Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,65
from captivity, thanks to him. And in the seat farthest right, the long-missing-from-Society Lady Charles Ancaster presided, in a splendid red dress with deep décolleté and diamonds everywhere.
Thanks to the box’s location and the curtains, the audience closest to them didn’t find out who occupied it until word made its way to them.
The news circled the building like a wave: heads turning and glasses going up to eyes, spectators rising from their seats or stretching out over the railings to stare, while the pit’s occupants made a sea of upturned faces. The wave completed its circuit as the curtain rose, the cast assembled onstage, and everybody began to sing “God Save the King.”
It was hilarious, and Cassandra had all she could do to keep her driving face in place.
Aunt Julia leant over Hyacinth toward him and said, “I congratulate you, duke. You have contrived to create a shocking scene without breaking any laws or even disrupting the performance.”
He leant closer to Cassandra to answer. “Early days, Lady Charles.”
The sleeves of Cassandra’s evening dress were full, but short. Her gloves came to her elbows. Somehow he managed to arrange himself so that his coat sleeve brushed the few bare inches of her arm.
When her aunt sat back again, Cassandra said in an undertone, “You are breathing down my neck.”
“It’ll give them something to talk about,” he said.
“You haven’t given them enough?”
“Also, you smell good.”
“Not hot and sweaty, do you mean?”
“On a woman, that’s another good smell,” he said. “Tonight you’re like a garden of herbs. If I could, I’d bury my nose in your neck, at the delicious place where it curves into your collarbone. But I can’t.” He sat back. “I promised your father I’d get them all talking about something other than the curtain business at Chelsea, but a public display of lust is probably not what he had in mind.”
“Lust.” Her neck tingled where he’d been breathing on it, and inside her, there was a fluttering. The theater grew many degrees warmer.
“Still, nobody would ever believe I was wanting to marry you or any lady for your mind,” he said. “I’ll have to cast lascivious glances your way from time to time. And every so often, you’ll fend me off with sharp words or your fan. Or both.”
Beyond question she would fend him off. While being near him made her brain die a little, she wasn’t completely lost to reason.
She’d grown up in the country. She’d spent a large portion of her time around horses. In adulthood she’d seen more than most other ladies her age, including married ladies, had done. Though she had no firsthand experience, she understood the basics of what went on between men and women.
She remembered how she’d felt behind the curtain, the way logic gave way to wanting. It was human nature. That was how the human race continued. Monster she might be, but she wasn’t immune to that aspect of being human.
She’d experienced desire and infatuation. One infatuation in particular had tormented her adolescence, but she’d matured and freed herself of it.
Or so she’d assumed until yesterday.
She was not entirely mature. She was not entirely immune to him. Apparently, there was no vaccination for this sort of ailment. The irrational adolescent inside her wanted him to bury his nose in her neck.
He was a trap, a walking, talking woman-trap.
“Stop talking,” she said, and made herself focus on the play.
It took a while for Ashmont to drag his attention to the stage. After all, there wasn’t much else he could do at present. But he’d seen it before, and though he, like many other theatergoers, often attended the same plays over and over, and though he liked The Long Finn immensely—pirates and star-crossed lovers and treasures and murder—it couldn’t compete with Cassandra Pomfret.
Tonight she was deliciously undressed, or at least less covered than usual. Only a few strategically placed bows adorned the blue silk dress. One fluttered at each naked shoulder. The one at the center of her neckline moved in time with her bosom’s rise and fall. Above the neckline, silky smooth skin hinted at what pulsed within the layers of bodice and corset and chemise.
When he’d leant over her, the scent of rosemary, lavender, and Cassandra Pomfret rose to his nostrils. It continued to waft toward him from time to time, teasing. Even when he couldn’t smell her, he could hear the faint rustle of silk when she moved. Breathed.
He remembered, in skin and muscle and bone, the way she’d kissed