Chapter Three

As his gleaming town coach crept up the long, winding, tree-lined drive of Foxhaven House, Abel gave serious consideration to opening the door and jumping out of it. Surely in all the chaos, no one would notice one mad duke dashing off into the woods. But then he’d have Ester to contend with. While he wasn’t afraid of the nanny–he was nearly twice her size and a duke, for God’s sake–he had grown tired of her nagging. And, all right, maybe she was a little intimidating.

No, Abel sighed, best he get this night over and done with. The quicker he found a suitable wife, the better. Then he could return to his beloved daughters and his quiet life away from the mayhem of the ton .

Adjusting his cravat and affixing a grim smile upon his face, he waited for the coach to come to a proper halt and the door to be opened by a footman before he departed. Ignoring the immediate rush of whispers and stares that his unexpected arrival had provoked, he strode straight into the front hall, took a cursory glance around–was that a bear made of ice?–and walked right out the back through a glass set of French doors.

Heart thumping, Abel ducked out of view and pressed his skull against the manor’s cool, rough stone exterior.

He was wrong.

This was a bloody terrible idea.

All of those people looking at him…old schoolmates from Eton, friends he hadn’t spoken with since Catherine’s funeral, strangers salivating at the thought of gaining a public audience with the reclusive Duke of Dorchester…it was too much. Five years wasn’t enough time to prepare. Hell, fifty years wouldn’t be enough time. He needed to leave, Ester’s inevitable cluck of disapproval when he returned within the hour be damned. He’d just wait until the dancing began and everyone was distracted. Surely no one would bother him out here. But no sooner had the thought entered his mind than he heard the distinct click of the doors opening and a spill of golden light unraveled across the terrace, followed by the unmistakable rustle of satin as a woman in a gown the color of perfectly aged clairet walked out.

She went to the edge of the curved balcony and stopped, her small hands, enclosed in white gloves, anchoring themselves to the railing. Abel watched from the shadows as she tilted her head back, affording him a crystal clear view of her silhouette and the pile of tawny brown curls atop her crown.

She had a smooth forehead and a nose that tilted at the end, followed by a lush mouth with a lower lip that was slightly heavier than the top. A pointed, some might say stubborn, chin. A long, elegant neck and prominent collarbones exposed by the low décolletage of her dress that also revealed the ample swell of her–

“I can feel you staring,” she called out, her velvety voice caught somewhere between amusement and annoyance. “If you’d like to caress me with your eyes, at least come over here and keep me warm while you’re doing it.”

Abel startled, caught off guard as much by her bold invitation as his body’s immediate response to it. Fire licked through his veins; tendrils of flame racing across an icy field that had laid fallow for far too long. When was the last time he’d experienced a flood of desire? Even when Catherine was alive, their intimacy had been…soft. Quiet. Comfortable. By her request, they’d kept separate rooms, and whenever he’d knocked on her door she had opened her arms but kept her eyes closed. They were each other’s first. They were each other’s only. And afterward, if he’d wanted more in the solitude of his own room, he’d used his hand to sate any lingering urges while Catherine slept on the other side of the wall.

But as he gazed at the woman in the red, he couldn’t help but think that if he were to ever visit her bed, he’d been too exhausted afterward to even lift his arm. And that sense of arousal, that lust, felt good. Like the first raw punch of heat after coming in from the cold.

“Well?” she asked, tapping her foot impatiently. “I haven’t all night.”

Of its own accord, Abel’s gaze dropped to her bottom. Cloaked in a silk bustle that only served to accentuate her already voluptuous frame, it was plump, round, and practically begging to be squeezed. When the fit of his trousers suddenly became far snugger, he swallowed. Hard. Then he pushed off the wall and stepped out of the shadows, unbuttoning his jacket as he went.

“Who are you?” he rasped, putting his jacket over her shoulders.

“Who do you want me to be?” she said coyly, still gazing out over the terrace at the frozen rose garden beyond. His jacket was enormous on her. The sleeves fell almost to her knees and the collar was three sizes too big for her slender neck. But there was something about seeing his clothing on her body that stirred a sense of protectiveness inside of him. Even as her rebuttal to his perfectly reasonable question had him grinding his teeth.

“Why aren’t you inside?” he asked.

“Why aren’t you inside?” she countered.

“I came out here to be alone. This is the first public event I’ve attended in quite some time and I find the crowd to be…overwhelming.” The truthful admission came as a surprise. His eyes narrowed. What sort of power did this bewitching female have over him that she could tease his secrets from his tongue while divulging none of her own? “Your name, my lady. I shall take that or my jacket. You cannot keep both.”

“Lillian.” The three syllables floated off her lips like warm honey drizzled into tea. “Lillian Snow. I came outside for a breath of fresh air before the ballroom doors open and I spend the rest of the night dancing. Do you like to dance, Lord…?”

“Abel Taylor Roberts, Duke of Dorchester. And no, I do not like to dance.”

“Your Grace ,” Lillian murmured. “How…interesting.”

“What is?” he said guardedly.

“Just that you’ve chosen to attend a ball, yet you dislike large quantities of people and dancing. The two things that make a ball…well, a ball. Did you request your driver bring you somewhere else and he came here instead?”

