Black Silk (4 page)

A
t one glance, Maryanne knew he was drunk.

And knew, of course, he was not Lucifer.

Lord Swansborough sprawled on a wing chair. His shirt was open at his throat, and curling hair, soft and black as night, peeked out of the black-dyed lawn of his shirt. Cast aside, his elegant coat and his shimmering black waistcoat lay in a jumble on the floor by his feet. The light of the single candle glimmered on his thick blue-black hair.

Every night when she edited an erotic scene by candlelight, Swansborough became the hero of the scene. He was the man of fantasy who stripped off his clothes and lowered his naked body over hers. He was the one to boldly lift her skirts in the theater, or suckle her breasts in a carriage or even—and it was delicious madness to think of it—to tie her to her own bed, arms and legs spread, prisoner to his pleasure.

But here he was, in the flesh, winking at her!

And dressed in his usual shocking fashion—entirely in black.

He caught her staring and gave her a most wicked grin. Enticing lines bracketed his firm, wide mouth, and adorable dimples shadowed his cheeks. “You came in here to seduce me, didn’t you?”

With a crook of his fingers, he motioned her to move toward him.

She stayed at the door. “N—no.”

The Oriental motif had not ventured past the door. This was an Englishman’s study, resplendent with wood and leather, comfortable yet austere.

Both settings suited Lord Swansborough.

“Who are you?” he asked, and he tipped the decanter—the entire decanter—to his lips and took a swallow. He quaffed the drink—likely brandy—the way men in the country drank ale. Some spilled down his chiseled jaw, and he lowered the lovely glass thing and wiped at his beautiful mouth with his shirtsleeves.

His lordship was the first man here who was interested in her name. And she floundered helplessly—she had a creative mind, but all she could do was stare in astonishment.

He settled himself on the back of a chair, one booted foot dirtying the arm. The position displayed the long, lean, muscular power of his legs.

“Your name, puss,” he prompted.

She knew men used that name to describe a woman’s quim, and she knew she must suggest another name. But what did she want to suggest? Availability or the truth—that she was not allowed to touch a man like he? “Verity.”

Truth. Why had she thought of to call herself that—the opposite of what she would speak?

He saluted her with the decanter. “Imaginative. Where is your partner, Verity?”

“I don’t have one.” Which was, at least, the truth.

“I see.” Amusement, chilling amusement, showed in his rakish grin. “If I ravish you and make you explode in the most intense climax, will you give me my next clue?”

A jolt of shock raced, cold and startling, through her veins.

He thought she was a courtesan, employed to work in this bizarre scavenger hunt. She’d heard couples speaking of clues and hunting in the salon. “I came here to find a friend.”

The brandy decanter was almost empty. Had he truly drank that much? How could he still be conscious if he had? Her two glasses of champagne and that sickly drink had left her disorientated, and the giddy feeling was now a pounding inside her skull.

“Did you indeed?” he asked. His tone spoke ominously of a man’s awareness that he had a trapped female in his possession. But there was a teasing note underneath, and she knew she would much rather be trapped in this study with Swansborough than out in the rest of the house with the other scavenger hunters.

Tearstains itched on her cheeks, and she was certain she looked disheveled. How much did her mask obscure?

“Come here, Verity.” His voice had sobered, and it rumbled with bewitching erotic promise.

Verity. Which sounded like her sister’s name, Venetia. Had she thought of the name because her sister had had adventures and she had yearned for her own?

But Venetia had told her that Swansborough was exactly like the men who had surrounded her. And he was drunk, therefore dangerous. Logic told her that, but her heart skittered at the gentleness in his black eyes. They were hazy with drink, but not wild with lust.

“Come.”

A confident, autocratic command. She knew the other meaning of the word, and a shiver of anticipation, hot, electric, weakening, shot down her spine.

Her feet obeyed, and she closed the distance between them, and with each step, her heart tightened. Sweat trickled down her bodice, and her throat felt aflame. She felt exactly the way she did when reading erotic manuscripts.

She stopped—a little more than a sword’s thrust away—and he grinned. “Who is the friend you came to find, sweetheart?”

