Page 37 of The Traitor's Curse
“I can only hope my efforts in that direction have been satisfactory for Duke Lucian.” I blinked at him, lips parting, hardly able to believe my ears. “For my part, nothing in this world could give me more gratification than attending him. As closely as he’ll allow.”
The blood beat in my ears, a steady throb that couldn’t quite drown out the gasps and mutterings that rose up from theassembly like steam off a simmering pot.
“I can’t believe you left me here alone for so long and then made an entrance like that. I’m going to kill you,” I hissed, too quietly for anyone else to hear.
“Only if your guests can’t find a way to murder us both first, such as with that wine you seem to think I didn’t notice you were drinking,” Benedict shot back, and stepped close to me. Damn it. “Get in line.”
Very close. Close enough to fling the last bit of oil on the wildfire of the gossip running around the ballroom—and to convince anyone who’d been skeptical that their duke really had taken up with his notorious stepbrother, defying etiquette, the prevailing morality, and everyone who’d ever wanted Benedict for themselves.
The line to kill me might be a long one by the end of the night.
At least we made a picturesque pair for everyone to stare at, Benedict’s piratical black a striking contrast to my pearl-embroidered sky-blue silk.
He always had to be the center of attention. Arriving late. Dressing to draw everyone’s eyes to his broad shoulders and long legs.
Slipping an arm around me and resting his hand on the small of my back, a heavy warmth that burned through my layers of clothing and made me sway toward him involuntarily, everything below my waist going tense.
“You shouldn’t do that,” I whispered, frozen in place, even as I fought the urge to wrap my arms around his neck and press myself to him, wrap my legs around his hips and climb him. “It’s too much. You’re causing a scene. Show some decorum. If they try to kill us, I’m standing behind you and letting them murder you first.”
Instead of listening to me, he slid his hand down an inch,teasing over the crease of my ass in an arrogant, proprietary way that had me trembling under his touch, the ache between my legs building to a desperate clench.
Gods, they’d all see—they’d all know where he’d put his hand when he reached behind me.
They’d see, and they’d realize Benedict was the one taking what he desired while he reduced me to a weak and wanting thing, that I’d never have been able to lure him, or anyone, into a lascivious trap of my making. They’d know that later tonight Benedict would strip me and spread me and use me, their duke, as nothing but a hole for his cock and his magic. Why had I thought any of these clever, malicious, observant people would really believe I’d been the one to seduce him, to use him for my own pleasure? When they’d been watching us both for years, and they knew Benedict was the one who always got his own way?
He leaned in and down, gazing into my eyes as if no one else in the room existed.
“If they really try to kill us I hope you will,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking into a smile even though his eyes stayed steady and serious. “I’m fairly certain that’s my job, because you’ll be paying me for it later.”
Paying him for it.
Right.
Benedict’s eyes on me, dark and intent, and the solidity of his arm at my back, and the magnetic warmth and strength of his body…they were all temporary, conditional, and ultimately false.
No matter why he’d chosen to play into my charade, to act as if the rumor I’d started had been true, it wasn’t real.
We couldn’t simply stand here with everyone gawking at us. My false smile had melted away, I could feel it, and they’d all know something was terribly wrong. I had to speak. Make some witty remark. Pull away from him. Think about anything other than the strange, hollow ache that had formed under my ribs,or about the way Benedict hadn’t taken his eyes off of me, still meeting mine as if he’d forgotten about everything else on Earth.
Another lie, of course. But he’d had so much practice in making men believe he meant it that I couldn’t be blamed for falling victim too, could I?
In desperation, I said, “Dance with me, Lord Benedict,” pitching my voice to carry to the nearest eavesdroppers and raising a hand to signal the musicians.
“I’d be honored, Your Grace,” Benedict replied—as if he meant it. As if he wanted nothing more than to dance with me, and despite myself, despite damn well knowing better, the warmth and pleasure of it fizzed in my veins more intoxicatingly than the sparkling wine.
The tambour player set a brisk rhythm, the tambourine and recorder adding a counterpoint and a sweet, lilting melody—they were playing one of my favorites.
Gods, I hadn’t danced in so long. Notreallydanced, something more invigorating than that dull walk across the floor I’d carried out with the Surbini lady. My whole body began to move with it as Benedict led me out, his arm still around my waist even though the dance called for us to be linked only by our outstretched hands for the first figures.
He slid his arm away and took me by the hand at last as we reached the center of the ballroom, and I wished I’d defied propriety and gone without gloves the way he had, so that I could’ve savored his skin against mine.
But even through my glove, I had the heat of him and the sureness of his hold on me, the gentle way he led me through the opening of the dance and then his sudden strength as he swung me close.
He grinned at me as I took the lead, drawing him through the dance in reverse, turning and kicking, feet tapping to the jingle of the tambourine and the low thrum of the viol, spinningas the higher notes rang out.
Everything whirled around me, almost too fast and too exhilarating, but Benedict remained the steady point in the center of it all, anchoring me, and I was smiling for real, now, rather than faking it—until he spun me once more and reeled me in, fetching me up against him suddenly as the music stopped with one final clash of the tambourine.
He held me so close that I hardly had room for my heaving breaths. Our faces were inches apart, my head tipped up and his bent down, his lips so close, one hand on my shoulder, the other wrapped around my waist, the thick length of his cock digging into my abdomen, one thigh pressed between mine, and my breath came faster and faster—
