A Good Debutante's Guide to Ruin

  She didn’t want merely a kiss. She wanted a kiss that she would never forget.

  Sliding her hand from his arm, she stepped back. She glanced down the corridor and pointed to a door. “This looks like the one. I believe my friend is in this room.”

  He smiled, but there was a grim set to his lips, as if he understood. This was good-­bye. “Don’t come back here.”

  “I won’t.” Turning, she moved toward the door, feeling his gaze on the back of her dress, and she knew he would wait until she was safely in the company of her friend. Her hand dropped to the latch. Turning, she pushed it open and peered inside. The room was empty. A quick glance at the window revealed the same ­couple still preoccupied on the bed in the adjoining room. But no Aurelia.

  Frowning, she stepped back out into the corridor.

  Dec approached. “Your friend?”

  “She’s not there.”

  “She likely moved on to other diversions. There’s much to see and do in the house.”

  She nodded, beginning to feel the stirrings of concern. She hoped Aurelia was all right.

  “No worry,” he murmured, plucking her hand and dropping it back on his arm, no doubt sensing her concern. “We’ll locate her. Or Mrs. Bancroft. Surely she knows where your friend is. She knows the comings and goings of everything in Sodom.”

  They didn’t move right away. It was as though a string stretched between them, keeping them connected. Keeping them from stepping too far from each other.

  “Never been kissed?” he mused, clearly in no hurry to sever the string. “Interesting. You can’t be married, then?”

  She laughed lightly, nervously, touching her domino, making certain it was still in place. “Of course not. I wouldn’t be here if I were married, would I?”

  His smile was slow and sensuous. Amusement was etched in the well-­carved line of his bottom lip. “You think that so absurd? That a married lady would frequent this place? You really have strayed from the flock, haven’t you? How did you even hear of a place such as this?”

  “Rest assured, it was quite by accident.” She thought of Aurelia, imagining his expression if she happened to inform him that his cousin was the one responsible for her presence here.

  “A happy accident, then. For me.”

  “Is it? Even though I’ve changed my mind and wasted your time? You could be with a more willing female right now.”

  His gaze skimmed her, a physical touch. “None nearly as interesting as you.”

  “Are you complimenting me because you think it will win my favor?” A coy smile lifted her lips. “I’m certain a gentleman . . . a nobleman, no less . . . who looks as you do can have anyone he wants.” She waved a hand at him.

  He leaned in, propping a hand on the wall above her shoulder. His body pressed close but stopped just short of meeting hers. And yet his warmth radiated, reaching her, touching her in spots that she never even knew could feel sensation. She inhaled. God, he smelled good. Like clean man and something else that was entirely him, imprinted on his skin. Wind and salt and heat. “It’s not always ‘anyone’ that I want,” he whispered, his warm breath sending a rush of goose bumps across her arms.

  “Oh.” The single word escaped her in a breath. He was good. Heat swallowed her face. “Me?” She shook her head. Swallowing, she whispered, “You can’t . . . You don’t—­”

  “I want the one who isn’t so easily affected. By my title. By pretty words. Like you, yes.” He considered her for a moment, his gaze roving over her bare shoulders, the swells of her breasts. She sucked in a breath, remembering how very nearly transparent the bodice was. The action forced her breasts higher against the thin bodice and his eyes darkened. “I’m going to hazard a guess that you’re surrounded by nobility. Only that explains why you are so unimpressed. Your father perhaps? Is he titled?” At her silence, he shrugged. “Keep your secrets. If it makes you feel comfortable.”

  Oh, her secrets didn’t make her comfortable . . . they made her a wreck of nerves.

  They proceeded back down the hall in the direction of the stairs. She heard them before she rounded the corner, spotting the boisterous group of men and women hovering in the threshold of a room.

  Dec gestured. “Perhaps your friend . . .”

  Rosalie scanned the gathering. “I don’t see her among the spectators.”

