She scratched at her cheek, itchy from the gauzy black material that had been sewn into the headpiece.
“This is absolutely ridiculous,” she muttered as she walked.
What person in their right head would ever want to take part in such a hideous affair? Certainly not Honoria. Honoria, who’d witnessed the problems such licentiousness wrought from her now-deceased-philandering-when-they’d-been-alive parents.
But no. Gillian expected witnessing such wickedness would be fun.
Honoria snorted.
Fun.
She’d rather take up embroidering as a pastime, then add pianoforte playing, and top it all with singing than attend a ball thrown with the explicit purpose of giving lords and ladies an opportunity to rendezvous.
Then, of the many women she was blessed to call friends, Honoria had never been the romantic of their group. She’d been the practical and logical one who knew exactly the heartache waiting for ladies should they surrender their names and reputations.
She paused beside another door and pressed an ear against the sturdy oak.
Where are you, Gill—?
Thump.
Honoria gasped, but that sound of her surprise was swallowed by a rhythmic thumping that soon ensued against the panel.
“My lord,” a lady on the other side of the door moaned.
A woman who, from the sound of the voice, thankfully was very much not her friend, Gillian Farendale.
Her cheeks burning hot, Honoria quickly drew back.
She resumed her march, pausing only to listen at occasional keyholes, and then continuing on when she verified the voices within did not belong to her friend.
This had been a horrible idea. Beyond horrible. The instant Gillian had come calling with that invitation in such garish lettering, Honoria had known the wisest thing to do was burn the crimson scrap.
But Gillian had attempted to persuade, and when that hadn’t worked, she’d pleaded, until finally relenting, and announcing she’d go alone, without Honoria.
A flurry of footfalls echoed from somewhere behind her.
Honoria hugged the wall. She pressed herself as close against the ironically innocent, pink and white wallpaper.
A trio came sprinting by. The two ladies and a lord, holding hands dashed past like woodland sprites, laughing and giggling, before disappearing into one of the many parlors. Otherwise, the corridors proved quiet—eerily and ominously so.
Macabre shadows played, twisting and gyrating upon the walls, until even Honoria, who prided herself on being levelheaded and anything but fanciful, couldn’t help a shiver of dread from traipsing up her spine.
Nay, this had been a horrid idea. The worst. And the minute she found her friend, Honoria was grabbing her by the arm and steering them both from this place—whether Gillian liked it or not.
Honoria paused beside another closed door. She reached under the material of her mask and scratched. All the while, she listened for a hint of her friend’s voice.
Silence.
“Gill—”
Honoria quickly clamped her lips shut, letting the remainder of that name go unfinished.
Bloody hell. They really should have crafted aliases before they’d entered this blasted party. Alas, even with their being twenty-eight and twenty-nine years respectively, neither of them had experience attending such affairs.
Who would want to?
No, correct that. Lady Gillian Farendale had.
To Honoria’s credit, the instant her friend approached her with the idea to attend London’s most notorious, sinful, and scandalous ball, she’d thought it only had the makings of a bad idea.
Adjusting the enormous, and also enormously silly, black, silk masquerade mask strapped to her face, for the tenth time since she’d arrived, Honoria reached under and scratched at the skin desperately chafing under the feathers.
It was too much.
Pushing a door open, she scanned the darkened room. A four-sided, mahogany pedestal desk sat at the back center of the room. Its green leather top, immaculately empty aside from a crystal decanter of spirits and pretty crystal inkwell, as only an indolent lord’s desk would be.
The lovely leather button sofa positioned in front of the hearth held no occupants. Nor did the big, comfortable-looking matching leather winged chairs on either side of that couch.
Honoria hurriedly drew back the mask covering her face and rubbed her cheek.
Her eyes slid closed and a sigh slipped out. She rather understood why poor Maleficent Meow, her aunt’s kitchen mouser, purred so contentedly when scratched along her hard-to-reach back.
Letting her arm fall, Honoria wandered over to the windows. The curtains had been drawn but for a slight crack in the heavily swagged and draped velvet fabric.
She peeled it back a tiny fraction more and assessed the gardens below.
A number of braziers had been scattered about for warmth on the chilled spring night, while domino-wearing footmen stood positioned throughout the gardens, holding giant torches to light the way for the couples who’d ventured outside for their pleasures.
Honoria did a search for Gillian amongst the handful of people below, and failing to spot her, drew the curtains more tightly closed.
