Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(2)

He crossed the chamber, his footfalls muted by thick carpeting. Lady Beresford’s tastes had always run to the extravagant. He didn’t stop until he nearly touched Miss Vanreid’s skirts. Still she held firm, refusing to retreat. Some inner demon made him skim his forefinger across the fine protrusion of her collarbone. Just a ghost of a touch. Awareness sparked between them. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly.

“Wilford and Prestley are green lads.” He took care to keep his tone bland. “Bolton is a fox in the henhouse. You’d do best to stay away from him.”

She swallowed and he became fascinated by her neck, the way her ostentatious diamonds moved, gleaming even in the dim light. “I’m disappointed you think me as frumpy and witless as a hen. Thank you for your unnecessary concern, Your Grace, but foxes don’t frighten me. They never have.”

Her bravado irritated him. Even her scent was bold, an exotic blend of bergamot, ambergris, and vanilla carrying to him and invading his senses. He should never have touched her, for now he couldn’t stop, following her collarbone to the trim on her bodice, the pink roses so strategically placed. He didn’t touch the roses. No. His finger skimmed along the fullness of her creamy breast. Her skin was soft, as lush as a petal.

“You do seem to possess an absurd predilection for your ruination, Miss Vanreid.”

She startled him by stepping nearer to him, her skirts billowing against his legs. “One could say the same for you. Why do you watch, Your Grace? Does it intrigue you? Perhaps you would like a turn.”

Jesus. Lust slammed through him, hot and hard and demanding. He’d never, in all his years of covert operations, gotten a stiff cock during an investigation. Thanks to the golden vixen before him, he had one now. While he’d decided she was not involved in the plot, he was still on duty until he reported back to Carlisle in the morning. He wasn’t meant to be attracted to Daisy Vanreid, who was not at all as she seemed.

Still, he found himself flattening his palm over her heart, absorbing its quick thump that told him she wasn’t as calm as she pretended. The contact of her bare skin to his, more than the mere tip of a finger, jarred him.

“Are you offering me one?” he asked at last.

Her lashes lowered, her full, pink lips parting. “Yes.”

And he knew right then that he’d been wrong about Daisy Vanreid. She bloody well was the dynamite.





Desperation.

Weakness.

Fear.

Those were the reasons why Daisy stood alone in a private chamber with the Duke of Trent in the midst of the crush of the Beresford Ball, daring him to kiss her. Also, perhaps just a touch of madness.

But it was a madness and a desperation both borne of necessity. A fear fashioned by violence. The weakness was a sin purely her own, and she loathed herself for it. Oh, how she wished she could be strong and defiant. That she could be brave, unafraid, the author of her own rescue.

But she couldn’t.

Why not, then, the handsome duke who’d been discreetly following her for the last month? His reputation preceded him. He was a rake, a rogue who belonged to the fastest circle in London society. Whispers and rumors about him abounded, but she didn’t care. He was a dangerous sort of man, though not in the way that made her mouth go dry and her body brace for an incoming blow.

So why not indeed? Ordinarily, she suffered a man’s touch as a means to an end. Lord knew she’d been engaged in the pretense of flirtation with as many suitable gentlemen as she could find in the hopes of routing her father’s plans for her. In the glow of London society, she had become a bon vivant, adept at hiding the flinch that had once marked her for a woman with an expectation of violence.

The man before her, the altogether beautiful Duke of Trent, had somehow swept past all the barriers she kept carefully girding her true self from everyone else. She hadn’t needed to feign her attraction for him. Hadn’t even fought the urge to wince, for no wince had been forthcoming.

Something about him spoke to her on a primitive level, in a way she’d never known existed. Yes, the Duke of Trent possessed an altogether different aura of danger. She hadn’t been prepared for the contact of his large, warm hand on her bare skin, for the way it had seemed to send sparks of electricity charging through the air between them. No fear. No almost insuppressible anticipation of pain. Nothing but him, consuming her world.

At such proximity, he was even more handsome than she’d supposed. His eyes were the most unusual shade of blue she’d ever seen, bright and lighter than the sky on a faultless summer day. They studied her now, dipping to her mouth.

Had she just offered him a turn? She didn’t recognize herself. Indeed, everything about this enchanted, worry-free moment, suggested she was dreaming. Soon, she would wake. Surely.

“I cannot decide,” he drawled, his patrician manner effortless, “if you are reckless with yourself because you’re a schemer or because you’re foolish enough to think you won’t get caught.” At last he moved his hand, his touch gliding upward, back over her collarbone to curve as if at home around her shoulder. “But as tempting as your offer may be, Miss Vanreid, I’m afraid I must decline.”

With that, he released her and took a step away. She felt the loss of his touch like an ache somewhere low in her belly. Of course she should have known he wouldn’t be so easy a conquest. Why then, had he been dogging her these last few weeks if it wasn’t her touted American fortune he was after?