  They stepped closer and Rosalie peered between the bodies to the scene within the chamber.

  “Oh,” she choked as she spied four ­people sprawled in the middle of a massive bed. A man was spread out naked in the center. Three equally unclothed women hovered over him, kissing him . . . everywhere. One even kissed him directly on his—­

  With an inarticulate sound, Rosalie whirled past the crowd and ran blindly down the hall. Mortified and feeling decidedly . . . overheated, she rounded yet another corner.

  She heard his voice behind her, calling her to wait, but she didn’t stop. She had to flee from the shocking display she’d witnessed. From how it made her feel. And perhaps, most importantly, from him.

  She was almost to the stairs when he caught up with her. His hand came down on her arm and yanked her back around. “Where are you going?”

  She shook her head. “I should never have come to this place. I’m sure you think me foolish and irrational—­”

  He cut her off with a swift shake of his head. “I think you’re a girl far out of her ilk here. Nothing more.”

  A girl. Indeed. A girl on the brink of marriage whether she liked it or not. She had insisted on choosing, but what would her choices be? She gulped with the bitterness of that realization. Choice was an illusion. She had no choice and little control.

  Of course the irony wasn’t lost on her that the man standing before her happened to be the one pushing her into marriage. The one controlling her fate.

  And yet she didn’t want to be that girl. A girl led. A girl without choice. She wanted to be in control even if it was fleeting.

  Even if only for one kiss.

  His dark eyes flicked back and forth over her face as if awaiting her response. She could not fathom what he saw. It could not be much in the dim light of the hall. With over half her face hidden by a domino and framed in the black wig, he could not see much. Just her eyes peered out, drinking in the sight of him.

  “What are you thinking?” she whispered.

  “That you need to go home and forget about this place.” He lifted a hand, and she held still, resisting the instinct to pull away. He brushed one of the tendrils of hair that fell across her shoulder. “Forget me.”

  Impossible. She held herself still for a moment, savoring his hand on her hair, the heat radiating from his body, so close to her own. This. It was supposed to be like this between a man and woman.

  He smelled good, like soap and male. He was so handsome that it hurt to even look at him. A first kiss should be this. Or rather the moment leading up to the first kiss should be like this. The pull. The heightened awareness. A man whose mere closeness, his face, his eyes, his lips, made her ache.

  She would have this. The moment before the kiss.

  No. More. She would have the kiss.

  Standing on her tiptoes, she circled her hand around his neck and pressed her lips to his. They felt warm, firm but soft. Softer than she had expected from such a hard man. A small breath escaped him, and her stomach fluttered at the gust of warm air in her mouth.

  She pulled back, hand loosening on his neck.

  He stared down at her, his eyes dark and fierce. “I thought you changed your mind.”

  “I changed it back.”

  “Why?”

  “I decided I wanted my first kiss after all.” She dropped her hand from his neck and started to pull away, satisfied that she had come here to do what she set out to do.

  His arm came around her waist, hauling her back, pressin
g her intimately to his chest, holding her up so that her feet came off the ground. She felt her eyes go wide.

  “Then let’s make it count.” His head dipped, and when his mouth came over hers, there was nothing hesitant about it. No, his lips were commanding and thorough, both soft and hard, slanting over hers. It was nothing like that first press of her lips to his. “Open your mouth,” he rasped against her lips.

  She obeyed, and gasped at the thrust of his tongue, gliding across hers. He tasted of heat and scotch and male.

  He backed her into the wall and she clung to him, relishing the sensation of his strong body sinking against hers. She wrapped both her arms around his shoulders, her fingers delving into his hair.

  His kiss deepened, grew harder, his tongue bolder, lapping at hers. She kissed him back, moving her tongue, mimicking his movements and tasting him as he tasted her. She marveled that a kiss could be so consuming. How it could set all of her ablaze.