He was Marcus’s good friend—he had seen her perhaps a half dozen times. She was so close she feared he would know who she was. That he could see behind her simple white mask and guess the truth of her soul. That she was Maryanne Hamilton, ordinary virgin, here in Hades to find a courtesan.

“Georgiana,” she admitted softly.

His black brow lifted. “Do you belong to her, sweeting?”

Mystified, she asked, “How do you mean that, my lord?”

“Do you know who I am?”

“A viscount. And you expect me to answer your questions, but you will not answer mine.” She smiled and dipped her head. Heavens, had she just said that? “You are Lord Swansborough.” Surely that was safe enough to admit. He would think her a jade who knew him from brothels and Cyprian balls.

She still wasn’t certain what role she should play. Should she pretend to be experienced? Should she admit she was an innocent in trouble?

“I hardly expected to find you in here alone in the dark, my lord.”

“But I often drink alone, sweet. There’s no pleasure in drinking alone in the middle of a crowd.”

He was foxed. Absolutely. “But why—?”

“I encountered a man. He spoke of a tragic incident that happened a long time ago. It is something I like to forget. And I needed a way to help me do that.” His lordship lowered the decanter, let it drop the last inches to the table, where it rattled. “You are lovely, Verity. But then, the truth is always beautiful. Dangerous but beautiful.”

“I’m hardly dangerous, my lord.”

He reached out his hand—bare of gloves. A perfect, long-fingered gentleman’s hand. She had never touched the naked hand of a gentleman. He meant to kiss her fingers. Uncertain, she moved forward, for good breeding dictated it, and let him sweep her hand to his lips.

Lovely lips. Firm and delectable and brushing her gloved knuckles. The champagne inside her bubbled up once more at his hot, seductive touch, at the caress of his full lower lip over satin.

He drew her closer, his hand casually holding her fingers. She took one look into his dark eyes, at the sculpted curve of cheekbones, the autocratic nose, and lost her breath.

Shadowed by dark stubble gracing his jaw, a dimple teased. She looked closer. Beneath his thick, black lashes, his eyes focused in two different directions.

“In you, sweeting, would I find truth?”

In
her?

Before she could even gasp, his mouth slanted down over hers, and his broad back blotted out the light. She fell into black shadow and reached out to him. She should not allow this, but she was here, and he expected it and—

No. She was Verity. Truth. She wanted to kiss him.

His lips pressed to hers, his tongue parted her lips and slid inside her mouth. She tasted him—
delicious
was too mild a word!

She tasted brandy, too much brandy, and the warm flavor of him that was so erotically male. His hand cupped her breast. He must know her nipples were indecently erect.

His large body surrounded her, his scent—brandy and shaving soap and witch hazel and the earthy hint of his sweat—washed over her, yet all she wanted was to kiss him deeper. Beneath her fingertips, his shoulders were solid lines of muscle and bone. Daringly, she trailed her fingers toward his neck. She left the almost propriety of his shirt and touched his bare flesh.

And moaned wantonly into his mouth.

His tongue teased hers, and he toyed with her, letting his tongue thrust lazily in a promise that made her heart hammer and her quim turn to liquid honey.

She went rigid, suddenly uncertain.

He eased back from the kiss, bending forward to bestow kisses to her nose, her right cheek, her chin. “Do you want to give me what I want?”

Oh, yes, he was drunk. She tried to make sense of his words. “W—what is it you want?”

He stepped back and yanked his shirt out of his trousers. Before the hem could settle around his hips, he pulled his shirt off, over his head.

Oh, dear lord.

His skin was the color of brandy, like a laborer’s, and she couldn’t imagine why. What could he possible do out of doors with his shirt off?

“I want you to make me forget.”

“Forget what?” she asked. A blush crept over her cheeks that she had been so bold as to ask the question. She normally listened. Tonight, with his kiss singing on her lips and champagne bubbling through her blood, she truly was Verity—someone else other than mousy Maryanne.

Swansborough paced around her, arms folded over his massive chest. Soft black hairs curled over hard planes of muscle. The sight of his nipples left her hot and embarrassed. She felt the sweep of his gaze, the assessment of breasts, of hips, of bottom. She felt like a mare on display at Tattersalls.

“You’re slender.”

