More Than a Lover (10 page)

Slowly, tenderly, he drew back, his eyes blazing with desire. ‘And now we must take those precautions we spoke of.'

Heavens, yes. In the heat of passion she had almost forgotten. ‘Give me a moment.' She went behind the privacy screen and used the system of sponges she and Merry had discussed with all of their ladies and tried for themselves so as to understand the whole business fully.

Feeling wanton, sinful to the point of shame, she emerged from behind the screen to find him flipping through the pages of a book as if she had merely gone to fetch a handkerchief or a shawl. He turned with a smile and put the book away. ‘Now, where were we?'

‘Kissing.'

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her silly, again, before swooping her up and carrying her to the bed.

‘Candles out?' he asked tersely, sweeping back the quilt and laying her down.

‘Oh, no,' she said, feeling wicked and bold. ‘I want to see every inch of you.' A blush rushed up from her belly and she hid her face with her forearm, still managing to sneak a peek at his expression. Because it would mean he would see every inch of her, too.

He raised a brow, but he did not seem at all dismayed. Or disgusted by her boldness, yet there were shadows in his eyes. ‘A lady always gets what she wants.' He unbuttoned his shirt and drew it off over his head.

Her breasts tingled at the sight of the hard sculpted muscles across his chest and down his arms, his left tucked slightly behind his back, she noted vaguely. A light smattering of tightly curling brown hair dusted the expanse of his chest and curled around the tight buds of his nipples. It trailed in a line down a flat-ridged belly to disappear into his waistband. She reached out to touch the crisp curls, running her fingers through them lightly and scraping her nails across the tightly furled buds, watching them pucker at her touch.

A hiss of indrawn breath made her jump, and she would have withdrawn her hand if he had not covered it with his. ‘I like it,' he said.

He touched her nipple through her nightgown, rolling it between his thumb and finger. She moaned at the pleasure of the way it made her feel boneless.

She smiled at him shyly. ‘I like it, too.' She glanced down at his breeches, wondering if he would remove those, too. Hoped. She drew in a deep breath as his hand went to the buttons of his falls.

There would be no going back after this night. No pretence of being virtuous or honourable. But at least she would know something of what a wife would know. She sat up. ‘Let me help?' She knew that since Merry and Charlie had been married, they rarely used a maid or a valet, instead helping each other to undress at night. Surely the same could be done by a...lover? Even the thought of that word sent a shiver down her spine.

His hand dropped away from the button he'd been working at and she busied herself with the fastenings. After all, with a son, she knew how this went. On a swallow, her throat rasping and dry, she pulled the fabric down over his hips.

He was magnificent, his shaft standing erect from dark curling hair against his flat stomach. As he stepped out of his pantaloons, she leaned back on her elbows, the better to observe what was a miracle of nature.

Slowly becoming aware of his gaze, she glanced up at his face. He was smiling, seductively, winsomely, waiting for her to look her fill. No shame at all, the devil. Ach, more fiery blushes. She inched backwards on the bed to give him room to climb up.

He stretched alongside her and cupped her jaw in his large warm hand. Then his mouth plundered hers until she was dizzy with wanting. His hand wandered her body as if he would learn every inch of her skin beneath her nightgown, and she strolled her fingers down his broad back, down his spine, to his muscular derrière.

Such a lovely lithe body.

His thigh pressed between hers and she arched into him, wanting more than the sweet pressure he offered. He broke their kiss, looking down into her face with a smile. ‘My turn.'

She gazed at him blankly, in too much of a sensual haze to comprehend his words, but feeling him drawing her nightgown upward towards her hips, she understood. She lifted her hips to aid his efforts, then sat up and, as he had done with his shirt, drew her nightgown over her head and tossed it aside. She forced herself not to close her eyes, but sank back amid the pillows.

This was what she had wanted and it would happen only this once and she was not going to hide from it. If she trusted him to do this, then she had to trust him to make the experience pleasurable.

As her first experience had been anything but...

‘Saints above but you are beautiful,' he whispered, looking at her with what she could only describe as awe.

