The earl leered at Arabella and Dominic felt his fists bunch in response. He forced himself to stay calm. Brawling with Misbourne would only draw the wrong kind of attention to her.
‘If you will excuse us, sir. We were just leaving.’
‘But not before you have introduced me to your lady friend. Could this be the delectable Miss Noir about whom I have heard so many whispers?’ He peered around Dominic at Arabella.
Dominic felt the rage flow through his blood. He could smell it in his nose and taste it upon his tongue. Every muscle was primed and ready. Every nerve stretched taut. His loathing of Misbourne flooded him so that he would have knocked the man down had he not felt Arabella’s fingers touch his arm in the gentlest of restraints. Only then did he recollect his senses.
‘Goodnight, Misbourne,’ he said in a tone that brooked no refusal, and when he looked at the man’s beady, glittering dark eyes behind his mask he saw that Misbourne understood. The older man took an involuntary step back from the threat.
Dominic took Arabella’s arm in his and he was so grateful that she had stopped him.
She did not utter one question, nor throw so much as a glance in Misbourne’s direction. She just held her head up and waited.
They walked away together, away from Misbourne and the fireworks. Away from Vauxhall and the wonderful night.
***
The carriage wheels were rumbling along the road carrying them back to Curzon Street and still Dominic had not spoken.
Arabella could sense the tension emanating from him, the echo of the anger she had seen directed against the man, Misbourne, in Vauxhall. All illusions had vanished the moment Misbourne and the woman had appeared.
‘Does everyone know that you bought me from Mrs Silver?’ The words would not be contained for a minute longer.
The carriage rolled past a street lamp and in the brief flicker of light she saw his face through the darkness—handsome, hard edged, dangerous—before the night’s darkness hid him again.
‘How naïve of me not to have realised.’ She shook her head and looked away, feeling sick at the thought. ‘What else do they know, Dominic?’ What else have you told them? she wanted to ask.
‘Nothing, I hope. I paid Mrs Silver very well for her silence. And I trust my friends, who were with me that night, enough to make no mention of Miss Noir.’
‘You did not tell them?’
‘Of course I did not tell them, Arabella! My affairs are my own, not tittle-tattle for the amusement of others.’ His voice was hard and angry. ‘Do you think I would have gone to such lengths to hide you were it otherwise?’
‘You guard your own reputation well.’ This was all about protecting himself. How foolish to think it could ever have been about her.
‘I am guarding what is left of yours,’ he said grimly. Then his tone softened slightly. ‘I am not unaware of the … sensitivity of this issue.’
She looked across at the shadowed man through the darkness and was not sure she believed him.
‘Of what it would mean to your mother were she to learn the truth.’
‘God forbid …’ Arabella pressed a hand to her forehead, horrified at the prospect of that revelation, even if it were something rather different to that which Dominic envisaged. But even as she thought it she was wondering why Dominic should have the slightest care over her mother.
‘They may know of Miss Noir, but they do not know the identity of the woman behind her mask.’
Yet.
The word hung unspoken between them.
‘You may rest assured that I will do all in my power to keep it that way.’
She stared at him, not knowing what to make of his attitude.
‘I will make discreet enquiries over—’
‘No,’ she said too quickly. If he started asking questions, who knew what he would discover. Everything that Arabella had striven so hard to hide. ‘No,’ she said more gently. ‘Words already spoken cannot be unsaid. Asking questions will only make it worse. Besides—’ she glanced away ‘—you are a duke; there will always be an interest in your dealings. And the lure of a coin will mean there are always tongues to be loosened.’
And she could not blame them. She of all people knew what it was like to be poor and in desperate need of money.
‘Perhaps, but speed and generosity has always worked in the past to silence them,’ he said.
‘But not this time.’
‘Seemingly not.’
There was a small silence.
‘Thank you for trying.’ Her words were stilted. Gratitude sat ill with her when it came to Dominic, but for all that she felt she knew how much worse it could be, had he taken her as his mistress as carelessly as he had abandoned her as his betrothed.
The carriage wheels rolled on.
She steered the conversation to safer ground. ‘Who was he, the man in Vauxhall? Misbourne.’ The man who had stirred in Dominic such barely leashed fury.
There was a small pause before Dominic answered, ‘A delusional old fool, Arabella, but not one you need have a worry over.’
Another pause.
‘I thank you that you stayed my arm,’ he said. ‘Brawling with an earl at Vauxhall would not have been conducive to our maintaining a low profile.’
She gave a nod of acknowledgement. And she wondered as to this man who she knew to be a rake and a scoundrel. A man who had made her his whore, yet did not flaunt or humiliate her publically. A man who went to such pains to preserve her privacy and who, it seemed, had a care for her mother’s sensibilities.
The carriage came to a stop outside Curzon Street.
The hour was late. She did not know whether he would come in. Whether he would kiss her. Bed her. And she was not sure if she dreaded it or wanted it. Nervous anticipation tingled right through her.
He helped her from the carriage and into the hallway, dismissing James the young footman who was acting as the night porter.
Only two wall sconces were lit and the soft shadowed lighting lent the hallway an unusual intimacy. Or maybe it was the fact that they were standing there alone in the middle of the night facing one another.
Arabella did not know what she should say. She could feel the tension between them, feel the speed of her heart. Her mouth was dry from dread, her thighs hot from desire. She swallowed and it sounded loud in the silence.
‘You need not worry, Arabella, I am not staying,’ he said in a voice as dark and rich as chocolate. ‘I came only to see you safely inside.’ As if to reinforce his words she could hear the sound of the waiting carriage from the street outside.
In the flickering of the candlelight she thought he had never looked so dangerous or so handsome. There was a hardness to his face that had not been there all those years ago, but when she looked into his eyes, those dark velvet brown eyes, Arabella saw something of tenderness. And for all that she should have known better, for all of her common sense, she felt the stirrings of old feelings that she had thought never to feel again. There was such an allure of forbidden attraction that the atmosphere sparked with it.
Her breath was shallow and fast, her stomach a mass of fluttering butterflies. ‘This arrangement between us. I thought that you would … That it would be different between us …’ She met his gaze. ‘I do not understand.’
‘Neither do I, Arabella,’ he said.
Her heart was thudding so hard she thought