To Desire a Wicked Duke

The kiss was amazingly insipid.

Disappointment surged through Tess Blanchard as Mr. Hennessy drew her more fully into his embrace. She had expected so much more when she acquiesced to his impulsive gesture.

More excitement, more pleasure, more
feeling
. In short, she had secretly longed to be swept away by romantic passion.

Instead she found herself logically analyzing the construction of his lovemaking. The precise pressure of his lips. The exact angle of his head. The unarousing feel of his arms around her.

There was no spark, no
fire
between them at all, Tess realized sorrowfully. The entire business left her remarkably cold.

Oh, Patrick Hennessy certainly
seemed
skilled in the art of kissing, she mused as his mouth plied hers with increased ardor. But surely a man who counted
himself such an expert lover should have elicited a stronger response from her?

Not that she had much basis for comparison. This was only the second man she had ever romantically embraced in her three-and-twenty years.

It had happened purely on a whim. One moment they were laughing together over a line in the comic play Hennessy had written. The next, an arrested expression claimed his features as he gazed down at her. When he stepped closer and bent his head to capture her lips, Tess had no thought of stopping him. For too long she had let herself languish on the shelf in the game of love, refusing to open herself up to renewed heartbreak. But it was past time to reenter the lists.

Admittedly, in Mr. Hennessy she was drawn by both curiosity and the lure of the forbidden. She knew better, of course. A proper lady did not indulge in scandalous experiments with libertine actors behind the stage curtains. Hennessy was known as something of a Lothario among the London theater crowd, although in addition to being a brilliant performer, he was also a successful manager of his own troupe, a budding playwright, and the talented director of Tess’s two recent benefit concerts, which had raised vast sums for her charities.

Then again, perhaps she was not giving him a fair chance.

Closing her eyes more tightly, Tess made a stronger effort to enter into the spirit of the kiss. In response, Hennessy’s hand stole lower down her back, over her derrière, to pull her closer. Despite her own lack of
enthusiasm, she had evidently affected
him
, judging by the swelling hardness she felt pressing against her lower abdomen—

“Well, well, are you practicing to play the part of lovers in your production, Miss Blanchard?”

At the sharp-edged drawl, a startled Tess tore her mouth away from Hennessy’s—and froze in mortification upon recognizing that sardonic male voice. Obviously she had failed to hear anyone enter the ballroom where their makeshift stage was erected.

Good Lord, what utterly dreadful timing, to have her transgression discovered by the arrogant, infuriating Duke of Rotham, elder cousin of her late betrothed. Rotham had stepped behind the stage curtains to find her locked in a clandestine embrace with the man she had hired to produce her amateur theatrical.

Scalding heat flooded Tess’s cheeks as she pulled away from her partner in crime. Hennessy had also reacted to the duke’s unexpected appearance by releasing her instantly. Yet the actor looked not only guilty but somewhat alarmed, as if he’d been caught in a hanging offense.

Squaring her shoulders, Tess turned to face Ian Sutherland, the tall, lithe Duke of Rotham. His handsome face was an enigmatic mask in the muted daylight seeping over the stage curtains from the ballroom windows, but his mouth held a tightness that signified displeasure, perhaps even anger.

He had no right to judge her, she told herself defiantly.

“You are mistaken, your grace,” Tess said, striving
to keep her voice calm as she responded to his mocking tone. “There are no lovers in Mr. Hennessy’s play. It is merely a comedy of manners about a mischievous ghost.”