Notorious Pleasures (21 page)

“My dear?” Cousin Bathilda prompted.

“Phoebe didn’t tire me.” Hero smoothed her brow. “I have a slight headache.”

“Shall I tell the driver to turn around?”

“No,” Hero said too sharply, then inhaled. “No, it’s quite all right, cousin.”

“Well, I can’t think it’s all right when you use that tone,” Cousin Bathilda said, her feathers all ruffled.

Hero stifled a sigh and made herself smile calmly. “Truly, I’m sorry to have snapped at you.”

“Very well, then,” the other lady replied. “It’s rather late to turn about now anyway; we’re nearly there. Although I do feel bad about leaving poor Phoebe abed at home. Has Maximus talked to you about her yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“He must make a decision soon, I think.” Cousin Bathilda had lines of worry about her eyes. “Thank the Lord the physician said her arm will heal. It would be terrible if she were crippled as well as…” Bathilda’s voice died away as if she couldn’t quite make herself say the word.

Hero sighed and turned to gaze out the window, though there was nothing to see in the dark. How strange she felt! As if she’d become disconnected from her body and the events around her. She should be thinking deeply at this moment, coming to decisions and making things right somehow. Instead, she found it hard to concentrate on anything at all. Anything but thoughts of Griffin and how it had felt to accept him into her body this morning. She could almost smell his skin, hot and salty, feel the hair on his chest rasping against her bare nipples, see his eyes watching her always….

“I do hope Lord Griffin isn’t at the ball tonight,” Cousin Bathilda said, making her start.

Fortunately, her cousin didn’t seem to notice Hero’s wild glance.

“Bad enough that Phoebe seems entirely charmed by him,” Cousin Bathilda huffed. “I cannot believe you invited that man to luncheon!”

“Phoebe doesn’t know the particulars of his reputation,” Hero replied, attempting to move the conversation away from herself.

“Naturally not!” Bathilda was shocked at the mere notion. “A precious, innocent girl like her having knowledge of the extent of Lord Griffin’s scandalous ways—the very thought.”

“He has his good points as well,” Hero said before she could stop herself. “He’s funny, and an interesting conversationalist, and he can be very kind.”

“Funny and kind do not excuse a man’s rakishness.”

“He will soon be part of the family,” Hero replied, and felt like weeping.

“Humph!” was all Cousin Bathilda had to say to that.

Her obvious indignation made Hero smile faintly. “Mignon likes him, remember.”

The little dog raised her head at her name. She was curled up beside Bathilda on the carriage seat.

Cousin Bathilda stared severely at her pet. “She usually has better taste, I must say.”

Mignon decided their conversation was uninteresting, since the topic didn’t involve doggy tidbits. She yawned and laid her head back down again.

“Ah, here we are,” Cousin Bathilda said as the carriage rolled to a stop. She gathered Mignon in her arms and preceded Hero down the steps.

Outside, the Widdecombe town house was ablaze with torches. Liveried footmen bowed and ushered them up the steps and inside.

“I see Helena has made an extra effort this year,” Cousin Bathilda whispered loudly in Hero’s ear. “And well she should after
last
season’s debacle.”

Hero was still trying to remember the debacle in question when they came upon the receiving line.

“Bathilda.” A very thin lady with silvery gray hair leaned forward and almost touched her cheek to Cousin Bathilda’s. “How wonderful to see you again. And you brought your darling dog,” she observed with pursed lips as Mignon rumbled at her.

“Helena.” Cousin Bathilda put a soothing hand on Mignon’s head. “You remember my dear relative, Lady Hero Batten.”

“My lady.” Hero dipped into a curtsy.

“Engaged to the Marquess of Mandeville, yes?” Lady Widdecombe peered at her with faint approval. “A very good match, my dear. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Hero murmured. She felt a suffocating weight, as if a large boulder sat upon her chest. How scandalized everyone here would be if they knew what she truly was beneath her facade. She’d lost her perfection. She’d lost her place. For a wild moment she had the urge to simply turn and flee from the ballroom.

“There’s Mandeville now,” Cousin Bathilda exclaimed.

Hero glanced up and saw her fiancé, looking the same as ever. He was quite elegant tonight in deep brown velvet overembroidered in gold and red.

He made a leg at the sight of her. “Miss Picklewood, Lady Hero. You are the fairest damsel here tonight, I vow.”

“My lord.” She wondered what he would say if she asked him what feature he found so especially beautiful about her? Was it her eyes? Her neck? Her breasts? But then he’d never seen her bare breasts. Only one man had and it wasn’t her fiancé.

She looked away, biting her lip as guilt battered against her.

“I hope your dear sister is better?” Mandeville asked gravely.

“As well as can be expected, my lord,” Cousin Bathilda answered. “The doctor has prescribed bed rest, but he thinks the arm will knit.”

“I am so glad.”

“I see my good friend Mrs. Hughes over there,” Cousin Bathilda said. “If you young people will excuse me?”

“Of course,” Mandeville murmured. He held out his arm to Hero without really looking at her. “Shall we stroll?”

“Please,” she answered sedately, calming the hysterical voices in her head.

She laid her hand on his sleeve as he led her into the crowd. The room was too hot, it seemed. Lady Helena had chosen to decorate the ballroom with hundreds of roses, and the scent of the wilting flowers was almost overwhelming. She nodded her head and murmured inanities to passing people until she thought she might scream. Her world had tumbled off balance, and she didn’t know how to right it again.

And then, suddenly, Griffin stood in front of them, dressed elegantly in blue and gold, his wig snowy white. His arm was crooked, as he idly fondled something in his hand. His green eyes flicked from her face to her hand, laid on Mandeville’s sleeve, then rose slowly to his brother’s face.

