Free On A Wicked Dawn by Stephanie Laurens Page B

and silk waistcoat, Luc was standing in the front hall looking up the stairs at the head of which his mother and sisters, and Fiona, all dressed for the evening, were finally congregating, when he heard Cottsloe open the front door. Assuming Cottsloe was checking to see if the carriage had arrived, he didn’t glance around.
    Then he heard Cottsloe murmur, “Good evening, miss,” heard Amelia’s light reply.
    He swung around, mentally thanking the gods she’d arrived—
    His mind stopped, literally seized, in the instant his gaze touched, locked on her.
    She was a vision to confound not just his senses but his wits. His mind’s slate remained blank, as blank as his expression, as his eyes devoured. As every instinct he possessed hungered.
    Wanted . . .
    She turned from greeting Cottsloe and glided toward him, head rising, golden ringlets tumbling down her back, brushing her shoulders. His fingers curled. She lifted her gaze to his, smiled with easy familiarity—as if she always appeared in his front hall in the guise of a sea goddess, some acolyte of Venus Aphrodite given flesh, blood, and cornflower blue eyes.
    Ringlets, eyes, and face he knew, but as for the rest . . . had he ever truly seen her before? He’d certainly never seen her dressed as she now was.
    Her gown was fashioned from shimmery silk gauze so light it shifted with every breath, so sensuous it draped every curve lovingly, outlining the lushness of breast and hip, of sleek thigh and curvaceous derriere. The color was a pale, silvery blue-green. A ruffle of the same material formed the bodice; another ruffle rippled around the hem. Expertly cut, the gown emphasized the indent of her waist, pouring over her like water, clinging, coruscating . . .
    For one fanciful moment, she appeared to be clothed innothing more substantial than sea foam, as if, at any moment, the waves would retreat, the breeze sigh, the foam melt . . .
    An illusion, but such a good one he found he was holding his breath.
    He couldn’t see any sleeves or straps, then realized they were there but transparent; her bare shoulders and the delectable upper swells of her breasts seemed to rise out of the froth of the bodice, for all the world as if it would be a simple matter to peel the gown down . . .
    She reached him, stopped before him, screened from the others; from behind came exclamations from his sisters and the clattering of their now-eager descent.
    He dragged his gaze up to Amelia’s eyes.
    She met it, a teasing smile on her lips. Raised one delicate brow. “Are you ready?”
    Her voice was low, sirenlike . . .
    Ready?
    He stared—into eyes that were nowhere near as angelic as he’d expected. Before he could narrow his, her smile deepened, and she stepped past him to greet his mother and sisters.
    Leaving him to grapple—to wrestle back under control—a veritable horde of instincts he’d been only dimly aware he possessed. He swung around, hands rising to his hips as he considered her. His mother and sisters would read his stance as impatience; they were already late. Amelia would know better, but . . .
    He didn’t, in that instant, care what she knew or guessed. If he’d had any chance of being obeyed, he’d have ordered her home to change. No matter how late it made them. But the enthusiastic approbation that . . . gown for want of a better word was receiving from his assembled female relatives made it clear they didn’t view the ensemble as he did.
    It was scintillating, but in his opinion better suited to a boudoir than a damned rout. And he was supposed to squire her around for the rest of the evening? And keep his hands to himself?
    Keep every other man’s hands off her?
    Him and half the Guards.
    He scowled, and was about to ask pointedly where her shawl was, in a growl to go with the scowl, when he realized it was draped over her elbows. A