Marquesses at the Masquerade(21)

Chapter Eight





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Rosamund arose early the next morning and put on one of the gowns that had been packed for her by the Boxhaven House maids. The cream muslin was miles prettier than anything she’d worn since she was a child, and it fit surprisingly well. She felt a spring in her step as she left her bedchamber, but she reminded herself not to get used to such luxuries.

As instructed, she knocked lightly on Marcus’s door. There was no response, so she opened it a few feet, her eyes sweeping quickly past the form that lay unmoving on the bed under a coverlet. Socrates was lying on several folded blankets on the floor next to his master’s bed, an adorable scene that made her smile partly because of how much Marcus clearly disliked being associated with adorableness. Socrates opened his eyes, and she gestured for him to come out. He yawned but made no move.

She must have leaned against the door then, because it inched inward and creaked lightly. Marcus groaned a little and shifted, turning on his side to face her, and the coverlet slipped low on his body. She froze as she realized he was naked, or at least the part of him she could see was naked.

And, she saw as her heart pounded wildly, he was still asleep.

Having been kept a virtual prisoner in Melinda’s house since the age of fifteen, Rosamund had had no occasion even to glimpse a man’s naked torso, never mind the naked torso of a man she’d been dreaming about for months. Though she ought to have looked away or simply closed the door, she couldn’t make herself do it. Nor was Socrates cooperating, because his eyes had drifted shut again.

She tossed propriety to the wind and looked her fill.

She had danced closed to Marcus, on the terrace at Boxhaven House, and felt his athletic grace as he’d deftly guided her, but nothing could have prepared her for the sight of the dark ruffle of hair across an endless expanse of muscled chest, or the way the flat plane of his stomach arrowed downward and disappeared under the edge of the coverlet draping low on his hips. The arm falling carelessly across his chest was long and lean, the chiseled curve of his biceps evident even in his relaxed state.

He was beautiful and strong, and she felt an almost irresistible pull toward him across the space of the room. She swallowed, as if seeking relief for a thirst that could never be quenched.

He opened his eyes.

It took only a moment for him to take in the fact that she was standing in his doorway looking at him. He sat up abruptly, the coverlet falling even lower, which apparently didn’t bother him at all, because he made no move to adjust it.

“Rosamund? What are you doing?”

“I—” Her voice sounded throaty and hesitant, and she tried again, more forcefully. “I came for Socrates. Socrates, come.”

Socrates jumped up as though he’d only been waiting for her command.

“Socrates, stay,” Marcus said, crossing his arms, which made them look more muscled. Socrates paused on his pile of blankets, ears pricked to his master’s voice. She swallowed, half giddy with a sort of fearful excitement. She wasn’t afraid of Marcus, but she was afraid of what the increasing slant of his dark brows might mean.

“He needs to go—” she began, but Marcus cut her off.

“You were lingering, weren’t you?”

“Lingering?” she repeated, the astute look in his eyes making the hairs along her neck prickle.

“I felt someone, a presence in my dream, just before I awoke. It was you, looking at me.”

“No, I—”

“Rosamund,” he said, and the husky, questioning note in his voice whispered volumes to her. He was not immune to her. Even from across the room, she felt the intensity in his gaze, and her skin warmed. To feel Marcus want her again, as he had that night, chased every other thought from her head.

“Rosamund,” he said again, “come here.”

Come here. The sensual fog that had been gathering in her brain immediately cleared, however much she didn’t want it to.

No gentleman lying in his bed would have asked a lady to come closer to him. But he didn’t think she was a lady, and thus his interest in her, his dog’s companion, could only be the interest of a man looking for a dalliance.

She gathered all her self-control and said, “Socrates, come,” with as much authority as she could muster. Like a long-overdue rescuer, the dog raced gleefully across the room, and she quickly closed the door behind him.

Fortunately, Socrates’s excitement to go outside gave her an excuse to rush along the corridor after him, away from Marcus’s room and wild thoughts of rumpled sheets and warm skin. They reached the garden without meeting anyone, for which she was deeply grateful, since she didn’t feel capable of composing a sensible thought. All her mental energy was going toward banishing tempting thoughts of Marcus.

He was not an easy man to ignore, as she’d discovered during the coach ride after he’d made it plain that he saw her as nothing more than the companion of his dog. She couldn’t fault him for that, since being hired as Socrates’s companion was the only reason she was even in Marcus’s presence.

But she knew how it felt to be the focus of all his attention, and just now she’d felt it again, that consuming, wonderful feeling that Marcus wanted her.

Which he couldn’t, not in the way she wanted him to want her. He was a marquess, and she was a nobody. He might be attracted to her—she knew now that he was—but the only way he could possibly see her would be as the kind of woman who might be a mistress, and she could never bear that.