A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (9 page)

She’d never seen anything
like it in all her life. As he barreled closer to her with fluid
and purposeful strides, Aurora noticed a few dark hairs peeking out
above the open shirt collar. Good gracious, where was his cravat?
The gossip rags would rip him to shreds in the morning. And
then—
then
—her eyes
moved lower, to the ripples displayed above his Hessians. Lord
Quinton’s thighs looked to be as big around as her
waist.

Everything about him seemed
so formidable. So dangerous. So
possessive
. His eyes were trained
upon hers, blue so dark it nearly matched the midnight sky. Hungry.
Piercing.

“
This is not good. Not at
all,” Rebecca hissed in her ear, all the while tugging at her
arm.

But Aurora couldn’t move. Her
slippered feet were stuck in place, like the roots of a giant oak
that had been growing for so long they nearly reached the Orient.
“He’s going to kill me. Why is he going to kill me?”

“
Don’t worry about that.
Just come with me right this instant or your father will most
certainly do it instead.”

But it was too late.

Her heart felt like a thousand frogs
trying to leap up through her throat. If she wasn’t careful, she
might cast up the contents of her stomach all over those gloriously
polished boots.

“
Miss Hyatt?” He bowed low
to her, taking the tips of her gloved fingers into his hand and
bringing them to his lips for the most chaste of kisses. “Might I
request the honor of the next dance?”

A dance?

He wanted to dance.

Not string her up by her toes and drag
her behind his horse for miles in order to drop her from the side
of a cliff. Not send her out to be trampled by a sea of frenzied
cattle. Not burn her alive at the stake.

Thank God.

She breathed, for the first time in
what must have been almost a minute. But then again, he also didn’t
want to grab her by the knot in her hair and drag her bodily back
to his cave.

Too bad.

“
Aurora,” Rebecca said
firmly at her ear. “This is madness. My lord, this is entirely
inappropriate”

“
Yes, I’d love to dance
with you.”

His eyes, which she had yet to look
away from, flashed with what could only be described as
satisfaction. He took the whole of her hand into his own. The
scandalous heat of palm against palm threatened to burn straight
through her glove to her very soul. Finally, her feet moved beneath
her and she fairly floated alongside him, dislodging her other arm
from Rebecca’s grasp.

“
I believe,” he said to her
softly, “this dance shall be a waltz.”

A waltz
.

She was bound to burst into flame if
any more of their bodies touched. Even with the small distance
between them, his warmth engulfed her. Somehow, her body wanted to
be closer, as though it had a mind and wants and needs of its
own.

He turned her to face him and placed
her hand against his shoulder, pulling the other more fully into
his. And then his free hand was at her waist, drawing her into the
inferno of his arms.

Aurora heard no music. She saw nothing
but him, Lord Quinton, staring down at her with an intensity she’d
never experienced. He smelled of brandy and heat. She was nearly
intoxicated just from his sheer proximity.

After moments or hours, she would
never know, she finally found her tongue. “My lord, how did you
know who I am?” What a foolish, silly question. She was a ninny.
What did that matter? Not a whit.

“
I would imagine in the
same manner you knew who I am.” His eyes bored into her. “You do
know, do you not?”

She would be perfectly content to
never take another breath so long as he never stopped looking at
her like that. Aurora tingled everywhere he touched her, with the
delicious gooseflesh spreading through her limbs, up to her head,
and then plummeting all the way down to her toes—which somehow
curled beneath her.

“
Yes. You are the
mysterious Lord Quinton.” And he would think her an utter dolt if
she did not manage to remove the derisible grin from her face.
There was also the rather embarrassing problem of a blush spreading
over her cheeks and all the way to her bosom. The heat flowed like
gauze in the wind. She looked down to see how bad it was, only to
realize too late she had drawn his gaze to that very same
place.

“
That I am.” He stared at
the low bodice of her gown, or rather at the display just above it,
for an inordinately long period of time. Finally, his eyes moved
slowly up her chest to her neck, to her chin, to her lips—where
they paused yet again.

She felt parched. She
needed something—
something
—something to calm her
nerves and to cool her off. Yet all she wanted to do was move
closer, still.

Aurora licked her lips.

Lord Quinton’s hand at her waist
flinched and grew tense, pulling her in as though on
command.

“
I am also, Miss Hyatt, not
the kind of gentleman a proper young lady should have anything to
do with—not if she wishes to keep her reputation
intact.”

“
I am aware of that.” Too
aware. But that was the last thing she wanted to think of at the
moment. She preferred to focus on the day’s growth of stubble
lining his jaw and to imagine how it might feel if she drew her
hand across it.

The corners of his lips quirked up in
the slightest hint of a rakish grin. It looked lascivious.
Fiendish. And entirely too appealing. “Then you must also be aware,
Miss Hyatt, that every eye in the room is trained upon the two of
us. Including those of your chaperone. Perhaps even your
father.”

“
Yes,” she said, with a
slight tremor in her voice. Blast him for reminding her of all the
reasons she should run screaming from him. And blast
her
for not doing as she
ought.

Lord Quinton’s eyes smiled at her
then, a smile only a true rogue could muster. “And yet you remain
with me. Dancing.” He twirled her about so fast she would have lost
her feet, but for his strong arm at her waist pulling her ever
closer. “Waltzing.”

At this new distance she smelled his
cologne, much like she had imagined it in her story. “Yes,” she
whispered, no longer trusting her voice not to fail.

He stood still and held her steady
before him. “Lovely,” Lord Quinton growled just before his lips
descended upon hers in a kiss. A kiss nothing like what she
imagined.

