Free Not Quite A Duke (Dukes' Club Book 6) by Eva Devon

about, but it was most amusing listening to you dart about back there.”
    “You heard me?” she exclaimed.
    “Dear lady, Greenwich heard you.”
    “I wasn’t that loud,” she protested.
    In answer, he merely arched a brow in the moonlight.
    She frowned. She’d thought she’d moved quite stealthily. How annoying that she had not.
    “I say,” she piped, “how did you know it was me?”
    He stroked his hand down the folds of her sheer skirts.
    She gulped and held very still. For all that she’d been around scandalous behavior, she’d always been an observer. She’d never engaged in anything.
    Of course, right now, this wasn’t truly inappropriate. He hadn’t even touched her. But just his nearness! It seemed to inspire something in her that no man had ever done before.
    The warmth of his hand stole through her gown and as he slipped the fabric free, his chest brushed against her torso.
    Patience bit down on the inside of her cheek.
    As he stood, he said softly, “There you are. Free.”
    Free? If only she was. But a woman was anything but. Even a woman like herself with independent means.
    “You knew who I was,” she said again, lest she be distracted by his sensual voice.
    “I did, indeed,” he confessed. “It is a good disguise, I grant you. Very few would ever know that Lady Patience was one and the same as your Lady Mystery. Though I must say, I have trouble reconciling that the woman I met and the one standing before me now are one and the same.”
    “Then I have mostly succeeded.”
    “Mostly,” he agreed.
    “You still haven’t told me how you deduced it was me.”
    “Oh, grand skill of the most excellent kind. My powers of perception are almost godlike.”
    She snorted.
    He laughed softly in return. “Fine then. I followed you.”
    She gasped. . . And then wished she could kick herself for such a silly reaction.
    Rallying her better self, she replied, “I beg your pardon?”
    “I wished to speak with you this evening. So, I went to your townhome. You were leaving. Swathed in a cloak and looking rather sneaky yourself as you rushed into your coach. I instructed my hansom to follow. . . And well, here we are.”
    His nearness was intoxicating but it didn’t stop the irritation she felt at the ease of her discovery. “Bother.”
    “Rather boring, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, but it was so easy for you. That’s what I resent.”
    He gazed down at her. “I never would have unmasked your activities if I hadn’t followed you all the way here. . . And in truth, it almost felt like you were following me once we arrived here.” 
    She shifted uncomfortably from slippered foot to slippered foot. “I don’t follow.”
    “Don’t you?” Very slowly, he lifted his hand and slipped his fingers into the silk ribbon which tied her mask to her face. “We just met yesterday and this is a place that I frequent. Not even your good friend, Lady Barton, comes here often anymore.”
    Oh dear. Was it that obvious? “In my defense, I truly believed you still to be at Barring House.”
    “So, you weren’t seeking me out?”
    “Of course not. Don’t be absurd.”
    He inched the ribbon free, letting her mask slide from her face. And as she was bared to him, he whispered. “Pity.”
    Never in her life had she felt more naked than at that moment, her mask gone. “Why?”
    “I rather like the idea of you seeking me out.”
    She huffed out an indignant breath. “You know, I’m not one of your silly doxies.”
    “Lady Patience,” he said, dropping her mask to the ground, “not even the stupidest of men would accuse you of silliness. You are a rare creature. A beautiful creature. A creature with the most wonderful depths.”
    As he paid her each compliment, he angled closer to her, leaning down, tilting his head.
    Captivated entirely by the promise of what he was about to do, she did nothing to protest.
    In fact, much to her own dismay, she found herself tilting her head back, allowing her body to mirror