Page 2 of Isabelle (Virtue & Vice #5)
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Rose screamed. Where was Starke when she needed him? The Duke of Gryphon could not simply remove a woman from Belladonna’s House of Virtue—or anywhere else in London, for that matter. She might be female and a whore, but she still had rights.
Didn’t she?
Whether she did or not, no amount of flailing could free her from Lysander’s grip. She tried kicking. Twisting. When he shifted her to his shoulder, carrying her like a sack of potatoes, she pounded his broad back with balled fists. He grunted, but his steps did not falter.
Cool air wafted past her stinging cheeks and up the backs of her legs when a footman had the temerity to open the door for him. Blasted dukes. How she loathed powerful men. They got everything they wanted, no matter how unreasonable or even illegal.
“Get in, you little hellcat,” the duke snarled, tossing her with little effort.
Walls closed around her. Pleated silk overhead and damask on the walls.
Her back hit the buttery white leather squabs hard enough to make the springs squeak protest. Rose rebounded with all her might, flinging herself at freedom, only to crash into Gryphon’s broad chest, a wall of muscle softened only by a layer of wool. He caught her by the wrists.
“Will you sit, or am I going to have to spank you into submission?”
“I thought hitting a woman was beneath you,” she seethed. A slight smile quirked up his lips, barely there before disappearing.
“Depends upon whether or not she wanted it.” The carriage jolted into motion, throwing Rose off-balance as she crouched between his knees. Heat flared in her core.
She was a wicked wanton. She always had been.
Yet she had sworn off men. Even the handsome ones. Especially the handsome ones.
Prince Leopold had looked like this once upon a time, when they’d first met.
His hair was brighter blond than Gryphon’s, whose longish, tawny mane reminded her of a lion’s.
He moved like one, too. Coiled power. She was disgusted by own visceral response to him.
How predictable that her own body would betray her.
Everyone else had, except for Belladonna. The countess was as true blue a friend as anyone could want.
Why hadn’t she stopped the Duke of Gryphon from stealing her away?
“You can’t take me,” she gritted. A bump knocked her into his lap. Her tits, pushed high by her costume, might as well be a platter shoved in his face. He didn’t so much as glance down.
“I just did.”
Slowly, he released her, allowing her shaking knees to drop her silk-clad bottom onto the leather. She was facing backward. A true gentleman would have taken the rear-facing seat.
A true gentleman would not have kidnapped her from a bawdy house.
“Thus ruining my debut performance.” She scoffed, patting her hair and discovering a large section dangled past her shoulder, having been ripped out of its pins during Prince Leopold’s public assault.
He had grabbed her by the hair and slapped her, right in front of an entire audience of London’s most prestigious (if fastest) set.
Not a single soul had moved to stop him.
Except Lysander, the Duke of Gryphon.
An ember of smug satisfaction flared near her heart. After weeks of planning, her plan had worked. Until this blasted aristocrat had interfered.
Tense silence filled the carriage as it rumbled away from Mayfair, where she had been staying at Belladonna’s clandestine brothel masquerading as a charity home, the House of Virtue.
“I didn’t know you could sing,” he said casually.
“You’ll find I’m a woman of many hidden talents.
” Rose smirked. She had learned the art of seduction at her mother’s knee.
Her childhood as a madam’s daughter—her father’s identity was unknown—had taught her how to seduce and cajole men from an early age, including how to get men’s skin.
Annoyance could be just as powerful a way to make an impression as beauty was. If not more so.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. Gryphon twitched his sleeve straight. She could practically see the wheels in his mind turning.
Abruptly, his gaze locked onto hers. One second he was studying the herringbone pattern on his thighs—which were, Rose couldn’t help noticing, thicker and more muscular than her last paramour’s twiggy limbs.
Or any of her other so-called protectors, for that matter.
The next, those crystalline blue eyes had pinned her like a butterfly. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
Truly, it felt akin to being stalked by a lion. She could neither look away nor run for her life, lest she incite the predator to pounce.
“I anticipate with great pleasure learning all your gifts, Miss Leland. I intend to keep you safe at Gryphon Manor until the prince can be dealt with.”
The way he purred the word pleasure sent a hot shiver coursing through her, until the second thing he’d said registered.
“You’re kidnapping me?” she sputtered. He shrugged.
“Evidently. For your own safety.”
Rage blotted her vision. She kicked his shins. “I had everything under control, you ignorant oaf! You’ve ruined weeks of planning!”
The duke winced, but she’d lost her velvet slippers in the scuffle and she was doing more damage to her own bare feet than to him.
He snatched her ankle and dragged her down, slumping in the seat, her skirt falling up her thighs. The duke stroked his thumb up the center of her foot.
“What, precisely, were you trying to accomplish this evening, Miss Leland? Other than pissing off the most powerful people in all London?”
* * *
Rose: A Scandalous Enemies To Lovers Victorian Romance
London’s most notorious duke has only one weakness—the courtesan he cannot resist.
Rose Leland, the most coveted courtesan in London, is playing a dangerous game by blackmailing some of society’s most powerful men—and one wrong move could cost her everything.
Her plans are interrupted the night she is attacked and Lysander, the brooding Duke of Gryphon, whisks her away to the safety of his estate, where he discovers the woman he rescued is no damsel in distress, but a fiery temptress on a mission of revenge.
As passion sparks and danger closes in,the duke and the courtesan must decide whether their scorching connection is worth risking both their lives for a love born in scandal.