And the reason she was enjoying herself was standing broodingly at her side now that all the guests had retired to the drawing room following dinner, giving every appearance of a dark and avenging angel, ready to swoop down on any who might even think of crossing over the invisible line he had drawn about the two of them since they had sat down to dinner earlier.
The dark and avenging angel Darian Hunter, the Duke of Wolfingham.
As she had warned Wolfingham before coming down the stairs earlier, most of the other ladies were dressed much more daringly than she was this evening. Indeed, there was a plethora of completely bared breasts visible about the drawing room as the gentlemen, and many of the ladies, completely against the normal rules of polite society, enjoyed an after-dinner brandy together. Most of the gowns were without the benefit of that layer of lace that covered Mariah’s breasts and several of the gowns were made of a totally transparent and gauzy material that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
And for all the notice Wolfingham had taken—was still taking!—of any of those erotically displayed ladies, they might as well have been wearing sackcloth.
It was a refreshing change for Mariah to be in the presence of a gentleman whose gaze was not constantly wandering to the half-naked bodies of other women.
Just as Wolfingham’s glowering and tight-lipped disapproval of the approach of both the ladies and the gentlemen present this evening had kept everyone but their hostess from attempting to interrupt their privacy. Wolfingham had wasted no time in dispatching that lady, too, with a few choice and tersely spoken words.
Instead, he had centred all of his attention on Mariah as they ate the sumptuously prepared dinner served to them earlier, his conversation exclusive, and occasionally feeding her the odd delicacy of food from his own plate, as a way, no doubt, of giving further illusion to their intimacy.
Mariah had blushed like a schoolgirl the first time Darian behaved so unexpectedly, that blush having deepened as he centred his hawklike gaze upon her lips when she finally leant forward to take the food from his fork. She had been better prepared the second time it had happened, but still felt unaccountably hot at the way his green gaze stared so intently at her lips.
And throughout all of it Darian had seemed completely unaware of the sexual play going on about them.
The assembled company had been slightly restrained to begin with, all obviously aware of having the imposing Duke of Wolfingham within their midst, but several glasses of wine later, along with Wolfingham’s apparent distraction with Mariah, and those inhibitions had quickly fallen away.
Several of the gentlemen had openly caressed and tweaked bared breasts, and one gentleman had even crawled beneath the table for several minutes, the expression of rapture on the flushed face of the actress seated next to him, followed by her breathy and noisy gasps of pleasure as she climaxed, clearly showing where that gentleman was lavishing his attentions.
Mariah had glanced away as if bored as the gentleman crawled back up into his seat, his mouth moist and lips swollen, the expression on his flushed face becoming one of equal rapture as that lady returned the favour, by unbuttoning his pantaloons and openly stroking him until he, too, reached a completion.
It was a disgusting and embarrassing display, and one that Mariah had been forced to witness at least a dozen times during these past seven years of spying for the Crown.
And one that tonight had caused a flush of heat to course through Mariah’s own veins and an unaccustomed tingling and warmth to spread between her thighs.
A heat and tingling that she had preferred not to question too deeply.
‘Say no, Darian,’ she warned Wolfingham softly now as she shook her own head at Clara Nichols as the other woman moved about the room gathering up the people who wished to play cards.
Darian gave a terse shake of his own head to their poutingly disappointed hostess before moving to stand slightly in front of Mariah, the broadness of his back and shoulders blocking her from the view of the majority of the other guests in the room. ‘Why?’ he returned as softly.
Mariah looked up at him beneath lowered lashes. ‘Because I doubt you will like the forfeit if you lose. Do you ever lose?’
Darian raised one dark brow. ‘At cards?’
‘At anything!’
Well, he was certainly losing his battle tonight in regard to the desire he felt for Mariah.
Dinner with the Nicholses’ guests had been a disgusting display of body parts and licentious behaviour, which he had found distinctly untitillating and which had actually turned his stomach on several occasions. Several sexual acts had actually occurred at the dinner table, made all the more incongruous by the fact that they were all seated about a formal dining table in an equally formal dining room and were being waited upon by the Nicholses’ placid-faced butler and footmen.
He had noticed several gentlemen eyeing Mariah covetously when they first sat down at the dinner table. Glances he had frowned darkly upon. Those glances had then turned towards Darian, envious in some cases and actually belligerent in one or two others.
Because none of those gentlemen had been numbered amongst Mariah’s lovers? Darian hoped it was so.
He had soon forgotten all but Mariah, as he shut out the presence and behaviour of the people around them and concentrated all of his attentions on her.
He had enjoyed talking with her, their conversations intelligent and witty. He had also fed her sweetmeats on occasion, initially as a way of publically demonstrating the intimacy of their relationship, but continuing to do so time and time again as his shaft hardened as he watched her lips encircle his fork and imagined how those soft and full li
ps would feel encircling him in the same sensuous way. He had almost come undone completely when she had once run her tongue along her bottom lip as she licked away an excess of cream from a bonbon he had just fed her.
‘Very rarely,’ he answered her drily now. ‘What exactly is it that you forfeit here for losing at cards?’
‘Watch.’ She turned to where two tables had now been set up with four card players on each, two gentleman and two ladies on one and three gentlemen and one lady on the other.
‘Good gracious.’ Darian gave a shudder just seconds later as Clara Nichols, obviously the loser of the first hand of cards, instantly stood up to remove her gown, resuming her seat dressed only in silk drawers and pale stockings held up by two pink—what other colour would the woman choose!—garters, her breasts hanging down like two giant udders. ‘There should be a law against such an unpleasant display.’ Darian’s mouth twisted with distaste.