Heiress Without a Cause

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

In Ferguson's carriage the next night - her first night pretending to be his mistress while leaving the theatre - Madeleine could not meet his eyes. Being alone with him in a closed carriage was very different from dancing with him in a crowded ballroom.

Ferguson seemed similarly lost in thought. He stared straight ahead, at a point somewhere just to the left of her head. The cadence of his fingers tapping out a rhythm on his knee was the only indicator of his mood.

But then she noticed his eyes occasionally flicking over her, a gesture she wouldn't see unless she was trying to read his face. It was an attempt to reassure himself of something - her mood? Her acquiescence?

The next time he glanced over her, she caught his gaze. "I really cannot thank you enough for your help."

He shifted in his seat. "Do not thank me yet, Mad. Wait until I have survived the next month without touching you, and then you may be grateful."

She felt the same powerful kick that she always experienced on the stage. Those were words of adoration, hinting at a need for her that he could not easily control. And she had created that need, even though he knew who she really was.

Marguerite Guerrier won over all who saw her, but no one had wanted Madeleine Vaillant before.

The knowledge that he wanted her, combined with her own desire to feel everything she might have done if she had ever married, added a dangerous fuel to her actions. She leaned back into the seat, still holding on to his gaze. "You are not the only one who will find our masquerade challenging."

He arched a brow at her, an arrogant look he must have perfected long before he became a duke. Her lips curved into a smile. Men like him had never attracted her before - but then, she had never known how it could feel to have one such as him at her feet.

Her heart beat faster and she lowered her voice. "Perhaps we should practice how we might appear together in the demimonde."

She was useless as a flirt, but he was smart enough to grasp her meaning. "You want to practice being my mistress?"

"I find my acting improves with experience," she said, hoping she sounded like a coquette but fearing that she sounded like a fool.

He laughed. She flushed bright red as the heady bubble of attraction burst. She was indeed a fool... she didn't know how to play these games... he was helping her out of charity, not desire. She turned away from him, wishing she could hide in a carriage as easily as she did in ballrooms.

He reached across the carriage to stroke her cheek. "Mad - it's not you I'm laughing at. Imagine my predicament, though. I have the most beautiful, talented woman in London as my mistress, and I cannot touch her without ruining her."

She looked back at him. Several emotions flickered across his eyes in the dim light of the coach, but mockery was not one of them. "And I have the most notorious rake in London in my carriage to save my reputation. Aren't we quite the pair?"

He watched her for a long moment. She saw the battle play out on his face. Abruptly, the darker side won, and he shifted his hand to her wrist and pulled her toward him.

She landed in his lap, too astonished to do more than squeal with surprise. With her face mere inches from his, she could see the banked, smoldering look in his eyes - just as he tilted her mouth and kissed her.

Where their first kiss was interrupted by Josephine and the second kiss performed for the benefit of Westbrook, this kiss, their first real one, was pure possession. His mouth slanted over hers, and he didn't wait for an invitation to take the kiss deeper, to suck her breath away as he claimed her tongue.