Page 33 of Unmasking a Wicked Marquess
One of her hands rose from his jacket, and she gave in to the idle dream she’d had before of running her fingers through his dark hair, pulling playfully on the tendrils. He growled into their kiss with an almost animalistic sound.
That sound made her whole body quake with desire. The ache between her legs was even greater now, and as she brushed her thighs together, desperate for some relief, he rocked his hips against hers, pressing her deeper into the wall. She gasped, giving him the opportunity to part her lips even wider to deepen the kiss further.
She lost time. Juliet thought only of that kiss when suddenly the door of the privy opened, and they both pulled back from each other. Lord Ashton rested his forehead against hers as they both caught their breath, listening to whoever had visited the privy now running back down the corridor to return to the theatre.
“Now that is a kiss I don’t want to live without,” Lord Ashton murmured, lifting his head and smiling at her.
“Neither do I,” she confessed, her hands still on his jacket as his were still on her waist. As his hands slipped a little down her hips, she gasped once more.
“Those sounds,” he whispered, moving his lips back towards hers. “You do not know what you are doing to me, Juliet.” She raised herself, ready to kiss him again, but they both halted as someone else hurried down the corridor. “We need to get back.” He released her, planting his hands onto the wall with clearly some reluctance again. “You go first.”
Throwing caution to the wind, she raised herself on her toes and kissed him again. It was brief, just a tantalizing touch of their tongues as he growled into the kiss once more, then she slipped out under his arm and ran down the corridor.
Chapter 10
Juliet sat very still in the seat as Violet returned to sit beside her, offering her ice in a small glass bowl.
“Thank you,” Juliet murmured as she looked over the rim of the glass bowl towards the opposite side of the grand circle. It was the interval, and yet Juliet had not been able to move. She just kept darting her gaze at Lord Ashton, who once again was surrounded by ladies to whom he was being introduced by his mother, bowing to them over rows of seats as they waved at each other.
“What do you think?” Violet asked and sighed loudly. “I confess, I am stunned. What a performance! What a show. I think I have cried twice already and fear I will cry again before the show is over.”
“I have a handkerchief for you if it is needed,” Juliet said distractedly, managing to eat her ice too quickly and making her face hurt. She lowered the bowl to her lap once more.
“Yet you are distracted. You have not cried as I have done.” Violet waved her spoon at Juliet knowingly. “What is it that has you so distracted?”
Juliet sighed and nodded across the circle.
“You see that gentleman over there?”
“Which one?” Violet asked, craning her neck.
“The one who has ladies around him the way seagulls flock to steal food on a beach.”
“Ah, that one.” Violet nodded. “He is very handsome. Hmm, well, you have taste, sister, I’ll tell you that.”
“You shouldn’t say such a thing, considering who he is.”
Violet dropped her spoon in her ice bowl and looked at Lord Ashton again.
“Wait… do you mean to say that ishim?”She turned in her seat and fixed Juliet with a wide-eyed stare. “That is the Marquess of Ashton?”
Juliet nodded almost imperceptibly and took another bite of ice cream.
“Goodness.” Violet turned to look at him again. “Well, he is a popular gentleman, is he not?”
“Thank you for the reminder.” Juliet was struggling with all the ladies that flocked around him. As fast as he was done greeting one lady, his mother was introducing him to another.
Juliet’s eyes briefly landed on the Duchess of Lantham. She tried to recall knowing the woman from when she was a baby, but the task was an impossible one. She seemed a happy sort of lady, eager to show off her son, with a kind smile.
“You’re red in the face,” Violet observed, elbowing her to try and get her attention again.
“Look at them all.” Juliet pointed at the ladies with her spoon. “You’d think he was a feast for them to gorge on. They will not leave him alone.”
“Well, his responses are rather wooden and polite. If jealousy is your problem, then fear not.” Even as Violet spoke, Lord Ashton turned to another lady that Juliet recognized. This was Lady Clarissa Dominick, a fine lady of the ton who had many acceptable suitors. She smiled and waved at Lord Ashton, and he turned to smile at her genuinely. The two began to speak like old friends, and Juliet stared at the pair of them slack-jawed.
He just kissed me so scandalously in the corridor. Why am I jealous of him just talking to another woman?
“Hmm. Well, here is some comfort,” Violet murmured.
