Page 2 of His Scandalous Viscountess
“I plan to release her from any obligation to us.”
Linc sighed. “I rather figured. Go on, then.”
As the offers reached the five-thousand-pound mark, Wolf made his move. “Ten thousand pounds.Ready.”
The room grew quiet, except for a few mutters of annoyance from the previous highest bidders. Madame looked fit to burst, she was so pleased. Julia appeared surprised, almost as if she couldn’t fathom such a large bid.
Or perchance it was because it had come from him?
“Sold to Lord Wolfington!”
Madame’s excitement bubbled over, even as Julia leaned over and whispered in her ear. The enigmatic owner of The Market merely held up her hands, as if to say it was already done, and Julia frowned in response.
A few men grumbled, but it was clear Madame had achieved whatever her goal was, and she would not continue the auction.
Wolf pressed through the now-dispersing crowd until he reached the raised platform. Stepping up, he towered over the petite Madame de Pompadour, as usual, but the statuesque Julia still all but looked him in the eye. Years ago, when they had been young, her height and her refusal to appear of lesser stature was one of the many things he’d loved about her.
Wolf bowed over the proprietress’s hand. “Good evening, Madame.” And then he turned toward Julia, who automatically lifted her hand. Good manners always won out—even hers, so it seemed. “Ju—Lady ‘Ahmar, such a lovely surprise to see you again.”
Madame waggled her eyebrows. “Ah-ha! Now I understand. You know each other already.”
“Yes, we were acquainted many years ago,” Wolf replied. “But alas, she left me behind and gallivanted off to tour the world with her new husband.”
The bitterness over that turn of events was hard to squash down again, since it currently felt as though someone had ripped the bandage off the wound, causing it to seep anew.
“Well, that is what one does when they are deserted on a London street corner and left to be married off.”
Julia’s green eyes flashed sparks he’d never seen from her before. When he’d known her, she had been strong-willed, but soft-spoken
“And I suppose one also stays away from England for nearly ten years after his death?” Wolf let one of his brows rise, his anger refusing to be quelled.
“Such passion between you two, it gives me chills.” Madame’s eyes appeared glassy, and her cheeks flushed. “Alas, we must conduct business before pleasure.”
“Of course, Madame.” Wolf looked about and spotted his friend standing nearby. “Linc, can you take Lady…uh, ‘Ahmar, upstairs? I’ll be along in a moment.”
“My pleasure.” Linc held out his hand and assisted Julia down from the platform. Leaving Wolf to quickly follow Madame into her office to settle their business.
When he finally headed upstairs to find Julia and Linc, he tried to tamp down his more hedonistic instincts. He’d told Linc he planned to let her leave unmolested, which he fully intended to follow through with. But images of her standing on the dais with her torso exposed kept flashing through his brain. All that smooth, creamy flesh bared, and then the small peeks of her ankles as she’d stood barefoot.
Next his dastardly mind retrieved images that took him up her calves, over her thighs, and presented him with the notion of feasting on her sweet pussy. His cock flexed in his trousers, rising to the occasion, regardless of it being all in his mind.
Determined to be a gentleman, he willed his lusty thoughts to retreat and his shaft to soften as he steeled himself to see the woman he had once wanted more than his next breath.
~
Julia sat beside the man Grayson—no, Wolf—had called Linc.
Wolf?She tested the name out in her head, and thought about the man who had strode onto the makeshift stage to claim her. There had been a predatory quality to him that had not been part of the young man she had once known and loved. The moniker suited him far more than Grayson.
Linc eyed her speculatively as she sat across from him in the growing quiet. “Lady ‘Ahmar, it appears you have already met Lord Wolfington.”
Julia tried not to sigh as she thought of the idyllic young man she’d once known. “We were neighbors, many years ago.”
The blond man seemed to ponder that notion for a moment. “You must have been quite young.”
She couldn’t repress the smile that came to her lips as she remembered their youthful romps across the countryside near Marribone Manor, and then later, when they’d met again after he finished school and she had been launched into Society. He had acted the earnest, doting suitor during her first seasons, and made her believe in fate and fairytales.
While not the daughter of a peer, Julia’s father had been very successful in his business endeavors, which had afforded them the ability to move amongst theton. Of course, as she later learned, that had all been done with a veryprecisepurpose. Specifically, for her to marry into the peerage, thereby making her parents related to that upper echelon of Society versus the fringe dwellers they had been relegated to as nouveau riche upstarts.
