“You never wear gloves,” Temple said. “I thought you might require some.”

These were not workaday gloves, however, these were gloves for one night, for one ensemble. For one man.

She pulled one glove on before realizing that she would not be able to fasten them one-handed. But before she could say anything, he was leaning forward again, extracting a button hook from his coat pocket, as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world for a man to carry. He crowded her in the small, dark space, reaching for her hand. He’d freed his arm and folded back the sleeve of her cloak, using his bad arm to hold her steady as he set to work on the task of buttoning the endless line of little green buttons.

She wanted to hate him for controlling even this, even her gloves.

But instead, she loved him all the more for it, her heart heavy in her chest, knowing this was their last evening. Perhaps the last time they would be alone together.

“Thank you,” she said softly, uncertain of what else to do as she sat, her free hand worrying the paper from the box.

He was quiet, focused on his task, and she settled into watching the top of his dark head, unable to take a deep breath for his nearness, wishing he weren’t so very close to her imperfect, scarred hands. Grateful for the fact that she had covered the years of history written on her palm before relinquishing the extremity to him.

Utterly unsettled by his gentle, deft touch.

She could feel the softness of his breath on the skin of her wrist as he hid it from view, the soft touch of his fingers along the inside of her arm the last thing chased away by silk.

No. Not chased away. Imprisoned by it.

Because it felt that way, as though the glove itself was protecting his touch from ever escaping.

He finished the first glove after an eternity and she released the long breath that she had not known she had been holding, realizing that he had clasped her other hand in his without any warning. She tugged on it, but his grip was steel. “Thank you, I can—”

“Let me,” he said, lifting the second glove from her lap.

No, she wanted to say, don’t look at it.

Heat washed across her cheeks, and she was thankful for the darkness of the carriage.

He saw it anyway. “You are embarrassed of them,” he said, the pad of his thumb rubbing softly—maddeningly—across her palm.

She tugged on the hand again. Futilely.

“You needn’t be, you know,” he said, that slow, circling stroke an endless torture. “These hands helped you survive for twelve years. They worked for you. They won your funds and shelter and safety for more than a decade.”

Her eyes flew to his, coal black in the dim light. “Women’s hands aren’t supposed to show their work.”

He continued, his voice barely above a whisper. “But what I cannot understand, Mara, is why you required it of them?”

Fear. Fate.

Folly.

“I wish they were untried. Soft. The way ladies’ hands should be.”

The way you no doubt prefer them.

No. She did not care how he liked his hands. Her hands.

He slid the silk glove over her hand, working her fingers into the fabric channels, pressing his own fingers into the valleys between hers. Who could have imagined that the skin in those places was so sensitive?

“They are your hands,” he said, lifting her hand, lowering his head, whispering to the bared skin at her palm. “They are perfect.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered.

Don’t be nice to me.

Don’t make me love you any more than I already do.

Don’t hurt me any more than you already plan.

He pressed a kiss to the soft pad of muscle at the base of her thumb before he fastened the buttons and made his way to her wrist, where he pressed another soft kiss, and fastened more.

And so it went, on and on, up the inside of her arm with light, delicate kisses, each sending a shock of heat through her, each locked in by silk. By him. Each one a ruination of its own, as it made her want to crawl into his lap and do his bidding without question.

When he reached the final stretch of buttons, the one that would encase her elbow, he lingered on the bare skin there, pressing his warm lips to that sensitive place that she’d never before known, lingering when she gasped at the pleasure of the caress. Parting his lips. Stroking his tongue in a long, languorous circle of glorious heat.

She couldn’t stop herself from sliding her free hand into his hair, holding him there, at that wicked, wonderful place.

Hating the damn glove that kept her from touching him.

Cursing it aloud.

She felt his lips curve against her skin, the smile chased away by a painless, unbearable scrape of his teeth before he finished his torture, and then his task.

In that moment, he could have had anything he asked.

She would have given it with deep, abiding pleasure. Which was what made this man more dangerous than anyone in London thought.

He could control her with a touch, and his control was more serious, more dangerous, than that of any of the men who had controlled her before.

And it was terrifying.

“Temple,” she whispered in the dark, “I . . .”

She trailed off, a million things wishing to be said.

I’m sorry.

I wish it could be different.

I wish I could be the perfect woman you want. The one who will erase the past.

I love you.

He didn’t give her a chance to say any of it. “It’s time for you to put on your mask.” He sat back against the carriage seat, looking utterly unmoved by the entire experience. “We’ve arrived.”

Chapter 16

The gloves had been a mistake.

He realized that the second he started buttoning her into the damn things. Not that he hadn’t imagined buttoning her into them the second they arrived at his home.

Not that he hadn’t imagined unbuttoning everything else and leaving her in nothing but those long, silk gloves.

Except imagination paled in comparison to reality, at least when it came to Mara Lowe, and he hadn’t been able to stop himself from touching her. From kissing her. From tasting her skin. From making himself impossibly distracted and unbearably hard in the process.

In his life, he’d never been so thrilled and so furious to arrive somewhere. Except, as he climbed down from the carriage, reaching back to help her descend, the silken glove sliding through his grasp, he realized that he’d made an enormous mistake. After all, he’d have to touch her all evening, and every stroke of silk against his skin would be a lick of flame.

A reminder of what he’d touched.

Of what he would never touch again.

He guided her up the extravagantly decorated steps to Leighton House and inside, where he watched as a footman removed the fur-lined cloak from around her shoulders, revealing an extraordinary expanse of smooth, pale skin.

A too-bare expanse.

Shit.

He never should have pushed Hebert to keep the line of the dress so low. What had he been thinking? Every man in attendance would be watching her.

Which had been his plan all along.

Except now, as she adjusted that stunning golden mask that only highlighted her strange, beautiful eyes, and faced him with a quiet smile, he did not like the plan at all.

But it was too late. He had handed over his invitation, and they were inside the ballroom in moments, part of the teeming mass of revelers, all of whom had made special return to the city to attend this event. Which was why he’d chosen this event for her unveiling.

For his own return.

His hand fell to the curve of her lower back, and he shepherded her through the throngs of people clustered around the door, resisting the urge to throttle the men nearby whose roving eyes lingered on the high swell of Mara’s breasts.

He cast a sidelong gaze at the bosom in question, considering the perfect pink skin there, the three small freckles that stood sentry just above the edge of the jade green silk. His mouth went dry.

Then watered.

He cleared his throat, and she looked up at him, eyes wide and questioning behind the mask. “Well, Your Grace? You have me here now—what do you intend to do with me?”

What he wanted to do to her was to take her home and spread her bare in his bed and rectify the missing events of that evening, twelve years prior. But that was not the answer she was expecting. And so instead, he captured her gloved hand in his and led her into the crowd. “I intend to dance with you.”

She wasn’t in his arms for half a second when he realized that the idea was nearly as bad as gifting the woman gloves. Now she was warm and smelling of softness and citrus, and she fit perfectly in his good arm as he fell into the steps he shouldn’t remember. And there, in thinking of the steps, he hesitated over them.

He captured himself, but she noticed the misstep as she had his prior smoothness. She met his gaze, her eyes light inside gold filigree. “When was the last time you were somewhere like this?”

“You mean inside a legitimate aristocratic ballroom at a legitimate aristocratic event?” She inclined her head as he executed an elaborate turn to avoid another couple. “More than a decade.”

She nodded. “Twelve years.”

He did not like the exactness of the answer, but he could not say why. When Temple rubbed elbows with the elite of the ton it was most often on the floor of the casino after a fight, when he’d proven his worth with muscle and force. He was the strongest of them. The most powerful.