Page 8 of Heart of Iron
Lena clapped enthusiastically.She wanted a closer look.She was talented with her steel clockworks, but this was artistry on a level she could barely comprehend.
Unfortunately, most of the crowd wanted a closer look too.Lena found herself separated from Adele and eddied to the side, like a piece of flotsam in a raging current.
Dashing a feather out of her vision, she looked for Adele.
And that was when she saw him.
The warmth drained from her face.Alaric Colchester, the Duke of Lannister, watched her from across the crowd, a predatory smile on his thin lips as he sipped a flute of blud-wein.Her heart skipped a beat.Against the pale, powdered skin of his face, his red-stained lips flashed through her mind, reminiscent of a time long ago.But that time, the blood had not been watered with wine.
He wasn’t supposed to be here.She made certain of that before she accepted any invitations these days.With a meeting called in the Ivory Tower between the Council of Dukes that ruled the city, she’d been sure she’d be safe.
It must have finished early.
Lena tore her gaze away, her heart thundering in her ears.Don’t run.If she’d learned anything over the years, it was that fear roused a blue blood to uncontrollable hungers.
A swift glance showed movement through the crowd.The pale, shining blond of his hair as he stalked her.Lena strained on her toes.Where had Adele gone?There was sometimes safety in numbers.
If Colchester felt like playing by the rules.
He was a duke, after all.Head of one of the seven great Houses that ruled the city.If he wanted to take her here, right now, then he could drag her off and no one would dare say a thing.Her guardian, Leo, the only man with the strength to counter Colchester, had been at the Ivory Tower meeting, standing in for his father, the Duke of Caine.
Lena moved into the crowd, a smile pasted on her face.The patch of bare skin at the back of her neck tingled.Lifting her glass, she tried to catch a hint of his reflection, but the crowd was too dense.
Damn him.She shot a look over her shoulder.
Too many people, pressed together and laughing at the mechanized puppetry.No sign of Colchester.
Music and laughter assaulted her ears.The crowd was a riot of bright colors as she whipped her head around, a fist clenched in her skirts.Don’t run.God, don’t run.But where the devil had he gone?
A large pink ostrich feather floated through her vision.Adele.Lena pushed toward her.A pair of ladies gossiped behind their fans and Lena staggered between them, straight into a firm chest.Gloved hands caught her shoulders, as if to steady her.
“So sorry,” she murmured, then froze as she saw the ink-black velvet coat, with its gold epaulets and a tassel draped from his right shoulder.
“You look pale, my dear.”Colchester smiled his shark’s smile and his hands tightened as she instinctively tried to draw back.“Like you need some air.”
His grip urged her to the side, toward the garden.Lena dug her slippers in and shook her head, a desperate smile pasted on her face.She couldn’t let anyone see her distress.It would only start rumors she couldn’t afford.A lady’s reputation was all that kept her from being claimed by any blue blood as his blood whore for the night.
Somehow she forced a laugh.It was her only defense.“Au contraire, Your Grace.”A swift gesture at the gardens around them.“I have nothingbutair, it seems.”
His eyes glittered with dark enjoyment.The hairs along her spine rose, but somehow she managed an insouciant shrug.Colchester would scent the rising spike of fear, acrid on her skin.A delicate sauce, he’d once told her, to flavor the meal…
“Thank you for catching me, Your Grace.But I’m afraid I must find my friend, Adele.She was feeling poorly.I was supposed to fetch her some water.”
“A pity,” he soothed, his hand dropping to hers.He stroked her fingers through the silk of her gloves.“I was hoping you would save a dance for me.Theassah, if you will.”
A dance designed to tempt, to best display a potential thrall’s assets to a blue blood.The smoky eroticism of it was something she’d never surrendered to in public, but to witness it… Oh, to witness it was something else.“I’m afraid I—”
“I wasn’t asking.”
Lena tugged at her hand, but his iron fingers curled around her wrist, a hint of shadow darkening his pale eyes.
“Don’t tempt me, my dear.I’m trying to be courteous, but I’m afraid your beauty quite drives me…out of my mind.”A smile, then he brushed the back of one hand against her cheek.
Laughter surged through the crowd, making her jump.They were so close and yet they might as well be in the Orient for all the good they would do her.
“Have you thought any more on my offer?”he asked.
“I’m afraid I’ve been terribly occupied—”
