He shrugged, unconcerned. “We’ll tell him you felt overwarm. You certainly appear overwarm.”
She lifted a hand to her flushed cheek. “That’s not a very gentlemanly thing to say.”
He laughed shortly and without humor. “Nothing I say ever pleases you, my Lady Perfect. Have you noticed? Only the things I do please you.”
She looked away, but he placed a thumb under her jaw and turned her head back so that she had no choice but to look him in the face. “You were pleased this morning, were you not?”
Hero wanted to lie, but in the end she could not, so she simply stayed mute.
He grimaced and let his hand drop with a gesture of disgust. “You won’t admit it, but I know you were. I felt you as you came apart in my arms, as your sweet cunny clenched about my cock.”
She shivered, remembering the feel of him, too. “Please.”
He stared at her hard and then drew her down the steps and into the shadows of the garden. Pulling her along until they were out of earshot of the ballroom doors.
He turned and placed his hands on her upper arms. “We must discuss it, even if you want to forget it forever.”
“That’s just it,” she whispered, emboldened by the dark. “I don’t want to forget.”
“Hero,” he said low, and her name sounded like a prayer on his lips.
He bent over her, there in the dark garden, and she felt the brush of his lips over hers. They were whisper-soft, like the kiss of a knight for a maiden he held in high esteem. Did he think of her that way, even now that she’d proven herself unvirtuous? She drew back and tried to search his face, but it was in shadow. He might as well have been a stranger.
She made to step back, but he caught her hand, holding her against himself. “Will you marry me?”
She shook her head, tilting her face to look at the stars, still and empty and so very far away. “How can I?”
“How can you not?” he retorted, his voice deep. “I’ve pierced your maidenhead.”
She closed her eyes.
“Hero.” His hands rose to grip her shoulders hard. “You must marry me.”
“Do you love me?” she asked.
His head jerked back. “What?”
“Do you love me, Lord Griffin?”
“I… have feelings for you.”
She felt her heart tear a little. “Feelings are not the same as love.”
“You don’t love Thomas.”
She shook her head. “No, that wasn’t our pact together.”
“Then for God’s sake, why demand it of me?” he growled low and urgent. “If I’m good enough to bed, surely I’m good enough to wed.”
She merely shook her head again. Panic was rising in her chest, a suffocating sense that she could never undo her wrong, that she’d never recover the place that she’d always had in society and her family.
“Do you love me?” he demanded.
“No!” The denial burst from her lips without thought or preparation. The mere notion of falling in love with this man made fear surge in her breast.
“Then why come to me? Why let me make love to you?”
“I don’t know.” She inhaled to steady her voice. “I… I came this morning to see if you were all right, to talk to you about the home, about your gin making. I had no notion of doing what we did.”
But was that the truth? a small voice asked deep inside her. Her heart had been beating hard when she’d knocked on his door. She’d been excited, her hands trembling in anticipation. Maybe without knowing it herself, she had gone there to submit to him. To find out, once and for all, if she was more than the facade of a duke’s daughter.
He shook his head, clearly confused. “At least answer my question: Why not marry me?”
She shook her head frantically. “I… I can’t think. You don’t understand the magnitude of this decision. If I marry you, my life will never be the same again. Maximus will hate me. He may repudiate me, keep me from the family.”
“For God’s sake.” For a moment she could tell he was struggling to keep his voice low. Then he said urgently, “I may be a rake, but my reputation isn’t that sordid. I doubt your brother will be happy with our match, but to cast you out—”
“He hates gin making,” she whispered back fiercely. “You are a gin distiller. How long before he finds that out? You have no idea of the depths of his hatred for gin and gin makers. What he will do to you—and me—when he does find out.”
He shoved her away suddenly, as if he didn’t trust his hands on her. “Have you even thought of the alternative? If you go through with this marriage with Thomas, we’ll be knotted together for the rest of our lives with this between us.”
“I know,” she cried. “Dear God, don’t you think I’ve known that from the moment I rose from your bed this morning?”
He backed from her vehemence as if stunned, and in that moment she did what she’d never done in her entire life.
She turned and ran.
Chapter Twelve
Queen Ravenhair eyed the stallion, the warrior, and the bullock for some time, but in the end she merely nodded and thanked her suitors for their answers. She dined in state with the princes, but though they had much to talk—and argue—about, the queen was nearly silent throughout the meal. She was relieved when at last she retired to her rooms. Once there, Queen Ravenhair hurried to the balcony.
There, already waiting, was the little brown bird. And about his neck was an acorn on a string….
—from Queen Ravenhair
Griffin stalked back into the ballroom, trying to look civilized, as if he wasn’t actually hunting Hero down. Which was a lie, of course, because he was most definitely hunting her.
He paused just inside the French doors, glancing casually about, and caught a glimpse of red curls to his right. He smiled at a passing matron, who looked alarmed, and began strolling in that direction.
