Chapter Three
May 1811
Haversham Ball
London, England
K itty wore blue to the ball. The fetching color complemented the rosy blush of her cheeks and her yellow silken curls piled artfully around a tiara adorned with diamonds. Only she knew that the gown was an old one of her mother’s, the diamonds were made of glass, and that she’d purposefully worn elbow-length gloves to cover the light spattering of bruises that encircled her wrist like a ghastly purple bracelet.
Her entire appearance was an illusion. An illusion designed to fool her peers into believing she was something that she wasn’t. She was an actress. The Haversham Ball was her stage. And she was about to put on the performance of a lifetime.
She heard the whispers as she glided past her peers, holding a long-stemmed glass of champagne as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“I thought it would be her,” they said.
“The poor dear must be so embarrassed.”
“At least she can be supported in spinsterhood by her sister.”
Kitty’s top lip curled at the last, a dog preparing to bite, but she managed to school her expression into a pleasant smile before her fangs showed.
Spinsterhood?
She was barely twenty!
And older siblings were meant to marry before the younger. But when that older sibling was engaged to marry the Duke of Southwick, it cast a long shadow... a shadow that was impossible to fill given this Season’s worm-riddled crop of bachelors. And the worst of it was that they were right. It should have been her getting married first! It should have been her marrying a duke. She was the fashionable one. The sociable one. The one that had gotten her and Mara invitations to the bloody Glendale Ball in the first place! But instead of noticing her , Southwick had set his sights on Mara. Sweet, quiet, bookish Mara who hadn’t even been looking for a husband.
Now Mara was almost a duchess, and Kitty was already being labeled as a spinster! The unfairness of it made her stomach hurt. But she wasn’t about to resolve herself to the fate that the ton had already decided for her.
Absolutely not.
She hadn’t come this far to give up, and she damned well hadn’t come this far to settle for being known as the sister of a duchess.
Tilting her head back, Kitty drained the contents of her champagne flute in a single swallow. The bubbles prickled on her tongue before sliding pleasantly down her throat and into her belly, warming her from the inside out. Removing a silk fan from her beaded reticule (another piece of her patched together wardrobe inherited from her mother), she flicked it open and used the scalloped edge to disguise the direction of her stare as she studied the men in attendance.
The Duke and future Duchess of Southwick weren’t amidst the guests spinning around Lord and Lady Haversham’s ballroom. Her sister had bowed out this morning, citing a megrim, and left Kitty scrambling to find a suitable chaperone as their father was certainly not an option (even if he hadn’t already been passed out drunk on the parlor sofa by the time she was ready to leave). She’d landed on Lady Staffordshire, the mother of a friend, and had navigated an escape from the older woman’s line of sight shortly after their arrival, leaving her to peruse her options for marriage at her leisure.
The good thing was that she hadn’t many requirements. Aside from being titled and wealthy, they had to be under the age of forty and in possession of the majority of their teeth. Hardly a long or exclusive list. But as her gaze swept around the room, Kitty was pressed to find just one gentleman that met her prerequisites.
There was Lord Danver, a marquess, but he was closer to fifty than he was to forty and had already been married three times.
Lord Waverly would have been an option if she hadn’t recently learned of his debts.
Mr. Brimes didn’t have a title.
Sir Ridgley wasn’t titled enough.
It was like being stuck in the middle of the desert searching for a glass of water... but all the cups were filled with sand.
Annoyed, she began to lower her fan... and then she saw him .
The man who would steal her heart and ruin her life.
But of course she didn’t know that yet.
He was tall, so tall that she wondered why she hadn’t seen him immediately. A black coat, exquisitely tailored, conformed to broad shoulders and muscular arms. A white cravat, run through with a gold pin, was wrapped around a strong neck kissed with a hint of bronze. His jaw was clean shaven. His nose long and straight. Blond hair, cut evenly at the nape, was combed back from a square temple. His entire countenance was a combination of hard, perfect angles. And his eyes... Kitty’s stomach sucked inward as she drew a sharp breath. His eyes were a dark, piercing sable. The color of soil after a soaking rain or coffee before cream was added.
Those eyes watched her with the intensity of a hawk circling above a rabbit as he drew closer, the crowd parting out of his way without a word needing to be spoken. When he stopped in front of her and bowed, she gave a coy flutter of her fan and performed a curtsy, sweeping her blue skirts expertly to the side and affording him a teasing glimpse of her ankle if he cared to steal a peek.
