The Wolf of Mayfair

She immediately withdrew from the casement, and, though much agitated, sought in sleep the refreshment of a short oblivion.

—Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho

The mournful east winds wailed and drummed upon the crystal panes like Badb, the deathkeeper, knocking at the window to claim those slated for death.

The fire blazing in the hearth did little to warm the guest chambers Helia currently inhabited. Instead, those wildly snapping flames merely cast grimly black shadows over the darkened room.

The unforgivable storm continued to rage, the tempest as cold as this palace made of limestone on the outside and garishly gilded throughout.

Horace House was as pitiless as the gentleman who’d ruthlessly stated his claim to the portentous place.

Tucked into the mahogany gadrooned and upholstered four-poster bed and with a heavy silken coverlet drawn close to her chin, sheltered from that violent tempest, Helia should have drifted off to sleep the moment her back hit the billowingly soft mattress.

Instead, just as she’d done since she’d climbed into bed hours earlier, Helia squirmed back and forth in a bid to get comfortable.

It didn’t help.

Restless, she stole yet another glance at the table clock on the nightstand beside her bed.

Three hours. It’d been three hours since she’d first been shown to her rooms, bathed, and changed into her modest nightshift.

Three hours thinking about how she danced with ruin by being here. Now she counted down the moments until the storm abated and she could sneak off, with the world none the wiser about her having spent the night alone with London’s darkest, most dangerous rake.

Only, if you’re truly being honest with yourself, that isn’t all you’re thinking about . . . a voice in Helia’s head silently—and worse, accurately—taunted.

It’s that you’ve never seen a man as finely crafted as the marquess.

Nay, she hadn’t. She’d known men as big and broad of muscle, but no one like him.

A man as fiendish as Lord Wingrave should be an exact likeness of a storybook villain—sporting a thin black mustache that curled at the corners and pockmarked skin.

Certainly, he shouldn’t have the face and form of Adonis and the soul of Satan.

Some three or four inches past six feet, and with broad shoulders and finely defined arms, he was as well put together as the brawniest Scots she’d watched partake in the caber toss at the annual Highland Games.

Lord Wingrave possessed a preternatural beauty that marked him untouchable and dared mere mortals to approach him.

He was like a tall, unbending, cold marble statue. With his ruggedly handsome features—sharp cheeks, square jaw, and aquiline nose—he possessed an air of masculine perfection that only those artists could have managed to create. Hard, thin lips and nape-long jet-black hair, with cool, subtle blue undertones, only further lent the marquess an air of icy detachment.

Not that it mattered either way whether he was as bonny as a man could be.

He was a lout. At that, a rude, condescending, mean, surly, impatient lout.

Why, then, did he fascinate her so?

Perhaps it was because she’d never known an enigma such as Lord Wingrave. Why, he was no different from the complex puzzles she’d delighted in solving as a lass but also as dangerous as the games of snapdragon which had left her fingers burned so many times.

Helia rolled onto her side and stared absently at the windows as they shook from the force of the storm outside.

She’d wager the virtue she desperately needed to guard that becoming too close to Lord Wingrave would not only burn but consume a woman in a mighty conflagration.

Helia unthinkingly brushed the place upon her cheek Lord Wingrave had stroked.

Virgin though she may be, when he’d caressed her, she’d had a small taste of just what it was that made ladies tangle with a devil such as he—for the gift of his powerful, bold, yet shockingly warm touch.

An uncomfortable sensation built between Helia’s legs and she shifted in a bid to bring herself some relief.

Stop, this instant. Ye are nah one to lose yer head over a handsome gent.

Helia slunk deeper under the blankets, drew the covers high over her head, and forced herself to recall the vulgar things he’d said, all of which should have made her hate him to the core.

For a virginal young lady on her own, with only your virtue to barter for your existence, you seem very willing to throw it away by sharing the same household with a dastard like me. No companions or respectable figures about to shield your reputation and honor . . .

Icy snowflakes hit the windows like punctuation points to each of his wicked statements.

She continued to let those thoughts slip in.

. . . when you are ruined, you can rely on one truth—I will never marry you. At best, you’ll be my mistress, and then only if I can rouse enough interest to want a place between your legs . . .

His rake’s vow plagued and repulsed and, paradoxically, tantalized.

What made a man jaded as Lord Wingate had become? Why, when he’d been granted every gift of wealth, power, and influence, and a set of devoted parents who both lived, and a houseful of servants, should he be so very miserable?

And there must have been something so very wrong with Helia that she possessed a yearning to unlock the mystery around the grim stranger.

Not that you need wonder or worry about what gave Lord Wingrave reason to be so hateful and guarded. You’ll be gone soon enough, and in the safe folds of the Duchess of Talbert’s care.

