Seduction & Scandal

“I’ll go to the theater, mingle, ask around about this House of Orpheus and see what I can learn, and in the process discover if it has anything at all to do with the artifacts. Do not worry, Sussex. Lady Lucy’s reputation will remain intact, and we will find the relics. Good God, we don’t want it getting out that the pendant and chalice have the powers to alter the world.”

“You said you didn’t believe it. You stated it was nothing but a medieval fairy tale.”

Shrugging, Black sat back in his chair and gazed into the fire. “I lack faith, I suppose. But that doesn’t mean that I can let it go. It has been my family’s curse to look after the damn pendant and hide it away from the world for over five hundred years. I simply can’t shrug it off now. I must find it, whether or not I believe it contains nefarious powers.”

“All my life, I have been consumed with keeping the chalice hidden from the world, but with one glance from a green-eyed nymph, I’ve suddenly become sidetracked.”

“Besotted,” Black corrected his friend. “A moon-calved fool.”

“Enough,” the duke growled. “I’m merely trying to keep the girl out of it. For the sake of her father. Stonebrook doesn’t need the aggravation or the scandal.”

Black snorted. “You may use your arrogance and aloof, distant airs to fool the insipid members of the ton, Sussex, but I know you better. You’re pining away for the girl.”

His Grace refused to return his stare, and instead focused on the fire that blazed in the large hearth. “Yes,”

he murmured so quietly that Black wasn’t certain he was supposed to have heard him. “Pining, perishing, bloody angsting over the girl, and she won’t give me the time of day.”

He’d known Sussex since the cradle, and had never seen him this way. Lucy Ashton was tying him in knots.

“Enough of this,” Sussex snapped. “When will you go to the theater, and do you want company? Lord knows I would do well with a night out.”

“I’ll make preparations and let you know. As an aside, I met with Knighton on the docks this morning. There was nothing of interest to us in the crates. I don’t think him a threat, but all the same, I offered to sponsor him into the lodge. I hold to the adage that one should keep their friends close, and their enemies closer.”

Sussex smiled slyly. “You just said he wasn’t a threat to us.”

“Not to the Brethren Guardians,” Black murmured. “But he is a threat to me.”

“Now who’s moonfaced?” Sussex said, and laughed when Black rose from the chair and retreated from the room. It was fine for him to tease His Grace about this affliction for Lucy, but it was quite the opposite to be the object of the duke’s mockery.

SHE COULD NOT STOP THINKING of that kiss, or the feel of Lord Black’s arms encircling her. She had felt wild, unbidden and in truth, he was just as wild as she. Which was shocking in a way, for Black always seemed so composed and self-contained. That he should possess such passion was both a surprise and a fright. The kiss had been hard, frenzied, as if both of them had been denying such a thing for eternity. Yet they had only just met. And therein lay the fear.

She should be mortified. Ashamed. She had kissed a man who was not courting her. She should feel at least a glimmer of remorse for kissing Black while courting with Mr. Knighton. Yet how could she regret the event of her life? For this was what that kiss was … the most exhilarating moment of her entire existence.

She could still taste him on her tongue. Her lips still red and swollen from the fervor of his mouth atop hers. Her body, which had been so tight and hurting, now dully ached. She was aware of a persistent restlessness inside her, something she had never felt before. An agitation that she knew could only be abated by seeing Black again.

It had been a mere twenty-four hours after their introduction, and here she was, pining for him. How could this be? After so many years of carefully guarding her passions. After watching her mother throw herself at any man that glanced her way, here she was just waiting for the opportunity to lunge herself into Black’s arms.

He was a sorcerer, a beautiful, dark magician who had woven a spell upon her. It was the only way to explain her rash behavior—the way she had discarded her beliefs, her fears. She had sworn never to allow herself to be at the mercy of her desires. But here she was, on the threshold of desire. With one kiss, Black had opened the door to a room she could not allow herself to enter, for inside that beckoning chamber, Isabella knew her destruction lay within the hands of a most alluring master.

This attraction between them was inexplicable. Despite having only been introduced, Isabella felt as though she’d known him all her life. When she was with him, she felt the familiar agitation disappear, suddenly filled with the calm from the storm that had been her life. In Black’s company, there was familiarity, as if he had somehow long been a presence in her life. But she had never seen him or talked to him until the night of the ball. There was no denying that there was something inside him that beckoned her. Whatever it was, her soul seemed to answer.

Was it fate? Destiny? She no longer knew if she believed in such things. Could passion be fate, or was it nothing more than an impulsive human instinct that needed fulfillment? Was what she felt shimmering between them destiny pushing them together, or was it nothing but physical attraction of the most basic nature?

No, that afternoon in the carriage had not been base. It had been beautiful, and the way he looked at her … yes, a man could be anything, say anything, but his eyes did not lie. When Black looked at her, there was something there other than simple lust. His words tempted her, so, too, his looks. Even their silence was charged with a palpable undercurrent. With Black, she was another person. A woman not afraid of the passion that simmered just below her skin. It frightened her, how easily he coaxed that person forth.

He would ruin her, she reminded herself, if she didn’t have a care. If she dared step even one foot inside the door he had opened that afternoon she would be utterly destroyed—morally and spiritually.

The sound of the shutter slamming against the bricks startled her, pulling her back to the moment. Isabella jumped, unable to hide her response. Here was not the place to woolgather and daydream about her kiss with Black. Now was the time to keep her wits about her. How had she allowed Lucy to talk her into coming to Highgate Cemetery tonight, especially since she wanted nothing more than to sit by the fire and write down every little nuance of that magnificent kiss?

Why was it that Lucy was so drawn to such things as séances and spirits? They were dark entertainments done in the night. Without light there was only darkness—evil. What was her cousin searching for in the darkness?

Pausing at the window of the tiny cottage, Isabella pulled the curtain aside and gazed out at the trees beyond. The wind was up, stirring the dried leaves, blowing them upward as the branches waved back and forth. The clouds were thick and heavy, the moon hung low on the horizon, its brightness illuminating the sky, which churned with an impending storm. Another gust of wind howled, and she shivered, the draft wafting in through a crack in the mullion. Beyond the trees lay the cemetery. She could make out the tops of the statuary, angels and crosses, and the peaked roofs of mausoleums and family crypts. In the darkness and the cool October air with its lamenting winds, the crosses looked ominous and the angels mercenary. The shadows … well, they were there, too, weaving beneath the moonlight and the tendrils of fog that wrapped like ghostly specters around the headstones. Never in the wildest reaches of her imagination could she have conjured up such an atmospheric setting for a séance.