This was nothing tender or chaste. It
was needy and possessive and hot.

He pulled her closer until her body
was melded into his, her curves tucked neatly into his angles and
planes like they had been made just for that purpose. One hand
moved up into the chignon at the nape of her neck, fisting and
tugging and drawing her ever closer.

His lips were hard and demanding. The
stubble along his jaw assaulted her tender skin in a way that left
her panting for more. He bit her lower lip and she cried out, but
it was muffled against his tongue as it moved inside her
mouth.

Aurora tasted his brandy—smooth and
dark.

Lord Quinton moved his tongue in and
out and around. When he suckled, her toes sang and the tips of her
fingers trembled and something both terrible and wonderful happened
between her thighs.

She wanted more.

She wanted to do the things to him he
was doing to her, to make him feel these wanton
feelings.

She wanted it never to end.

But then he pulled his head back, the
absence of his lips leaving hers aching for their
return.

Lord Quinton stepped away from her.
Removed his hands from her. He bowed his head briefly. “Miss Hyatt.
I bid you good evening.”

And he left.

Chapter Six

2 April, 1811

Oh, dear good Lord, I
only
thought
my
life had ended yesterday. Now I know it has. But oh, what a way to
die. I wonder, can one still kiss in heaven? And would a kiss in
heaven feel as fiendishly sinful as that kiss? If not, perhaps I
would prefer not to go to heaven when I die later today. Perhaps
somewhere
else
would be preferable.

~From the journal of Miss
Aurora Hyatt

“
Up. You must get up
now
, Aurora.”

From Aurora’s position fully buried
beneath her bedclothes, Rose’s voice sounded eerily like it
belonged to Rebecca. And since when did the maid think she could
use her first name, anyway?

“
What’s the point in
getting up only to march to my funeral? Kindly inform Father he can
handle such matters in here. I’ll not assist him.” Truthfully,
she’d already done enough.

What on earth had come over her last
night? She’d flirted outrageously with Lord Quinton from across the
ballroom, danced with him without being properly introduced (and a
waltz, at that!), ignored her dearest friend, and become totally
and irrevocably smitten with the scoundrel (for what else could he
be considered?). All right. Fine. The totally smitten part occurred
the moment she heard mention of his existence and then intensified
when she heard he had a pirate-like demeanor. But the irrevocable
part did only just occur last night. And to cap off the utterly
disastrous night, she had allowed the rogue to kiss her.

In the ballroom.

In front of half the
ton
.

With her stupendous luck, Father had
returned to the ballroom just in time to see the kiss. He had been
too stunned by what he saw to confront Lord Quinton as the
blackguard made his escape.

Instead, it seemed he intended to take
out his wrath upon Aurora.

She
, however, intended to remain precisely where she was until
the moment of her impending death. Never in her life had she felt
such sheer, utter mortification as she did when Lord Quinton had
walked away from her last night, leaving her alone on the ballroom
floor with the entire world reveling in her social
demise.

Perhaps
the entire world
was a bit of an
exaggeration. Still, Aurora noticed: their slack jaws; their bold
stares, followed by a deliberate turning of their backs; the
matrons shooing their daughters away from her presence; the sudden
lack of gentlemen hoping to place their names upon her dance card;
the forced, heavy silence gradually being overwhelmed by a
calamitous medley of whispers, most all of them containing her
name.

The look of bewildered defeat upon
Father’s face.

The derision and disgust in Aunt
Sedgewick’s voice as she ushered Aurora from Eversley
Hall.

More hurtful than all the rest
combined—the pity in Rebecca’s brief and gentle grasping of her
hand as they parted.

The blankets were ripped back with
fervor, and she was blinded by the sun just starting to rise
outside her window. Sure enough, Rebecca held the untidy remnants
of Aurora’s warm bed, not Rose.

Rebecca frowned down at Aurora from
her exalted position as the angel of death, with the rays of the
sun lighting her frame. “I sincerely doubt there will be any
funeral today, and if there is I suspect it might be for Lord
Quinton and not for you, so do please cease your
moping.”

Aurora rolled over and buried her eyes
in her pillow. “Go away. It is ungodly early in the morning. Why
are you here? I don’t want your pity.”

“
You’re doing a poor job of
showing that.” Rebecca took a seat on the edge of the bed. “But
you’ll get none of it, whether you want it or not.”

“
Humph.” Aurora rolled over
again to show her scowl to its fullest effect. “Some
dearest
and most
especial
friend you are
proving yourself to be. Abandoning me in my darkest
hour?”

“
I’m hardly abandoning you.
If you hadn’t noticed, I’m here. At sunrise. Good gracious, this is
early. How is that an act of abandonment?” Rebecca pulled on
Aurora’s hands until she reached a sitting position. “There is much
to discuss.”

“
Such as?” Aurora drawled.
She hardly cared. What did anything matter, now that she was
condemned to death? Or at least to a life alone. Regardless of how
much she abhorred the idea of a loveless marriage, in truth, the
thought of loneliness terrified her far more. She couldn’t bear to
end up like her mother.

Proving herself a true friend, despite
Aurora’s complaints to the contrary, Rebecca ignored the pathetic
tone of her question. “Such as the possibility of Lord Quinton
calling upon you today.”

“
I don’t care to see him.”
The lie even rang hollow to Aurora’s ears. She’d lost her
touch.

It had to be his fault.

“
Well, if he has even the
smallest pinch of decency in him, he’ll be here this afternoon to
offer for you.”