much.'
'Isabella wasn't sure it suited her.'
'It does.' Like sorcery suits an enchantress, he thought, not sure he cared to stay in the same room with a woman who could make him forget everything but lust.
'There, you see?' Molly smiled at Isabella and then, turning to Dermott, who'd not advanced past the threshold, she asked, 'Would you like to see another gown on Isabella?'
'No.' Male and female voices, instant and soft, spoke in unison.
'Very well.' Molly waved the servants out and crooked a finger at Dermott. 'Come in and join us.' She patted a chair beside hers. 'I hadn't expected you so early. Did you have good luck at Tattersall's this morning?'
The commonness of her question set the tone, and Dermott brought his errant senses to heel. 'Very good luck,' he replied, moving toward her. 'I found two yearlings with promise and Harkin's roan was on the block.'
'So you helped ease Harkin's gambling debts?'
'I may have paid them off,' the earl noted, taking the chair beside Molly and sliding into a sprawl. 'That roan is a damned fine racer.'
'Do join us, Isabella.' Molly pushed a delicate fauteuil forward.
There was no way to refuse and not look like a child, so Isabella tamped her feverish emotions with supreme effort and walked across the pale carpet.
He watched her from under his lashes.
Skittishly aware of his gaze, Isabella approached them with a wildly beating heart and pinked cheeks.
She fairly glowed, the provocative juxtaposition of trembling innocence and flamboyant sensuality intense, her ripe body displayed in all its splendor beneath the sheer black lace, her downcast gaze chaste as a virgin's.
Which thought momentarily disconcerted him, but anyone with a body like Venus herself couldn't be completely chaste, he decided. As if reason were a requirement with the state of his erection. He shifted marginally to ease the tightness of his trousers.
His movement, however slight, drew Isabella's gaze, and her breath caught in her throat. He was blatantly aroused, the black knit fabric of his trousers tightly stretched. And for the first time in her life, she felt a heated shimmer deep within the core of her body, the feeling so exquisite, she came to a halt.
He smiled as if he understood.
She smiled back because she couldn't stop herself.
And Molly thought it best to slow the pace. She wished her young guest to acquire some of the expertise necessary to entice more than Dermott's fleeting lust. 'You must tell Dermott of your cartography society,' Molly declared. 'Miss Leslie owns an uncommon library of rare maps,' she added, turning to Dermott. 'Pour us all some champagne, and you can compare your visions of the world.'
His vision at the moment had to do with a finite view of the paradise between Miss Leslie's legs, but he could see that Molly was intent on putting pause to their heated encounter, and no one ever bested Molly in a confrontation. 'Really?' he said, reaching for the bottle in the bucket of ice. 'Not the library in Grosvenor Square?'
'You know of it?' A new concentration overtook the fever of arousal, and Isabella took her seat with them.
'I've been there only twice. I didn't realize you were that Leslie, nor that the banker who held my mortgages was your-'
'Grandfather,' Isabella quickly supplied. 'My goodness!' She felt as though she knew him suddenly, his recollection of their connection enough to make him not so much a stranger who took her breath away but a family friend-who took her breath away, she reflected with an inner smile.
'Isabella will be staying with us for a few days,' Molly noted, offering the information as though they'd not discussed her previously over breakfast.
'Lucky for us.' Dermott leaned over with a glass of champagne for Isabella, careful not to touch her fingers. Regardless Molly's presence, he couldn't guarantee his docility.
The scent of him wafted over her as he leaned close, and heady with the fragrance of maleness and fresh citron, Isabella took the glass from him and proceeded to drink a good deal of it in one swallow.
Her agitation was appealing. Of course, what about her wasn't appealing, he mused, concentrating with effort on what Molly was saying as she offered him a plate of petit fours.
'She was thinking of perhaps acquiring some additional skills while she's with us,' Molly declared, putting the plate down at his refusal.
Suddenly his attention was fixed, his gaze intense. 'Additional…' he murmured, his glance swinging over to take in the disconcerted Miss Leslie.
'Isabella requires safeguards… protection from an unwanted marriage.'
'I see.' His dark gaze held Isabella's.
'Something in the way of a denouement.'
'Ah…' His voice was like velvet.
Mesmerized, charmed, warmed by the sultry heat of his regard, Isabella felt as though he might indeed be her white knight in this outlandish predicament. 'I have relatives who wish my fortune,' she murmured, half breathless under his spell.
'I could call them out.' A strange obligation overcame him, as though he should offer her something for what he was about to receive.
'You would kill them surely.' Nervously, she shook her head. 'They aren't men skilled with weapons.'
'Does it matter when they victimize you so cruelly?'
'I wouldn't wish their blood on my hands.' The whole world knew of his expertise.
He didn't answer for a moment. 'As you wish.'
'Isabella wishes to discourage their avarice in a less fatal way,' Mrs. Crocker interposed. 'With your cooperation.'
'At your service, mademoiselle.' His voice was soft, low, oddly touched with compassion. Quickly setting his glass down, he slid up from his lounging pose, impatient with such sentiment.
'This is extremely awkward.' Isabella twisted the stem of the goblet in her fingers and would have looked completely artless save for her voluptuous breasts about to burst from her low decolletage.
Awkward indeed, he thought, not sure he was capable of taking what she was offering with such guileless naivete. Equally sure he couldn't long resist her bounteous pulchritude. 'Please,' he gently said. 'I believe I know what you're about to say, and there's no need. I willing accede to your wishes, whatever they may be. You decide what and where and let me know.'
She looked up from the goblet in her hands and exhaled in relief. 'You're most kind, sir.'
'I'm most fortunate, Miss Leslie,' he replied softly.
'Perhaps in a fortnight, Dermott,' Molly submitted.
Isabella blushed while the earl wondered how he could last that long. But infinitely polite, he gracefully bowed his head. 'I await your pleasure, ladies.'
Dermott left Molly's shortly after, and waving his driver off, walked away at a pace that indicated his deep frustration. He passed through Green Park, continuing through Hyde Park to Kensington Gardens, completely immune to his surroundings, the uncommon degree of lust Miss Leslie evoked not only torturous but disturbing, his thoughts in tumult. A considerable time later, he found himself on the banks of the Thames, the sun setting over the river in a spectacularly brilliant crimson, and startled, he looked around as though waking from a dream.
Understanding a degree of sanity and good judgment was called for, he found a hackney cab, gave directions for his London house, and studiously avoided thinking of the blond jezebel in the black lace gown. Intent on supplanting images of the delectable Miss Leslie with more available females, he arrived home, quickly bathed and dressed, and set out for an evening at Carlton House, where the Prince of Wales's set could always be counted on for unbridled revelry.
Dinner was informal, with the usual male coterie of the Prince's engaged in outdrinking each other. Mrs. Fitzherbert was in Brighton, so the few women present were of questionable social status, a fact Dermott welcomed in his present churlish state. [2] As the evening progressed, the guests moved into the music room, where they were joined by ladies who were there to entertain
