He watched her for a long moment, staring into those eyes the color of liquid gold. “I’m coming for you now,” he said as he leaned in and bit her lower lip, pulling her toward him, reveling in the low, lush laugh that erupted from her.
He chased the sound down the column of her neck to the place where it vibrated in her throat, worrying the spot with his teeth. She sighed at the sensation and he wanted to roar his satisfaction. His pleasure. Her lips curved, and he ached for them. Reached for them.
She pulled back. “You didn’t want me until now. Until you discovered I’m her, too.”
He stilled at the words. “Her.”
“Georgiana.”
The way she spoke of herself in the third person called to him. He turned her to the light, to see her. “Georgiana is other?” She closed her eyes briefly, considering her answer, and he changed the question. “You must think on the answer?”
“Mustn’t we all?” she asked, the words soft and thoughtful. “Aren’t we all two people? Three? A dozen? Different with family and friends and lovers and strangers and children? Different with men? With women?”
“It’s not the same,” he insisted. “I don’t play at being two people.”
“It is not play,” she replied. “I do not revel in the game of it.”
“Of course you do,” he said, and she was again struck by how well he saw what few others did. “You adore it. I’ve seen you here, holding court over the floor of the club, as though you own it. Beautiful. Perfectly turned out…” He let his fingers trail over the edge of her gown, loving the way her breasts swelled as she inhaled at the touch. “… and that laugh, rich and welcome.
“I’ve seen you entertain and entice, hang on the arm of the Angel’s wealthiest patrons while somehow giving those down on their luck the idea that they might one day bask in the glow of your attention.”
She lifted her chin, acting out his words. “You have my attention now, sir.”
“Don’t. Not with me. Why do it, if not for the pleasure of the masque?”
Something flashed in her gaze at the question, there, then gone. “Survival.”
Duncan had lied enough in his life to recognize the truth in another. It was what made him such a tremendous newspaperman. “What are you afraid of?”
She laughed at that, but the sound lacked humor. “Spoken like a man with no fear of ruin.”
If she only knew the fear he had in the dead of night. The way he woke every morning, afraid that today would be the day of his ruin. He pushed the thoughts aside. “Then why do it?” he asked, “Why assume the role of Anna? Why not simply live life as Georgiana? Isn’t Anna the role that threatens to destroy you thoroughly?”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
“I don’t. You worry that you cannot marry a high enough title to render your daughter’s reputation clean, and still you don your wicked silks and paint your face and run the lightskirt brigade at London’s most renowned casino.”
“You think it idiocy.”
“I think it reckless.”
“You think I am selfish.”
“No.” He was not a fool.
“What then?”
He did not hesitate. “I think there is no profession in the wide world that a woman would be less likely to choose than yours.”
She smiled at that, and he was surprised at the honesty in the expression, as though she knew something that he did not know. And perhaps she did. “There, Mr. West,” she said, all feminine wile, “you are wrong.”
“So what is it?” he asked, now desperate for the answer. “Why do it? Is it his power? You like being the exclusive property of the elusive Chase, who strikes fear into the hearts of men Britain-wide?”
“Chase is part of it, certainly.”
He hated the truth in the words. Couldn’t stop himself from saying, “He is that good of a lover, is he?”
She was quiet for a moment, and he cursed himself for the question. Even more so when she said, “What if I told you that my relationship with Chase had nothing to do with sex?”
Sex. The word curved over her tongue and lips, wrapping around them in the dark alcove, all temptation and promise. God, he wanted to believe her – he hated the image of foreign hands on her, of lips stroking over her most private, precious of places. And for some reason he hated the thought even more without a clear image of the man who claimed her.
“I wouldn’t believe you.”
“Why not?”
“Because any man who has exclusive access to you would not be able to go a day without touching you.”
He shocked her. He saw the expression pass, there, then gone so quickly that another, lesser man would not have noticed. Because another man would have been so enthralled with the expression that replaced it – her beautiful mouth curving in utter satisfaction – that he wouldn’t have cared to notice the first.
But it was the combination of the two – evidence of somehow innocence and vice – that threaded straight to West’s core, spreading desire through him.
He worked to steady his breath when she took a step closer. “Are you saying you would like exclusive access to me?” It was Anna who spoke, the skilled prostitute, all wickedness and vice.
And so he returned it in kind. “I’m a man, am I not?”
Her hands came to his shoulders, running smoothly down the lapels of his coat and inside, over his linen shirt. “Does Chase strike fear into your heart?” she asked quietly, her hand settling over the organ in question. “Is that quaking I feel?”