In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,132
With his spare hand, he cupped her cheek. “I’ve loved you since you pressed your face against that arena window and refused to take no for an answer. There is no one like you.” Hugh claimed Lila’s mouth; parting her lips, he swept his tongue inside.
He was home.
Through the thick haze of desire came quiet, delicate footfalls.
Hugh wrenched away and pushed Lila behind him just as the panel was opened.
Oh, bloody hell.
The Marchioness of Prendergast stepped inside. Still wearing her mask and cape, along with the same smile she’d worn for the guests in her receiving line, anyone might have mistaken the lady for an affable one.
“Savage . . . you filthy street bastard.” The marchioness spoke in a husky voice. A familiar one that came haunting back from his past. Kill him, you filthy street bastard. Hugh’s flesh crawled. She shut the door and turned the lock. Surprise briefly flashed in the dowager marchioness’s eyes when she caught sight of Lila. “Hello, Lady Lila. An unexpected pleasure finding you here . . . that is, at my ball. Not in my husband’s offices. Tsk. Tsk. That is not where I’d expected you would or should . . . venture.”
He felt the tension in Lila’s frame, pulsing, but when she spoke, there was only an evenness, and Hugh found himself falling in love with her all over again.
“Good evening, my lady. It is still . . . all a bit overwhelming, and His Grace was so kind as to escort me from the crowd.”
God, how he loved her. She was nimble of mind and had a strength of spirit that would put any other man or woman to shame.
“How very good of him,” the marchioness said dryly. She folded her arms. “What a matter of . . . happenstance that you should also have come here with my son’s diary.”
Lila’s eyes went to the book held damningly between Hugh’s fingers. He gave a slight shake of his head, willing her to silence. For the evil Lila had encountered on St. Peter’s Field . . . she was still too innocent to ever be prepared for the depths of evil that Lady Prendergast was capable of.
“We brought it for you,” she blurted.
The lady’s eyes narrowed.
Hugh moved . . . a second too late.
Lady Prendergast removed a pistol from her kalasiri. She smiled coldly. “The convenient thing of masquerades is that they’re noisy affairs. So many guests. So many distracted servants. So much confusion.”
Plenty of covers for the woman to carry out a murder on her grounds.
“You’re many things, but you aren’t sloppy,” Hugh said, slowly bringing his palms up so they framed his face and were in the marchioness’s plain sight. “You’d have a deuced difficult time explaining—”
“What?” the marchioness cut in, casually. “That the mad March sister riled the Savage, that fighter society already had every reason to mistrust? And that I should have come upon and intervened . . . Tsk. Tsk. Too late. Timing is everything.”
“Was it also perfect timing that saw your son killed?”
The silver-haired lady’s body coiled like a serpent poised to strike.
“Lila,” Hugh warned out of the corner of his mouth.
Alas, she may as well not have heard, for she stalked boldly over to the marchioness. “I know what you did to Norman.”
Oh, Christ.
It was a prayer.
Prayers, however, had proven futile before, and they proved to be the same now.
“Not another step, Lady Lila,” Lady Prendergast ordered, shifting her pistol so that the barrel was leveled at the center of Lila’s chest. The place where her heart beat.
Hugh broke out in a cold sweat; it covered his body.
If anything happened to her, he’d not survive. He’d not want to. There was no life without her in it.
Stop.
Have your wits . . .
Except, how had he managed a sharp focus through every battle and every fight . . . until now? Because living hadn’t mattered before her. She mattered above anything.
“I’m the one you have qualms with,” Hugh said, diverting the marchioness’s attention back over to him. “Your family has shared connections with the March family.”
Only a woman who’d killed her own son, all to protect her secrets and her perversity, wasn’t a sane person. She had no allegiance to anything but her libertinisms.
From the corner of his eye, Hugh caught Lila creep closer to the dowager marchioness.
Stop. Just stop, he silently screamed, willing her to remain motionless.
But then from the first meeting, Lila March had never done what he’d wanted or expected.