Letting out an aggravated sigh, Helia lowered the heavy coverlet and abandoned her futile attempts at sleep.

Rolling onto her belly, she swung her legs over the side of the mattress. Her toes danced about in the air as she searched for—and found—the leathered top bed steps.

Shivering, Helia sprinted over to the pink, green, and yellow armoire and drew the lacquered doors open.

She fetched her serviceable white wrapper from within, and quickly shrugged into the garment. Next, she collected a pair of stockings and headed for one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the rear of the duke’s properties.

Edging back the heavy gold velvet curtain, she perched herself on the wide white sill, and as she drew her hosiery on, Helia attempted to take in the scene beyond the windowpanes. Since she’d last looked outside some hours ago, a thick, heavy frost had grown over the glass, making it near impossible for Helia to discern the previously visible grounds.

After she’d donned her white, worsted stockings, Helia straightened; her skirts fell noiselessly back into their proper place.

She rested both palms against the freezing glass; the bite of cold stung her hands, and still she kept them pressed there several moments. Then she scraped away at the melted ice until she’d fashioned a small peephole, and leaning close, she peered outside.

Alas, heavy snow came down hard and fast, worse than any Scottish rain, so that she couldn’t make out anything beyond the violent whorl of falling flakes and the blanket of white they left upon the vast stone terraces and even vaster gardens.

The ice-coated windowpane reflected back her sad smile.

In the not-too-distant past, there’d been a thrill and joy when wild storms ripped across the Highlands.

As a wee lass, such a gailleann had been one she’d welcomed and relished. After the tempest abated, she was always the earliest to rise the next morn. All so she might sneak outside and be the first to leave her footprints upon the fresh fallen snow. Her ma and da would invariably join her, lobbing a snowball her way to alert her of their presence. They’d all frolic in that snow until their cheeks were red and numb from the cold, then race to the kitchens, where they’d sip hot chocolate and eat oat porridge mixed with jam and sprinkled heavily with sugar.

Her smile dipped.

Now, alone in this dark, imperial mansion, that tempest battering the impregnable fortress cast a sinister cloud over this place and all who dwelled within.

Helia’s heart pounded. To get to this point, she’d braved the harshest Highland winter she could recall in all her eighteen years. Recent storms that’d passed through weeks earlier had left the old Roman roads already nearly impassable, all the muddier and more treacherous. Along the way, she’d managed to evade Mr. Draxton, twice. But in order to do so, she had been forced to remain at an inn, alone, unchaperoned, and had gone through too many of her dwindling funds.

She’d finally reached the duchess’s residence only to find a different, but no less grave, peril—sharing a roof with Lord Wingrave.

In remaining here, alone with Wingrave, she risked ruination. But to return to Scotland would mean she’d be raped by Mr. Draxton, forced to wed, and by society’s standards, then she’d belong to him in name and body.

The frescoed ceiling and walls began closing in on her.

Her breath came in hard, fast pants.

Leave.

Now!

Helia, with shaking fingers, grabbed the bronze candlestick beside her bed. She clutched the elegant triangular base so hard the metal left marks upon her palm as she sprinted for the door.

Helia pressed the delicately cast-brass handle, and as she let herself out into the hall, the well-oiled hinges didn’t emit so much as the softest of squeaks.

Helia paused with one foot on the threshold and the other hovering in the air, about to trade inanimate foes for the living, breathing dragon who’d declared his eminence over everything and everyone who set foot inside his kingdom.

He is out there . . .

Another gust of wind howled its concurrence.

He’d also had Helia set up in the main suites, in rooms directly opposite his. All he need do was cross the hall, insert a key he absolutely would have, and let himself into Helia’s chambers.

And suddenly, being anywhere else in this household, as long as it was far, far away from wicked Lord Wingrave, won out as the far safer option.

With that, Helia hurried from her temporary rooms, drew the door panel closed noiselessly, and tiptoed away.

The minute she’d put that hall behind her, she broke out into a full run.

Click.

His left ear may have been useless, but Wingrave never allowed that particular organ to face a door or person he spoke to. Following his illness, however, his right ear, not unlike Wingrave himself, had found an even greater strength.

It was how he heard the minute Miss Wallace opened her door.

She’d escaped.

If he had a soul worth wagering, he’d have bet the Devil himself Miss Wallace intended to fleece him and, at last, be on her way. Likely with his mother’s silver.

Another man may have raised a hue and cry or raced after her out of fear she intended to take something of his.

Not Wingrave.

Naked as the day he’d been born and lying at the center of his four-poster bed, he smiled with a hunter’s delight.