* * *

Blade had lost his mind. What should be a simple sexual gratification between two consenting adults, an exchange of sensual intimacies on an admittedly grand scale, was turning into something far more dangerous. He was pleasuring a woman he had been desiring for days, weeks—all right, nigh on a decade, though he might have forgotten her during the intervening years—and ‘casual' did not describe what he was feeling.

Instinct screamed that no matter how mutually pleasurable this dalliance, or how casual or how fleeting, someone, perhaps both of them, was going to get hurt. And there was nothing he could or would do about it, except ensure it never happened again. Because if it did he had the sense he would lose some things he valued. Friendship and trust. Things she did not hand out with gay abandon. Something he might already have lost.

He smiled wryly at himself.
He'd
already gone well past that point of no return. The hound whimpered. He quelled it with a glare. Once only, he promised himself. After that he would keep a proper distance.

He savoured her sweet lips and the taste of her skin, the flush of her skin beneath his palm, her encouraging cries as he fondled the lush fullness of each breast. He eased over her, until he was cradled by her hips. The blunt heat of his erection nudged against the folds of her sex. Slowly she relaxed, surrendering to the pleasure of touch in that most intimate part. He stroked himself against her slick wet heat, his weight on his forearm while he kissed her lips and caressed her breast. His balls pulled up tight to his body, creating a blissful tingle at the base of his spine.
Not yet.

He licked at the delicate skin of first one breast then the other until her hips undulated in a silent request for more. Then he suckled.

She bucked. Opening to him. Letting the head of his shaft slide a mere fraction into her hot silken sheath. Bliss beckoned. He focused on the drill for cleaning a musket and not on the sensations rocketing through his body, demanding he take her.

Beneath him, she froze. He raised himself up, to see her eyes wide, her lips pressed tight as if holding back a cry of distress. He was not a small man, and though he had as yet barely penetrated her body, he could feel her fear. ‘Caro,' he murmured, stroking the riot of her hair back from her face, ‘am I hurting you?'

Her eyes went distant as if her mind was taking inventory. Then her gaze fixed on his face in a kind of wonder. ‘No.' She sounded surprised and he wanted to curse. Had her husband's attentions been painful?

If so, her trust was doubly humbling.

‘I will not hurt you,' he said, making his words a solemn oath. ‘If you want me to stop at any time, say so. I will stop.' Even if it killed him to do so. ‘I will do nothing you do not wish me to do.'

Never had he needed to give such assurances in the past, but he prayed she'd believe him. ‘Tell me what you want.'

A shy smile touched her lips. ‘Kiss me?'

His lips roved her jaw, her throat, her lips, paying careful attention to her sighs and her little breaths. She shifted impatiently. He repressed his smile. ‘Where?' he whispered. ‘Where do you want me to kiss you?'

In the sweetest moment of his life, and the most erotic, she cupped her breast. ‘Here.' She looked adorably confused and worried. When he didn't move, she arched upward, presenting her nipple to his mouth. ‘Please. Do that again.'

Something filled his chest—it was warm and soft and painfully sweet. He pushed it aside, unwilling to examine its meaning. ‘It will be my greatest pleasure.' And he meant that honestly.' Open-mouthed, he tended to each of her breasts in turn, then to each nipple, building desire in her and him to a pitch where he certainly could not see straight, and then he suckled first one breast then the other.

With a moan, she wrapped her legs tight around his waist, locked her ankles at the small of his back and drew him deeper into her body. And with each slow gliding thrust she sighed her pleasure until he was seated to the hilt and the urge to move ever faster had him in torment. To keep the driving urges at bay, he kissed and licked and suckled every inch of her skin he could reach without breaking his rhythm. She picked up the tempo, her inner muscles clenching him tight, her hand kneading his buttocks, her nails digging into his flesh.

‘Darling,' he murmured. ‘Let it happen. Let go.'
Please.

And still she hung between agony and bliss.

He reached down and found the centre of her pleasure in a desperate bid to give her what she clearly needed, yet did not know how to claim, while he drove harder and faster, meeting each arching lift of her hips until she cried out her desperate need. He watched the sheer wonder on her expression when her body seized, her inner muscles fisting around his shaft, pulsing around his sensitive flesh. The haze of bliss filled her eyes and softened her features. Paroxysms of pleasure shuddered through her. He followed her over the edge. Pulse after pulse of wild heat thundered through his veins—her pleasure or his, he wasn't sure. He collapsed to one side of her and pulled her into his embrace.

