Lord of the Masquerade by Erica Ridley
Chapter 10
“Shall we continue with black currants?” Unity did not wait for an answer, but continued on toward the first row of fruit stands.
She kept her eyes wide and her expression rapt as she listened to a long, boring lecture about which currants were fit for a ducal kitchen. She nodded sagely at each carefully researched conclusion.
When at last he finished his speech, he lifted his brows expectantly.
She reached out, plucked two plump berries at random, popped one into her mouth, and tossed the other at him.
He caught it out of reflex.
It was Unity’s turn to raise her brows expectantly.
A muscle worked at the duke’s temple. Politeness dictated he not be rude to a woman, nor offend the fawning vendor. With obvious ill temper, he placed the berry into his mouth and made a tight-lipped smile at the supplier as he chewed.
“You’re right,” Unity said at once, handing the vendor a penny for his troubles. “Not these. Let’s try the raspberries.”
She set off for the next stand.
Lambley caught up as soon as he’d retrieved Unity’s penny and purchased a pint of delightfully imperfect currants at no doubt an exorbitant price.
He was opening his mouth to scold her when he arrived.
“Is there an empirical method to determining the optimal raspberry?” she asked before he could get a word out.
His lips tightened only briefly. Of course there was a best method, which he had devised himself after much experimentation, and which he now enunciated in exhaustive detail.
“Mm-hm,” Unity said when he finished, and plucked two crimson berries at random from the cart. One for her, one tossed at him.
By the time they reached the blackberries, Lambley was on to her. He was also in possession of several quarts of imperfect fruit.
By the time they reached the elderberries, he’d ceased explaining his detailed berry-judging methodology, and switched to lecturing about a fictional law that included never allowing women in yellow dresses to opine on his kitchens, followed by lamenting the inferior berry-choosing capabilities of insolent young women whose name began with the letter U.
By the time they reached the strawberries, Unity was laughing too hard to listen to his increasingly dramatic speeches, and Lambley was trying too hard not to laugh to say anything coherent or truly disdainful.
Unity popped a strawberry into his mouth before he could get going on another tangent.
The duke’s eyes widened at this impertinence, but since his mouth was too full to scold her properly, he retaliated by lifting a strawberry from the cart and placing it between her lips instead.
Her mouth exploded with flavor. He had, of course, selected a bright red berry ripe enough to be sweet and firm enough to have a hint of tartness to balance out the flavor.
“That’s a good strawberry,” she was forced to admit.
The duke gasped in faux outrage. “You doubted my strawberry-selection capabilities? After all we’ve been through together on this interminable market escapade, you possess the unthinkable affrontery to—”
She dragged him to the cherry cart.
Their silly, delicious berry war was more fun than she’d ever imagined having with the Duke of Lambley. He took his masquerades so seriously, she hadn’t been certain the man was even capable of fun. But here they were, teasing each other and feeding each other and arguing passionately over meaningless details that neither of them cared about, because they were no longer in this market to buy food. They were still here because they were enjoying each other.
Only when not a single berry more would fit into her overflowing basket did they declare themselves defeated, and made their way out of the market to the queue of carriages lined along the street.
“Which one is yours?” he asked.
A real courtesan of the rank Unity was pretending to belong to would have a coach-and-four at her disposal.
“I walked,” she admitted, and hoped he merely thought her eccentric. “I’ll summon a hackney—”
“Nonsense. My coach is right here.”
She’d noticed it at once, of course. It was impossible not to. The distinctive coat of arms painted upon the door, the matched pair of tall, regal… uh… Unity didn’t know enough about horses to begin to guess their breed, but even to her ignorant eye, these two were the finest pair in the queue.
A blue-and-gold liveried footman opened the door for them, but it was Lambley who handed her up and into the luxurious interior.
Unity had never been inside a conveyance half so fine, but when her temporary arrangement with Lambley ended, it would not be his plush carriage or his gilded ballroom that she missed the most.
It would be the hour she’d spent with him today at the market.
“To where shall I instruct the coachman?” he asked.
Unity hesitated. She could not give the direction of her tiny room in a shared apartment and have him believe anyone of his class would visit such mean lodgings. Not only did she need to keep the charade intact, a vexing part of her also could not bear for him to think less of her because of her address and significantly lower station than High Class Courtesan.
She gave him her cousin’s address instead.
