Vexing The Viscount Read Online Free PDF

Isabella hurried, there was just enough time for her to issue one more invitation for tonight’s masquerade. Her footman would have to hand-deliver it.
    There was always the possibility that the gentleman had a previous engagement, but Isabella would lose nothing in the attempt. Daisy wanted an adventure. This was the best way Isabella could make sure she had one.
    Lady Wexford settled at her escritoire to compose a carefully worded request. Lord Wexford’s birthday masquerade would be lacking if not graced by the noble presence of Lucian Beaumont, Viscount Rutland.

“Beauty requires a certain homage, a sacrifice, if she is to be coaxed into making an appearance.”
    —the journal of Blanche La Tour
Chapter Four
    “Are you sure this is the way it’s supposed to be worn?” Daisy eyed herself doubtfully in the long looking glass. The stays built into the red tulle gown cinched her waist so tightly, she could scarcely breathe.
    That wasn’t so bad. She’d been laced snugly before, but this gown also seemed designed to shove her breasts up, presenting them squeezed together like a baby’s behind. Thanks to a hot bath and determined scrubbing, Daisy had succeeded in removing the ink stain, but now her skin was flushed. Not only that, her nipples peeped above the scooped neckline.
    “Bien sûr,”
Nanette assured her. “Oh, la! I forgot the rouge.”
    The lady’s maid dipped her thumb in a paint pot, then brushed Daisy’s nipples with the garish color. Daisy consoled herself that at least they matched the gown now. Nanette spritzed a liberal dose of jasmine perfume over Daisy.
    “There,” Nanette said. “Much better,
non?
”
    “If you say so.” Daisy coughed at the strong scent. She’d never worn anything heavier than a dash of rose water.
    Daisy slipped on the plumed mask that covered the upper half of her face. The slanted slits tilted her eyes up at the outer corner, making her seem almost feline, despite the feathers. She also wore a top-heavy powdered wig and a black heart-shaped beauty mark affixed near one corner ofher mouth. Combined with the mask and the deep décolletage, Daisy stared at a stranger in the mirror.
    An exotic, stunning stranger. A creature of night and passion and dangerous allure.
    Daisy had never considered herself more than mildly presentable on a good day. The woman in the mirror was decadently gorgeous. “Jupiter!”
    “You are lovely,
oui?
” Nanette said, obviously pleased with her final product. “The soreness, she is gone?”
    “Mostly.” When Isabella had ordered the full toilette of a courtesan for her, Daisy had no idea that entailed the removal of all the small hairs from her body.
    Even in her most intimate places.
    Nanette’s hot beeswax left her skin smooth and sensitive. When Daisy tottered across the room on the tall Venetian-style platform shoes that added a full six inches to her height, the air moving beneath her voluminous skirt caressed her in unexpected places.
    Strains of the string quartet wafted up to her.
    “It seems the ball has started.” Daisy thanked Nanette for her unflagging efforts and glided to the door, walking in the tall shoes more gracefully with each step. The slight pressure of her own thighs on her freshly denuded sex sent a shimmering tingle through her.
    She recalled Isabella’s warnings. Her body did possess a power of its own.
    “Forewarned is forearmed,” she murmured, determined to ignore the strange warmth in her groin. She drew as deep a breath as her stays allowed and pushed open the door. Thanks to the boning built into the gown, her posture was perfectly erect.
    Now if she could only bolster her conf dence to match.
    She wanted an adventure, she reminded herself. Only her own timidity would ruin this one for her. She’d seen other women, perfectly respectable women, sporting aneckline just as low as this one, and without the benefit of being masked. Only last week, Lady Lucinda Throckmorton bared her nipples as part of