Tarnished Amongst the Ton

‘Naturally. Sara and I have these.’ Lady Eldonstone flipped the thick braid of hair over her shoulder and withdrew an ornamental pin that proved to be a long, and probably lethal, skewer. ‘Would you like one? I think there is a small one that would be hidden by your hair.’

‘Oh, no,’ Ashe said. ‘You have both been trained to use the things. Phyllida would probably impale a dowager or run an ambassador through, just by turning her head too fast.’ He put on his mask and became even more mysteriously exotic. ‘I promise to rescue you if you are set upon by footpads.’

Phyllida shivered, partly aroused by the promise in his heavy-lidded gaze, partly in reaction to the potential for violent action in his lean, muscled body.

The carriage was at the door. The marquess began to usher his wife and daughter out, but turned as Ashe said, ‘With five of us the ladies’ silks will get crushed. I have ordered the chaise and we will follow you.’

‘Unchaperoned?’ But the marchioness did not appear to find it shocking, or to hear her, and the footman was already closing the door of the

larger carriage.

‘Do I need a chaperon?’ Ashe asked as the chaise drew up.

‘Not for you, you wretched man! What if someone sees us arrive?’ Phyllida demanded as he handed her in.

‘We will be right behind the others, don’t fuss so.’ He reached forwards and tweaked her veil evenly about her shoulders. ‘You are nervous, that is all. Calm down, Phyllida. You look utterly ravishing. No one will know who you are, you can relax and enjoy yourself.’

‘Calm down? I am alone in a carriage at night with a man who keeps trying to seduce—I am sorry—persuade me to sleep with him. I am laden with a fortune in someone else’s gemstones and gold. I am wearing a gorgeous outfit that feels positively indecent for some reason I cannot quite put my finger on and you, you patronising man, you tell me to calm down?’

Ashe moved to sit beside her. Phyllida stiffened, but the seat was too narrow to shift away. Through the thin silks the heat of his thigh was like a brand against her skin.

‘When I make love to you, Phyllida, neither of us is going to get any sleep,’ he promised, his voice like a tiger’s purr in the semi-darkness. ‘That is a promise. Those clothes feel indecent because wearing them you are more aware of your body and of what your body wants. As for the jewellery, I will protect both you and it.’

‘And who is going to protect me against you?’ she demanded, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice.

‘Why, no one,’ Ashe said and lifted her so she was sitting on his thighs. His arms closed around her. ‘I want your hands on me, Phyllida. I want to strip those silks from your body and cover it with mine.’ She gasped as his mouth found the angle of neck and shoulder and his tongue slid insinuatingly up to the soft skin beneath her ear. ‘I want to make love to you until you beg me for mercy.’

They were in a carriage, driving through the streets of Mayfair, minutes away from a crowded ballroom. There was nothing Ashe could do to carry out his threats, his promises, surely? But she wanted him to. With a groan Phyllida ran her hands into the thick silk of his hair and captured his head, holding him as though to prevent the delicious torment his tongue was wreaking ever stopping.

He said something in a language she did not understand, his breath hot, and then his mouth was over hers and she was straining against him, her breasts in the tight bodice aching for his touch, her nipples, without chemise or corset, fretting against the silk lining.

‘Ashe. Oh, Ashe, yes.’

What she was agreeing to, begging for, she was not sure. If this was madness then she did not care, for tonight they were both mad.

Chapter Seventeen

The jolt of the carriage stopping jerked Phyllida back to reality and sanity. ‘I mean, no!’ she said as she scrambled off Ashe’s lap with more haste than dignity.

‘Certainly this is neither the time nor the place,’ he agreed smoothly as the carriage door opened.

‘It will—’ The sight of the rest of their party waiting at the foot of the steps choked the words off unuttered. Phyllida fussed with her mask until Ashe was out of the carriage and waiting to hand her down, then descended with a smile fixed on her lips.

Already they were attracting attention. She heard the name Eldonstone murmured, saw that the glances from the other guests filing in through the front door were intrigued or approving, and relaxed as much as a woman could do whose heart was pounding, whose knees were knocking and who was mentally castigating herself for an idiot.

If that had happened anywhere but on a short carriage journey, she would have surrendered to Ashe’s demands. Oh, be honest with yourself, she scolded. It is not surrender and you cannot put all the blame on him. You want him, you are simply not strong-willed enough to resist him. Was it inevitable that sooner or later her attraction to Ashe would begin to overcome her fears, her doubts? With the feelings that were growing inside her for him, how could she ever find the strength to deny him?

The great ballroom was already crowded as the Herriard party made its way in. The noise and the conflicting scents and odours and the colour hit Phyllida as a physical blow. She had never been to a masquerade on this scale.

‘I almost feel we are back in India,’ Lady Eldonstone said with a laugh as a Crusader knight in silver knitted-string chainmail bore down and asked for a dance. ‘All this colour and noise! Why, yes, sir, I have this dance free.’ And without a backwards glance she stepped on to the floor.

‘Curiously liberating, the effects of these masks,’ the marquess remarked. ‘No introductions, no names. How am I going to keep an eye on our two young ladies?’

‘We will use our common sense, Papa,’ Sara promised.

‘No stepping out on to balconies or the terrace, no little alcoves,’ Ashe warned.

‘Brother dear, is that what rakes do, lure young ladies into those places?’ she asked, all wide-eyed innocence behind her mask.