He did.
Impossibly, his gaze grew even darker.
“Lord William Colborne, Earl of Radcliffe, at your service, my lady.” His voice was rust over iron and the sound of it, both rough and refined, sent a shiver of awareness racing through her.
“Lady Katherine Holden,” she purred, offering her gloved hand.
He took it, his fingers curling under hers for a second longer than necessary before he raised her arm and pressed his mouth to her knuckles. “A pleasure,” he murmured, and if Kitty were the swooning type, she might have wilted then and there. But while everything about her was intended to imply she was a gently bred lady who would tremble and quake at the sight of a spider, Kitty was more likely to grind up the arachnid under her heel than run away from it.
“I can assure you the pleasure is mine.” Her head canted. “How is it we’ve not yet met, Lord Radcliffe? I’ve attended every ball this Season, and this is the first time I’ve seen you.”
“I was traveling abroad until recently. A business venture with a partner in Boston.”
“And what, pray tell, was the manner of your business?”
He was still holding her hand, a fact that they were both very cognizant of even as they committed to pretending that they weren’t. Below the soft rise of her palm, the rapid throb of Kitty’s pulse gave away what her cool expression did not: she was wildly, madly attracted to William Colborne. In a way she’d never felt before, despite her brief dalliances with a few rogues who had been quite inventive with their tongues but not quite marriage material.
Was it possible that she’d finally found someone who was both? A suitor who made her thighs tremble and one who was titled? She’d have preferred a duke, but in desperate times, surely an earl would suffice. Kitty wet her lips. Could this be it? Could he be what she’d been waiting for, whom she’d been waiting for?
What would it be like, to not live in fear?
What would it be like, to not have to cover bruises?
What would it be like, to be certain of her next meal?
She wanted to find out.
How desperately she wanted to find out if this was the man who was going to save her from the pit of pain and despair she’d been trying to claw her way out of ever since she was a young girl. A young girl hiding under the bed with Mara’s hand covering her mouth while their father stomped down the hall, bellowing her name.
“Dance with me,” her knight said, those fierce, hawkish eyes burning into hers. There was a touch of gold in the mahogany that she hadn’t noticed when he was on the other side of the ballroom. Up close, with his face mere inches from her own, it was like a streak of firelight across a black canopy of night. “Dance with me, and I’ll tell you.”
“Are you bargaining with me, Lord Radcliffe?” she asked, her lips curving.
“Indeed,” he said simply, and her smile widened as they kept their hands clasped together and seamlessly joined the other couples on the floor already in the midst of a contra-dance... the very same dance she’d enviously watched her sister engage in with the Duke of Southwick less than a month ago.
The complicated steps required her to change partners, but even as she was spun away from William, she did not lose track of him in the sea of pastels, nor he of her. Thrice their gazes met, and on the fourth he gave a subtle jerk of his chin in the direction of doors that opened onto a sprawling stone terrace. It was not so much an invitation to join him outside where shadows blurred the lines of propriety as it was a command, and the quickening of Kitty’s breath had little to do with the demanding movements of the contra-dance as she discreetly extracted herself in order to follow the earl out of the ballroom.
But when she slipped unnoticed onto the terrace, taking care to close the doors behind her, William wasn’t there. A warm spring breeze stirred the damp curls at the nape of her neck and cooled her flushed cheeks as she turned in a circle, bemusement creasing her brow. A wide staircase, illuminated by torches set in raised marble basins, led to a garden with towering hedgerows and climbing roses.
Had he gone down to await her amidst the thorns?
Was he lurking in the midnight, a marble statue come to life?
Trepidation licked on the heels of nervous excitement as she took a step forward... and was abruptly yanked back when a pair of strong arms encircled her waist, dragging her into the darkness of a covered alcove.
“Don’t scream,” Lord Radcliffe murmured, his chin hovering above her shoulder. “It’s only me.”
It’s only me , said Lucifer as he crooked his finger. Don’t be afraid.
Desire gathered inside of her, a bowstring being drawn taut. She spun around in his embrace, her fingertips finding purchase on the diamond cut lapels of his tailcoat. The fabric was heavy and rich to the touch—a reminder of what real wealth felt like. Gazing up at him through a thick veil of golden lashes, she deliberately traced the tip of her tongue along the plump swell of her bottom lip and watched, delighted, as a muscle ticked high in his jaw.
