Bound by Bliss (Bound and Determined #2)(23)

Bliss stopped and stared.

The room was…so normal. Her mother might have kept such a parlor. Well, perhaps not her mother; any room that her mother fashioned would have been much more colorful, a brilliant rainbow, and it would probably have been filled with books and china and scarves and…Bliss couldn’t remember her childhood well enough to be sure what else her mother had filled rooms with, but she did remember they had always been filled. It had been hard to find a place to set a cup of tea much less sit. She remembered one time when the family had been fascinated with circuses and her mother had had a trapeze hung in the ballroom. She didn’t remember her mother actually using it, but she knew her brother, Robert, had swung back and forth while brandishing a cutlass in a memorable game of pirates. And he’d taught her to pick a lock. She’d never inquired where he’d come by that skill, but she fully understood why a pirate princess would need it. That had been such a wonderful day. She’d been allowed to be part of the crew instead of a prisoner. Perhaps that was why she’d had such fun donning the breeches today.

“Whatever are you thinking? I don’t believe that anybody has ever smiled quite so sweetly upon seeing Ruby’s parlor. Or were your thoughts straying again?”

Coming back to the moment, she turned to Duldon. “Ruby?”

“Madame Rouge. And you have not answered my question,” he replied.

“You call her by her first name and her porter knows you by name,” she stated, raising a brow.



“We do not need to talk of that now. I did assure you that I knew this establishment was not simply a gentleman’s club. Although, to be fair, it is far more than a brothel. Ruby has several rooms upstairs that she rents to those in need.”

Those in need? Who would need a room in a brothel? Bliss let her mind ponder this fascinating question for a moment.

“Lovers who are not wed—or perhaps who are wed to someone else. Those who prefer something that is not within the usual realm of society, men who prefer men, men who wish to dress as women, and those whose tastes are even more exceptional.”

She blinked. “Are you reading my mind?” It was uncanny how accurately he had answered her unspoken question, a question she had only just begun to form. And did people really do those things? She supposed she knew that they did, had certainly heard whisperings, but…

“No, only your face. And you still have not told me what made you smile when we entered the room.” He strolled over and sat in a high-backed chair, his legs sprawled before him. Her eyes were drawn to his strong thighs and calves. What were they like underneath his trousers? Could he possibly be as strong as he appeared? In her mind she slipped a hand up his trousers, skimming over the silk of his stockings, until she could feel.

Knowing that heat was rapidly rising on her cheeks, she chose to follow his example and sit, angling herself so that her face was partially shadowed. If she was going to keep having lewd thoughts she did not want be watched. “I was thinking about playing games with Robert when we were much younger. There were times he allowed me to be part of the action instead of just a decorative piece of scenery—or worse.”



“I cannot imagine you ever being merely decorative; you are too full of life.”

That was a nice thing to say. “You are correct. I only said he allowed me to be a true part of the game for once. My brothers were always trying to make me play fair maidens or stooges and I wanted to be an Amazon.”

He chuckled, just as the porter reappeared after the briefest scratch on the still-open door. He bore a heavy tray loaded with decanters and glassware. “I brought whiskey and brandy. I can fetch a sherry if needed.” His eyes moved to Bliss.

She huddled deeper into Duldon’s cloak, suddenly glad of its presence, and of the shadows that hid her face below the mask. About to answer, she remembered her promise to Duldon and turned to glance at him. He smiled in reward, and she felt a small warm glow within. She tried to suppress it. She did not need his approval, but it would not be put down.

“I think we are fine,” he said after a moment.

“Madame will join you shortly. She is almost finished upstairs.” He leaned toward Duldon and whispered, “Apparently a gentleman was visiting with two women and one of them, a lady, was not happy with the arrangement. I believe she wished to be the center of attention.”

“Two women?” Bliss could only mouth the words behind the porter’s back.



With the slightest quirk of his lip, Duldon nodded over the porter’s head.

How would it work with two women? She was old enough to have heard the married women talk and growing up with her family she’d had plenty of experience seeing what rabbits and llamas did, even if they had sheltered her from the horses, but two women? She considered her educational experience at the ball earlier in the week, but still drew a blank. Two women? Could she bring herself to ask Duldon?

The porter left and Duldon poured the tiniest splash of brandy into a glass for her.

She shook her head.

“Take it. You may be glad of it later,” he said.

Before she could argue, the door was pushed wide and a woman entered, a woman such as Bliss had never seen.

Tall and with more curves than a basket of billiard balls, the woman was dressed in deep violet with an edging of black ribbon and lace, her waist nipped far narrower than Bliss had ever seen. Her hair was so red as to be almost flaming. It was caught up slightly, but most of it was curled in a becoming manner about her shoulders. Bliss’s hair only looked like that after a very restless night when she’d been tossing and rolling back and forth across her pillows. Only it wasn’t the woman’s hair, was it? It was a wig. Bliss wasn’t quite sure how she could tell, but there was something not quite right about the wild hair above the face’s gentle features. The features, particularly the eyes and mouth, were obscured by heavy cosmetics, but Bliss could see through them to the softness underneath.