Chapter 2 #2
The older woman was dressed in a nondescript brownish gray, a color that did not suit any woman alive. Mia sighed. Her cousin was not beautiful, but she had a pretty face and soft gray eyes. In a gown of blue or lavender she would look quite attractive.
“Thank you, Cousin Rebecca. You look lovely, too,” she lied, standing on tiptoe to give her a peck on the cheek.
Rebecca turned pink and patted Mia awkwardly on the arm.
It saddened Mia that her family seemed unwilling—or unable—to express affection.
Physical affection had helped her survive in the sultan’s palace.
She’d cuddled her son constantly when he was a baby.
They’d remained close as Jibril grew up, although he’d drawn the line on public embraces after his half-brother Assad had teased him that hugs were for children.
Mia pushed away her longing for her son and offered Rebecca her arm. She smiled up at her tall cousin. “Are you ready?”
***
The large drawing room was crowded with auburn-haired relatives and a conspicuous number of single men.
Mia was engaged in conversation with the buck-toothed son of a northern earl—a middle-aged man who could not keep his eyes from the bodice of her gown long enough to complete a sentence—when an odd hush fell over the assemblage.
She followed the stunned gazes of those around her to a slim, dark-haired man standing beside her father.
Mia nudged her brother, who was engaged in a heated discussion with an older man from his philosophical society.
“Cian, who is that?”
“Who is whom?” he repeated, his mind still on the discussion she had interrupted.
“That man—the one talking with Father.”
Cian’s eyes followed hers and his entire body stiffened. “Good God. How could he?”
“How could who do what?” Mia asked, glancing from her brother’s outraged face to the man everyone was staring at.
Unlike the duke, who sported an embroidered green silk waistcoat, the stranger wore not a hint of color.
His hair was dark enough to look black and contrasted sharply with his pale skin, adding a sense of the dramatic to his appearance.
Mia was too far away to discern the color of his eyes, but could see they were set below shapely, well-defined dark brows.
High, sharp cheekbones and a determined jaw framed unsmiling lips.
The duke leaned toward him and spoke. The man merely raised his quizzing glass and surveyed the room as a hawk might sweep a field for rodents.
Even from a distance Mia could feel her father’s anger at the other man’s careless dismissal of whatever he’d said.
A smile pulled at her lips. Who was this man who treated one of the most powerful peers in England like a nuisance?
She tapped Cian’s arm with her fan. “Who is he?”
“He is Adam de Courtney, the Marquess of Exley.” Cian pushed the words through gritted teeth.
“Why are you staring daggers at him?”
“I am not staring daggers at him.” He turned and stared daggers at Mia instead, his eyes narrowed and his mouth a compressed pink line.
Mia bit back a smile at his almost comical outrage. “Why is every person in this room trying to appear as if they were not staring at him?”
“They are staring because it is unheard of to see him in such an environment.”
“In a house?”
Cian gave her such a withering look Mia couldn’t help laughing.
“No, at a respectable event with decent people. He hasn’t been to a ton function since . . .”
“Yes, since?” Mia prodded.
He gave an impatient shake of his head. “It doesn’t matter. Not for a very long time.” His eyes snapped back to the marquess, who was now saying something to their father. The duke, who had already been frowning, suddenly appeared thunderous.
“Goodness. What could he be saying to make Father look so cross?” Mia asked.
“Whatever it is, Father deserves it.”
Before she could ask her brother to explain his cryptic comment, the marquess raised his glass and fixed it on her.
Cian swore. “What bloody cheek.” He edged his body in front of her.
Mia took her brother’s arm. “I do not require your protection, Cian.”
He ignored her and inched even closer. “Damnation,” he hissed. “He’s coming this way. Don’t speak to him, Mia. Let me handle this.”
Aunts, cousins, and prospective suitors vanished into the nearby furniture like quail into tall grass as the Marquess of Exley came toward them, moving with the languid grace of a predator on the prowl.
He was no more than medium height, his body slim, but sleekly muscled.
His austere black-and-white clothing looked as if it had been stitched to his graceful frame.
His coat tapered from broad shoulders to narrow, compact hips and well-developed thighs and calves—the legs of an active man.
By the time he reached their side of the room, only Mia and Cian remained to greet him.
Mia wrenched her gaze away from his snug black breeches and looked up into eyes that were a startling pale blue—an unusual color made even more striking by the thick, dark lashes that fringed his lids.
He smiled slightly at her obvious scrutiny and turned his unnerving eyes on her brother.
“Perhaps you would introduce us, Albemarle?” His voice was low, velvety, and precise—as attractive as his person.
Cian stood mute, his hands fisted at his sides. The marquess scrutinized the younger man the same way he might study a spot on his cravat. The longer his eyes lingered, the more Cian’s face mottled.
Mia itched to cuff her brother. What was wrong with him?
She stepped around Cian and held out her hand, hoping to interrupt the hostile tableau vivant before her brother attacked the other man. “I am Euphemia Marlington.”
The marquess bowed low over her proffered hand. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Lady Euphemia. I am Exley.” His lips, which looked as hard and cold as stone, left a burning imprint on the cool kid leather of her glove.
Mia dropped into her lowest curtsy, the one she’d reserved for the sultan. When she rose, it was to find his icy eyes glinting with approval.
His lips flexed into something that almost passed for a smile. “Are you pleased to be back in the bosom of your family, my lady?” It was an innocuous question, but she sensed the irony behind it.
Mia glanced at her father; the duke was watching her with eyes every bit as stony as his bosom. Did every person in the room—every person in London—know how much her return had mortified her father?
If they did, there was no point in letting them all know how much it hurt her.
She beamed up at the marquess. “Very much so, my lord. I am especially thrilled to be reunited with my little brother.” They both turned to Cian. Her brother was glaring at the marquess as if he were a dangerous and unpredictable reptile.
Mia’s smile began to falter and she grasped at the first thought that came to mind. “My brother tells me your presence here tonight is something of a rarity, Lord Exley.”
His dark brows arched, as if he was surprised to hear Cian could actually speak. “I do not care for this type of social occasion in general, but your father convinced me I would miss tonight at my peril.”
In case she might misunderstand his meaning—that her father was conducting a public auction with Mia on the block—Exley began a deliberate examination of her person, the same way he might inspect bloodstock at Tattersall’s.
His eyes licked over her like blue fire, burning her skin through her clothing, scorching her from head to toe and leaving no part of her body unscathed.
He dwelt longest on her chest, which was rising and falling as if she’d just run a footrace.
His expression shifted subtly from cruel and calculating to . . . pleased, but still calculating.
The brazen appraisal was enough to bring Cian out of his trance, and he stepped toward the marquess. “Look here, Exley, just what the devil—”
“Dinner is served!” the duke’s butler proclaimed in a stentorian voice.
Exley extended his arm. “May I claim the honor of escorting you to dinner, Lady Euphemia?”
Mia bowed her head and laid her hand on the cool, smooth fabric of his sleeve. She could not have resisted the quiet note of command in his voice even if she’d wanted to—and she did not want to.
***
I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek at DANGEROUS, my very first book!
It is the first in a three-book series called THE OUTCASTS.
The stories from the first three books continue in REBELS OF THE TON.
If you’d like to learn about those love stories you can read more about DANGEROUS and the other books in the series, HERE.
Keep reading for a look at JOSS AND THE COUNTESS, a book featuring one of my favorite heroes…