Page 44 of Temptations of a Wallflower
“I’m just not used to London anymore,” he’d answered, but that was far from the truth.
Now, alone in the garden, he pushed his body into motion as his thoughts churned.
He roasted upon the spit of his own conscience.What had happened had been . . . much more than he’d ever imagined. Awful, wonderful. Liberating. Imprisoning. A host of contradictions that continued to torment him, days later.
He’d never felt as free as he’d been at the masked gathering. As though he could finally loose himself from the checks that held him firmly in place, confining him to a role that never felt natural. The club had been a place of unfettered sensuality. A realm of the senses. And he’dbelonged.He’d experienced all the things that he normally kept locked within himself. Confidence had surged through him. There hadn’t been anything to prove. He could simplybe.
And it had worked! Women had gathered around him in remarkable numbers. They’d hinted at invitations both silent and spoken.
He’d been intrigued. What man wouldn’t be? But none of the women had fascinated him so much as the Golden Woman, as he’d taken to thinking of her. In her gold cloak and mask, she’d looked still, remote, yet alive with sensuous energy. She’d been alone, hardly attracting attention to herself, but he hadn’t been able to look away from her. She’d been a lodestone, drawing him forward, obscuring all thought other than the need to be near her. To touch her. See if she’d been as cool and distant as she’d appeared.
He’d been another man as he’d crossed the room to her. He’d transformed as he’d taken her hand and guided her onto the dance floor. Bolder than he’d ever been. Possessed with a self-assurance he’d never had. Whoever this Golden Woman was, he’d craved her with a sudden and inescapable need.
Then he’d kissed her. And just that one kiss had surpassed all his previous carnal experience. She’d been spicy and sweet, utterly delicious. Irresistible with her seeking lips and forthright desire. There had been a moment, a bare moment at the very beginning, when he could have sworn that she didn’t know much about the act of kissing. But that hesitation and uncertainty had quickly burned away, revealing naked passion.
Need continued to pulse through him as he turned down the garden path, barely seeing the hedges and statues around him. They were obscured by the storm cloud of his thoughts hidden in the mists of his mind.
Where that kiss would have led . . . What might he have done had the Golden Woman not broken the contact and fled? There had been a second of wanting more, but then she’d left, and he had been on his own. Alone with the growing specter of regret.
That same remorse cut him now with rusty, jagged knives. His hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. He was a cad. A bounder. Worse. Far worse.
Lady Sarah was the one he wanted, not some faceless, nameless woman at a masked orgy.
There had been an intangible quality about the Golden Woman that had called to mind Lady Sarah. Both were watchful, separate. Was that why he’d been so comfortable approaching her in the first place? Yet the Golden Woman wasn’t Lady Sarah.
He wanted to apologize to Lady Sarah, but he couldn’t tell her about where he’d been and why he’d been there.
It would have to remain a secret, buried within himself. Even the thought of confessing it burned him. He would take this knowledge to his grave, but it would always smolder like a coal within him.
He stopped in his anguished pacing as a thought occurred to him. The Golden Woman and the Lady of Dubious Quality might be one and the same. She’d held herself apart from the proceedings, just as the Lady of Dubious Quality might. She hadn’t had the same practiced air about her as the other women, as though she lived a life of the mind more than one given to masked orgies.
My God—it made sense. He went ramrod straight at the thought. He’d come so close, soveryclose to his quarry.
“Brooding is bad for a man’s humors,” his father’s voice said, interrupting his thoughts.
Jeremy glanced over with dismay. Lord Hutton strode toward him, brow lowered. It was an expression with which Jeremy was a little too familiar. What would his father disapprove of now?
“Sometimes it’s the only recourse,” Jeremy answered, his temper too short for deference.
“Nonsense,” his father clipped. “There’s always the moderate option.”
“Moderation is a luxury in which not everyone can indulge,” Jeremy countered.
His father’s frown deepened, and no wonder. Jeremy seldom spoke to Lord Hutton this way. But Jeremy was too exhausted and drawn taut to give his father the usual reverence he demanded.
Standing in front of Jeremy, Lord Hutton clasped his hands behind his back and glowered. “Your searchfor the Lady of Dubious Quality seems to have grown stagnant.”
“I’ve been conducting my investigation,” Jeremy said.
His father waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve seen none of it.”
Jeremy couldn’t tell his father about the masked society—and the fact that he’d very likelykissedthe Lady of Dubious Quality. “Nevertheless, it’s been carried out.”
“I want more progress,” the earl insisted. “Whatever it is you’ve been doing, you’ll need to push harder on discovering who this jade is, and soon.”
“I’m doing the best I can,” Jeremy answered.
“You seem to need further inducement,” his father said. “If the prospect of more money doesn’t inspire you, then perhaps less might be more motivating.”
