Page 11 of The Wolf of Mayfair
The fire blazing in the hearth did little to warm the guest chambers Helia currently inhabited. Instead, those wildly snapping flames merely cast grimly black shadows over the darkened room.
The unforgivable storm continued to rage, the tempest as cold as this palace made of limestone on the outside and garishly gilded throughout.
Horace House was as pitiless as the gentleman who’d ruthlessly stated his claim to the portentous place.
Tucked into the mahogany gadrooned and upholstered four-poster bed and with a heavy silken coverlet drawn close to her chin, sheltered from that violent tempest, Helia should have drifted off to sleep the moment her back hit the billowingly soft mattress.
Instead, just as she’d done since she’d climbed into bed hours earlier, Helia squirmed back and forth in a bid to get comfortable.
It didn’t help.
Restless, she stole yet another glance at the table clock on the nightstand beside her bed.
Three hours.It’d been three hours since she’d first been shown to her rooms, bathed, and changed into her modest nightshift.
Three hours thinking about how she danced with ruin by being here. Now she counted down the moments until the storm abated and she could sneak off, with the world none the wiser about her having spent the night alone with London’s darkest, most dangerous rake.
Only, if you’re truly being honest with yourself, that isn’t all you’re thinking about... a voice in Helia’s head silently—and worse,accurately—taunted.
It’s that you’ve never seen a man as finely crafted as the marquess.
Nay, she hadn’t. She’d known men as big and broad of muscle, but no one likehim.
A man as fiendish as Lord Wingrave should be an exact likeness of a storybook villain—sporting a thin black mustache that curled at the corners and pockmarked skin.
Certainly, he shouldn’t have the face and form of Adonis and the soul of Satan.
Some three or four inches past six feet, and with broad shoulders and finely defined arms, he was as well put together as the brawniest Scots she’d watched partake in the caber toss at the annual Highland Games.
Lord Wingrave possessed a preternatural beauty that marked him untouchable and dared mere mortals to approach him.
He was like a tall, unbending, cold marble statue. With his ruggedly handsome features—sharp cheeks, square jaw, and aquiline nose—he possessed an air of masculine perfection that only those artists could have managed to create. Hard, thin lips and nape-long jet-black hair, with cool, subtle blue undertones, only further lent the marquess an air of icy detachment.
Not that it mattered either way whether he was as bonny as a man could be.
He was a lout. At that, a rude, condescending, mean, surly, impatient lout.
Why, then, did he fascinate her so?
Perhaps it was because she’d never known an enigma such as Lord Wingrave. Why, he was no different from the complex puzzles she’d delighted in solving as a lass but also as dangerous as the games of snapdragon which had left her fingers burned so many times.
Helia rolled onto her side and stared absently at the windows as they shook from the force of the storm outside.
She’d wager the virtue she desperately needed to guard that becoming too close to Lord Wingrave would not only burn but consume a woman in a mighty conflagration.
Helia unthinkingly brushed the place upon her cheek Lord Wingrave had stroked.
Virgin though she may be, when he’d caressed her, she’d had a small taste of just what it was that made ladies tangle with a devil such as he—for the gift of his powerful, bold, yet shockingly warm touch.
An uncomfortable sensation built between Helia’s legs and she shifted in a bid to bring herself some relief.
Stop, this instant. Ye are nah one to lose yer head over a handsome gent.
Helia slunk deeper under the blankets, drew the covers high over her head, and forced herself to recall the vulgar things he’d said, all of which should have made her hate him to the core.
For a virginal young lady on her own, with only your virtue to barter for your existence, you seem very willing to throw it away by sharing the same household with a dastard like me. No companions or respectable figures about to shield your reputation and honor ...
Icy snowflakes hit the windows like punctuation points to each of his wicked statements.
