though every single bit of her felt as if it was melting like a meringue before a gaslight. “A gentleman wouldn’t even own such a thing!”
Ritchie snagged his lower lip in his white teeth for an instant, still fondling the edge of the card. There were stars in his dark blue eyes that seemed to dance in time to the waltz playing in the ballroom beyond them.
“A lady wouldn’t have posed for it in the first place.”
True, but she wasn’t going to admit that to him. A lady wouldn’t have behaved like an incautious ninny and given in to her fiancé’s importuning, champagne or otherwise.
“Touché, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice tried to imagine a steel bar down her spine to match the busk down the front of her corset. Rigid corseting was the only way to stand up to Ritchie without dissolving in the heat from his eyes. “But I’m afraid those photographs represent an unfortunate and misguided incident. An error of judgment on my part that I’m trying to put behind me.” She paused, readying herself for flight at a dignified pace. “And I hope that members of society will also find it in themselves to relegate my indiscretion to the past, where it belongs.”
Turning, she made to walk away, but a hand prevented her. A hand on her upper arm, right in the vulnerable space between the top of her long opera glove and the wisp of French faille that constituted the abbreviated sleeve of her gown.
Bare skin on bare skin. Some time between their first meeting and this moment, Ritchie had removed his white evening gloves and his fingertips were hot as points of fire on her naked upper arm.
“Kindly let me go, Mr. Ritchie!”
Oh, too shrill, far too shrill. But immediately he released her. Or did he? The imprint of his fingers still held her immobilized. As did the dark fire in his eyes.
“You’ll never put the photographs behind you, Beatrice. They are you.” His voice was quiet, yet seemed to ring through the halls of the Southerns’ vast mansion. “I suspected as much when I first saw this.” He drew out the photograph he’d been taunting her with, and it was the most shameful one of them all, the tableau where she appeared to be touching herself between her legs.
Appeared? Is it just that? Did I actually do it? She still couldn’t quite remember, but a shudder ran through her. Ritchie’s eyes licked over her, following its progress.
“And now that I’ve met you, my dear, now that I’ve seen you in the flesh, I know.” His red tongue flicked out, touching the center of his lower lip. “You’re a goddess of sensuality, Miss Weatherly, truly a siren. And the sooner you admit it, the happier you’ll become.” The fans of his eyelashes beat down, all provocation and seduction. How could a man have lashes as long and thick as his and still be so uncompromisingly masculine? They were disturbingly beautiful and sensuous. “As will I.”
“I’m afraid my sensuality … or lack of it … is none of your affair, sir.” She tried to picture the steel bar again, but it was hopeless. She hated this taunting creature who was famous for getting any woman he wanted, but her traitorous body was yearning toward him as if it wanted to bend and mold itself to every contour of his. And trying to tell it not to yearn was wearing her out. She was close to breaking point. “Now, if you would kindly let me go, I’d like to return to my brother.”
“But I’m not holding you.” He laughed softly, the husky sound dancing along her nerves and teasing her most tender parts. “Except here.” He ran his thumb slowly over the cabinet card, letting it linger at her breasts and her thighs.
Aghast, Beatrice almost lifted her hand to strike him, but common sense stopped her. The man was an insulting blackguard, and lingering here was just giving him exactly what he wanted. The best thing to do was to leave, and leave immediately.
“Good evening, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice took a step away from him, but somehow it was like wading through molasses. How could she not be running yet?
“Wait a moment, Miss Weatherly, aren’t you at least going to allow me to mark your dance card?”
Beatrice glanced down at the little card dangling on its ribbon from her wrist. “I’m afraid not. As far as you’re concerned, it’s full already.”
And with that, to her surprise, the spell was broken, and as fast as she could without charging like a madwoman, she sped away from him.
She didn’t look back. No, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction!
Yet she could still see him stroking her photograph as she fled.
EDMUND ELLSWORTH RITCHIE DIDN’T FOLLOW Beatrice Weatherly. He couldn’t. He could only watch her as she stalked away from him, her shoulders almost vibrating with antagonism. Every swish of her pale skirts was like a wash of flame across his body as she wended her stiff-backed path through the groups of convivially chatting guests, leaving a faint aura of lily of the valley in her wake.
Even if he could have moved, he probably wouldn’t have. His cock had hardened like a ramrod the moment he’d set eyes on her, and was now a considerable bulge in his trousers. He had a reputation to be sure, but to be seen sporting a prominent erection at a society ball was a bit too risqué, even for him.
Had Beatrice seen the way he’d come up for her? She hadn’t glanced in that direction, but then, what well-bred young woman would?
All of which confirmed his instincts. Despite the fact that he possessed photographs of her lolling naked on an animal skin with her dainty hand pressed between her thighs, he still couldn’t shake off the notion that she wasn’t quite as licentious and free thinking as such a pose suggested.
What are you, my Beatrice? A hedonistic voluptuary or an untouched Vestal? Either way, you’re everything I dreamed of … and more.
It was impossible to decide which role excited him the most, but what he did know for sure was that Beatrice Weatherly had bewitched him. His ensorcellment had begun the first instant he’d set eyes on the card now back in his pocket, but meeting her in the living, vibrant flesh had increased it a thousandfold.
The collection of photographs had been circulating sub rosa at his club for a while, a minor sensation, and bored one day, he’d asked a friend to pass him one.
The sense of shock had been like a blow to his head, heart and gut all in the same moment. He’d been stunned to silence by a young woman’s exquisite, naked beauty, and he still couldn’t entirely deduce why that was so when he’d seen many gorgeous nudes in his adult life. But shock had turned to arousal, and arousal to a worrying obsession. He’d meant to meet Beatrice Weatherly in order to free himself, but now, instead, everything he’d felt seeing the photographs was validated.
Her face, in animation, didn’t possess the classic perfection of some of the society lovelies he’d courted. Miss Weatherly wasn’t even as delicate as the photographic rendering had suggested. There was a wild, untamed quality about her, something he couldn’t quite define and which she didn’t seem to be aware of herself. Her complexion had a creamy, almost animal vigor and her hair was so savage a red that the photograph’s hand tinting had merely hinted at it. He wouldn’t go so far as to say she was coarse or uncouth, quite the reverse, but she seemed to overflow with health and energy, and perhaps appetites that more delicate hothouse paragons sadly lacked.
And her body, oh God, her scented body.
How could she possibly appear as erotic and alluring in her outdated and obviously painstakingly made-over evening gown as she did out of it? It wasn’t attributable to any amount of corsetry or sundry feminine mechanicals, even though Ritchie was well acquainted with what women wore beneath their costumes.
No, with Beatrice Weatherly, every attraction came from the woman herself. Her dark green eyes, her fierce Amazonian expression, the way her head came up and she gasped as he challenged her.
I’ll make you gasp, Miss Weatherly. You can be sure of that. And even if you’re still angry with me, you’ll be glad you let me.