Filled with restless frustration, she made to put her mask on, when the faintest shuffle at the front of the room, reached her. The sound was so faint, it may as well have been an errant breeze that dusted against the windowpanes.
Silently cursing, Honoria did a frantic sweep, and her gaze landed on an antechamber door. She tiptoed quickly, and for the first time since she’d donned the flimsy garment, gave thanks for the light, airy muslin gown she’d donned.
There came the faint squeak.
A door handle?
Heart hammering madly, she quickened her pace, and let herself inside the antechamber. She drew the door shut and held her breath certain the slight click echoed like a shot in her mind. Otherwise, only the hum of silence filled her ears.
Honoria blinked slowly, until her eyes adjusted to the darkened space.
Perhaps she’d only imagined those nearly indiscernible sounds, ones that were more likely a product of an old townhouse and an overactive imagination on her part.
At last, her vision became clearer, and she froze.
An intricate brass knob had been fixed to the wall. Catching the small brass circle in her fingers, Honoria pulled down. The panel opened, revealing a narrow slot that provided an unencumbered view of the other side.
Furrowing her brow, Honoria scanned the still empty office. What reason had Lord Barber for such an antechamber? To spy on his guests? If so, for what purp—
There came a flicker of movement and light.
Oh, hell.
One of the earl’s guests entered the room and pushed the door shut behind him.
Oh, bloody hell.
With sure steps, and an even more assured gaze, the towering gentleman did a sweep of the offices.
Her mouth pulled in a reflexive grimace.
Tamping down a frustrated sigh, Honoria resolved to wait for the fellow to leave. While she did, she took the opportunity to study him.
The stranger had drawn his midnight black hair back at his nape and fastened those dark strands in a queue. He too, wore a black mask, one that covered more than half his face, and served to highlight a solid, squared jawline.
Moving with a surprisingly sleek grace for one so tall and broad-shouldered, the gentleman headed for their host’s desk. In one fluid motion, he drew out one of the drawers.
Honoria flared her brows.
What in—?
Intrigued for the first time that night, and for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with the scandalous escapades taking place in this residence, Honoria leaned forward, and pressed her nose to the panel.
The mysterious stranger reached inside.
Honoria attempted to get herself closer so that she might see what it was—
He withdrew a drinking glass. Followed by a decanter of amber liquid.
She wrinkled her nose.
Spirits.
Of course.
While he poured a drink with one hand, his other sifted almost lazily inside the drawer.
She cocked her head.
Hmm. Now, this, was interesting.
What could he possibly be looking for?
He removed a key, and tossed it aside, forgotten, and next withdrew a cheroot.
Spirits and cheroots. Now, that made sense.
Only…
He removed something else.
Honoria strained to see, and yet whatever it was he’d found this time, he slipped inside his jacket so quickly had she blinked she would have missed the furtive theft.
Then, he grabbed the key and stuffed it in his pocket along with the cheroot. The spirits he left forgotten, as he casually walked away from the desk.
Leave, she pleaded silently. Just go.
She had to locate and extricate Gillian from this den of sin. Alas, the big stranger, dark from his neatly cropped black hair to his mask, cravat, jacket, waistcoat, and boots wore the color black more easily than did the night.
He perused their host’s office in an almost bored way, in the way a man waiting for his lover might.
Then, he stopped at the wall between the windows overlooking the gardens below. Not the windows, but rather the garnet and gold flock wallpaper.
Was there another antechamber she’d missed?
Her annoyance and panic gave way to curiosity, and she pressed her eye against the hidden window.
The dark guest, however, remained positioned with his broad back to her in such a way she could not discern his movements, only that he reached a hand up and fiddled with something.
When he’d finished whatever bored activity that had occupied him, he returned empty-handed, and collected the decanter and spirits. He hastily slipped both into the drawer from which he’d pilfered them, and then turned to go.
Suddenly, he turned and surged like a lion pouncing on his unsuspecting prey.
Honoria stumbled back, just as he pushed the door open. His enormous frame swallowed the candlelight behind them, bathing the antechamber in darkness once more.
He drew the door closed with a preciseness and deliberate slowness that proved terrifying. She’d taken him as a big man. As he trapped them in here alone, Honoria acknowledged her prior assessment had been the understatement of the century.
At two, mayhap three inches past six feet, he towered over her five feet, two-inch frame. His muscles strained the fabric of his jacket, and his broad frame shrunk the already small space.
“What have we here?” he murmured. His smooth baritone, a shade too deep, sent her terror ratcheting up.
