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Prologue
Devil in the Night
Annabel swallowed hardas he prowled towards her, his steps silent on the lush Aubusson rug. She’d never seen him like this before. And it was all of her doing. She’d driven him to this. She’d made him this way. Now, she would pay the consequences of her actions.
“Get on the bed,” he snarled, his voice as rough as she’d ever heard it.
“No.” A whimper of defiance. A flash of rebellion. She lifted her chin a notch. “No.”
He stopped in front of her. Naked from the waist up save a strip of black silk wrapped around his eyes as a mask to shield his identity, he was a formidable figure of muscle, strength, and sinew. At his sides, his hands curled into fists, tendons going taut as a wolfish smirk played across his lips.
“That’s all right,” he said, and now his voice was soft. Almost teasingly so. The ebb before the storm, and a shiver went down her spine when she saw the sharp glint of desire in the depths of his gray gaze. “Right here is fine.”
She gasped when his hands shot out with lightning quickness and secured her wrists, pulling them taut above her head. Vulnerable and exposed, she glared spitefully at him even as a flame of passions buried deep kindled low in her belly.
“I’ll scream,” she threatened, driving her heel into the floor.
“Yes,” he murmured, skimming his lips along her quivering jawline before his teeth found the most sensitive part of her ear and delivered a sharp nip. “You will.”
Her mind raced as he spun her around, shoving her up against a mahogany bedpost. The wood was cool against her cheek, the fire crackling beside her was warm, and the devil behind her…the devil behind her was all heat and hot demand.
He released her wrists to run his fingers along the curves of her body, playing them across her skin as a skilled musician would play his violin. Coaxing music from the depths of her throat in the form of a low, husky moan and lust from between her thighs in a slick trickle of moisture. Belatedly remembering herself and her role, she arched away from him, pushing her breasts into the bedpost while her bare toes curled inward and her head canted to the side, unconsciously beckoning his attention to the slender line of her neck.
“You want this,” he rasped, slowly kissing his way up her shoulder. “You want me. Touching you. Caressing you. Claiming you.”
“I don’t,” she said quickly. Too quickly for her words to ring with any sort of truth, and she cried out when he abruptly clasped her buttocks, squeezing the plump flesh before yanking up the hem of her nightdress and sliding a hand between her legs.
“You’re already wet,” he purred, using a single fingertip to stroke between her slick folds. Once, twice, three time–
Her knees gave way and she sagged back against him in surrender, her head lolling helplessly against his chest as he entered her tight, velvety core.
“Oh, Annabel.” His gravelly voice was a whisper. A promise. A delicious threat. “The things I am going to do to you…”
1
A Case of the Wimblebottoms
December 1869
Grosvenor Square
Audley Assembly Room
Lady Annabel Kathryn Rosewoodwas no stranger to handsome men. But some days, she wished that she were.
“I am afraid that you are stepping on my foot, Lord Wimplebottom.” Although her fair brow remained unblemished (perish the thought of a line or a wrinkle forthisEnglish beauty), her smile became noticeably strained as she waited for the viscount to remove his large foot from her smaller one.
“My apologies, Lady Annabel.” He flashed her a contrite grin from beneath the furry edge of his brown mustache. “I didn’t realize.”
“You didn’t realize that you were grinding my poor arch to dust beneath your boot heel?”was what shewantedto say. Her younger sister, Eloise, would have said it and more. But Annabel, ever the epitome of ladylike grace and politeness, merely fluttered her lashes and murmured demurely, “You are such a superb dancer, my lord, that I hardly noticed.”
Lord Wimplebottom brightened. “Do you think so? Mummy Dearest always said…”
She allowed his words to drift away. The best course of action, she’d discovered, whenever a dance partner began to elaborate at length about their beloved mother. Not only was she mildly repulsed by any sentence that began with the words “Mummy Dearest”, it was also an unconscious effort to protect her tender heart…still healing after the death of herownmother.
Lady Catherine Rosewood, Countess of Clarenmore, had been much adored and respected by all that knew her. But no one had loved her more than her husband and four children. James, the eldest. Followed by Lenora, Bridget, Annabel, and Eloise.
The doctors had warned Lady Rosewood that after the birth of her second daughter, she ought to consider stopping. Each pregnancy had brought unique challenges, and after each labor it took her longer and longer to recover. But the countess had refused to listen. Clarenmore Park had twenty-two bedrooms, and she’d often been heard saying that she wanted a child for every single one. A loud, boisterous, loving family–the kind that she’d never had courtesy of a cold, sterile upbringing as the only child of strict, unfeeling parents.