When he’d agreed to let her spend the night, he’d known what she intended. As poor as any waif in the streets and bedraggled like one, too, she was no more the daughter of some dead earl than Wingrave was God himself.

No, the prospect of catching Miss Wallace in that willful act of taking something that belonged to him had titillated and left him filled with an insatiable lust.

For one so young and so innocent and chaste, she’d displayed a temerity and resolve that tantalized.

No one had ever dared challenge him. But she had, and instead of being incensed with rage, he’d been inflamed by a fierce desire to lay claim to her, to dominate her.

He relished the chase; it made the eventual capture all the more satisfying.

Wingrave stood.

He didn’t bother with a shirt, just grabbed his trousers from the floor.

After he’d jammed his legs inside, he drew the garment up, tugged at his cock, and adjusted himself so he could properly close his placard.

Then Wingrave set out in pursuit.

He didn’t bother to collect a candle to light the way—his eyes no longer needed adjusting to the inky black of Horace House at night. No, to carry a flame would alert her of his approach and spoil the hunt.

He allowed her to expand her lead.

All the while, he trailed along the halls at a leisurely pace, and envisioned the delicious moment when he caught her.

Perverse in every way, the idea of the innocent woman, so out of her depths, thinking to take something of his made him hard. Merciless as the day was long, he’d meet that affront with an eye for an eye.

And he knew, from the way her breath had hitched when he’d caressed her cheek, she’d be hot for him. There’d be no taking. Miss Wallace would happily spread her legs and give him what he wanted.

Wingrave would find her, and quickly.

On a silent tread, he continued along the eastern corridor. Nor was it a gamble on his part.

He’d ordered the servants who’d escorted her to her rooms to do so along a specific route.

As sure as the sun set in the west and rose in the east, Miss Wallace would follow the same path she’d taken to reach her rooms earlier this evening. For no other reason than the familiarity and predictability of that path would give her a false air of security and self-control, she’d continue on as unsuspecting as a witless bird for whom he’d dropped crumbs, all to lead her where he wanted.

Which was when he’d pounce.

He reached the end of the west hallway and took a step down the adjacent corridor, which led to the silver cabinet, when a flicker of light snagged his attention.

Wingrave tunneled all his focus on the pale glow coming from a nearby doorway and grinned coldly.

Caught.

He took a step—

“She is in the Portrait Room, my lord.”

The bewigged footman, John Thomas, stationed at the front of the hall, spoke quietly and as proudly as if he himself had saved the silver Wingrave had been so very certain she’d been making after.

Wingrave gnashed his teeth.

Goddamn it. “Not a word more,” he said on a lethal whisper.

The man’s ridiculously large Adam’s apple bobbed wildly. “As you wish, m—” He caught himself too late.

John Thomas promptly lowered his gaze to the floor, wisely made himself as small as possible, and said nothing more.

As you wish, Wingrave thought acidly. If wishes were a thing and he were granted them, he wouldn’t have a useless ear.

Gritting his teeth, he made for the Portrait Room.

Draped in a flowing, high-necked nightdress, the lady stood with her back to him, examining one of the familial portraits.

“Never tell me you are so stupid as to filch a framed portrait and not the silver,” he said coolly.

Miss Wallace’s gasp echoed through the empty room. She whipped around to face him.

From across the room, they studied one another.

Wingrave took advantage of the light cast by her candelabra to consider her with a rake’s gaze.

Those flames cast a glow that penetrated her modest white shift and wrapper and put on display the hint of pale-pink nipples; the tips of those small mounds puckered against the fabric of her garments.

She wasn’t his usual type . . . nor would she ever be.

Titian hair he’d once considered garish. Though the flaming red and coppery hues burnished within Miss Wallace’s bright auburn curls suited the fiery minx’s temperament. Distinct brown freckles stood out, vivid specks upon her sharp, stark white cheeks.

Possessed of long legs, a sinfully narrow waist, and even narrower hips, she didn’t have a body to tempt a man, and yet . . .

He was a man of many tastes.

Under his debauched study, fear radiated bright in her pathetically expressive eyes.

With an unbreakable courage, she continued to hold his stare.

His randy shaft stirred with renewed interest at this latest display of the lady’s strength.

Miss Wallace broke first.

As if there’d ever been a doubt.

The lady sank into a flawless curtsy no street thief could feign. “My lord,” she quietly greeted.

That subservient gesture paired with her bold gaze sent another bolt of lust through him.

“I’m not a thief. I’ve not come to take anything from ye.”

“And yet,” he murmured, and started for her on deliberately menacing steps, “I find you not in your bed, where you belong, like a good girl, but rather here.”