Honoria swallowed hard. Or she attempted to. Fear made that normally rhythmic response an impossible feat.
“Sh-shoo,” she managed to say, her voice emerging as a telling high squeak.
“Shoo,” he repeated, his hard lips curled up in an empty remnant of a smile.
He narrowed glacial blue eyes upon her. Unlike the other men whom she’d brushed paths with this night, the part of his face not covered by his mask wasn’t ruddy. His very sober gaze proved steady and didn’t have a hint of bloodshot from too much drink.
Terror knocked around her breast. Somehow, she managed to find her voice, despite her fear.
“Get out,” she ordered.
Behind his black domino, those hard blue eyes narrowed.
“Who are you?” he demanded on a steely whisper. “And what are you doing here?”
“I think that should be fairly obvious,” she snapped, unsure from where that courage came. “The same thing as you.”
Just then, laughter—a lady’s giggling, accompanied by a deeper, booming expression of mirth, spilled into Honoria’s hiding spot, slightly muffled, but still distinct.
Oh, hell.
Honoria gave him a shove—that proved ineffectual. “This is my—”
The stranger beside Honoria, clamped a hand over her mouth. His enormous, gloved palm swallowed her words and any hint of sound.
She flared her eyes and attempted to yank free.
Her efforts proved futile.
“Not a word,” he whispered against her ear. “Do you understand me?” His lethal voice sent her panic ratcheting up a notch.
Honoria managed a juddering nod.
He eased his grip slightly, and she focused on sucking in slower, more even breaths through her nose.
There’d been a decanter of spirits he’d availed himself of earlier and endless supplies of champagne throughout the evening’s festivities, and yet, he didn’t bear a hint of liquor upon his breath. Oddly, that incongruity didn’t calm her. It only doubled her fear.
On the other side of the panel, a voluptuous woman in a nearly sheer crimson gown pulled a masked gentleman into the office.
Honoria increased her struggles.
The pressure over her mouth increased as well, until darkness crept at the edge of her consciousness.
Then, thankfully, blessedly, the pressure eased.
“You’ve my assurances, madam, the last thing I’ve come to do this night is tup you,” he whispered coldly against her.
And in that instant, she could believe he’d not come for any amorous pursuits. His eyes, cold as ice. His voice, even more frigid. She didn’t think him capable of anything but punishment.
“It looks like someone helped themselves to this room before us,” the gentleman on the other side of the antechamber remarked, between kisses.
His blonde-haired partner giggled, and that breathy laugh gave way to a moan.
The amorous couple grew more frantic. Their breathing grew ragged.
Despite the precarious situation Honoria found herself in, curiosity drew her attention forward to the naughty tableau before her.
Having witnessed her parents’ miserable marriage and then the broken heart suffered by her own beloved Aunt Margaret, she’d never had any interest in love or husbands or lovers, or any of the unwanted emotions that came along with romantic feelings. She’d not understood what made ladies sacrifice their names, honor, and reputations.
Now, she eyed the pair: the large gloveless hand the gentleman passed over his partner’s hip. The way he sank his fingers into her flesh as if marking her as his. The lady’s moan as if there were no greater pleasure than being so branded by him.
And then, something…shocking, something impossible to fathom, occurred.
Honoria’s breathing grew slightly more rapid and her body went hot with something that wasn’t embarrassment, when it should be. An uncomfortable ache settled between her legs, and she shifted to find some relief.
The blond-haired fellow turned the woman around quickly, and with a keening moan, she gripped the edge of the desk and canted her buttocks up.
Suddenly, in a new and dangerous way, Honoria became aware of the man holding her. And it was as though he did the same—for her.
He removed his hand from her mouth. His opaque gaze did a sweep of her face, and he lingered his focus on her lips.
No man had ever looked at her so. As if she were the only meal present and he, who had been denied sustenance, was finally being allowed to feast.
That should repel her. Strangely, it did not.
Mayhap it was the erotic play on the other side of that panel. Whatever madness had taken root in her mind had her leaning up, just as he leaned down.
“I’m going to kiss you.” Those five words emerged as more of a command, than any real passion-induced request.
Protest. Reject. Deny.
Being practical and logical, she knew all the right and obvious responses.
And yet, mayhap it was the fact she was nearly thirty and had never been kissed. Or perhaps she was mad or curious or both. But as he lowered his mouth to hers, Honoria’s lashes fluttered, and she leaned up and into him.
He kissed like he spoke. No nonsense. His lips, hard as the man himself, covered Honoria’s again and again.
