St. Raven by Jo Beverley Page A

brawl. Now he was at an orgy and known to all. This was his world, and it most certainly was not hers.
    She dragged her eyes away from that seductive hand and pushed back to gain more room, turning to meet his eyes. “I was merely taking a moment to look around the room. The statues aren’t here.”
     
Chapter Eight
     
    Tris realized with shock that he’d forgotten the damned statues entirely. That little play with the cucumber had him hard and aching. He’d been pressing against her delicious bottom, mind turning to a different quest entirely.
    Cressida Mandeville, he reminded himself.
    Not Roxelana, either wife or whore, but Cressida Mandeville, virtuous merchant’s daughter from Matlock, a walking marriage trap if he fooled around with her.
    “Come on, then.” He turned them toward the door.
    She stopped halfway, and he looked to see what had caught her attention.
    Roger Tiverton, in his usual guise of pirate, had a jam tart in his hand. He was holding it in front of his mouth, his long tongue dipping into it, swirling, scooping up the red filling, which he then drew into his mouth and swallowed.
    Three women were watching appreciatively.
    Plus Cressida Mandeville.
    If Tris had been with Miranda Coop, he might have thrown her down among the suggestive delicacies and shown her what it was really all about. But Miranda wouldn’t need to be shown, and Miss Mandeville, devil take it, needed to be protected from all this lewdness.
    He gripped her chin and turned her head to him. Her eyes were wide, startled, but not at all confused. And to think that he’d always liked a clever woman.
    “We are not here for these amusements, Roxelana.” But those eyes asked questions he longed to answer. It could be done without taking her virginity. Without ruining her. Without trapping him…
    “Unless I can interest you in other games,” he said. When she didn’t pull away, he added, “If you wish to explore further, I am completely at your service.”
    “I’m not a whore,” she said, but softly.
    “I’m not offering you money.”
    He saw her draw a deep breath. “Then let us agree that I am not a wanton fool.”
    Ah, Cressida, you want this, you know you do.
    “It isn’t only whores who enjoy unsanctioned pleasures.” He drew her closer, let her feel his arousal. “I would enjoy pleasuring you, and I guarantee that you would enjoy it, too. Aren’t you curious?”
    He thought for a precious moment that she was going to agree, but then she broke the spell and looked away. “That curiosity will be satisfied at a more sanctioned moment.”
    For one brittle second he resisted sanity, but then he let her go. “For better or worse,” he said, steering her out of the room.
    Cressida let him lead her out of the dining room, feeling as if she were leaving an opportunity she might regret for the rest of her life. She was not, however, a whore, and to surrender to a rake would be folly of the most extreme kind.
    She would lose her maidenhead.
    She might get with child.
    And there was no possibility of marriage. Even with her father’s fortune intact, it would have been an unequal match. Without it, it was unthinkable.
    She didn’t even want it. Oh, she acknowledged the wicked duke’s appeal, and the appeal an event like this stirred in the sanest mind and body. But she could not live with a husband addicted to this sort of game, a man who would laugh at fidelity. She could never share a husband with the likes of Miranda Coop.
    The hall was still a riot of noise, a tempest of smells, and the revelers continued to pour in. Many were already drunk, and all of them grabbed drink from the trays carried by twisted servants in black imp costumes.
    This was more a theatrical than reality, she told herself. As silly to be upset by this as it would be to scream against Othello smothering poor Desdemona. Could the house hold any more actors without bursting, though? Her senses throbbed with the din and stink.
    Crofton, in his