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But not before he walked through the prescribed motions of what lay ahead.
{ Chapter 1 }
Wolfbridge Castle, Lincolnshire
November 1828
The crunch of gravel and breathless panting from below lured Victoria farther along the terrace that ran the length of this side of the castle.
Illicit affairs were always afoot at these fetes at Wolfbridge Castle, and she wasn’t above voyeurism, even if her Uncle Reiner would lock her into the highest room of the castle if he knew all she’d witnessed in the dark corners of the estate during the years. Spying on others was her sole entertainment at the parties. For it wasn’t as though she was anywhere near to embarking on an illicit affair of her own.
Both her uncle and her father had seen to that very thing years ago in her first season.
She’d thought her entrance into society was to be the start of the grand adventure of the rest of her life.
It was not.
She was well-regarded. Witty. Pretty to look at. Intelligent enough to follow politics and the latest business of the empire. Could speak four languages and could sing and play the pianoforte reasonably well. Had a dowry that most men would give their right arm for. But she was also saddled with her Uncle Reiner, the Duke of Wolfbridge, who had raised her from birth, and her father, Desmond Phillips, the Earl ofTroubant, who had been dead for most of her life but had reappeared, alive and healthy, three years ago. Between the two of them, they’d put the fear of fire and brimstone and torture into any male that dared to even breathe on her too long in passing.
Dances with heated looks. Knuckles slipping casually against thighs under the table. Stolen kisses in alcoves.
None of that was for her.
For as desirable as she was at first glance—perfect for any young, attractive, reasonably well-off, intelligent peer—she had been made untouchable by her father and uncle.
And lonely.
Vicarious living was all that was left to her.
This was one thing she’d managed to perfect in the last three years of hovering about ballrooms—the art of slipping away from a crowd unseen.
The heated breaths from below the terrace increased, soft moans falling one after another, and the distinctive sound of lips dragging along a neck floated upward into the night air.
Her slippers silent on the stone terrace, she ignored the bright gaiety to her right in the ballroom, the French doors lining the terrace closed, keeping the cool night air out and the warmth in.
A few more feet andthere…
She slipped her gloved fingers along the fat stone railing of the balustrade and peeked over the edge into the nook of shadows below created by the corner of the terrace meeting the outer wall of the castle.
A woman’s face upturned, her eyes closed as her parted mouth gasped out moans that curled her tongue. Lady Frantole.
And that was not her husband with his mouth attached to her neck. Not that Victoria blamed her. Lady Frantole was only a year older than Victoria and shackled to a portly man twenty years her senior that continually heaved like he was out of breath.
The man attached to the front of her had his gloved left hand wrapped around her neck as his bare right hand was quickly working upward and under her skirts. Light brown hair, impeccably tailored tailcoat, just like every other fob in attendance at theEve of Winter Ballher uncle held every year.
Victoria searched around their feet as Lady Frantole’s left leg moved upward, wrapping around his thigh. There, just beside the stone wall at the base of the terrace, his right glove sat discarded on the crushed stone ground cover.
Her lips quirked to the side. He was going in with intention.
Lady Frantole jerked in a sudden spasm that shot through her whole body, a guttural moan at her lips that echoed the luxury of slipping into a hot bath.
His fingers had reached their destination.
By the way Lady Frantole was writhing, her face twisting in carnal agony, the fop apparently knew what to do once he got there.
Her mind slipped for just one second, imagining she was in Lady Frantole’s place. Her heart beating madly, a rough hand dragging up her thigh, lips on her—
Noise behind her.