He took, but she also gave.
Perhaps the depravity that hung over this household possessed a contaminating effect for Honoria couldn’t fathom ending this embrace.
Her nameless lover slid his strong fingers along her jawline, bidding her to open, and she let her lips part, allowing him inside.
Then his tongue touched hers, a hot brand that seared her to her soul.
She moaned, but he swallowed that hint of her desire, clamping a hand at her waist, warningly.
Not that they needed to worry about discovery. The couple still taking their pleasure a dozen or so feet away, cried out and groaned loudly enough to drown out any of the breathy sounds unleashed by this dark, angry stranger.
Then, the nameless man who held her, more intimately than anyone ever had or would, glided his hands over her waist. Slowly, as if taking great care to not alert the other pair to their presence, he dragged her skirts up. The cool night air kissed her heated skin, and she moved reflexively.
He filled his hands with her buttocks, and there remained something methodical about his touch. A restraint at odds with the restlessness stirring her own body.
“Please. Pleeeease,” the other woman wailed.
Please. Please.
Honoria cried into her partner’s mouth.
“Let me,” he said, against her mouth.
Let me. That was it. No pretty words. No pleas. Just a matter-of-fact, no-nonsense command that left her oddly weaker.
She dimly registered him slipping her mask off, and she should feel a degree of panic at being exposed so, and yet all reason had fled.
As, saints forgive her, Honoria found herself lost.
Her nameless tormenter stroked his hands over her bare legs, as if searching her. His strong, long fingers massaged, and caressed until her hips began to move in a rhythmic way against him.
Emboldened, encouraged, he continued his quest, higher.
He filled his hands with her buttocks, and Honoria collapsed against him, even as he caught her with his opposite arm.
He guided her against the wall and his hand began a new search. This along the shamefully low decolletage of her masquerade gown.
He placed his lip beside her ears. “Tell me your name,” he quietly ordered.
Her name?
Did she have one? What was it? She couldn’t sort up from down or right from wrong. Though in this instant, with her body trembling with the passion unleashed by this man, she would have staked her soul there wasn’t anything wrong in something that felt so very splendorous.
He suckled at her neck. “Your name,” he repeated that command against the sensitive shell of her ear.
“H-Honoria.”
“Honoria, what?”
He lowered her neckline and delved deft hands within.
She bit her lower lip. Honoria…what? He sought her last name, and yet for all the mayhem he’d unleashed inside her, she’d sense enough to withhold that identifying part of herself from him.
Honoria gasped at the heat of his touch, and he caught that sound in his mouth.
“Yesssssss!”
Yes!
Did that cry belong to her or the woman on the other side of the panel finding her pleasure? Mayhap it was the both of them.
A low chuckle penetrated the cloud of desire blanketing her senses, but she did not break contact with her seducer’s mouth.
“…drive me mad when you do that…”
“…I know…”
A gown rustled.
Click.
Suddenly, the lips on hers were gone, and the touch that had accompanied that kiss went, too.
Honoria fought to lift her heavy lashes.
Cold, hard eyes met hers.
Ones that were singularly detached.
“We’re done here.”
It took a bit for those frosty words to penetrate her still muddled head. When they did, humiliated heat scorched her entire body.
Honoria’s breath came hard and fast. “Release me.”
“I already did,” he said, staring pointedly at her hands.
With a gasp, Honoria flexed her fingers, releasing the black fabric of his soft wool jacket.
“You are free to go, madam.”
Free to go.
Here she’d been, coming undone in his arms, moaning and pleading like a common strumpet, and he remained so coolly unaffected. He’d dismiss her like a servant whose services he no longer required, and Honoria gave thanks for the shroud of darkness that concealed her burning cheeks.
Somehow, she managed to elevate her chin. “I want to go.”
“Splendid.”
Had there ever been a more bored-sounding deliverance of that word?
“In fact, I’ll have you know the only reason I kissed you back,” After all, he’d kissed her first. “was curiosity as to whether your kiss was as cold as you are, and I can confirm, that is in fact the case.”
Those of his features not concealed by his mask remained frustratingly even. Suddenly, resenting that he should know her identity and she not be in possession of that information when their paths crossed again, Honoria shot a hand up and shoved his mask up.
He stiffened.
His features went dark, his eyes even darker.
As in an instant she regretted her hasty decision.
With all the dignity she could muster, Honoria yanked her skirts, raced around him, and fled as fast and as far as she could from the mysterious dark stranger.