Nothing in his past had led him to expect something quite so cataclysmic. An orgy of delight. In shock he gazed down at her. ‘Are you all right?' he managed around the pounding of his heart.

‘Lovely,' she said dreamily. ‘You?'

‘Lovely, too.' And so much more, which he did not want to mention, given their understanding of things.

But really, once? How could he have even thought he could keep such a promise? The only good thing was that he had not made his vow out loud. Hades. He was already beginning to want her again.

One thing he would not do, however, was put her to shame.

He forced himself out of bed and cleaned them both up without causing her to do more than stir and smile. He tucked her in, got dressed, picked up his boots and left. It wouldn't do for the servants to find him in situ. Whatever had happened here tonight needed careful thought. Perhaps even a new vision of the future.

Chapter Eight

‘Y
ou sent for me?' Blade stood in the doorway to her office, his handsome face expressing caution and his eyes wary.

No doubt he was worrying that she might throw herself into his arms this morning demanding marriage, despite her declaration that she had no interest in anything but one night of pleasure. Yet
pleasure
was far too weak a word for what she had experienced last night. Nothing she had imagined had led her to expect such an extraordinary sensation of bliss. Nor had she anticipated the very real longing to experience it again. She must not give him the least hint of her desires or she might well lose any hope of keeping him at a distance. For it really must not happen again. Not if she was to be the kind of mother her son deserved.

While it would be difficult for them to return to what had been a growing friendship, that was the most she could allow from now on, unless she wanted to lose what remained of her self-respect. A pang of sorrow in her chest made her breath catch in her throat.

She let none of her emotions show on her face. He would no doubt take it as a sign of weakness, as an invitation to indulge yet again. Oh, but she did wish she could.

Stop!

‘I have an errand to run today, Mr Read,' she said coolly, calmly, despite the rapid beat of her heart.

He flinched slightly at the formal address, but she continued before he could say something he might regret. ‘With Beth busy in the kitchen, I wondered if you would accompany me.'

His expression cleared, as if he was relieved. Perhaps having seduced her, he was no longer interested. Like Carothers, once was enough. Thank goodness she had retained enough of her sanity to resist the temptation he presented to her newly heightened senses.

‘I can, of course, go alone,' she said with studied indifference, ‘but you did insist I not leave the house without an escort.' He had insisted very sweetly. Charmed her, in fact. Made her feel cared for, perhaps even treasured, when it was simply another task on behalf of his employer. The man was skilled at seduction and she would do well to remember it.

‘I beg your pardon,' he said. ‘I can easily put off my own plans. Certainly, I will go with you. I'll fetch my coat and hat.'

Out in the street, a cold wind was blowing off the moors and he glanced at the sky. ‘No rain today, I think.'

He held out his arm. She took it, because that was what a lady did, but she didn't have to like the little thrill of pleasure that ran through her, or revel in the comfort of his warmth at her side or the sense of protection provided by his bulk. Those things were foolish nonsense. He was not going to be happy when he realised where they were going.

He might even try to stop her, but she would deal with remonstrations when they arrived at their destination.

They walked in silence for some little distance, but when she turned onto a road that led to one of the poorer parts of town, the area occupied by Skepton's most unsavoury citizens, she sensed his reluctance and unease.

‘Where are you leading me, Mrs Falkner?'

‘You will see.'

He muttered something under his breath she assumed was a curse and, like any respectable lady, she ignored it. They entered a narrow alleyway, at the end of which sat what in an earlier century had been the home of a wool merchant. It was larger and less run-down than most of the buildings around it.

He pulled her to a halt.

‘You aren't serious.'

The anger in his face, in the tension of his shoulders, was palpable. She lifted her chin. ‘With you or without you, Mr Read.'

‘Charlie warned me about this. He also told me you had promised never to do this again.'

‘The matter is urgent.'

Dreadfully urgent. Even now she might be too late to save the child. A shudder ran through her at the thought of what might have already happened within this house of ill repute. She only had her informant's assurance that the auction would be tonight. The woman had been half-drunk and frightened and had run away before Caro could obtain any details, but she had no doubt the girl was at this house. She could only hope she would be in time.

