answer, madam. Do you prefer your admiration in word…or in deed?”

Her body was melting ahead of her brain. She could certainly understand why women fell under the man’

s spell—those eyes were overpowering and the smile on his lips was so alluring that she feared she might very well expose herself to any number of potential scandals, right here, right now.

She looked at his mouth, but found no relief there, and madly wondered if he did indeed intend to kiss her. A kiss from Middleton! There was only one way to achieve such dizzying heights of trifling sport, wasn’t there? “In deed,” she said in a near whisper, then caught her breath and held it.

“Good girl,” he muttered, and moved until his lips wer e just a hairsbreadth from hers. He hovered there, and Ava prepared herself to be kissed by lifting her chin slightly.

But the man surprised her by licking her lips, and he could not have been more sensuous in doing so.

With the tip of his tongue, he trac ed a slow path across the seam of her lips. Ava froze. It was the most sensual, decadent thing anyone had ever done to her, and it was so deeply stirring that she inadvertently released a small sigh of pleasure when he’d done it.

When she did, he lifted h is hand to her jaw and gently angled her head just so, catching the sigh with his mouth as it passed through her lips. He drew her bottom lip lightly between his teeth and teased her body forward by slipping his free hand to the small of her back, persuading her forward while his tongue

slipped into her mouth.

She felt as if she were falling toward him. She let him draw her into his embrace, opening her mouth to him, finding his waist with her hand. He was kissing her so thoroughly that she began to feel

uncomfortably hot in her cloak, and with her free hand, she fumbled with the clasp and pulled it carelessly from her shoulders. He moved a hand to her shoulder, ran his palm down her arm, then across the bare

skin of her bosom, and down, cupping her breast , squeezing it, his fingers brushing across the tip.

Ava gasped in his mouth; he moved her easily, pushing her down, so that she was on her back with her head propped against the side of his carriage. As his hands roamed her body, his mouth traced a wet

path to her bosom, his tongue flicking between her breasts, his mouth pressing against the mound of flesh while his hand kneaded her.

When he lifted one breast free of the confines of her gown, Ava panicked and tried to sit up—but then he took the tip of h er breast in his mouth, and she was falling again, sinking back into the squabs, her eyes

closed to the storm brewing in her, her body on fire. And then suddenly the coach came to a halt.

Middleton paused in his attention to her breast and glanced at the d oor. He sighed, calmly put her breast back into her gown as best he could, and kissed the hollow of her throat.

He moved up, nipped at her

lips once more as he pulled her to an upright position and draped her cloak around her shoulders, before lazily fadin g into the squabs of his bench across from her.

Ava was sitting in the same spot he’d left her, still leaning toward him, still feeling his lips on hers. As the