“Who are you?” he said hoarsely, and she knew he hadn’t forgotten her name. This was a deeper question. A question she wasn’t sure she had the answer to. Who was Lady Katherine Holden?
She was the daughter of a monster.
She was the sister of an angel.
She was an actress.
She was a flirt.
She was a reckoning.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me, and I’ll tell you.”
A true gentleman would have had the decency to deny her request, or at the very least put on a show of hesitation. But if there was one thing that was clear in the enigmatic swirl of fog that surrounded them, it was that William wasn’t a gentleman... and she wasn’t a lady.
Not tonight.
Not with him , the devil in a black tailcoat.
He cursed before he kissed her, an oath of absolution before condemning them both to the fiery clutches of sin.
Kitty held fast to his jacket as the sheer force of their combined lust knocked her onto her heels. William grabbed her by the hips, his large hands spanning across her bottom as his tongue plunged between her lips to taste and to take all that she had to give. He devoured her like he was a man half-starved and she offered herself up as if she were a feast, her fingers streaking up along the rigid plane of his chest until they reached the corded muscle of his neck, nails biting into his skin through her gloves.
Angling his head, he deepened the kiss even further, taking them to depths that she hadn’t even realized existed despite her previous encounters with passion.
Puddles , she thought dimly. She’d been wading in puddles and now she was swimming in an ocean so vast there was no end of it in sight. And that was good, that was wonderful, because she didn’t want it to end. Had she no need for sunlight or sustenance, she would have stayed here forever, wrapped in shadows and William’s sensual embrace.
The broad hands cupped around her backside tightened, pulling her up against the pulsing length of his arousal. Shockingly hot, it seared her belly like a brand. Begging— throbbing —for the attention that a staff of its magnitude so rightly deserved.
The earl groaned against her lips when she groped him there, not with the grasp of a shy virgin (which she still, surprisingly, remained, at least in the practical sense of the word), but the sturdy grip of a woman who understood the benefits of receiving pleasure... as well as giving it.
She stroked with the same rhythm that he’d used to kiss her, a consuming tempo that guided her wrist from root to tip where a bead of seed had already caused a damp circle to form in the crotch of his impeccably fitted trousers. The physical manifestation of his desire encouraged her boldness and quickened the tempo of her hand as he wrenched free of her mouth with a low, harsh growl that was more animal than human.
Releasing his right hand from her derrière, he reached between her thighs, ruthlessly seeking and finding the source of her own lasciviousness atop the layers of muslin and silk taffeta that comprised her gown.
Beyond shame, she leaned into the hard edge of his palm, grinding herself on him. From somewhere inside the ballroom, laughter ensued, its shrill sound piercing the hazy cloud of passion that had enveloped them. Blinking, Kitty began to raise her head until William captured her mouth in another searing kiss and the laughter was forgotten... until the doors swung outward and they broke apart with dual curses. Through the velvet veil of obsidian, their gazes met and held.
Hers, heavy lidded and smoky with desire.
His, sharp as the edge of a blade.
“Lady Katherine.”
“Lord Radcliffe,” she said coyly as a group of men spilled out onto the terrace to light cigars.
“Excellent weather we’re having.”
“Quite.”
A glint of humor shone in the rich brown of his irises. “I should like to call upon you tomorrow morning if you’re available.”
“I’ll have to check my appointments,” she said even as her heart threatened to skip a beat. “I am a very busy person.”
“Not too busy for an excursion around Hyde Park, I hope.”
Circles of orange flared as the decadent scent of tobacco filled the air.
“I shall see what I can do, my lord.”
He moved closer. Closer than he should have now that they had an audience. “Be ready at half past ten.”
She looked past him while at her sides, her fingers curled inward, nails biting into her palms in a concentrated effort to prevent herself from leaping into his arms and demanding that he finish what he’d started. “That sounds more like an order than an invitation.”
“Interpret it as you’d prefer.” His words tickled the shell of her ear. “But be ready, and wear blue. It suits you.”
Arrogant bully , she thought silently.
But what did that make her if she liked it?
“I’ll be ready when I want to be, and I’ll wear what I wish,” she said with a rebellious toss of her head.
“Blue,” he repeated. “It matches your eyes.”
Those blue eyes flashed. “You can’t tell me—”
But he was already gone, melting into the darkness as if he were made of it.