Roberta moved nearer, and he caught the sweet scent of her perfume. Her proximity should have affected him, yet he could summon no more than a polite smile of appreciation. She was a beautiful woman and relentlessly clever as well.
She tapped his arm with her closed fan. “You are hardly dressed for the occasion, darling. Was this another of Lady Calliope’s surprises?”
He considered denying it to save face, but Roberta was too intelligent to be fooled. “Of course it is. What the devil is her cause tonight?”
“Artists, I believe.” Roberta’s smile turned flirtatious as her gaze dipped to his mouth. “Monsieur Bisset and Monsieur Moreau are in attendance.”
Christ.
Moreau had painted Callie in Paris. The gossipmongers had gleefully seized upon the suggestive nature of the portrait after it had been shown in exhibition in London. Benedict himself had been tempted to plant the Frenchman a facer.
“Why would she invite the opportunity for further scorn and ridicule?” he muttered, half to himself.
He and his sister were opposite in appearance as in temperament. He was fair-haired and science-minded. She was raven-haired and an unabashed lover of the arts. He preferred calm and quiet. Callie was like a storm.
“Monsieur Moreau’s work is celebrated,” Roberta said, sliding her fan down his forearm as if it were a caress. “He is a friend.”
Friend.
Rumors certainly suggested Moreau was far more to Callie. Benedict did his part to make certain eyes were upon her at all times, keeping her from trouble as much as he could now that she had returned to London from abroad. But she was still Callie, and no one could tame her.
“She should not have invited him,” he growled, his irritation with his sister deepening.
“But you invited him, darling,” Roberta countered. Her fan trailed over his wrist, just the slightest of touches over his skin.
“Of course I did not invite him, and you know it.” He cast a glance back toward his sister, who was sipping champagne and laughing, standing far too near to a tall, dark-haired gentleman. “This was all Callie’s doing, as usual.”
“She makes an excellent hostess.” Roberta cast him a heated look from beneath lowered lashes. “But that is not the reason I am attending, I confess. The true reason is you. I have missed you in my bed.”
Roberta knew how to tantalize. Knew what he liked. She made no claims upon him, asked him for nothing but pleasure, and gave him everything he wanted in return. She was the perfect lover. He should feel something more now, and it nettled him to realize the reason why his interest remained tepid.
The golden-haired dragon who had invaded his study that morning.
His cock twitched at the memory of creamy skin and black silk and the deliciously pinched frown on her lips. Another image rose within his mind then, one most unwelcome in the midst of a crowded ballroom: Miss Isabella Hilgrove in his bed, writhing in ecstasy as he spread her thighs wide and licked her center.
He cleared his throat. “I have missed you as well, my dear. Forgive me my lapse in attentiveness, if you please. My only excuse is that I have been inundated with Special League matters.”
“Dreadful news about the London Bridge,” Roberta said, a frown marring the otherwise flawless beauty of her face. “Thank heavens the miscreants presumably blew themselves up instead.”
“Yes,” he agreed, though he could not suppress the ill feeling rising within him at the remembrance of the reports he had so recently suffered. “Roberta, I must have a word with my sister now. I will return to you later.”
“Must you go?” She pouted, which was most unlike her. “You have only just arrived. I find myself desperately unwilling to relinquish you with such haste.”
He cast another glance in Callie’s direction. She was drinking from a fresh glass of champagne, laughing at something one of the throng of gentlemen surrounding her had said. He knew his sister well enough by now to know when she was about to mire herself quite firmly in trouble.
“I am afraid you must,” he told Roberta mildly. “Duty calls.”
“Duty has been calling with disagreeable frequency these days,” she told him, her blue eyes telling him what her words did not directly state.
She grew weary of his infrequent appearances in her bedchamber. Roberta had a voracious carnal appetite, but lately, he had been having the devil of a time summoning up sufficient interest in bedding any female, let alone her.
Until Miss Hilgrove, taunted a voice deep within.
“Forgive me, dearest,” he said, lifting Roberta’s hand to his lips for a kiss as he bowed formally. “I promise I will return.”
“See that you do, darling,” she called after him.
He stalked toward his sister, wondering what was wrong with him, that he had a voluptuous, gorgeous woman all but begging him to bed her. And all he could think about was one stubborn female in a prim black-and-gray dress with buttons up to her throat.
Isabella reported for duty the next morning at Westmorland House, five minutes before the appointed time of half past eight, wearing a gown black as a raven’s wing. It was joyless and prim, and it buttoned up her neck. She had chosen it specifically to defy the duke, it was true.
The same butler who had denied her access to Westmorland the day before—until she had grown weary of his protests and stormed past him—greeted her. His countenance was carefully expressionless as he took her pelisse and hat.
“His Grace is expecting you, Miss Hilgrove,” the servant intoned. “If you will follow me?”
He led her through the massive house, taking her in a different direction than they had traveled the day before. This time, up a flight of stairs.
“Where are you taking me, sir?” she asked as they neared the top.
If the Duke of Westmorland thought to further mock her by having her delivered to his personal apartments, she would give in to the desire to box his ears, which had been plaguing her ever since she had left him yesterday morning.
