Hunted By the Fae Duke (Immortal Hunters #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

George Somersby is going to propose to me tonight.

So says the small box I found hidden between the pressed shirts in his valise. The navy velvet whispered that after six disappointing Seasons, I have finally made my match.

Visions of my future nuptials provide patience while George toils between my legs in a downstairs powder room. He’s been at it for quite some time.

I’m starting to suspect he has no idea what he’s doing.

I shift my hips to chase his tongue, and my skirts flip up to reveal mussed brown hair.

“What’s the matter with you?” George rests a hand upon my thigh, swipes his mouth with the other. “Why can’t you get there?”

Oh, my sweet soon-to-be husband.

What I want to say is, I can’t get there because you seem to believe my clitoris is located far closer to my navel than is anatomically possible.

Or perhaps, I can’t get there because I’ve had insufficient opportunity to train you. You’ve done this precisely three times during our courtship, but who’s counting?

What I actually say is, “Keep going. I was close.”

I am nothing if not unfailingly polite. My chief virtue, according to George.

“It’s my fault, not yours.” I push down on his shoulder, subtly repositioning him. “Please don’t stop.”

He huffs an annoyed sigh, as if my orgasm is the heaviest of burdens. Exactly what I need to hear to make this happen.

But when he dips back down, his second attempt starts off much better than the first. Yes. Oh, please don’t move. I throw my head back as he tentatively flicks his tongue across my—

Bollocks, he’s lost it again.

I smack a hand over the sweet peas climbing the wallpaper, then scoot to the edge of the washstand.

I cant my hips forward, and my hunt pays off—oh, that’s it—he’s finally got it.

I clench my thighs around his shoulders, forcing him to stay put, and even if he’s not using quite enough pressure, if I just hold my muscles tight enough, I could almost, yes, I think maybe I could—

“Charlotte!”

George rears back, his head catching my dress and nearly pulling me off the washstand.

I could scream. And not the way I want to.

Was that Lizzie? My cousin is prone to dramatics, which means the threat is more likely to be a misplaced slipper than anything serious.

George frees himself from the trap of my petticoats, frowning. “What does she—”

“CHARLOTTE!”

Tension seizes my spine. That was not Lizzie. That was Aunt Theodosia.

“Sorry. Sorry! I’ve got to … ” I jump down from the washstand, rearranging my skirts, then smack a kiss onto George’s pouting lips. He accepts my apology with all the grace of a man whose raging hard-on will not be immediately dealt with. “I’ll see you tonight.”

I slip out of the powder room, cut through the sun parlor, then zigzag past salons and the grand ballroom. Inside, an army of staff are preparing for tonight’s Season opening ball.

“CHARLOTTE EMILIE FITZROY!”

I grimace, valiantly overcoming an urge to flee in the opposite direction before racing toward my aunt’s voice, which sounds to have come from Lizzie’s bedroom.

Once inside, my anxiety dissolves into near hysterics when, atop the bed, I find my cousin and her mother clutching each other with matching expressions of terror.

The source slithers out of Lizzie’s ewer—Esmeralda, my late Granny Maggie’s pet boomslang. And my ward for the past year and a half. Cheeky little thing must’ve slipped her brass cage. Again. She abhors confinement nearly as much as her previous mistress.

A pinprick of grief pierces my chest as I step to the bureau to rescue the snake.

Aunt Teddy bellows for Alice, Lizzie’s lady’s maid.

She clambers into the room, and when I pass Esmeralda to her, she pales.

The snake coils around her forearm, a sign of affection that Alice has misinterpreted as an attack, if the soft wail that follows them out is any indication.

Danger abated, Aunt Teddy hauls herself from the bed, tucking straw-gold wisps into her sleeping cap.

Even in her nightclothes, she is an intimidating woman.

Her attention snaps to my feet. “Are you wearing those filthy boots again? I thought I asked Mathilde to dispose of them. No wonder you’ve yet to lure a husband, Charlotte.

You have such little regard for your appearance. ”

George doesn’t give a fig about my footwear, I think to myself, chewing my lip to mask a grin that will only encourage Aunt Teddy to expound upon my shortcomings. Her favorite subject.

“Remember what we discussed. Tonight, you must be charming and demure. Do not let your desperation show. Do not ask too many questions. And above all, do not talk about yourself. Figure out what the gentlemen want and be that. It’s imperative to make a proper impression if you hope to make a match before you’re put out to pasture. ”

She mutters that I’m too much like my wanton mother. Laments the loose leash her mother-in-law allowed me. Frets over my impending spinsterhood and how it will tarnish the family name. What horror, for a woman to remain unwed after an unprecedented seventh Season.

She’ll take back those words tonight. As soon as George sinks to one knee to declare his love before a room of men who’ve overlooked me year after year after year.

It will be a triumph. A scandal, maybe. Love overcoming every obstacle.

My smile blooms as I leave Lizzie’s room, closing the door upon my aunt’s grumbling.