Page 14 of A Virgin for the Ton’s Wolf (Ton’s Wolves #4)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

H ow embarrassing.

Here she was, standing before one of the most wicked men in all of London, being seduced to within an inch of her life, and he had not even touched her.

Scarlett felt the familiar tingles dancing down her spine, spreading to the very tips of her fingers and toes.

My, but he was a magnificent specimen of a man! His very profile was hard and undeniably masculine, but his lips were most decidedly sensual. His flinty gaze was cold, his eyes seemed to bore into her soul, and yet they burned with a fire that scorched her to her bones.

He was a study of contrasts, the Duke of Wolverton, and one she could spend the rest of her life unraveling.

A pity that she had until the weekend before her mama managed to foist her on another suitor.

He stepped closer to her, his face devoid of all emotion. And yet her very essence thrilled. When he reached out to cup her cheek in his hand, elation sang in her veins.

“Why must you tempt me so?” he demanded, his voice harsh.

And then he was not so very emotionless anymore.

The hand that cupped her cheek had now slipped to the back of her neck. His body, huge and hard, had pressed hers against the wall as his lips swooped in to claim her own in a kiss that set her world on fire.

Whatever she had expected her first kiss to be, it had simply been blown out of the water. With a cannon called Hudson Barrow, sixth Duke of Wolverton, Marquess of Winterbourne, Earl of Langdon…

The rest of his titles were lost on her as his lips molded to hers with hot insistence. His hands wandered boldly over her curves, strangely possessive and shockingly, delightfully intimate. One of them found her bottom and squeezed, pressing her against his heat and hardness.

Scarlett let out a slight gasp, enough for his tongue to sneak in between her parted lips and sweep all over her mouth in a bold exploration.

Dear heavens, the man did not simply kiss—he plundered .

And she gave it all up to him willingly. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back with everything she had. When she tentatively touched her tongue to his, he let out a low growl that she felt between her legs.

She was already panting for breath when he released her, his forehead pressed against hers as his warm breath fanned her flushed cheeks. His eyes were closed, his brow creased into a frown.

“You should leave.” His voice was harsh. Ragged.

Scarlett felt her cheeks heat up even more. If anyone walked into the orangery at that moment, there would be no doubt as to what they had been doing.

“You mean the orangery?—”

He shook his head with a pained expression. “You should go back. I will have a carriage readied for you and the Dowager Countess.”

His words were like a bucket of ice-cold water. Scarlett instantly recoiled from his embrace.

A carriage ?

Her mind reeled as if she had just been bludgeoned.

What did she expect, really? That he would fall down to his knees and beg her to marry him?

He was the Wolf. The most notorious rake in all of London.

Did she truly think that he would reform for the first woman who threw herself at him?

Was she even the first? It pained her to even think about it. She knew, however, that she would not be the last.

She stepped away from him. “I see.”

Scarlett felt so cold inside. As if a blistering wind had suddenly swept in and turned everything to ice.

“Scarlett, I?—”

She smiled up at him even as her hands clenched into fists at her sides. She would not cry. Not in front of him. Not in front of anyone .

“Thank you for your time, Your Grace ,” she told him in a clipped tone. “That was… rather educational.”

And then, before she could make an even bigger fool of herself, she turned around and rushed out of the orangery, storming through the gardens with no care about where she was going.

So much for her first kiss. She really should have known better than to kiss the Wolf himself.

Now, she was completely and utterly ruined for other men, and it was all her fault.

“Scarlett?”

She looked up to find Phoebe staring at her with concern. Her gaze flickered briefly to the hand that Ethan had possessively on her friend’s waist, and she felt bitterness rise in her throat.

She was never going to have that. She was never going to marry the love of her life—if she even managed to find him.

Despair rose to dig its claws into her heart.

Perhaps some people were just born without their soulmates. Perhaps she should learn to accept that she was one of that most unfortunate population.

“I should go back to Snowdrop,” she told her friend with a reassuring smile. “He is still a puppy, and he gets rather lonely when I am away for long.”

The sun was still high in the sky. She had not been gone for very long.

Only long enough for her life to be changed forever.

“I see.” Phoebe nodded somberly.

Only, her friend did not see. Or maybe she did, but Scarlett did not want to remain there long enough to see the pity in her friend’s eyes.

With a curt nod and a smile, she walked away from the gardens and back to the manor. With any luck, the Wolf would hold off sending her away until her mama could find a new suitor for her over the weekend.

