Beautiful Stranger

Mayfair, London, England, 1837 If Arthur Christian should ever be captured and subjected to the worst of all torture, his tormentors could do no better than to arrange an evening such as this. It was his own fault. It was his ball after all, his mansion on Mount Street, his indifference that enabled the lowest quarter of thetonto come walking through his door. Yet in spite of hosting this elaborate affair and many just like it during the Season Arthur would rather be drawn and quartered than suffer one more come-hither look from Portia Bellows, much less her pawing of his leg. The pawing was, of course, also his own fault. He'd been too inattentive of his guests and therefore hadn't seen her coming until it was too bloody late. Portia had very neatly cornered him in the little alcove off the main corridor, which was where they were at that precise moment, her hand brazenly roaming his thigh. "I've never forgotten you, Arthur, not for a single moment," she murmured in her best bedroom voice. "Of course not," Arthur drawled, and reached down into the swirl of Portia's heavy satin skirts around him to peel her hand away, finger by finger. "It is you I imagine when he is on top of me," she whispered huskily, and lifted her hand to the large black pearl nestled at the swell of her bountiful bosom, carefully tracing a line around it that dipped lower and lower into the decolletage of her gold satin gown. "It is you who makes love to me in my dreams." Actually, he'd wager the bitch was thinking of Roth's rather sizable fortune when he was on top of her ... yes, drawn and quartered, thank you, with his limbs scattered to the far corners of the earth just so he should never hear this tripe again. Her fingers stubbornly sought the inside of his thigh again. "I didn't mean to hurt you, darling." She said it in exactly the same voice she had used when they were eighteen, the same soft purr that made Arthur profess his undying love to her a dozen times over. That voice, along with her smoldering look, had sent him off to breathlessly ask his father for permission to offer for her, to which his grace had quietly informed him that Miss Bellows was already betrothed to Robert Lampley. Two years older than Arthur, Robert Lampley was destined to inherit a fortune and a title exactly one more attribute than Arthur possessed. It was the first time in his life that he had understood just how insignificant the untitled third son of a powerful duke could be. Now, at six and thirty, he understood how tiresome women could be, and calmly removed Portia's hand again. "My Lady Roth, you know that I don't believe a word that passes between your lips," he said, and smiled as if she amused him, though nothing could be further from the truth. Everything she did humiliated him and when she was really in top form, she made a colossal fool of him. Ah, yes Portia Bellows had duped Lord Arthur Christian of the Duchy of Sutherland not once, but twice, thank you, and evidently, judging by the way her fingers were boldly flitting across his groin now, she had in mind to attempt an astounding third supreme humiliation. Standing in the alcove, hidden from any guest who might be wandering off to the privy by one of the large potted plants Arthur's sister-in-law Lauren was inordinately fond of forcing on him, Portia boldly moved to cup the protuberance between his legs in her palm. She smiled wickedly; Arthur matched her smile with an insouciant one of his own, knowing that there was nothing the woman could do that would ever get that reaction from him again. He circled her wrist and squeezed hard. "Your husband is not fifty feet away," he softly rebuked her. Her cheeks flushed, she carelessly shrugLondon, Julia is the author of 'Beautiful Stranger' with ISBN 9780440236900 and ISBN 0440236908.