Page 36 of A Remarkable Rogue

Not at all happy to be here, Nate walked into the ballroom and snagged a glass of cognac from the tray of a passing footman. He lifted it to his lips and ignored the lascivious stares of a group of women standing near the stairs as he circled the room.

A ginger-haired siren placed her thumb in her mouth and sucked suggestively as he passed. When he only politely bowed his head at her without stopping, she drunkenly giggled and teetered on her slippers.

Blowing out an irritated breath, he scanned the room. Somewhere in this debauchery was Sydney Rowland. The sooner he found her, the sooner he could leave.

A small box had arrived for him that morning at the barracks, delivered by Sydney’s stable boy. Nate had recognized the lad only because he wore the same clothes she’d donned for her midnight visit three nights ago, and the preposterous yet wholly luscious way she’d looked in those clothes had been seared into his mind. No note accompanied the box, only a strange invitation with the wordsGuest of Lady Flamescribbled across the bottom and the panther mask he now wore. A private message, certainly.

But he had no idea why she’d sent it and certainly no idea why she’d picked this place to bring him to. If she were playing games with him—

He froze.Sydney.

The baroness stood by the open French doors. The soft night air stirred around her long legs the flowing skirt of a red satin dress, one cut daringly low across her full breasts, which were thrust high by the tight Spanish-style bodice. Long gloves in the same red satin commanded his gaze up her arms to the smooth skin of her shoulders, bare except for two thin straps of ribbon. Her sable hair was swept up high to show off her elegant neck, and her sensuous lips were painted nearly as red as her dress. Like all the other women, she wore a mask to hide her identity.

Yet even with that mask, he recognized her. Only Sydney Rowland possessed the confidence to wear such a daringly risqué dress and the beauty to shine so brilliantly in it.

But it was how she shimmered in the candlelight that captured his imagination and had him staring shamelessly. How the rubies at her throat and earlobes resembled smoldering coals. How the traces of gold dust brushed across stretches of bare skin appeared as if flames were flaring up from her flesh and down into the valley between her breasts.

Lady Flame…a siren of fire and brimstone. In all his life, he’d never seen another woman like her.

As he approached, she smiled and held out her gloved hand. He lifted it to his lips, unable to resist placing a delicate kiss in her palm. “Lady Flame.”

“My Lord Panther,” she returned on a throaty breath, and the husky purr of her voice heated through him.

For a moment, he could do nothing more than stare, mesmerized. She was a female devil in red satin come to take his soul, and God help him, he nearly handed it right over in exchange for possessing her for the night. Her fire would consume him, but the burn would be exquisite.

Her lips curled into a tight smile, and she placed her hand on his arm. “Shall we dance, my lord?”

“It would be my pleasure.” And sheer torment.

She led him toward the dance floor. He went willingly under her siren’s song, and each movement of her hips beneath the shimmering light of the chandeliers seemed to spark a fire in her wake.

He took her into position and held her much closer than he should have, but compared to the other couples on the dance floor, no one would have noticed. Her gloved fingers folded warmly over his left hand, and his right pressed at the small of her back as he stepped her into the wanton waltz swirling around them. They danced very differently from the balls he’d been forced to attend over the years, when his presence had been required to partner with prim generals’ daughters whom he’d held at arm’s length. In this dance, propriety mattered nothing, and Sydney’s breasts brushed tantalizingly against his chest each time he turned her through their steps. He breathed in the scent of her, an exotic perfume of orange and spice that filled his senses, and an ache of longing shot through him down to the tip of his cock.

God help him, he wanted her, and if she wasn’t careful with the sway of her hips against his, she’d soon discover exactly how much.

“I wasn’t certain if you would understand my message to come here tonight,” she told him, barely louder than the soft strains of the violins and cellos so she wouldn’t be overhead. “But I’m very glad you’re here.”

“Are you?” He shifted away from her to put more distance between them before he forgot himself and pulled her into an alcove. That dress, her scent, the heat of her body seeping through the satin material—everything about her made him long to lift her skirt and pin her against the wall, to have her thighs spread wide and shaking around him as he stroked into her. He knew she’d take away the loneliness and longing that plagued him.

But she would never be able to dissolve the guilt that would follow. That alone fueled his resolve to resist, no matter how much he wanted to succumb.

“I know when to resign the offensive and call in reinforcements,” she commented.

“Which am I—the offensive or the reinforcements?”

“That depends.” She slid him a testing glance from behind her mask. “Am I still the enemy or an ally?” She turned her face away and murmured, “And know that I’ve already accepted that we’ll never be comrades in arms.”

His mouth tightened with chagrin. Only the baroness could frame his rejection of her as a military strategy. “Sydney—”

“Lady Flame.” She stepped forward and gave him no choice but to increase his close hold of her. “And tonight, you’re Lord Panther.” They continued their scandalous waltz with his arm wrapped around her waist and her fingers teasing at his collar. Each brush of her fingers through his hair sent an electric spark twirling down his spine. “Real names are never used here. Too many scandalous activities will happen here tonight. Revealing yourself to the wrong person could very well ruin your life.”

He glanced over her shoulder at the other couples dancing around them and those sitting at the tables edging the room. Their interactions grew increasingly bolder as the evening went on, with more of them wandering off into the gardens, up the stairs to rooms on the upper floors, or into the alcoves. The ginger-haired woman who’d giggled at him now stood with a man in a lion’s mask whose hand openly caressed her breast as they talked in the dimly lit corner.

Nate frowned at Sydney. Her oval face was upturned toward his, beautiful even with the mask hiding nearly everything but those gleaming green eyes and her full red lips. “What kind of party is this?”

“One of Viscount Chilton’s private ones. Right now, it’s a masquerade.” She reached up to run a fingertip along his temple and down to the black whiskers curling out from beside the triangular-shaped nose of his panther mask. The casual touch wasn’t meant for him, he knew, but for anyone who might be watching. “By dawn, it will be an orgy.”

He halted, and the other couples danced on around them. Was this the kind of place Sydney frequented? “You’ve been to one of these before, then.”