Darian Hunter: Duke of Desire (Dangerous Dukes 3)

‘She does,’ Mariah now answered him equally as softly. ‘Perhaps I should stroll over and see what is amiss?’

Darian’s first instinct was to say no, to keep Mariah safely beside him, rather than risk her moving through the crowded room, and the possible groping hands of the other gentlemen present, to where their hostess stood beside the doorway.

There was also a would-be assassin still somewhere in their midst.

Darian quickly repressed his overprotectiveness, knowing that Mariah would no more accept that than she had wished to listen to his conversation earlier, in regard to the continuation of their relationship once they were back in town. He had no doubt that she would especially baulk at any sign of possessiveness towards her on his part. Even if that was exactly how he felt!

Just the thought of any other man but himself so much as looking at Mariah with more than admiration was enough to cause his jaw to tighten and his back teeth to grind together.

‘We shall both go,’ he compromised as he held out his arm to her.

Mariah eyed Darian from behind her mask as she placed her gloved hand on his arm before allowing him to escort her across the crowded ballroom, knowing that the avidly covetous eyes of at least a dozen other women followed his progress.

He was, without a doubt, the most handsome and striking-looking gentleman in the room, formidably so.

Once again dressed all in black, accompanied by snowy white linen, the mask that cove

red the top half of Wolfingham’s face was also a plain and unrelenting black, green eyes glinting warningly through the two eye-slits to ward off the approach of any of the other guests.

Mariah repressed a shiver at just how devilish Darian looked this evening. Dark and watchful. Cold and unrelenting.

Nothing at all like the warm and satiated man who had made love to her, and to whom she had made love, earlier this evening.

‘Cold?’ Darian turned to her solicitously as he obviously felt her shiver.

Mariah straightened determinedly; after all, she was the one who had insisted there was nothing between them but the intimacy of the circumstances under which they now found themselves. She was a little disappointed, hurt, at how easily Darian had accepted her dismissal after making only a token protest, but that was for her to deal with, not him. Darian had promised nothing and she had asked for nothing, which was how it should be. How it must be, if she was to continue to maintain her emotional independence.

‘Not at all.’ She now gave him an over-bright smile. ‘Did you manage to send your groom with a note to Winterton Manor?’ she prompted softly.

‘Yes,’ Wolfingham confirmed. ‘Although he has not returned as yet with Maystone’s reply,’ he added grimly.

‘Do you think that something might have happened to him along the way?’ Mariah frowned; Aubrey had told them that Winterton Manor, where the older man had waited these past twenty-four hours or so, along with several other of his agents, until he heard word from them, was only situated five miles or so from Eton Park.

Darian frowned. ‘We shall go out to the stables and check for news of his return, once we have talked to Clara Nichols.’

Mariah’s brows rose. ‘Surely there is no reason for both of us to go?’

Perhaps not, but Darian still felt that reluctance to leave Mariah’s side. ‘We shall both go, Mariah,’ he repeated uncompromisingly, returning the searching glance Mariah gave him with one of cool determination.

Darian sensed an underlying air of tension in the Nicholses’ ballroom this evening, one that smacked almost of desperation. As if someone in this room knew they were being hunted. And if anything amiss was about to happen, then Darian intended being at Mariah’s side when and wherever it did.

‘Very well.’ Mariah finally nodded acquiescence, her eyes narrowing as they approached their flustered hostess and her obviously nervously trembling footman.

‘Something definitely has Clara on the verge of a fit of the vapours,’ she murmured softly to Darian, her voice rising as they reached Clara Nichols’s side. ‘Clara, darling, whatever is the matter?’ She left Darian’s side to link her arm companionably through the older woman’s.

Lady Nichols dismissed the footman before answering. ‘Oh, Mariah,’ she wailed. ‘Nothing this evening is going as it should, and— Oh! Good evening, your Grace,’ she greeted hastily as she saw Darian was standing just behind Mariah.

‘Can the countess and I be of any help?’ he queried lightly, senses now on full alert, knowing it was most unusual for ladies of the ton to become so discomposed in front of their guests, no matter what the situation.

‘Oh, no!’ Clara Nichols looked horrified at the suggestion. ‘No, thank you, Wolfingham,’ she added with more calm. ‘It was just a— There were several domestic matters in need of my attention. It is all settled now.’

Mariah somehow doubted that, from the hunted look still in Clara Nichols’s pale and constantly shifting blue eyes. ‘Could the capable Benson not have dealt with them?’

The older woman’s mouth thinned, those angry spots returning to her cheeks. ‘Benson is the main cause of the problem! Indeed, personal recommendation or not, I am seriously thinking of dismissing him the moment he returns.’ Her eyes now glittered with her anger. ‘The servants are all in disarray without his guidance.’ She had obviously forgotten her earlier reassurances to the contrary, in her agitation. ‘And I am sure that there are far more guests here this evening than were actually invited.’ She looked askance at the very overcrowded ballroom.

‘Indeed?’ Wolfingham was narrow-eyed as he also glanced at the overabundance of masked guests.

‘No doubt they had heard of the entertainments here and wished to be a part of it, whether invited or not,’ Clara twittered coyly.