Darian Hunter: Duke of Desire (Dangerous Dukes 3)

‘There is such an uncomfortable crush in there already,’ Mariah remarked lightly as she stepped outside into the briskness of the March evening air beside William Edgewood.

He released his arm from her hold. ‘You may drop the pretence now, Countess,’ he dismissed scornfully.

‘Pretence?’ She gazed up at him guilelessly.

Edgewood gave a scathing snort. ‘I am sure that we both know, with Wolfingham so obviously your lover, that you have absolutely no real interest in stepping outside into the moonlight with an old man like me.’

In truth, Mariah had not thought any further beyond the need she felt to prevent Darian from challenging the older man, as she had known he fully intended doing when he left her side so precipitously.

Outside, and alone on the terrace with William Edgewood—who appeared to have dropped all pretence of being that amiable fool everyone believed him to be and now looked at her with shrewdly calculating eyes—she now had time and opportunity to realise her mistake.

To realise that cornered animal had now turned its rabid attentions on to her.

She faced Edgewood unflinchingly as she decided to do exactly as he had suggested and cease all pretence. ‘Your cohort has already fled.’

‘So Clara unwittingly informed me a few minutes ago.’ He nodded tersely.

Mariah nodded briskly. ‘There is no way of escaping, nowhere you might go now where you will not be caught and held for trial as a traitor and attempted assassin.’

‘Would not France be the practical choice?’ he derided.

Mariah gave a pained frown. ‘Why? Why would you turn traitor on your own country? On your Regent?’ She had once asked Martin the same question.

‘You can ask me that here, in the midst of this debauchery that has become England?’ Edgewood scoffed. ‘And with a Regent more licentious than the rest?’

And Martin’s answer had been just the same.

‘You are just as guilty of that licentiousness—’

‘Necessarily so…’ he nodded ‘…if I was to fool others into not suspecting my real feelings on the matter. My mother was French, you know. I am half-French, and my loyalties lie there rather than— Ah, Wolfingham, I wondered how long it would take for you to follow your mistress!’ Edgewood murmured derisively as he glanced over Mariah’s shoulder. ‘And I see you have brought several of your friends with you, too!’

Mariah turned sharply to look at where Darian—and several of his friends?—had now joined them outside on the terrace.

At least, she had fully intended to turn and look at them.

Instead, she found herself suddenly held as Lord Edgewood’s prisoner, as he pulled her roughly in front of him and anchored her there, by placing an arm about her throat and pressing a pistol painfully against her temple.

A single glance at Darian showed his eyes to be glittering intently behind his mask in the moonlight, his displeasure, at the vulnerable position in which Mariah now found herself, clear for all to see as he glared at her furiously.

She quickly moved her gaze to the three masked gentlemen standing behind him, believing she recognised one of them as being the grey-haired Aubrey Maystone, but the identity of the other two were hidden behind their masks. ‘It would seem you are outnumbered, Lord Edgewood,’ she remarked slightly huskily, the tightness of his arm about her throat preventing her from breathing properly.

‘But I have the pistol,’ he pointed out conversationally.

‘We all have pistols, Edgewood,’ Aubrey Maystone assured drily as those pistols now appeared in all the other gentlemen’s hands.

Including Darian’s, Mariah realised, wondering where on his person he could have kept it hidden until now.

Was she becoming slightly hysterical, in questioning something so trivial, when Lord Edgewood had a pistol pressed so painfully against her temple? Lord, she hoped not!

‘But I also have the Countess of Carlisle,’ Edgewood came back confidently. ‘Eh, Wolfingham?’ he added challengingly.

Darian was well aware of the fact that Edgewood now held a pistol against Mariah’s temple. Could see all too

clearly how the end of the barrel of that pistol was digging into her tender flesh. Hurting her.

‘You are only making your situation worse, Edgewood.’ Aubrey Maystone drew the other man’s attention back to him.

‘Could it possibly be any worse, when I am obviously already known as a conspirator and traitor against the Crown?’ The other man eyed Maystone coldly.