“No. My attendance tonight is a duty to be fulfilled.”

“And here I thought dukes could do whatever they wanted.”

“How many dukes have you met?”

“You’re the first.” She finally turned away from the balcony, affording him a clear view of her countenance. Abel’s breath lodged in his throat. If her features had been remarkable in profile, the front facade was nothing short of exquisite.

Dominated by catlike garnet eyes flecked with dashes of gold, her face was a work of art. And while it was said beauty was in the eye of the beholder, it took all of his self-control not to hold her . Not to yank her against his chest, drag his fingers through her hair, and plunder her mouth until her legs gave out.

The shock of his reaction to her appearance–the sheer strength of it–made his jaw clench and his abdominal muscles tighten. Obviously, he’d gone too long without a woman. It was the only explanation that made sense. His response was exaggerated due to five years of self-imposed celibacy. It had nothing to do with Lillian in particular. Never mind that he had received female callers over the past few months and none of them, not a single one, had made his cock harden or his blood burn.

It was this night.

This ball.

He shouldn’t have come…and now he didn’t want to leave.

Not without knowing what she tasted like first.

Raking a hand through his hair, he forced himself to look past her at the empty terrace as snowflakes began to fall intermittently from the dark, cloudy sky. “You should go back inside. I’m sure the ballroom will be opening soon. You don’t want to miss it.”

“I wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, you know.”

Abel couldn’t help himself. His gaze flashed to hers. A half smile flirted with the corner of her mouth, but her eyes–large, gorgeous gemstones framed with thick black lashes–remained solemn.

“Did you have other plans?” he asked.

“I didn’t have any plans. I wasn’t given an invitation.” Lifting the long sleeve of his coat, she spun it in a lazy circle. “I won one in a game of hazard.”

“Are you gambler, then?” he said, mostly in jest.

“Almost as bad.” She gave the sleeve another spin, then let it drop. “I’m an actress.”

Abel barked out a laugh. Lillian Snow, an actress? A bored debutante more like, seeking a bit of drama. Except she didn’t appear as if she were teasing. She looked…serious. Maybe even a little sad. Brows gathering above the bridge of his nose, he braced an arm on the edge of the railing as the snow began to fall in earnest. “I cannot recall the last play I saw.”

Lillian frowned. “You don’t enjoy the theater?”

“No, that’s not what I–”

“Do you also have an aversion to rainbows, puppies, and rays of sunshine?”

“I never said–”

“Crowds, dancing, and now the arts.” A loose curl tumbled from her coiffure when she tilted her head to the side. “Is there anything you do enjoy, Your Grace?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. Reaching out, he brushed a snowflake off the high arch of her cheekbone. Turning his hand inward, he cupped her cheek, the pad of his thumb cradling the small, stubborn point of her chin. “Quiet,” he growled. “I like it when people are quiet .”

So he kissed her. It wasn’t planned, yet how else was he supposed to keep her from interrupting him? Her lips were cold under his, but they quickly warmed when his tongue swept along the delicate seam before sliding inside to sample the sweet nectar of her hot, wet mouth. He’d wondered what she would taste like and now he had his answer.

Peppermint.

She tasted of fresh peppermint and secrets cloaked in velvet.

On a groan, he pulled Lillian in closer while her hands anchored to his chest, fingers digging into the silk fabric of his waistcoat as she returned his kiss with wild abandon and pinpricks of light danced behind his closed eyelids when she took his lower lip between her teeth and tugged. He snarled in response, more animal than man when he backed up against the balcony and captured her wrists, pinning her arms to the side of the railing so that he could ravish her properly. So that he could indulge in all of the dark, wicked fantasies that his mind conjured during those nights when his hand was wrapped around his cock.

Wrenching free of her delectable lips, he kissed her jawline before skimming up toward her ear to take the small, sensitive lobe in his teeth. She gave a soft, almost imperceptible mewl when he licked, but he caught the sound nonetheless and his body thrilled at having summoned it, loins pressing ardently against her skirts where layers of silk and chiffon hid what he truly coveted.

Releasing her left arm, he palmed her breast, holding the full, plump weight of it while his thumb stroked across the hard point of her nipple. She arched her spine, leaning backward over the balcony as their mouths crashed together yet again. Canting his head, Abel deepened the kiss, shamelessly taking what he wanted without reservation. Dimly, he registered that Catherine would have already been a withering pile of nerves. His gentle lady wife had consistently shied away from passion in all of its varied forms. But Lillian met his tongue thrust for thrust, and he nearly pushed them both off the terrace when she used her free hand to cup his groin, her teasing fingers tracing the outline of his rigid manhood through his trousers from base to tip.

It was too much.

She was too much.

In every possible way.

In every wonderfully sinful way.

When had he ever been this close to losing control?

Bloody hell, when had he ever kissed a perfect stranger at a ball?

Never.

The answer was a firm, resolute never .

But damned if he didn’t want to do it again even as he made himself relinquish his hold on her and take a step back.

“I’m…I’m terribly sorry,” he rasped. “I don’t know what that was.”

In the snow-flecked darkness, Lillian’s garnet eyes gleamed. “That, my dear duke…was theater.”