The Rakehell of Roth (Everleigh Sisters #2) - Amalie Howard Page 0,55

paid it much mind. Her brother-in-law rarely took it upon himself to acknowledge her, even in the presence of his father.

The beautiful woman gave a wolfish smile. “Call it what you want, amore. We both know what we were for all those glorious months. More than mere lovers.” Though Isobel knew that the woman’s venomous words were meant to wound, she still flinched. Lady Vittorina speared her with a vicious glare. “Trust me, the only thing missing was a betrothal ring.”

“You’re deluded,” Winter snapped. “I would never have married you.”

“Not even for your child?”

The silence in the box was deafening. Everything in Isobel’s stomach threatened to come up as Winter went rigid. A muscle flexed in his jaw, his gray eyes going as hard as flint. “You were not with child, Vittorina.”

“I was.”

“Then it was not mine.”

Isobel had had outside of enough. She turned in a whirl of skirts, catching Kendrick’s eye before blindly rushing out of the pavilion to one of the many landscaped walks. She didn’t care where she was going—she only needed to escape before she did something unforgivable…like shove Vittorina Carpalo right out of the supper box and cause a scandal that the duke and the rest of the ton would never recover from.

“Isobel!” Winter called from behind her, hot on her heels. “Stop, it’s not safe.”

She didn’t listen. She kept moving, twining through people congregated on the paths, knowing the danger and not caring. Vauxhall was rife with pickpockets and criminals, stronger people preying on the weak, and all manner of unsavory elements. She pushed deeper into the gardens, her heart hammering in her chest and her lungs so tight that she couldn’t draw a single breath of air.

A hand wrapped about her elbow, cutting her escape short in a grove. “Stop, Isobel. Please.”

Her bosom heaved as she turned to face her captor. “What do you want?”

“I wasn’t engaged to her, I swear it, and she was never with child. She’s lying to rile you, can’t you see that?”

Isobel sucked her lip between her teeth. “She’s still in love with you.”

“But I am not in love with her.”

She had no idea why she was getting so angry. Winter was allowed to have a past, but something about the woman was getting under her skin. The bold way she’d looked at him, as though she had some prior claim of ownership had pushed Isobel over the edge. Lady Vittorina was everything she could never be—voluptuous, confident, sensual. All the things that Isobel was pretending to be.

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You were with her.”

“You’re my wife, Isobel, not her.”

“Then why can’t you act like it, damn it?” The violent outburst shot from her like lead ballast from a pistol. Her entire body trembled with the force of her emotion as she squared off against her husband, fists clenched at her sides. His eyes bored into hers, gray holding pale blue prisoner, the tension between them contracting and expanding like a live thing.

Isobel had no idea who closed the distance first, only that his lips were on hers, his tongue sliding across the seam and demanding entry. She gave it. She wanted it. Wanted him. Opening her mouth, Isobel welcomed him, meeting him stroke for stroke. Their teeth ground together as their bodies erased any space between them, his arms banded around her…her fingers knotted into the hair at his nape. She yanked. He groaned, his lips detaching for breath.

“Isobel—”

“Shut up and kiss me, Winter.”

She tugged his head down and took his lips with hers, giving him no quarter. His tongue flicked inside her upper lip, making her gasp against his mouth. And he kissed her…stole all her air until she was breathless. Senseless. He walked her backward along the gravel path until her back braced against a lamppost near a deserted rotunda. Shadowy forms drifted around them, but she was safe in his arms.

Winter broke away, his full lips swollen from the intensity of their embrace and his gray eyes almost swallowed by black. “Hell, I don’t do this.”

He kissed her again, his teeth nibbling her lower lip and then drawing away to kiss down her jaw and throat.

“Do what?” she mumbled, her own lips tingling and senses dazed.

“Kiss women,” he replied between kisses to her collarbone.

A dazed memory of their wedding night came back to her. Her new husband hadn’t kissed her then, at least not on her lips. He’d kissed her neck, much like he was now. And he hadn’t truly touched