At this time in the afternoon, Roger would be at his club already. She hadn’t lived in his home since the day he’d thrown her out, but the servants still remembered her. They would allow her in the front door, and then she could walk through to the back and continue home down the alleys. She’d give the staff a few quarts of fruit to share amongst themselves for their trouble.
The walk home would be longer, but the small deception would be worth it. She didn’t want to jeopardize her chance at future moments like these with Lambley.
Not when he was looking at her as though he had found the perfect berry, ripe for the tasting.
They were no longer speaking. The easy banter of the marketplace had been replaced by a tension thick as custard and just as tempting. Lambley’s leonine eyes watched her as though he were keeping himself tethered on his side of the carriage out of sheer force of will.
She wished he wouldn’t.
The kiss they had shared had been heavenly. It had also been public. The knowledge so many eyes were upon her had distracted her from being fully able to enjoy the moment.
No eyes were upon them now. If he wanted to kiss her again, he could.
But he did not.
Perhaps she was not as winsome without an audience. His only playtime was Saturday nights from ten to six, with the rest of the week devoted to the serious business of wife-hunting. No—duchess hunting.
Unity would not be cast in the role. She was the wrong class, wrong color, wrong everything.
But she didn’t want to be anyone’s wife. Unity had her own plans. What she wanted at the moment was to be a woman the duke had welcomed into his embrace because he wished to. Because he chose to.
She needed to know if the kiss they’d shared had been real, or a trifling bit of showmanship undertaken to please his audience.
“Thank you for the fruit,” she murmured.
He scoffed. “I don’t care about the fruit.”
“I have never seen someone care more deeply about fruit than the Duke of Lambley in front of a gooseberry cart.”
“Fruit is no less important than anything else.”
And that was what made him all the more intriguing as a lover. He would not be content with a fumble in the dark. He would want to know the woman in his arms. Every inch. Her skin, her scent, her moans, her taste. He would not be a careless lover, interested only in his own pleasure. He would find all the secret places and not rest until he brought—
He leaned forward, his voice husky, his eyes hot on hers. “Stop me.”
“No.” She grabbed his lapels and pulled him forward, even as his mouth crashed over hers.
This time, he did not smell of rich cologne and taste of even more expensive champagne. His mouth tasted tart and sweet, the memory of every playful argument they had shared still lingering on their tongues.
His hands cupped her face, his fingers cradling her gently while his tongue teased and took, ravishing her and romancing her all at once.
This was not a kiss for an audience. This was the kiss he wanted to take, the kiss he wanted to give.
To her.
Unity met him parry for parry, kiss for kiss. She disentangled her hands from his lapels only to slide her hungry fingers beneath them, seeking the warmth of his hard, muscled body and the insistent beat of his heart against her palm.
His waistcoat was embroidered silk. Soft and slippery in comparison to the rough heat coiled within him. He felt like strength and power, danger and wealth. Wound far too tight beneath a thin veneer of control. He kissed her as though he were seconds away from rending both their garments to the floor of the carriage.
If he did so, she would fall down upon them and pull him to her to finish what they’d started, right here on the floor.
“We’ve arrived, Your Grace.” The coach came to a sudden stop.
Unity jerked her fingers out of the duke’s coat and smoothed his hopelessly wrinkled lapels.
He still held her face, his lips brushing against hers one last time before drawing just far enough away for them to meet each other’s eyes.
“We must stop this once I choose my duchess.”
That was a cold dash of water.
“Or when I wish to stop.” She pulled out of his reach. “Don’t be so arrogant as to assume I—wait. Do you mean to imply the lord of masquerades won’t so much as kiss another person once he’s betrothed?”
Lambley shrugged as if her shock held no merit. “I shan’t kiss anyone but my bride from the moment I’ve ascertained who it will be.”
Unity blinked. Not only was that not how the ton tended to operate, the duke’s parties implied a rather flexible understanding of traditional marital vows.
“Your monogamy starts even before she knows she’s your duchess?”
“I will know.”
It was like the fruit and the champagne towers and the careful arrangement of chairs. Once Lambley decided on a path, nothing would sway him—or tempt him. Not even a house full of scantily clad guests eager for a tryst upstairs.
His perfect future duchess would want for nothing. The duke would be hers. Body and soul.
Even though it was foolish, Unity could not help but wonder what it might be like to have someone feel that way about her.