Page 8 of If the Duke Demands

She slipped on the jacket, and knots tightened low in her belly when she breathed in the scent of him wafting up from the superfine material. She bit back a defeated groan.Of coursehe would have to smell good.

Then he gestured for her mask, and she handed it over. He lifted it into place and tied it behind her head. When he rested one hand on her shoulder while the other slowly cracked open the door, the heat of his fingers seeped into her skin, all the way down her front to her breasts. Beneath the gauzy costume, her nipples tightened traitorously at the memory of his hands on them.

At that, her stomach plummeted, her humiliation complete. Even her own body was conspiring against her tonight by fraternizing with the enemy.

He peeked past her into the hallway, then lowered his mouth to her ear. “Go down the back stairs to the ground floor. The downstairs hall will be empty and dark by now. Go out through the terrace door in my study, and stay close to the garden wall where the shadows are darkest until you get past the stables. Anddon’tlet anyone see you.” His deep voice tickled across her cheek, and she shivered. “Especially my mother.”

“How do you know so much about sneaking out?” she asked in a whisper, surprised by the detail of his instructions.

He answered with a sultry chuckle that rumbled through her. “Because I’m a Carlisle brother.”

When she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, his hand slapped against her bottom. She jumped.

“Go!”

She stepped into the hall and fled from Chestnut Hill as fast as her feet could take her. Herbarefeet. Groaning at her own foolishness, she rolled her eyes because she’d left her slippers behind in his room. And there was no going back for them.

Ever.

CHAPTERTWO

Lady Rose.

Sebastian frowned. What had Miranda been thinking last night?

But that had always been the problem with her, he decided as he stared out the window of his study across the sweeping front lawn as the last of the house party guests set off in their carriages to return home. She rarely thought before leaping, and last night, she’d nearly leapt herself right into the fire. He frowned irritably. Intohisfire.

What thehellhad she been thinking?

He blew out a harsh breath and ran his hand through his hair. Christ, what hadhebeen thinking?

She’d surprised him to the core when he’d walked into his room and found her there, draped so delectably across his bed in that silky crêpe and lace confection that barely covered anything and so reminded him of a frosted cake that he found himself salivating to lick the icing from her. He should have known he wasn’t fortunate enough to have such an alluring beauty offer herself up so freely like that on the night of his mother’s birthday party, butgood God—after a suffocating sennight of being forced to be the perfect peer, quashing every impulse and urge to be as unrestrained as his brothers and actually enjoy himself for once, he’d yearned to taste just a bit of the wildness he used to have.

At that moment, with a night of freedom being offered to him so temptingly, he simply hadn’t cared how she’d gotten there. Or for that matter her true identity beneath the mask. All that mattered was once again being able to enjoy himself. To peel her dress away until she was naked, then cover her body with his and—

“Sebastian!” A half-eaten breakfast roll hit him square in the back.

He wheeled around, a sharp curse on his lips for his youngest brother, Quinton, who balanced on his lap a plate half-filled with his third helping of breakfast and held a second roll in his hand, ready to fire off at any moment.

But next to his brother sat his mother, and the concerned look she gave him silenced him immediately. “You were lost in concentration,” she said gently, worry lacing her voice. “Didn’t you hear me calling to you, dear, when we came into the room?”

Sweet Lucifer, he hadn’t. “No,” he admitted grudgingly. Running a hand through his hair, he drew a deep, patient breath. Lady Rose had managed to distract him from his own family, which no woman had done since the night his father died. But then, no other woman in his bed had ever been Miranda Hodgkins.

The gel was an absolute menace.

Forcing a relaxed smile, he walked back to his desk. “My apologies for being distracted.”

Quinn and his mother sat in two chairs on the other side of the massive piece of mahogany-inlaid furniture where his late father had managed their estate of Chestnut Hill, then in more recent years where he’d also overseen the newly awarded dukedom whose lands had once belonged to their former neighbor, the Earl Royston, along with the manor house of Blackwood Hall and its holdings. And all of it now fell to Sebastian to manage.

His brows drew together as he pushed all thoughts of masquerades and the sweet scent of rosewater from his mind to concentrate on the reasons his family had been summoned together in his study. “I was watching to make certain that the last of the party guests set off without any problems,” he explained.

Not exactly a lie. Technically, Miranda had been a party guest, although she lived on one of the estate’s tenant farms with her aunt and uncle. And she’d been sent off last night with many, many problems in her wake.

“Shall we start, then?” Elizabeth Carlisle smiled patiently.

Sebastian couldn’t help but return her smile. With her golden blond hair and luminescent skin, even after a late night at her own birthday celebration, his mother was beautiful in the slant of sunlight that fell through the window onto her lavender morning dress. His heart tugged for her, and a familiar knot of grief tightened in his throat. Nearly two years had passed since his father’s unexpected death, and although she was officially out of mourning, she still preferred to wear lavender in the mornings. A part of her would always grieve for his father, just as he knew she would never remarry. Theirs had been a true love match, and Elizabeth Carlisle would never take another man into her heart the way she had his father.

He cleared his throat and nodded at the empty chair beside her. “Should we wait for Robert?”