He couldn’t help but chuckle at her surprise. He took her small hand encased in a silky glove and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. ‘Naturally, you.’ There was no denying it to himself. He wanted her. And since he hadn’t desired a woman since the night of the accident, it came as something of a relief to know he could still feel desire. ‘I would like to get to know you better. If it would suit you.’
Heart pounding strangely hard, he waited for her answer. God, he felt like a schoolboy all over again. Shy. Nervous of rejection, yet full of hope.
She looked wildly around as if expecting someone to leap out at her. ‘I couldn’t.’
She sounded so genuinely regretful, it made him all the more determined. ‘You could if you really wished to.’
Her bottom lip drooped. ‘It is not possible.’
He’d not flirted and bedded the most beautiful women in London without learning a trick or two. ‘It will be our secret. No one will ever know. Not from me. Not if you do not wish. I give you my word.’ He ran a fingertip along her jaw and ended up touching her bottom lip still flushed red from his kiss. ‘Please.’
‘I cannot risk—’
‘No risk. I simply want to talk, that is all. There is a garden at the back of the club. Very quiet. The windows on that side are all nailed shut.’ He and his fellow owners had decided early on that they would make very sure the club was inviolable to peeping toms and nosy newspapers. Nor did they wish to upset their more respectable neighbours. ‘Meet me there tomorrow evening at seven. I will leave the gate beside the mews open for you.’
She looked adorably confused. ‘I shouldn’t.’
He reached out to touch her mask. ‘You came here and you shouldn’t.’
Her shoulders sagged and he felt a little spurt of triumph, tinged with a dash of guilt.
‘If I can...’
Again the careful diction. Perhaps a foreigner trying to sound English, but not an accent he recognised. ‘If you can’t come tomorrow, then I will wait for you the next evening and the next until you do.’
‘I don’t know.’ On those words, she turned and fled.
But she would. He was sure of it. He’d seen the longing in those amazing spring-green eyes.
He followed her at a leisurely pace, not wishing to scare her. By the time he reached the front door and looked out, the carriage was gone.
‘Anything I can do for you, Yer Grace?’ Snyder asked.
Jake smiled at him. ‘Nothing.’
The man’s eyes widened in shock.
Feeling just a tiny bit smug, Jake walked away, humming.
‘’Ere you are!’
Heart in her throat, Rose swung about, water and suds splashing on the floor. Those were not the deep drugging tones of the man she’d lived in fear would discover her, but Flo’s strident angry tones.
She sagged back against rim of the sink. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
Flo folded her arms across her chest. ‘’Oo else would it be?’ Her expression changed from anger to worry in a heartbeat. ‘Wot’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ She swallowed the dryness in her throat that had been there since two nights ago. ‘I’ve had extra work,’ she mumbled. ‘I haven’t been able to get away. Perhaps I will see you later.’
Flo narrowed her eyes. ‘Oh, no. You’ll just go sneaking off again.’ She grabbed Rose’s wrist and dragged her into the pantry. ‘Tell me wot’s ’appened. You look like someone died.’
Misery climbed Rose’s throat and stuck there in a huge lump at the memory of His Grace the Duke of Westmoor’s large hand on the small of her back. The sensation of the tease of his lips danced across her mind and sent chills rushing across her skin. He’d been lovely. So handsome in an unkempt way, his hair a little longer than it should be, his cheeks hazed in stubble, his appearance slightly rumpled. As if he needed someone to care for him.
But, oh, his kisses, they had been truly amazing. Never had she suspected a kiss could be so pleasurable. It was all she’d been able to think about in her bed of a night.
How could she have let him kiss her? Knowing he was one of the owners of the club. Knowing how far above her he was—a duke, no less. How wanton she had been in her enjoyment of his mouth on hers. Worse yet, how she longed to kiss him again.
And she could, if she met him as he’d asked.
She didn’t dare, yet the thought of him waiting... She pushed the thought aside. ‘Was the dress to your liking?’
‘Of course it was. Why do you think I was looking for you?’ Flo shoved a handful of coins at her. ‘Why haven’t you popped in to see us tonight? No one does hair the way you do and the girls have been asking after you.’
She should never have ventured into the Green Room in the first place. If she hadn’t, she would never have met His Grace and she wouldn’t be walking around with her mind in a whirl and her heart aching.
They’d told her and told her at the orphanage what happened when girls let their emotions and feelings get the better of them. Most of those left there were the product of illicit relationships. As she was. Wanton blood ran through her veins. She’d refused to believe it, until two nights ago. ‘I have to go. If Mrs—’
‘The sooner you tell me wot’s wrong, the sooner you can go back to your dirty dishes.’
She gazed at her friend, at her kind and worried expression. She had to tell someone. Had to. ‘You promise you won’t tell.’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
Rose managed a weak smile at the childish oath. Where to begin? She peeked out of the pantry door. No sign of Cook.
‘I met a man.’
Flo squeaked with excitement. ‘You are walking out?’
Rose shuddered at the very thought. ‘Oh, no.’
Her friend glowered. ‘If the bastard took advantage, I’ll scratch his eyes out, so I will.’
‘Nothing like that,’ Rose hissed. ‘We danced a bit. He kissed me.’ She touched her lips at the recollection. ‘He was lovely.’
‘So...where’s the problem?’
‘He’s a gentleman. Oh, Flo, I tried on the gown and the mask and he caught me waltzing around in it. I think he thought I was one of the lady guests. He wants to meet me.’
‘So meet him. If you like him, that is.’
‘How can I?’ She gestured to her faded gown. ‘He’s a gentleman. One of the nobs.’ Worse. Far worse. He was a duke, but she did not dare mention that or Flo would guess his identity. ‘What would he think if he saw the real me?’ The thought of his disgust had her heart sinking to her shoes. All her life she’d been disdained. An unwanted orphan. Child of sin. ‘Perhaps he’ll think I tricked him on purpose. I can’t lose this job.’ Or her small room in the boarding house. She was barely able to afford it as it was. She’d have to start all over again and this time with no character. She’d be lucky not to end in the workhouse. Or worse. ‘I should never have put on that dress.’ She sank on to the hard wooden chair. ‘What am I to do? He’d said he’d wait every night until I met him. What if he really is waiting?’
Flo tilted her head, her blue eyes perceptive. ‘You like this man.’
She’d be lying to her friend if she said no and that she did