As the Devil Dares (Capturing the Carlisles #3)(103)
“Well, then,” he drawled in a voice so low that it was almost a whisper and one as deep as the darkness surrounding them. “What have we here?”
She drew a breath for courage. “I saw you at the masquerade tonight.” Her nervousness made her own voice far huskier than she intended. Thank God. She had to carry off this seduction tonight. She simply had to! “And I wanted time with you.” She paused for emphasis. “Alone.”
He smiled at that. “You weren’t at my mother’s party.” With a slow shrug of his broad shoulders, he slipped off his black evening jacket and tossed it over the chair in front of the fireplace. “I would have remembered you.”
Miranda nearly scoffed at that. He would have remembered her? From among the two hundred other females of all ages crammed into Chestnut Hill’s ballroom for the Duchess of Trent’s birthday? Hardly!
From behind his mask, his eyes drifted over the dress, and heat prickled across her skin.
Well…maybe he would have remembered if she’d been wearing the same flimsy crêpe dress currently draped over her rather than the costume in which she’d arrived. A clinging, sleeveless rose-colored gauze creation with matching mask, this dress had cost her a small fortune from months of saved-up pin money and her salary from the orphanage. It had also required several secret trips to Helmsworth to visit the dressmaker there, whom she’d hired so that no one in Islingham would suspect what she was up to. But all the subterfuge was worth it, because the whole effect turned her body into a long-stemmed rose. Instead of this, though, she’d been announced to the party at the beginning of the evening wearing the pumpkin costume that her auntie had made for her, complete with a stem sticking out of her hat, and Robert hadn’t given her a second glance all evening.
But he certainly noticed her now as she reclined across his bed, her back propped up by a pile of pillows and the hem of her skirt scandalously revealing her legs from the knees down. Bare legs, too, because she couldn’t afford to purchase the lace stockings that matched the dress.
“Perhaps you didn’t notice me because I was dancing with other men,” she offered coyly. Tonight, her mask made her bold and free to say flirtatious things she never would have had the courage to utter otherwise. “But I’d much rather have been dancing with you.”
She saw his hand freeze for just a heartbeat as he reached for his cravat. “Then the loss was definitely mine.” His eyes trailed from her low neckline down her body, across the curves of her hips, and over her legs. “And your name, my lady?”
Her heart jumped into her throat. Oh no, she couldn’t tell him that—not yet! She’d worn the mask and costume purposefully so that he would see this other side of her before he dismissed her outright. So that he would have an opportunity to see her through new eyes, to look upon her as a woman instead of the girl he’d always known. If she revealed her identity so soon, he’d never see her as anything more than a friend.
So she whispered, “Rose.”
He untied his black cravat and tossed it away. “Lady Rose,” he murmured. Knowing amusement touched his sensuous mouth at her completely fabricated answer. “Is that why you’re in my room, then?” His sapphire eyes stirred heat beneath her skin everywhere he looked. And dear heavens, he was looking everywhere! “Because you want to dance with me?”
Dance. The word shivered down her spine as she watched him slip free each button of his black waistcoat. They both knew he didn’t mean waltzing.
Electric tingles of excitement raced through her. This was it. The moment that would bring her the man she’d loved. The moment when her life would change forever…
She drew a shaky breath. “Yes.” The word came out as a husky rasp. “Very much.”
His full lips tugged into a seductive smile, and he slipped off his waistcoat, then dropped it to the floor. The muscles of his arms and shoulders rippled beneath his black shirt as he reached up to unfasten the half dozen buttons at his neck, the firelight playing across his golden blond hair and his handsome face still hidden behind the mask. Her heart thudded painfully against her ribs when he tugged his shirttail free from his black breeches to let it hang loose around his waist.
He was undressing. And not for sleep. For a moment, she forgot to breathe.
When she remembered again, her breath came in a soft sigh. Which caused his blue eyes to darken with quick arousal as he took the sound as an invitation to…to—
She swallowed again. Very hard.
Well, that was why she was lying on his bed, for goodness’ sake. To be ravished. But heavens, she was nervous! Trying to hide the trembling in her hands and be the seductress he would want, she ran her palms up and down her thighs, each stroke upward pulling the crêpe material with it until her legs were bare to her thighs. His eyes keenly followed every caress she gave herself. Because of the mask, she couldn’t see whatever other emotions might be flickering across his face, but she could see his eyes and mouth, and those both struck her as intense. Predatory. Aroused.
Goodness.
He reached up to remove his mask—
“No!” she gasped.
He froze at her outburst. Then curiously tilted his head as if he’d misconstrued her meaning.
But he’d understood perfectly. She couldn’t let him remove his mask. If he did, then he’d expect her to remove hers—oh, she wasn’t ready for that! Not until she was certain that she’d made him want her as much as she wanted him, and somehow not just for tonight but always.