  “Wrap your legs around me,” he instructed. The command made her shake. She hesitated, unsure how to go about that, but before she could speak or move, he grasped one thigh and guided it around his waist. When he reached for her other thigh, she understood and hopped up to meet him.

  The thin fabric of her gown fell like a waterfall around her legs, offering no real barrier. She felt him between her legs, his lean hips wedged between her thighs. And that part of him. The bulge of his manhood rubbed at the core of her, where all sensation seemed to begin and end.

  She moaned as he thrust himself against her. Her belly clenched.

  How did one begin a kiss and not want more? Not do more? Or was it simply that this kiss was better than most?

  Yes. That was it. It had to be. It had to be because it was him. Dec.

  She grabbed his face with both hands, reveling in the bristly stubble of his cheeks against her palms. She slanted her mouth and licked her way inside his mouth, her thighs tightening around him, instinctively angling so that she felt him even better, harder, right over the throbbing core of her.

  “That’s it,” he growled. “Take what you want.”

  His guttural voice was like a dose of cold water.

  She’d had what she wanted. She’d had her kiss. A kiss with Dec, no less. This needed to stop. Before it became impossible to stop. She knew that point couldn’t be far from now. She ached and quivered so badly. She was certainly already close to that point.

  She tore her mouth away, panting, both heartened and alarmed to see that he was panting, too. He wanted her. He ached and quivered for her, too.

  They stared at each other in the murky corridor. His features were cast in gloom, but it didn’t matter. She had them memorized, and she could see what was lost to shadow. Every line. Every hollow. She could see him so clearly, so perfectly. And now she had the taste of him to forever go with his image.

  She brought her gloved fingers to her lips, brushing the tender flesh. “Oh. My.”

  “For first kisses, I’d say you have received a thorough education.”

  She nodded once, speech impossible.

  “Did it meet your expectations? Your hopes?”

  “I . . . yes.” Beyond that.

  He brushed her cheek with his hand and his head inched closer again, coming back for more. Her gaze fixed on his mouth, hungry, wanting him, and she realized she might not have the power to resist, to stop this from happening.

  “Ah, there you are.”

  They jerked apart. Rosalie snapped her attention to the figure approaching them up the stairs. Mrs. Bancroft held her skirts as she ascended. “I was just returning to check on you, my dear.” Her gaze, shadowed and unreadable within the bright plumage of her domino, fixed on each of them in slow turn.

  Rosalie moved down one step to meet her. Dec stopped her, stalling her with one hand on her shoulder.

  She looked from him to Mrs. Bancroft uncertainly.

  The proprietress nodded as though understanding that they needed a moment. “I shall await you at the base of the stairs.”

  The desire to call out to her and ask Mrs. Bancroft to return and accompany her warred within Rosalie’s chest. It was cowardly perhaps, but what was left for them now? More kisses? That would only lead to ruin. It was one thing to toe the line, another to dive headlong over the side.

  And there was the fact that every moment in his company put her at risk.

  But Rosalie said nothing. She let the proprietor of Sodom drift away, leaving her alone with the man whose kiss still burned on her lips . . . on her very soul.

  “I must go,” she whispered in her carefully modulated voice.

  “You won’t return.” It was not a question but a statement—­which he only confirmed by adding, “This place is not for you.”

  But you are. You are for me.

  The wretched thought snuck into her heart, unbidden.

  She nodded in agreement, panicked at the foolish direction of her thoughts. “I won’t be back.”

  Slowly, he lifted his hand from her shoulder. Everything about him seemed resigned, and perhaps that was regret in his eyes.

  Satisfaction curled through her. It was a dangerous thing . . . this feeling that he had enjoyed their kiss, that he regretted its end. That he enjoyed her. That she was somehow different than the multitude of women to pass in and out of his life. In and out of his bed. Dangerous indeed.

  She was an indiscretion. She was his stepsister. Two factors that meant this would never happen again.

  “Your name, then. At least leave me with that.”

