Chapter 1
London, 1825
Justin Kinmurrie, Duke of Kylemore, looked across the tumble of stained sheets to where his mistress lay in apparent exhaustion. His Grace suspected the exhaustion was feigned, but he had been too well pleasured to take issue with the hint of artifice.
He paused in tying his neckcloth to admire her supine body, naked, creamy and glowing in the afternoon light. The long legs. The delicately rounded hips. The slightly concave stomach. The magnificent breasts cushioning the pigeon’s blood ruby pendant he’d given her two eventful hours ago to mark the end of their first year together.
For a long and delightful moment, his attention lingered on those lush white mounds with their rosy crests. Then his eyes traveled up to her face, pale and pure as any painted Madonna’s.
Even after all this time, the contrast of the harlot’s body and the saint’s face sent a very masculine thrill through him.
She was beautiful.
She was the most notorious woman in London.
And she belonged to him, as much a part of his prestige as his perfect tailoring, his famous stables or his rich estates. He permitted himself a slight smile as he returned to dressing in front of the large gilt mirror.
“Shall I call Ben Ahbood to assist Your Grace?” Her extraordinary eyes, light gray and clear as water, were, as usual, expressionless in her gorgeous mask of a face. He sometimes wondered if this lay at the heart of her fascination—her innate detachment despite her skills as a lover.
No, it was more than that.
It was the promise that for the right touch, the right word, the right man, worlds of heat and feeling and meaning waited behind that serene gaze. The duke, for all his current well-being, had never deceived himself that he’d breached this formidable reserve. And after a year as her protector, he was beginning to understand he never would.
Did she guess how intriguing her distance made her? He would be surprised if she didn’t. Emotional containment in no way meant she wasn’t as clever as a glen full of vixens.
“My lord?”
He shook his head. “No. I can manage.” In truth, her huge mute manservant, widely rumored to be a eunuch, made him uncomfortable, although he’d submit to keelhauling before he confessed to that shaming fact.
She stretched her supple body, the body that both maddened him and gave him more pleasure than he’d ever imagined. Kylemore recognized the return of arousal. By the glint in her eyes, so did she, damn her knowing soul.
“It is not so late.” One slender hand slid up to toy with the ruby. The movement drew his attention—as, he realized, she was perfectly aware—to the round, full breasts he found so alluring.
“I am not at leisure this afternoon, madam.”
“That’s a shame,” she said neutrally, rising to scoop a blue peignoir from the floor. Kylemore deliberately ignored her naked back and the way her buttocks tightened as she bent.
Or ignored the sight as much as any red-blooded man could.
It had always been this way between them, from the moment he’d met her cool assessing gaze across a crowded salon six years ago. She’d been another man’s mistress then. And she’d had another keeper since, in spite of Kylemore’s efforts to capture her interest. She had only consented to their present arrangement after the exchange of a small fortune and contracts detailed enough to keep a coven of lawyers in a flutter for a month.
But if he’d believed that finally possessing this woman would end their subtle battle for dominion, he was to be sadly disappointed. If anything, the game between them was more intense than ever.
And while the world might consider the advantages his, he knew his mistress had equally puissant weapons of her own. Her beauty. Her detachment. And most of all, the fact that he’d wanted her six years ago and, curse her, he wanted her still.
With unwilling regret, Kylemore watched her veil her lithe curves with the peignoir. Not that the diaphanous silk did much to conceal the glories beneath.
She flicked her black waist-length hair away from her face and came to stand behind him. Their eyes met in the mirror, where he took such a lamentably long time to dress.
“I can’t persuade you to change your mind?” She twined her arms around him and pressed her warmth to his back, filling his head with the scents of recently satisfied woman and the sensual ambergris perfume she favored. He closed his eyes as her deft fingers fiddled with the fastening of his trousers, then slipped inside to stroke his stiffening cock.
The speed and vigor of his response made him brush her hand away. A man at the mercy of his appetites was no more than a brute animal. “Next time.”
She didn’t show any chagrin, Devil take her. She merely shrugged, wandered across to lean against the carved bedpost and watched as he repaired her predations on his clothing. He pulled on his coat and turned.
“I thank Your Grace for your continuing kindness.” She stepped toward him and kissed him on the mouth.
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