A sinful image whispered forth. Of her, this lady no more than eighteen or nineteen, lying in the ghastly virginal robes she wore now, draped upon a bed and parting her legs as Wingrave lowered himself between her sweet thighs.

“Is there a question there, my lord?”

No, there was no question. He absolutely wanted to fuck her.

“Why have you left your rooms?” he said. Desire left his voice graveled.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed. Fear sparked in Miss Wallace’s eyes. “Am I your prisoner?”

Oh, God. The images this innocent painted continued to come. This time, the thought was of her stretched out with her arms and legs tied to the four posters of his bed so she lay helpless and wide open to his attentions.

“Would you like to be my prisoner?” he asked thickly. He’d be all too happy to serve her wishes.

She scoffed. “If I’d wanted to be anyone’s prisoner, I would have remained in Scotland with my devious cousin.”

Not anyone’s. Wingrave’s. Ah, God. Had he ever known one as innocent as she? Perhaps he’d had it wrong all these years. Perhaps the fellows with a taste for wide-eyed, untouched innocence had discovered a perverse pleasure he’d been denying himself.

“How can you be a prisoner,” Wingrave purred, continuing his feral approach, “when you begged to stay with me?”

He stopped before her.

“Ah dinnae beg to stay here with ye—I begged for shelter for the night, from the storm,” she said, with a husk to her contralto that further aroused him.

“Ah, but isn’t that the same thing?”

She swallowed wildly. “I dinnae believe so,” she whispered.

“Ah, but I do. Tell me, is it fear of ruin that has robbed you of sleep? Have you realized too late that, with my black reputation, even breathing the same air as me will see the whole world believing I’ve had you in my bed? And”—he dangled that—“with no choices available to you, that would be your only course—becoming my mistress. I believe you’d love that, Miss Wallace,” he purred. “Nay, I know you would. And not for the diamonds I’d drape you in but for the endless pleasure you’d find in my arms.”

She retreated a step, so quick she stumbled over her feet.

The lady righted herself.

“You said you dinnae desire me,” she reminded him, her voice pleading.

He’d been wrong.

Once.

There was always a first time for everything. And that saying clearly applied to carnal interests in a virginal miss.

“Ye said ye’d only offer me a role as your mistress if ye can rouse enough interest t-to . . . to . . .” Her blush deepened.

“To want a place between your legs?” he supplied all too happily. “I’ve had time to reconsider my initial assessment.” He glanced pointedly down at Miss Wallace’s demure white nightshift.

The lady followed his stare and automatically folded her arms around herself . . . as if she could shield herself from his gaze.

With those slim, delectable limbs folded, she bit the corner of her index finger.

Wingrave’s gaze homed in on lush, berry-red lips—the most voluptuous part of her painfully trim frame—and another wave of desire filled him.

He’d not last this night without the efforts of his own fist.

“Why are ye saying these things?” she whispered.

Truth. Truth was the reason he uttered each word he did.

“I am a lady,” she continued, with ravaged eyes. “And yet, ye dinnae think anything of speaking to me so.”

“I speak the same way I do to my lovers who are ladies amongst the ton as well as the most skilled ladies of the night.”

She drew back and stared at him like she stood in the presence of a monster.

And she did. The sooner she realized that, the safer she’d be. “Where is your conscience?” she demanded, with the greatest strength to any of the words she’d yet spoken to him.

He snorted. “I don’t have a conscience.”

She stared confusedly at him. “But everyone has a conscience.”

“Not I.” He’d destroy a man as easily as he’d fuck the same man’s wife and never look back.

Miss Wallace continued to peer at him like one seeking any hint that Wingrave wasn’t as soulless as he, in fact, was.

He’d been a weak bastard only once in his life. From his brother’s death, Wingrave had been born anew into a stronger man. He’d made himself a fortress that allowed no one in, so he could maintain strength and never again be reduced to a pathetic boy suffering hurts and mourning losses.

“Ye do have one, my lord,” she said softly, more to herself. “Some are just better at speaking louder over it to drown it out, but it’s still there.”

He smirked. “Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better to believe it, chit.”

He flicked an icy glance up and down her person. “Now, may I suggest you return to your chambers and not wander my halls, unless you receive my permission to do so.”

Miss Wallace gave her head a slippery shake, then collected her candelabra and walked a wide path around Wingrave.

It appeared the lady did have some sense, after all.

When she’d gone, Wingrave glanced over to the portrait she’d been studying when he came upon her—one of but a handful of bucolic paintings: in it, amidst a meadow, Wingrave and his late brother sat, surrounded by the team of hunting dogs. The artist had caught them in the moment, laughing, and memorialized it for all time.

Steeling his jaw, Wingrave stalked off, quitting the room he’d not set foot in since his brother died, and never would again.