Hero tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. Surely he wouldn’t say anything, do anything,
here
?

Griffin bowed stiffly. “Good evening, Thomas, Lady Hero.”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“Griffin,” she heard Mandeville say beside her. “I didn’t know you were invited tonight.”

“It’s amazing the places where I’m welcome.”

She lifted her eyes at his cynical tone. His green eyes clashed with hers, his expression grim.

She caught her breath.

“What have you got there?” Mandeville asked.

Griffin raised his eyebrows and opened his hand. Hero inhaled silently. Her diamond earbob lay on his palm—the one she’d thrown at him in the sitting room at her engagement ball.

He smiled thinly. “A trinket I found upon the floor. Do you think it becomes me?”

He held the earring to his ear as Hero widened her eyes in warning. Surely Mandeville would recognize it as hers!

“Or perhaps it’s better suited to a lady,” Griffin drawled. He reached out, and Hero felt the heat of his fingers as he dangled the earring near her ear.

Mandeville frowned, looking confused. “Don’t be an ass.”

“No?” Griffin’s smile had disappeared as he looked at her. “Well, maybe I’ll make it a keepsake.”

He pushed the earring into his waistcoat pocket.

Hero stared at him, her chest aching as if she’d been weeping. She’d lost him, she suddenly realized. They could never again be friends now.

Griffin looked at Mandeville. “With your permission, I’d like to offer your fiancée a dance.”

“Certainly,” Mandeville replied.

And just like that, she was handed from one man to the other, rather like a prize pony at a country fair.

Hero waited until they’d strolled some distance from Mandeville. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I know,” Griffin replied low. “You seem to only want to do, er,
other
things with me.”

“Hush!” she hissed desperately.

In any other man, the look he gave her might be mistaken for hurt. “I’m not going to disgrace you here in front of everyone, never fear.”

She didn’t know how to reply to that, and while she was contemplating it, he led her swiftly through a pair of French doors and outside.

She looked around the lovely paved balcony with wide steps that led into a shadowed garden and turned to him accusingly. “You told Mandeville we were to dance.”

He shrugged, unconcerned. “We’ll tell him you felt overwarm. You certainly appear overwarm.”

She lifted a hand to her flushed cheek. “That’s not a very gentlemanly thing to say.”

He laughed shortly and without humor. “Nothing I say ever pleases you, my Lady Perfect. Have you noticed? Only the things I do please you.”

She looked away, but he placed a thumb under her jaw and turned her head back so that she had no choice but to look him in the face. “You were pleased this morning, were you not?”

Hero wanted to lie, but in the end she could not, so she simply stayed mute.

He grimaced and let his hand drop with a gesture of disgust. “You won’t admit it, but I know you were. I felt you as you came apart in my arms, as your sweet cunny clenched about my cock.”

She shivered, remembering the feel of him, too. “Please.”

He stared at her hard and then drew her down the steps and into the shadows of the garden. Pulling her along until they were out of earshot of the ballroom doors.

He turned and placed his hands on her upper arms. “We must discuss it, even if you want to forget it forever.”

“That’s just it,” she whispered, emboldened by the dark. “I don’t want to forget.”

“Hero,” he said low, and her name sounded like a prayer on his lips.

He bent over her, there in the dark garden, and she felt the brush of his lips over hers. They were whisper-soft, like the kiss of a knight for a maiden he held in high esteem. Did he think of her that way, even now that she’d proven herself unvirtuous? She drew back and tried to search his face, but it was in shadow. He might as well have been a stranger.

She made to step back, but he caught her hand, holding her against himself. “Will you marry me?”

She shook her head, tilting her face to look at the stars, still and empty and so very far away. “How can I?”

“How can you not?” he retorted, his voice deep. “I’ve pierced your maidenhead.”

She closed her eyes.

“Hero.” His hands rose to grip her shoulders hard. “You
must
marry me.”

“Do you love me?” she asked.

His head jerked back. “What?”

“Do you love me, Lord Griffin?”

“I… have feelings for you.”

She felt her heart tear a little. “
Feelings
are not the same as love.”

“You don’t love Thomas.”

She shook her head. “No, that wasn’t our pact together.”

“Then for God’s sake, why demand it of me?” he growled low and urgent. “If I’m good enough to bed, surely I’m good enough to wed.”

She merely shook her head again. Panic was rising in her chest, a suffocating sense that she could never undo her wrong, that she’d never recover the place that she’d always had in society and her family.

“Do you love me?” he demanded.

“No!” The denial burst from her lips without thought or preparation. The mere notion of falling in love with this man made fear surge in her breast.

“Then why come to me? Why let me make love to you?”

“I don’t know.” She inhaled to steady her voice. “I… I came this morning to see if you were all right, to talk to you about the home, about your gin making. I had no notion of doing what we did.”

But was that the truth?
a small voice asked deep inside her. Her heart had been beating hard when she’d knocked on his door. She’d been excited, her hands trembling in anticipation. Maybe without knowing it herself, she had gone there to submit to him. To find out, once and for all, if she was more than the facade of a duke’s daughter.

He shook his head, clearly confused. “At least answer my question: Why not marry me?”

She shook her head frantically. “I… I can’t think. You don’t understand the magnitude of this decision. If I marry you, my life will never be the same again. Maximus will hate me. He may repudiate me, keep me from the family.”

“For God’s sake.” For a moment she could tell he was struggling to keep his voice low. Then he said urgently, “I may be a rake, but my reputation isn’t
that
sordid. I doubt your brother will be happy with our match, but to cast you out—”