Page 21 of Duke with a Lie (Wicked Dukes Society #4)

He smiled and placed her hand in the crook of his elbow. “Come along.”

“What if I don’t wish to dance with you, sir?”

“What is the harm in just one dance?” he countered.

“Very well,” she conceded, frowning at him as they linked hands and he pressed a palm to the small of her back. “But only one.”

The music began, and he whirled her about, thinking it a damned shame she had hidden her glorious hair beneath the monstrosity she was presently wearing.

She was astoundingly lovely despite her attempt to shield her identity.

But then, Rhiannon could have donned nothing more than rags and she would have been the most beautiful woman in the room.

Neither of them spoke for a few moments. He liked having her in his arms far more than he should have. They moved together well, seamlessly gliding over the polished floor. The scent of jasmine teased him, and he fought the urge to hold her even closer.

Instead, he lowered his head until his lips were near her ear. “Are you going to tell me why you’re pretending to be someone else this evening, or is this another one of your games, minx?”

Her swift inhalation revealed her surprise. “You knew it was me?”

“I would know it was you in the dark without a single lamp lit,” he said before he could think better of the statement. “You can hide in wigs and masks and gowns of every color, but you won’t fool me.”

“You scoundrel.” She tipped her head back, her eyes flashing with blue fire. “You didn’t say a word.”

She must have thought herself immensely clever.

He chuckled, amused by her outrage. “You truly believed I wouldn’t recognize you the moment I laid eyes upon you?”

“This wig is dreadfully itchy,” she muttered instead of answering him.

Aubrey cast a wry eye over it. “I would wager it is. Why did you try to disguise yourself, minx? Has Whit grown suspicious?”

“I don’t think he has. I’ve scarcely seen him. He seems to leave dinner and disappear each night.”

That was because Whit was skirt-chasing, but Aubrey kept that to himself. Riverdale and King gossiped more than a pair of dowagers.

“Hmm,” he murmured noncommittally as they spun around the floor.

“Did you know that he’s keeping a mistress here?” she asked.

Aubrey nearly tripped over his bloody feet. So much for trying to shield her from the truth.

“I wasn’t aware of that,” he admitted. But it didn’t surprise him to learn it.

“I met her,” Rhiannon said. “At least, I think she’s his mistress. Of course she didn’t say she was. One doesn’t go about admitting something so scandalous to a stranger. Not even at a house party such as this.”

They spun together again, and he couldn’t help but notice the lush fullness of her lips. “I reckon not.”

“Do you have a mistress?”

For the second time, he nearly tripped, this time on her swaying hems. He narrowly avoided disaster. “Christ, minx. This isn’t the sort of question you ought to ask of me.”

“Is it the woman I saw you with in the great hall?” she persisted.

“No,” he bit out. “Lady Heathcote is an acquaintance and nothing more. Not that it is any of your concern.”

“Any more my concern than it is yours when I accompany a gentleman into the garden?” she returned.

She rather had him there. He couldn’t deny it.

“Touché, minx,” he said grimly.

“Well?” she demanded.

“What was your question?” he deflected, spinning them and beginning to feel dizzied.

Maybe it was the champagne.

Or the dancing.

Or maybe it was just Rhiannon.

“ Do you have a mistress?”

Aubrey’s gaze traveled down the creamy, elegant column of her throat, and it was all he could do not to set his mouth there, to make his mark upon her. “I’ll answer your question when you answer mine.”

He had never felt this primitive surge for another woman, and it was deuced maddening. He wanted to protect her, to claim her, to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off to his room and spend all night making love to her.

She is your friend’s sister , he reminded himself harshly. She’s a bloody virgin.

“What was your question?” she asked, her voice a touch breathless.

Her gaze had darkened and slid to his mouth.

He searched the ends of his mind and couldn’t recall for a few seconds until they nearly collided with another couple and sanity returned to him. “The reason for your disguise.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes.” He cast a glance over her red wig. “Though you do make a most alluring redhead as well.”

“It was you.”

“Me?”

She pouted, and he wanted to kiss that pout off her mouth right there in the midst of the ball.

He could too. Couples were free with each other here.

No one would look twice if he led her to the periphery of the dancers and fucked her against a bloody wall, for Chrissakes.

But the last thing he wanted to do was draw any attention to her, so he kept his lips to himself.

“Yes, you,” she said. “I wanted to be free to find a lover without you ruining it.”

A lover.

His head roared.

She still, after all he had done to persuade her otherwise, was determined to give her innocence away as if it were a frock that was out of fashion.

“Now I’ll have your answer,” she demanded.

Through the blood rushing in his ears, he almost failed to hear her.

“What answer?” he rasped.

“Do you have a mistress?”

“No,” he managed. “I don’t.”

Because he didn’t prefer to have the same bed partner for too long. Lovers were well enough. Mistresses inevitably had expectations of tenderness and affection, and he couldn’t give them that. But he kept all this to himself.

“Then perhaps I could offer myself for the position.”

He stared at her, lust and a yearning more potent than any he’d ever known intersecting within him. The result was combustible. He was combustible.

And tempted.

My God, he was tempted. More than he had even realized possible.

Whit would murder him. She wasn’t mistress material. She didn’t even know what she offered. And besides, she was marrying the staid Carnis. God, he hated the thought of someone as passionate and lovely and wild as Rhiannon consigning herself to a lifetime of being a proper wife.

The music died around them, signifying that the dance was over. He stood there like an imbecile, doing everything in his power to will away the cockstand that was threatening to rise there in the middle of the ballroom.

“Until the house party is at an end,” the minx added. “When we get back to London, it will be as if it never happened. I shall go on my way, and you’ll go on yours.”

And then she dipped into a curtsy before walking away, leaving him standing there as if she hadn’t just set flame to his world and everything in it.