And hopefully, the ball would prove to be a good enough distraction for her.

“And I shall dance and flirt, and it will all be an amazing farce,” she muttered to herself angrily.

That brief interlude had already left her sleepless. This kiss would prove to be even more devastating.

She was sure of it.

Educational?

Hudson wanted to hurl a few pots at the glass walls of the orangery.

What the hell did she mean by educational ? Did she take him for some kind of bloody training manual on the affairs between men and women? Was she now going to use the knowledge she had gained on—gods be damned—another man?

The mere thought had Hudson boiling with sheer rage.

Not that he did not deserve it, no. Sending a woman away was simply the worst possible response to a kiss that had just incinerated his soul. For a woman who had never been kissed before, her lips had very nearly brought him to his knees—a feat that not even the most seasoned courtesans had ever managed.

And damnation, it had not even been long enough. He could spend hours just kissing her, feeling her softness pressed against his aching hardness.

Do not go there .

There meant giving in to his basest desires. There meant unleashing the full force of his darkness on her.

“What if I want those things, too?”

The recollection of that faint admission had him nearly reeling as he stumbled out of the orangery like a bloody drunkard—only to find Ethan and Phoebe standing by the open door.

Well, Ethan was standing. His wife looked just about ready to launch herself at him.

“Duke,” she said in a scathing tone. “I never thought that you would be the worst Wolf of all.”

Hudson’s gaze flicked briefly to Ethan, who only looked back at him somberly. He turned back to Phoebe with a slight grimace. “If you had harbored any romantic notions about my character, then you are sorely mistaken.”

“Apparently.” Disappointment was written all over her face. “Considering that you were the one who talked sense into your friends, convincing them to settle down, I expected better of you. It seems I expected too much.”

He smiled coldly at her. “And therein lies the difference—they needed the advice.”

“And you don’t?” She arched a delicate eyebrow. “So, you can go about kissing my friend without repercussions and she must deal with it on her own?”

She did not even wait for his answer. She merely shook her head in disgust and stalked off, her ire clear in her stiff spine and the set of her shoulders.

Hudson wondered how a woman whose head barely reached his shoulders and whose weight was probably half his own could make him feel like an errant schoolboy all over again.

Yet another woman disappointed in me. Why am I not surprised?

He turned to Ethan, who had been watching the entire spectacle with a hint of amusement. Hudson only hoped he was going to be strong enough to resist the urge to punch that smug countenance of his.

“You saw that?” he grumbled.

Ethan clasped his hands behind his back and grinned. “The kiss? Do not be daft, old friend—we knew it was bound to happen after you pulled her into the orangery.”

Well, Hudson did not. The Duke of Wolves did not kiss women on a whim or give in to fits of lust.

That is… not until a woman with flaming red hair crashed into his life. Not until Lady Scarlett Clarke.

Now, he had kissed her, and if he had thought that it would at least satisfy his curiosity, he found himself in even more dire straits. His control was already stretched so thin that it was a miracle it had not snapped yet.

And for as long as Scarlett remained at Wolverton Estate, it was only going to be tested further.

“You know,” Ethan mused. “For someone who claims to dislike her so much, you certainly did not look like it, old friend.”

Hudson shot his friend a look of mock surprise. “Oh? So you expect me to throw her over my shoulder and shove her into the first carriage?”

Now, there was an idea. Unfortunately, the scenes that followed included him getting into the same carriage, and that simply would not do.

Trapped in an enclosed space with Lady Scarlett Clarke? Even he was not mad enough to try that.

But it certainly did not keep him from thinking about it.

So, he simply glared at Ethan for even putting the idea into his head.

His friend simply laughed. “For what it is worth, old friend, you did get her into a scandal,” he pointed out.

“No. She got herself into a scandal by making such wild claims.”

Claims that Hudson would like to enact. If he was going to be blamed for something, then why not just do what he was already being accused of?

“They are not such wild claims now, are they?”

Hudson pressed his lips together.

Not anymore. Not after what happened inside.

“You know I cannot marry,” he told his friend grimly. “For her sake.”

“The same thing I said when Phoebe came into my life.” Ethan smiled wistfully. “As I recall, you were the one who convinced me otherwise, Hudson.”

“This is different.”

“I recall saying the same thing.”

Except this was truly a different case. The shadow that hung over Sinclair Estate was banished the moment Phoebe became its Duchess and, Hudson suspected, even before that.

It would take more than a marriage to purge Wolverton Estate of its demons—and he was the darkest one of them all.