  “No names,” she murmured, trying not to choke on the idea of giving him her true name.

  “But you know mine. Banbury. If you . . .” He paused and sliced fingers through his dark, unruly hair. As though he did not know quite what he was doing or saying. “If you ever have need of me, or wish to see me again, you may contact me. Directly . . . or send word through Mrs. Bancroft.”

  She blinked. Was he truly inviting her to see him again? That feeling that she was somehow different, special, reasserted itself. It lightened her heart and made her wish. Made her wish she was someone else so that she could be with him.

  “Thank you, but that’s not necessary.” She inclined her head. “I received what I came for. Thank you for obliging me.”

  She turned without lingering for his reply. Mrs. Bancroft waited for her at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Well. I trust you are satisfied?” she asked as she looped arms with Rosalie.

  “Quite so. Thank you. Have you seen my friend?”

  “I believe she’s engaged in a game of whist. Let’s fetch her before she gets in over her head.”

  Rosalie frowned. “Is it a high stake game?”

  “Oh. Indeed. The only games to be had at Sodom are high stakes, but not in the manner you are thinking. So let us fetch her while she still has her clothes and hasn’t wagered away her virtue. I think that might be more than she bargained for at her first night at Sodom, don’t you agree?”

  With a gasp, Rosalie quickened her pace, alarmed at the very prospect of Aurelia now naked in a room full of strangers.

  Fortunately, when they found her she was still garbed and sitting at a table with none other than Lord Camden. Shirtless. She couldn’t see below the table to detect if he still wore his trousers, but he did not look too happy as he sat there—­ostensibly losing at cards.

  Rosalie stopped in the threshold. This room was better lit than the upstairs. Even with the wig and domino, there was a slight possibility he might recognize Aurelia.

  She couldn’t hear what they were saying from across the room, but Aurelia’s lips were moving and her head was in that cocky angle of hers. Rosalie knew it meant her ire was up. Aurelia was annoyed, and if she wasn’t careful, the viscount would guess her identity, disguise or no disguise. They were quite familiar with each other, after a
ll. Camden was one of her brother’s closest friends.

  “Mrs. Bancroft,” she said, “would you mind having my friend meet me at the front door?”

  “Of course.”

  Rosalie watched for a moment as the proprietress made her way across the room, stopping at intervals to exchange pleasantries. She was the consummate hostess. She stopped at Aurelia’s table finally, patting the well-­muscled shoulder of the viscount fondly. Of course he was a regular here, too—­just like Dec—­and the lady would know him.

  Rosalie glanced over her shoulder, almost like she was expecting to find him there, conjured by the mere thought of him. She really needed to make herself scarce. If he saw her in this lighting, he’d take one look at her and know.

  Suddenly, Aurelia was before her, face flushed and eyes bright with merriment. “Rosalie, how did it go?”

  She shook her head. “We have to leave. I’ll tell you on the way home.”

  Nodding, Aurelia followed her, holding her questions until they were in a hack and headed across town.

  “Well?” her friend pressed, settling back on the squabs. “Did you have your first kiss then?”

  “I saw Lord Camden was at your table,” Rosalie countered, not ready to talk about her kiss. “Did he recognize you?”

  Aurelia made a snort and her flush deepened, creeping all the way down her throat into her décolletage. “That boor. Max only sees what he wants to see.”

  “Did he recognize you?” she demanded. “Do you know for certain?”

  Aurelia shrugged. “Possibly, but he wouldn’t have dared say anything. He wouldn’t risk ruining me. I’m Will’s sister. And Dec’s cousin. He wouldn’t be that inconsiderate of his friends.” This last bit was said with something of a sneer. As though she didn’t think he would refrain from ruining her reputation simply for her sake—­only theirs.

  Dread closed in on Rosalie, tightening her throat. If Camden mentioned seeing Aurelia at Sodom that night, Dec might walk down the path to concluding that she had been there, too.