He’d always loved women. Ever since that first sweet tavern owner’s daughter—Belle or Betty or perhaps Bessie. She’d had wide blue eyes and tits with freckles on them, and she’d shown him infinite pleasure at the age of nearly sixteen. He’d never had any particular problem attracting women, both low and quite high. They seemed to be drawn by his smile and his ease. One of his lovers had called him charming, and maybe he was. All he knew was that he took care of them for the short period they were with him, and when they inevitably left, either with a laugh or a quiet tear, he smiled and kissed them and sent them on their way. He didn’t moon over them, he didn’t lie awake thinking about them, and he never, ever, ever went chasing after them like some pie-faced simpleton.
And yet here he was stalking through a crowded ballroom, his brother and her cousin in attendance. Well. That only made the hunt more interesting, didn’t it?
She was skittering around the edge of the crowd. She looked over her shoulder, and he stopped, half turned away from her, to greet an elderly gentleman he’d never met. The old man arched his eyebrows, confused but pleased, and Griffin leaned a little closer to hear his reply.
She fell for the ruse, silly, silly chit, and darted down a hallway. He straightened and turned from the old man, moving with purpose now. One glance showed that Thomas was clear across the room with a gentleman Griffin vaguely recognized as a member of the House of Lords. Griffin made sure no one was paying him any particular attention and ducked into the hallway.
The hall was lit, but the candelabra were few and far between. This wasn’t one of the main thoroughfares where the ladies went to mend their appearance. He tutted. She couldn’t have chosen a better place for his purposes had she acted under his own instructions.
Statuary lined the hall, eerily lifelike in the candlelight. The first room was on his left, the door ajar. He glanced inside and saw two shapes moving in the darkened room. His mouth curved in a cynical smile. She hadn’t gone to ground there. The next sitting room was empty. He carefully searched it while keeping an eye on the door so she wouldn’t double back past him.
The moment he entered the third room, however, he knew. It might have been the faint scent of a woman, or perhaps he heard a low gasp. Or perhaps he simply knew on a level below his senses and skin, a level as deep as his soul: She was here. He closed the door behind him, enclosing them both in near darkness. A single candle flickered, abandoned, on a side table.
Griffin glanced about the room. It seemed to be a small library or retiring room. A trio of chairs was by the fireplace on the far side, facing away from the door. Two settees were nearer to him, at right angles around a low table in the center of the room. One of the settees had its back to him, but the trio of chairs was the more obvious choice.
He smiled slightly, feeling his pulse spike, and walked slowly toward the fireplace.
She waited until he was bent over the nearest chair. There was a scuffling and a sudden flurry, but he was watching.
Griffin whirled and made it to the door before she did.
Hero halted, panting, inches from his chest.
He cocked his head, smiling not at all nicely. “Going somewhere, my Lady Perfect?”
“Let me out,” she demanded. Any other woman would’ve pleaded.
He took a step toward her, forcing her to step back or let him run into her. “No.”
She flung back her head, regal and palely beautiful. The diamonds in her red hair glittered. “I’ve told you I won’t marry you.”
“So you have,” he agreed pleasantly. “But I’m not looking for marriage at the moment.”
Her lips parted, and he saw the delicate skin on her throat flutter under her heartbeat. He’d bedded her only this morning. She’d been an innocent; she’d still be sore. They were in a public gathering, for Christ’s sake.
None of it mattered.
He was ragingly hard for her.
“Come here,” he whispered.
“Griffin.”
He half closed his eyes at her murmur. “You say my name like a lover, so soft, so sweet. I want to lick the word from your lips, sip the exhaled breath from your mouth. I want to possess you utterly. Right now. Right here.”
She darted then, a hart flushed from cover, and tried to leap around him. He caught her by her waist and flung her up against the closed door.
Then he bent his head and looked her in her brilliant diamond-gray eyes. “What will it be, madam?”
HERO LOOKED INTO those demonic green eyes and knew stark despair mixed with freedom: She couldn’t resist him. Why, she wasn’t sure. Any other man she would’ve walked away from. But not Griffin.
Never Griffin.
She let her own worst impulses fly free. She raised her hands, framed his lean cheeks, and pulled his head down to hers.
Oh, yes, she needed this. She needed him.
His mouth was warm and luscious, and she feasted on it like a starved child. She hadn’t even known that she’d missed the taste of his lips. The taste of liberty.
He groaned and fumbled with her skirts, pulling, yanking them up. She felt a draft of cool air on her bare thighs, and then his big, hot palms were on her bottom. He squeezed and fondled her, all the while kissing her passionately, his tongue in her mouth. His fingers dipped into the crevice of her buttocks and stroked down until they met her wetness from behind.
He tore his mouth from hers, panting. “Put your arms around my shoulders.”
She complied, with no idea what he might have in mind. Then he was lifting her bodily, supporting her whole weight in just his arms. She hung gracelessly for a moment until she instinctively wrapped her legs about his waist.
“Good girl,” he breathed.
His hand was between them, fumbling awkwardly, and she bit her lip against a wholly inappropriate fit of the giggles. They were both completely dressed. He even still wore his white wig. How could he possibly think—
