Midnight's Wild Passion

Cassandra Demarest’s uncertain question exploded into the tension bristling between him and the chaperone like a grenade tossed into an enemy line. With a reluctance he resented, Ranelaw wrenched his gaze from the outwardly uninteresting woman who so inexplicably aroused the strongest interest he’d felt in a donkey’s age. He found himself and Miss Smith the cynosure of all eyes, and most of those eyes glinted with speculation and curiosity.

Hell, this was the last thing he wanted. His sudden decision to pursue the chaperone was purely a private matter, whereas he wanted his interest in the Demarest girl to become the talk of the ton.

Miss Smith’s fine, pale skin reddened with humiliation. Her gloved hands strangled her plain black reticule. Ranelaw’s lips twitched—he knew whom she really wanted to strangle.

A companion’s employment relied on pristine reputation. An extended conversation with the notorious Marquess of Ranelaw would do Miss Smith no good. No wonder she looked furious enough to release a blast of dragon fire upon her tormenter.

Not that she glanced at him.

“Cassie, did you require something?” Ranelaw heard how hard she worked to steady her low voice.

Cassandra, to her credit, looked troubled rather than annoyed at her chaperone’s lapse. “I was wondering if we received cards for the Bradhams’ musicale.”

Miss Smith’s color heightened. In that moment as a blush warmed her creamy skin, Ranelaw’s suspicion cemented into certainty. This was no aging spinster. The woman behind those tinted spectacles was young. Young and ripe for a man’s picking.

His picking.

Chapter Two

During the carriage ride home, Antonia Smith née Hilliard was still berating herself for her dangerous lapse. She knew better than to draw such attention to herself. Years of self-discipline, yet she’d made an utter fool of herself in public.

All for a blasted rake.

She was the biggest numbskull in Christendom.

Yes, Lord Ranelaw was handsome. Breathtakingly so, with a seductive manner that set her traitorous heart racing. She’d discovered in her disastrous acquaintance with the breed that rakes were almost invariably handsome. But good looks meant nothing when selfishness and debauchery blackened the spirit.

She knew that.

So why had she forgotten the carefully constructed fiction of Antonia Smith? Why had she responded with the élan she’d relinquished ten years ago, along with her virtue, her privileged place in the world, and her girlish hopes? She’d devoted a decade’s service to creating a façade of irreproachable rectitude, of dull respectability. One glance from Lord Ranelaw’s heavy-lidded eyes and she’d flung all that hard-won self-control aside. She must have lost her mind. Her security rested on her character remaining unsullied.

And it wasn’t just Ranelaw’s decorative shell that flustered her, may he roast in the hell designated for beautiful men with fetid souls.

No, he’d ambushed her as much with what he’d said as with his easy sexual confidence. She reminded herself that he used his sparking intelligence for sin. The knowledge couldn’t quite snuff out the excitement of trading word for word with a man equal to the debate.

Foreboding oozed an icy path down her backbone. She didn’t fool herself tonight would be her only encounter with the spectacular marquess. He was sniffing around Cassie.

With difficulty, Antonia had made it through the remainder of the ball. She’d resumed her role as perfect companion, invisible but watchful. Careful of her young cousin’s reputation. Not that Cassie needed watching.

Or she never had before.

Right now Cassie sat in uncharacteristic silence on the bench opposite Antonia. When she did speak, the topic came as no surprise.

“I believe Lord Ranelaw is the handsomest man I’ve ever seen.”

Oh, no. No, no, no.

Antonia’s stomach cramped in denial. Surely Cassie hadn’t succumbed so swiftly to the libertine’s spell. She’d handled her dance with the marquess with equanimity and had seemed flattered but not unduly discomposed by his attentions. Through the rest of the evening, he’d studiously minded his manners. He’d cast Antonia only one mocking look from those fathomless dark eyes. A look she’d pretended not to notice.

“He’s too old for you,” Antonia said sharply, then was sorry when she watched Cassie’s curiosity build.

“He can’t be past his early thirties. A man in his prime. He made every other gentleman in that ballroom look callow or superannuated.” Over the carriage’s creak, Antonia heard the breathless admiration in the girl’s voice.

“Cassie, your father would have a fit if he knew you encouraged scoundrels like Ranelaw.”

“My father is in Paris and likely to stay there.”

With his usual lack of forethought, her second cousin and employer, Godfrey Demarest, had decamped to France a month ago, set on immersing himself once again in the fleshpots. An occupation he took much more seriously than he ever took running his estate or raising his child.