One Night With You (The Derrings #3)(3)

"I could learn of only one masquerade tonight," Lucy explained. "Besides, I've always been curious about these legendary masques of Madame Fleur. It's bound to be an experience."

"Yes, Bertram was a patron of hers." Astrid lips twisted with derision. "Why not see where my devoted husband spent my dowry?"

Jane had no doubt all their husbands had patronized Madame Fleur's. That their husbands had been less than faithful—had in fact been renowned libertines before and after taking their vows—had bonded them from the start.

"What if we're recognized?"

Swinging her silk domino, a flutter of scarlet in the air, Lucy insisted, "No one shall know us. We will simply be three masked women among countless others." Snatching Jane's hand, Lucy dragged her up the carpeted stairs. "You were quite ready for adventure when we discussed this a week ago."

"That was before I knew our destination," Jane grumbled.

"Adventure carries risks." Lucy's gaze skimmed Jane again as she pulled her into her lavish bedchamber. "Now. You will never blend in wearing something so modest." Jane bit her bottom lip, feeling herself relenting. "I wouldn't want to draw undue attention."

"Can we make haste?" Astrid queried. "It's almost midnight. All the best food will be gone." Tucking Jane's hand in her elbow, Lucy led Jane into her dressing room. "You shall see. It will be a grand adventure. Who knows? Perhaps some charming gentleman will sweep you off your feet and carry you far away from your wretched relations."

Astrid snorted.

Jane's heart fluttered with panic at the mere idea. She didn't want to marry anyone. Once had been enough. And she wasn't the sort to engage in a casual dalliance. Especially with the type of men likely attending a courtesan's ball.

In fact, she couldn't understand widows who took lovers. She had never found anything particularly exciting about the marriage bed. On the contrary.

And as for love…

Well, she had never been that fortunate.





Chapter 2


Seth Rutledge, the Earl of St. Claire, stood rigidly at the edge of the crowded ballroom, hands folded behind his back. His nostrils twitched against the overpowering aroma of perfume, longing for the scent of sea and wind as he watched Madame Fleur approach, hips swaying in a manner that brought to mind rolling waves. Her welcoming smile below her peacock-feathered domino faltered when she caught sight of his face.

She stopped abruptly in the middle of the ballroom, her heavily rouged mouth sagging a bit. Her startled expression, followed quickly by a look of pity, was all too familiar. Seth growled low in his throat. Bloody hell, how he loathed that look. For a fleeting moment he wished for a mask of his own. But he gave the thought only a moment, forbidding it to root in his head, to weaken him. Forcing his chin higher, he better exposed his face to the light.

The courtesan recovered and resumed her smile with a finesse that he would expect from one of her legendary reputation. Stopping before him, she brought with her the sweetly sick bouquet of gardenias, roses, and a dozen other floral fragrances he could not distinguish. Acrid as gunpowder, the scent of her stung the inside of his nose. Yet he was glad to see her. Whores didn't judge.

She pressed close, granting him a view down the stiff brocade of her bodice, revealing that she wore nothing underneath.

"It's been too long, mon cher, why have you not come to see me sooner?" she purred in an accent that was decidedly not French. He wasn't certain of Fleur's exact origins, but he would wager Seven Dials.

"I arrived in Town only yesterday."

He had departed his family's estate to accomplish the inevitable. At eight and twenty, he owed it to Julianne to marry and provide an heir. His sister needed family. Someone other than himself. Ironically enough, he had survived pirates, war, pestilence, disease in foreign lands—survived only to return home and find his brother dead. From an ague, no less. No doubt his father cursed that quirk of fate from the grave.

It had been no secret that Seth's father purchased his commission in the hopes that he would never return. Rotten luck that Albert had died, leaving the wrong son to marry and bear responsibility for the family.

Precautions had to be taken to assure his cousin would not get his claws on St. Claire Priory—or his sister—again. If something befell Seth, the right sort of wife would see to that. The right sort of wife would safeguard his sister against villains like Harold. And the darkness. Seth fought to swallow the sudden sourness coating his mouth. He would protect Julianne from the darkness that engulfed her. The darkness Seth had created. He owed her that much. A bride unlike the female he had let creep beneath his skin years ago. A female not revolted by the sight of him. If such a lady existed.

Shaking off his musings, he dipped his finger between the swells of Fleur's breasts.

"Hmm, I like this fierce face of yours," she purred. "My very own pirate." She trailed a long nail down the white-ridged scar that slashed across his face and cut into his upper lip. He shied away, unused to the contact, but bemused that she would think he resembled a pirate when it had very nearly been a pirate to cut his face to ribbons. Half a breath to the left and the Portuguese slave smuggler would have had his eye.

Fleur lifted her brows meaningfully. "I know just the thing to celebrate your return. What I have in mind may take hours. Days. Weeks."