Page 29 of To Dance with a Devil

She thought she heard a slight hitch in his breathing as she spoke, but that was ridiculous. Nothing ever discomposed Montagu, everyone knew that. Certainly she wasn’t capable of it, though she wanted to be. She wanted to torment him as badly as he tormented her. She wanted to keep him from sleep and invade his every waking thought as well as his dreams. She wanted him mad for her, a sweet, terrible madness that would destroy them both in the inferno of their insanity.

“You have an inflated impression of what a common strumpet earns, my dear,” he said, and he sounded as infuriatingly composed as ever. God, how she wanted to ruffle him. “Though,” he said, and his voice dropped to something impossibly low and dangerously dark, “I admit I am now captivated by the notion of my name written across your lovely skin.”

Despite herself, her eyes snapped to his, and there was the cobra she feared, the intensity of his scrutiny hypnotising. Matilda was aware of her own breath, harsh and ragged, her breasts pushing against the confines of her corset as she fought to drag enough air into her lungs. Her skin was on fire—so hot, too hot—every part of her ablaze, the private place between her legs hottest of all and aching with need. The silver grey smoke of his gaze seemed to burn away the layers of fabric, the silk and the lace and muslin, all of it reduced to cinders in the heat of that proprietary look that imagined his name written across her naked flesh. He wanted to see it. He was imagining it right now, and God help her, but her body throbbed with desire in response.

“Stop it,” she said, her panic audible as she tore her gaze from his.

“I can’t.”

Matilda’s head snapped about once more, and she stared at him in astonishment. That had been honesty, a confession. She’d heard the frustration, and something else too, something that might have been bewilderment or even… fear.

Too late. In the moment it had taken to turn back to him, he’d looked away, staring straight ahead, his expression as unreadable and cold as always, but she’d heard. She’d heard.

“Miss Hunt?” Matilda jolted as a feminine voice broke the spell and she turned to see Lady Helena staring at her.

“Lady Helena,” she said, trying to find something resembling a smile, desperately trying to moderate her voice, so she didn’t sound every bit as breathless and flustered as she might if the man beside her had his hands under her skirts. He may have well as done for the effect he had on her with a few words, a look.

“Forgive me, Miss Hunt, but….” She shot a look at Montagu, who was apparently absorbed by the music, before bending to whisper in Matilda’s ear. “Bonnie is not well. She needs to go home at once.”

That, if nothing else, doused her with cold water and brought her to her senses. One of her friends was in trouble. Bonnie needed her. She got to her feet, barely giving Montagu the civility of a curt goodbye before she swept away.

It was the work of a moment to order her carriage be brought around and then she followed Helena to Bonnie. She was pale and quite obviously miserable.

“Oh, my dear. You should never have come. I thought you still looked peaky. Oh, how I wish we’d both stayed at home,” she said, meaning it with all her heart.

“Nonsense,” Bonnie said, forcing a smile. “It’s a lovely evening and I feel wretched for spoiling it for you. I insist you stay, or I shall feel terrible. Lady Helena will come with me.”

“Indeed, I wonder if we have not both caught the same malady,” Helena said gravely. “I have the most dreadful headache and should be glad to get out of this infernal heat.”

Matilda looked at Helena and felt certain she was lying, though she could not fathom why. Helena was as cool and lovely as always, and though it was possible she really was ill, she hid the signs well. She appeared to be the picture of health.

“Very well,” Matilda said, resigned. “She would have liked to have escaped too, but she did not want to force her company on the young women if they didn’t want it, and instinct told her they’d prefer her to stay and leave them be.

Once they were safely away, she stood dithering in the entrance hall again. The temptation to return to her place beside Montagu was beyond anything, but she would not. She was not so lost to reason that she would invite a cobra into her bed, and that’s what it would amount to if she went back to him now.

I can’t.

His words rang in her ears and she told herself to cease being foolish. He couldn’t stop because he was a man, and she’d wounded his male pride by telling him no, and no, and no again. He was not only a man, but a marquess, and they were a breed apart. How it must provoke him to discover something he could not buy or force to submit to his will. Had anyone ever denied him? Had he ever not had his own way? Well, it was good for him to learn the lesson then. Someone must teach him what his parents, guardians, and tutors had all failed to get into his obstinate, arrogant head. Some things could not be had for a price. Some things belonged to people other than the Marquess of Montagu. He was not God Almighty, and she would tell him no and keep saying it until he understood.

Matilda worked herself up into a fury of righteous indignation as she stalked towards the card room. Sadly, that fury did not diminish the ache beneath her skin, the clamouring need inside her that made her feel weak and empty. She was still trembling with the effort it had taken not to reach out and touch him there in the dim light of Mrs Manning’s drawing room, where anyone might have seen and recognised her for the besotted fool that she was.

“Miss Hunt.”

“Mr Cadogan,” Matilda said, hurrying towards him as though he held out a lifeline. Yes, anything, anything to take her mind out of the mire of foolish longing that was dragging her down. “How do you do?”

“I’m well, Miss Hunt, and yourself?”

The two of them exchange the usual polite nothings until he took a step closer, his expression serious. “I’d hoped to see Bonnie here,” he said, looking somewhat sheepish as he turned the glass in his hand back and forth. “I’ve wanted to call only… well, she asked me to stay away.”

Matilda nodded. “It’s for the best. People were beginning to talk and… and you know as well as I do how easily a woman’s reputation can be ruined.”

He blanched and Miss Hunt regretted her reproachful tone. It was unfair that the two of them could not be friends, that the world judged them so harshly, but that was the way of things. If Mr Cadogan did not intend to offer for Bonnie, he could only hurt her by paying such close attention. Especially when they were so wild and unheeding of consequences when they were together.

“In any case, I’m afraid you’ve just missed her,” Matilda went on, softening her tone. “She’s not well. Oh, nothing too serious, I’m sure,” she said at the anxious look that sparked in his eyes. “She’s been rather unwell ever since she came to stay. Something she ate, I believe. I think she had persuaded herself it had passed, but it appears she was too optimistic.”

“She’s… s-sick?”

Matilda smiled at him and laid a comforting hand on his arm. He appeared very concerned, and she was relieved that Bonnie wasn’t alone in her unhappiness. As cruel as it was, it seemed even worse when the woman was the only one heartsick and lonely. “I shall have the doctor call on her tomorrow, no matter how she protests this time. How stubborn she is about that! I can’t help but wonder if she convinced herself she was well just to avoid his visit. In any case, Lady Helena has taken her home, so you need not worry yourself. She’s in good hands. The two of them seem to have become great friends.”