‘If you want my help, Mrs Falkner, you will tell me what is going on,' he said sternly.

She didn't want his help, but she needed it. The last time she had been here, she'd been lucky. She'd taken them by surprise. They had laughed at her, but hadn't expected any of the girls to take her up on her offer. Flo had jumped at the chance to leave and they had let her go. She'd received a message the following day that the house harboured another girl Caro might like at three times the price.

An innocent young woman who had been snatched off the street for the purpose of getting more of her coin. Tonbridge had been furious when he'd learned what had happened. He had dealt with the abbess himself and made Caro promise never to go there again. If the townspeople ever learned of it, Caro would have ended up in prison or worse.

After that she had only approached the girls on the street while the abbess's minions had jeered at her. Katy had been the only other girl to seize the opportunity the Haven offered. The rest of them had been either too apathetic or too sure they could do better in their trade. Or too afraid. But she had let them know her door was always open. That if they needed help, they would find it at the Haven. This morning there had been a real cry for help.

‘I am told they have taken a child from her father in payment of debt,' she said baldly. ‘There is to be an auction where she will be sold to the highest bidder—'

His face paled. ‘Let me deal with this.'

She wished she could. ‘The mistress of the house said she would deal with no one but me. Tonbridge scared her badly. I was told to come alone, but I am not such a fool. You will do exactly as I say, is that clear?'

His expression darkened, his lips flattened, but he nodded once.

‘Good.' Not that she thought he would obey her orders if he decided on some other course of action, but then, that might be just as well.

Arm on his, she walked down the alley to stand at the foot of the steps leading up to the porticoed front door. It was painted in garishly bright red in advertisement of what went on beneath its roof.

A doorman in red livery sat on a chair in front of the door. He stood at their approach.

‘I believe your mistress is expecting me,' Caro said firmly, aware of the unsteady beating of her heart.

The doorman's eyes, however, were fixed on her escort. ‘Well, if ain't Mr Read. I don't think she expected you, sir.'

‘Likely not,' he said calmly.

Only one reason made a man's name known here. Betrayal was a foolish hollow ache in her chest. For the sake of the child held somewhere inside, she ignored it and mounted the steps.

* * *

The look of disgust in Caro's eyes hurt. No doubt she thought he had come here to make use of the girls, when he had come here seeking information at the card tables. Let her think what she would. Clearly she was like all the rest of the women who enjoyed his services. She wanted nothing else from him. Not that he had much to offer.

And while this was not the way he had planned to spend his afternoon, since he had wanted to assure himself Butterworth really had left town, keeping Caro safe was more important.
Try to stop her from going off half-cocked
had been Tonbridge's exact words in his letter. A helpful warning that had made him think to bring along his pistol. A habit left over from the war. A soldier never knew when he might need his firearm, even on the most peaceful of days.

If he had been able to get to the pistol the night he lost his hand, things might have turned out very differently. For one thing, he would not have been alive to tell the tale. He pushed back the darkness of the memory.

The porter opened the door and Caro swept inside with Blade bringing up a very close rear.

In the daylight, the hall looked tawdry and garish, like the outside, but at night when the candles flickered and nubile females wandered around in scanty clothing, the male guests didn't notice the furnishings. Blade knew exactly how a brothel worked; he'd spent the first few years of his life as an occupant. He'd been lucky he'd been permitted to stay there with his mother.

The doorman gestured to an open door with his thumb. ‘Missus is in there. She's expecting you.'

Caro marched into the room with her chin up. Blade stayed close at her shoulder.

The voluptuous henna-haired woman sprawled on the sofa in a gauzy robe didn't get up. The man behind her, a rough-looking fellow, narrowed his gaze on Blade.

‘Nice to see you again, Mrs Falkner,' the woman said in a husky voice some men would have found attractive when she was younger. Now she merely looked raddled in her elaborately curled wig and a robe cut so low across her bosom it left nothing to the imagination. ‘Brought your bully boy with you this time, did you?' The irony in the woman's voice grated on Blade's ear, but he said nothing.

‘This is Mr Read,' Caro said calmly. ‘Late of the Twenty-Fifth Hussars.'