Reed thin, compared to the women here—the women with large bosoms, plump arses, and generous thighs.

He paused long enough to kick off shoes—he had prepared to undress, he hadn’t worn boots. With lazy motions, he undid the buttons of his trousers.

This time, with this man, she did not want to run.

“Lovely.”

Her heart soared at the word, heaven help her. She liked this. She liked to be stared at by lustful Lord Swansborough.

He peeled down his trousers. She’d thought—she’d been certain—that men wore undergarments beneath their trousers.

He didn’t.

She was faced with his cock, and its thicket of black curls, and it, like the rest of him, stole her breath away. He gave her a smile, mischievous and boyish and utterly endearing. “Does it please you?”

“I’ve no idea.” Truth again.

He laughed at that, not the usual laugh of a man who was in his cups. Deep, erotic, his laugh was filled with naughty promise. “Most lightskirts ‘ooh and ah’ over the size, my dear.”

“It is large.” Her first thought had indeed been astonishment, and now she knew one did mention that to a man. In all the erotic books she edited, men always possessed members that lasted for one carnal bout after another. Georgiana had laughed about that and had confided, with a wry smile, that such cocks were creatures of fantasy.

“I think,” Maryanne hazarded, “it is a creature of fantasy.”

He wrapped his hand around the shaft, and this time the sight of his large hand over his enormous staff had her hot and panting and giddy with desire.

“What do you want to do to me, my sweet?” he asked with a strangely vulnerable air, the way a shy man asked a lady to step into his curricle for a jaunt around the park.

She didn’t know. She couldn’t find words! Her thoughts were a tumble of nebulous fantasies. Of imagination and dreams. Of lust and foolish madness.

“What do you think would please me? I like an inventive woman.”

She had no idea, knew she could not hope to fool him, but the challenge heated her blood. “I would like to…kiss you. Again.”

“Kiss me where?”

“On your lips.”

“And I would like to kiss your lips, your breasts, your quim, your arse. Would you be willing to do such things for me?”

“You haven’t got breasts.”

His deep, throaty, wicked laugh washed over her, more intoxicating than champagne. Surely Lucifer laughed like this—before tempting a woman to surrender her soul.

“Indeed I don’t. Disappointed? Do you enjoy suckling another woman’s breasts? Tell me—I enjoy inviting a crowd into my bed at times. Have you experience there?”

She felt as if she were being interviewed for a position—she supposed she was. He thought she wanted to be his mistress. Suddenly the realization of what she’d come for stopped her cold.

“I can’t. I must—I must go.”

“To find Georgiana? She isn’t here, love. She’s left London.”

“How do you know?”

“I know everything, sweeting. The lovely Georgiana is pursuing an earl. She’s left you alone. Now, tell me, have you enjoyed sexual sport with another woman?”

Maryanne reeled back on her slippers. She had to grab the back of the chair beside her.

Georgiana had left London! But what of her note? That desperate note? Had Georgiana written a plea for rescue yet left town with another man?

It would be like Georgiana. To forget she’d begged for help, to forget she’d put a friend at risk when a man offered rescue. She’d strangle Georgiana. When she found her.

Her heart twisted in her chest. Her friend had forgotten all about her. She was so very forgettable.

“Other women?” Swansborough prompted.

Startled, she looked up. His lips were parted, and his breath came fast. He was waiting on her answer as if he needed it to live. He was exquisite, beautiful, yearned for by unmarried ladies who dreamed of a charming husband and a stallion in their beds. And he wanted her answer.

“N—no.”

She saw his slight stumble, a reminder of how much liquor he must have drunk.

“Any objections, though?” he went on. “I can think of several women who would love to nibble your breasts or suck the honey out of your quim.”

She saw his cock jolt upward at his own words. The head glistened as though moist—in all the books she edited, the cocks were always dewy, or dripping, or slick. Lord Swansborough’s certainly was. She stared at it, unable to answer his question—she’d read Sapphic scenes, had been intrigued. What would it be like to suckle a woman’s breasts to please her? Or lick another woman’s wet cunny?

But she wanted him. Only him.

“Touch me.”

Two simple words, spoken in a voice hoarse with desire. In a heartbeat, his teasing nature had dropped away.