Page 47 of An Inconvenient Duke

Trusting that he would come to her, she started forward toward the shadowed paths behind the pavilion. She chose one and started slowly down it.

She moved carefully through the shadows, her pulse pounding with every step. The path narrowed as it receded into the depths of the garden and grew darker. The sounds from the main alley became muffled by the wilderness until she could no longer hear the music and cheers from the crowd. Her chest tightened with unease, but she walked on, even more slowly now. She passed several groves of trees, moss-covered stone walls meant to resemble tumbled-down Greek temples, a thick hedge that lined part of the path—all capable of hiding secret assignations.

She passed a few couples who were meandering along the path, poking their heads behind walls and trees to judge how private and dark the spaces were beyond. Around her, the lanterns had been extinguished, and from the darkness rose female giggles and masculine groans.

A masked woman raced by, her skirts hitched up to her knees. She slowed only to look behind her, then burst into laughter and ran on, jumping off the path and darting behind a row of bushes. Behind her, a man dressed as a harlequin chased after. Heedless of anything but catching the woman, he knocked Dani aside in his hurry to follow after her into the undergrowth.

A squeal cut through the darkness just behind her, and Dani jumped, startled. Apparently, the man had caught the woman.

Oh, this was madness! She’d never find Marcus searching for him like this, not when the trees around her were so dark that they seemed to press in upon her, yet all of the woods felt strangely alive. For the first time since she started Nightingale, she felt afraid in the darkness.

She turned around and headed back toward the main area of the garden with its lanterns and torches, its crowds and music. With each step she took, her heartbeat eased and her lungs—

A hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed her arm. Too startled to scream, she was pulled off the path.

A man’s arms encircled her waist, swinging her off her feet and into the shadows. But she didn’t punch or kick against him despite her gasp of surprise. Because she knew those strong arms and shoulders, that firm jaw, the gleam of his dark eyes even from behind the mask—

“Marcus.”

He maneuvered her behind the wall of a folly, into a secluded and dark corner of the fake ruins. Then he lowered his head to capture her mouth in a kiss that left her weak and tingling to the tips of her fingers and toes. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and she arched into him, eagerly giving herself up to be kissed and caressed.

A deep groan sounded from the back of his throat when she opened her lips and allowed him inside to plunder her mouth. An aching yearning started at her toes and fanned up through her, and she simply couldn’t kiss him deeply enough to keep it at bay or quash the throbbing he stirred between her thighs.

When he finally tore his mouth away from hers, he murmured against her cheek, “I’ve been wanting to do that all night.”

“Have you?” Her voice was just as raw with desire as his as she admitted, “I thought I was the only one.”

With a laughing growl, he kissed her again, this time languidly and leisurely, as if he could take his time to savor her now that he’d satisfied that initial longing.

A peal of laughter from the path broke the stillness of the night. Startled, Dani jumped away from him. But she didn’t go far from his arms and sagged against the stones behind her, staring up at him through the shadows. Her hand rose to touch her fingers to her lips, finding them warm and wet and aching to be kissed again. God help her, the taste of him was sheer addiction.

Safely shielded from the world by his strong body and cocooned privately in the shadows, she dared to reach a hand to touch his cheek. So warm and strong…

As if knowing what she was thinking, he turned his head to kiss her palm. She trembled with longing.

“I didn’t know if you were going to follow, if you understood what I wanted you to do,” she whispered, but even that seemed to echo loudly against the muffled night surrounding them. “Then, when I looked for you in the crowd, I couldn’t spot you. I thought…”

He covered her hand with his and gave her fingers a squeeze. “What?”

“That you’d changed your mind.” She slowly pulled her hand from his to step into his embrace, her arms once more encircling his neck. “That you weren’t following.”

“I knew where you were at every step,” he assured her, his warm breath tickling her ear. “I wouldn’t have let you out of my sight.”

His answer sparked a liquid warmth inside her. She pulled back, but only far enough to tease her fingers into the silky hair at his nape. “Because you’ve been watching me all evening.” She’d happily noticed that, how his gaze never left her for long, even during the supper when their attentions had been required by the people on either side of them at the table. “A less confident lady might be rather nervous to realize that.”

His eyes flickered brightly behind the mask. “And a confident woman like yourself?”

“Flattered.” The truth behind that would have heated her cheeks in a happy blush…until reality turned her cold. “Until she realizes it was only to keep watch on her.”

“No respectable gentleman would do less when that woman is in his care for the evening.”

“Is that what I am—in your care?”

“Would you mind if you were?”

“No, I don’t believe I would.” That sincere admission turned into a subtle flirtation, one that tickled deliciously at the backs of her knees. “But given that it took me to rescue you from those cloying gentlemen in the box, it seems to me that tonight, you’re inmycare.”

“Am I?” His sensuous lips curled in amusement.