‘I know who he is,' the woman said, smiling at him coyly. He tried not to show his distaste. There was no sense in insulting the woman. At least, not yet.

Mrs Falkner removed her gloves in the manner of a pugilist removing his coat. ‘I am told you plan to auction a girl of fourteen this evening. I will give you fifty pounds for her.'

The woman glanced up at the man behind her. ‘I told you.'

Fifty pounds? Blade reeled at the princely sum.

‘That is what you expect to realise at the auction, is it not?'

‘Perhaps more,' the abbess said.

‘Or perhaps not as much,' Caro replied. ‘A bird in the hand, madam?'

The woman appeared to be considering the offer.

‘If you don't take it,' Blade said, ‘I'll have you closed down by the end of the afternoon.'

‘On whose authority?'

‘The Duke of Stantford. While his son is out of town I am acting as his representative.'

Caro looked startled, but didn't speak.

The woman's eyes narrowed. ‘I don't believe you.'

He pulled out his letter of commission with the ducal seal. ‘I can assure you it is true. Now, shall I have you closed down or will you co-operate?' It was no idle threat and the woman knew it. Oh, she would start up again—they always did—but in the meantime she would have no income and her girls would scatter far and wide.

‘What Mrs Falkner is offering is more than fair,' he added with a hard smile. Far more than fair. And if Tonbridge wouldn't pay it, Blade would raise the money himself. Somehow.

‘I'll need the money in my hand before I hands the lass over,' the abbess said, her voice more a whine than a demand.

Caro plucked fifty pounds from her reticule and held it up.

The woman hesitated, but the sight of the money was too much. The sum equalled what she'd likely make in profit in six months.

‘All right, I'll take it.' She sat up and reached for the bills.

Caro whipped them out of her reach. ‘In addition,' she said, with twin spots of colour high on her cheeks, ‘you will promise me you will not take in any more children. You will swear that they are off limits from now on.'

A look of greed came over the woman's face. ‘What about the rest of my ladies?'

Caro shook her head sadly. ‘They are adults, and if they come to me seeking refuge of their own free will, I will offer them a chance at a new life, but you must promise me you will never again permit a child through your doors.'

Astonished at her courage, Blade shifted closer. He needed to be ready, because the man behind the abbess looked as if at any moment he might leap into the fray. He must have caught Blade's movement because his gaze flickered from Caro to him and back again.

‘Do you want me to teach them who is in charge here?' the man growled.

The woman laughed and waved a languid hand. ‘Fetch the girl.' She looked at Caro and there was an odd look on her face. If it weren't impossible, Blade would have thought it was sympathy. ‘And tell me,' she said as the man left the room with a last threatening glance at Blade, ‘what will this lass be doing at this Haven of yours?'

‘She will learn to read and write, if need be, and be assisted to enter a respectable trade.' She pulled a pamphlet from her reticule. ‘This outlines our mission. Our main aim is to keep mothers and children together. But all women are welcome within our doors.'

The woman reached out and took the pamphlet.

Blade could barely prevent his jaw from dropping. He'd seen generals with less panache and authority than Caro Falkner. And in that moment, he knew he not only liked her, that not only did he find her an attractive sensual woman, he knew he was feeling something far stronger. Something she had made perfectly clear that she would not welcome from any man. He wanted to make her his.

The man dragged a girl into the room. She was so small, he wondered if she was even as old as fourteen. Her glance took him in and her large blue eyes opened wide with consternation. And then he wondered if she wasn't far older than she looked at first glance.

The girl spotted Caro and a look of intense relief passed over her face. Blade realised that, standing as he was between Caro and the door, the girl had seen only him at first.

‘Linny, you are to go with this lady and do as she says,' the abbess said, eyeing the fifty pounds in Caro's hand.

Caro handed over the money and held out a hand to Linny. ‘Come, child, we are going to find you a nicer place to stay.'

The girl looked Blade up and down. ‘With this gentleman, mum?'

Her voice was from the country, somewhere to the west, Blade thought.

‘No. With me,' Caro said firmly. ‘What is your name?'

‘Linny. Linette Sanders, I was baptised,' the girl said. She glanced over at the abbess and pouted. ‘You promised me a pretty dress with red ribbons.'