Free His Wicked Seduction by Lauren Smith Page A

found the mask. He set it down on a side table and slipped into the dressing room to fetch Lucien’s evening clothes.
    Lucien left his bedchamber for the small washroom where he had a tub. He pulled the bell cord to signal to the servants below that he wished to bathe. It would be a while before the bath was ready so he had a footman fetch some letters from his study to read.
    Once ready he sunk low into the tub of hot water and let the tension ease out of him. Being around Horatia always wound him up into knots. He splashed his face and scrubbed at his skin, trying to remove the memory of her body against his. Soot still clung to his hair, and he washed it thoroughly as well, wanting nothing left to remind him of how close he’d come to losing his sanity.
    The more time he spent around her the closer he came to acting on those base desires that would betray his principles, ruin her reputation and incite her brother’s wrath. Yet the idea of coming to her and teaching her how to embrace her passions was too tempting. It was this that held the thrill for him.
    He did not spend his days counting conquests like other men, but rather he prided himself on helping women conquer their own souls and bodies by accepting their needs and learning fulfillment in bed. Passion was a thing meant to be shared between a man and a woman, and he’d never liked the idea of a woman simply lying limp beneath him. Sex was a mutual exploration, a gift shared, not something stolen or taken by another. So while his reputation as a rake was forever assured, one would receive quite a different opinion about him from his women. To them he was a liberator, no matter how brief their time together.
    After his bath, Felix helped him dress, and Lucien was out the door. A footman hailed a black cab so his presence would not be noted when he arrived. The Garden was not a place where the insignia of the Marquess of Rochester should be seen. Lucien kept his mask on, checking the ribbon as his hackney pulled up front of the stucco townhouse that was the facade for the Midnight Garden.
    A footman hurried down to meet him and bowed his head respectfully. “My lord.” The footman did not know his true identity, but all men and women in the Garden were greeted as lord and lady. If nothing else, it was good for business.
    “Is Madame in?” Lucien asked the footman, following him up the steps. The young man nodded and opened the door for Lucien.
    Day or night, the Midnight Garden was always dimly lit. It carried the ambience of a midnight rendezvous. Gilded wall sconces lined the entry way and halls splitting off to various rooms, of which there were at least twenty between the three floors. The walls were a deep burgundy with gold trim and the furniture was richly brocaded. Everything was selected to offer decadence and sensuality to the patrons who paid to enjoy their desires here.
    For a good many years, Lucien had haunted these halls, seeking bedmates that would not fear him or his desires, and would trust him to master the pleasures of their bodies. Someday he hoped to find someone he could trust in return, but so far he had not. Since Emily Parr’s abduction he’d been reluctant to return to his old habits. He wanted to find a connection between himself and his bedmate. The brief, wild couplings, or the slow pleasure of seducing a woman into being bound was not the same as savoring a woman he truly cared about. After his frustrating encounters with Horatia, however, he was desperate for relief.
    Madame Chanson, a curvaceous woman in her late forties emerged from a nearby room with a woman Lucien recognized. Evangeline Mirabeau, the Duke of Essex’s former mistress. Her eyes fixed on him, and he knew she recognized him as well. She gave him a cool nod. After her indirect help against a threat to Godric a few months ago, he had found a new, albeit limited appreciation for the French woman.
    “My lord, you’ve returned! I had feared you would not, given