She watched as he moved through the crowd, his tall, languid grace at odds with the look in his golden eyes, alert and predatory.
Women whispered that Marcus Stewart, Lord Roth, was a fallen angel. With his dark hair and whiskey eyes, his lush lips and artistic hands, she had never believed otherwise.
He nodded politely to one of the friendlier couples of the ton; the other man standing taller, the woman growing more animated as the conversation continued. Even from her vantage point across the room, she could see a small smile curve Marcus's beautiful mouth and a warmer light enter his usually cold and distant eyes.
She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry in the moist late spring air. She had been privy to his real smile, the one that reached all the way to his eyes and lit up his face, the one that caused her to forget her own name and her body to lean closer to his. Silk felt smoother and chocolate tasted better when he unleashed that smile. And she was selfish and wicked enough to want it all to herself, to taste him as his mouth curled, to feel his long, lean fingers curve around her waist and into her hair as he drew her forth.
She saw him moving on into the crush of people and watched full lips thin into a dangerous smirk as he said something cutting to a man she knew he disliked. That was the danger with fallen angels, she had always thought?they could show you all the delights of heaven or easily deliver you into the fires of hell. Most women found the dichotomy all the more exciting, and though she might scoff aloud, in the darkness of her bedroom, ensconced beneath her covers, left to her dreams, her mind agreed.
He finally stopped his forward momentum at a foursome of the fashionable and notorious. As he joined their conversation, his shoulders relaxed infinitesimally; unnoticeable to anyone else, but she hadn't spent years observing him for naught. The Angelfords and Marstons were his closest friends. Friends with whom he could relax and dispense with the facade that society demanded; friends who generated more than their own share of gossip.
That his two best friends were now happily married had society poised for Marcus's capitulation as well. But he was not the least bit interested in marriage, and although the reasons for his feelings were secret, the actual matter of his opinion was not.
That had not stopped every matchmaking mama with daughters of a marriageable age from throwing their daughters in his path. Oh, no. The Roth title was distinguished and enduring, more so than many of the dukedoms. Marcus had power, lots of it.
That, coupled with his looks and brooding nature, made for no shortage of young misses, or married women, ready to fall at his feet. All of them wishing to be the one to tame him.
He carried a darkness that only dissolved when he unleashed one of "those" smiles. And perhaps, more desirous than the feeling of the smiles turning her to goo, she longed to see the shadows behind his eyes banished and his inner light relit.
She wanted to be more than just his chess partner and friend. She wanted?
Pain crashed through her foot, causing her to jerk upright and look to the side. Her mother, her handsome features highlighted by her upswept hair, continued to look straight ahead at the stuttering young man conversing with them, acting as if she hadn't just deliberately crushed her daughter's toes to dust.
Isabella, Lady Willoughby, quickly contained her mortification at being caught staring. Not that it mattered overly, since she wasn't one on whom the ton kept close tabs. She was just nice, plain Isabella...
)
Marcus, Lord Roth, has everything--power, wealth, good looks, respect ... enemies. He thrives on danger and lives life to the fullest knowing each day might be his last, for he carries a dark family secret which precipitates one simple rule--never fall in love... Then there is the woman who has always secretly loved him. Isabella Willoughby has always been a patient and proper lady. But patience and propriety never gained her anything more than friendship from the man she loves. Taking her courage in hand, she embraces her wilder side and is exhilarated to find the object of her desire sitting up and taking notice. If she could only steal one kiss, she'd die a happy woman. Unfortunately, someone is determined to make her reach that end. And with his protective instincts on red alert, Marcus is about to find out how hard one simple rule can be...
