Powder of Love (I) (23 page)

“I must go find Lady Williamsford,” Reed interrupted. “I shall see you soon, and I hope to claim a dance.” That might keep her in the room with the other dancers, but he doubted it.

The only room he hadn’t checked was the small red parlor off the withdrawing room.

He risked tapping Rosalie’s shoulder. She shuddered under his light touch and closed her eyes.

“Will you wait here?” he asked. “There are at least fifteen people in this room. I think most of the guests are here or in the garden. Do you think you can stay and keep watch?”

She shivered again. “Yes. I can pay attention and avoid consequences.”

A rangy figure in full evening dress including tails came into the room carrying a black bag. It was the doctor, out of breath but smiling broadly. “Miss Ambermere. I was at the theater, so it took your man some time to find me. What is wrong? You find the missing stuff, Reed?”

Reed loathed leaving Rosalie in the doctor’s hands. What if the fellow didn’t keep those hands to himself? But he had to find Lady Williamsford before Rosalie did.

“Can you explain it to Dr. Leonard?” he asked her.

“Yes. Of course.” Her eyes were still dreamy, and a tiny smile curved her lips.
Don’t go near the doctor
, he wanted to yell.
Don’t let him so much as touch you.

He strode briskly from the room to the parlor. The door was closed, and no servants stood nearby.

When he opened the room, he saw no servants in there either. At least the parlor wasn’t as crowded as he’d expected. The red cloth glowed pink on flesh, and it was a vision of either hell or heaven, depending on one’s propensity. Seven people lay, stood, or knelt, all naked as the day they were born. Five men, two women. Grunting, the soft slap of bodies clashing, the scent of sex and sweat.

An orgy. Not the first he’d witnessed. He’d walked in on a few during his time with Clermont, and he’d been expecting to find this scene. But the shock still hit him because he knew these faces in polite society, dressed at the height of fashion and thoroughly respectable. And he hadn’t seen two men engaged in such activity before.

Trevner was on his hands and knees, his mouth wide open, his eyes closed. The plump banker who’d sat next to Rosalie clutched Trevner’s hips and pumped himself into the younger man’s bum.

A woman rested on the floor, cushions under her body, her legs spread wide. She groaned when the man lying on his stomach with his head busy at her crotch stopped working at her. Clermont, his face glistening with the woman’s juices, stopped licking and looked up. He rested his weight on his elbows between her legs and put one hand on the woman’s pudendum. Reed was reminded of someone keeping his place in a book.

Clermont beamed. “Reed! Here at last. Oh, just what I’ve longed for. Deirdre, look who’s joining us.”

Like Trevner, Lady Williamsford was on her hands and knees, but she was no passive actor. Her mouth was moving up and down on one man, and one of her hands clutched the base of his cock while her other hand moved between her own legs. Another man knelt behind her, attempting to insert his cock into her swaying body. Lost in her own ecstasy of sucking, she didn’t seem to hear Clermont.

The man behind her put his hand on her lower back and pressed. She obligingly pushed her bottom higher and shifted her thighs farther apart. With a grunt, he located his goal and pushed into her. He began his enthusiastic pumping. More slaps of flesh against flesh.

The curve of Lady Williamsford’s back, the line of her throat as she strained at the cock in front of her reminded Reed of Rosalie.

He felt his own cock’s stirring. Trust that stupid object to rise to these occasions. He could ignore it, and he could ignore the way her breasts swayed. They were fuller than Rosalie’s, and her nipples were slightly duskier. He looked away and watched the banker for a moment. His face was squeezed tight and red. He wheezed as he pushed into Trevner.

A candidate for apoplectic fit, Reed thought.

That was a potential lifelong consequence that hadn’t occurred to him. Laws had been broken—were still being broken just a few feet away—by that banker and Trevner. Scandal loomed.

And in other bodies, so did the even worse possibility of infants in nine months.

The woman on the floor, writhing and panting under Clermont’s fingers, was young. Reed didn’t recall her name, but she’d been wearing a pale green gown. God, please not a virginal creature. Not married, come to that. Actually Reed couldn’t think of a single situation in which tonight boded well for the needy and naked woman.

“Reed, you’re looking at the gorgeous Maggie. Do you desire a turn with her?” Clermont leaned down and kissed the woman’s belly. “You don’t mind, do you, dear?”

The woman whimpered and shoved the lower part of her body from the floor. In heat. Her pink inner lips glowed as she offered herself. An animal, Rosalie had said.

“Yes,” said Reed. “Get up and let me have her.”

Clermont crowed with joy. He slid away and sat up. After a moment looking around, he grumbled, “I’m generous, since there aren’t enough females in here. Maybe I should go to another room.”

“No,” Reed said.

Clermont studied his face for a moment and must have seen the danger there, for he shrugged. He got to his feet, his stiff member waggling as he walked across to Lady Williamsford and tried to dislodge the man fucking her.

Reed stood over Maggie, who raised her arms to him. “Please,” she said.

He squatted and allowed her to wrap her arms around him. Then he straightened, pulling her weight up easily. Echoing Rosalie’s earlier motions, she curled around him, legs wrapped tight around his middle.

She pressed her thoroughly wet core against him and rubbed. The dampness seeped through his clothes and was warm on his skin. A lovely naked woman in his arms, and his cock responded, of course.

The man at Lady Williamsford’s mouth gave a shout and convulsed. He fell back, twitching.

“That’s the spirit, lad,” Clermont said. “My turn, Deirdre. You’ll have to open wider.”

Reed didn’t stop to watch Lady Williamsford suck on Clermont. His arms full of the writhing Maggie, he prowled the room. He had no idea where the discarded clothes could be and instead found some of the red cloth had been ripped from the walls. With some difficulty, because Maggie clung to him and tried to get at his mouth, he gathered the cloth and wrapped it over her back. She whimpered in dismay as he tried to put the cloth around her front.

“No. You touch me, not this wretched cloth,” she said. “Touch me.”

Yes, what a good idea, his cock said. He ignored them both and managed to cover her from head to foot in the red. She tried to get down from his arms and shed herself of the covering, but he held her tight. “Now, now, Maggie, just wait,” he crooned. “Just a little longer.”

“Need,” she whispered and began to lick his jaw.

He opened the door again and got through it.

“Hey,” Clermont called. “I was looking forward to watching you fuck her. I sacrificed some delicious fun for you.”

Using his foot, Reed slammed the door behind himself. As soon as he’d delivered this woman to Dr. Leonard, he’d go back and either lock the door or put a guard outside it. Perhaps he’d first give himself the satisfaction of pummeling Clermont.

Dr. Leonard was still in the room that contained the dancers. He had some bottles and equipment out and was coaxing a man to drink something.

Maggie lapped and nibbled at the corner of Reed’s mouth. He had trouble twisting his face away enough to ask the doctor, “What’s that?”

“A sedative. I think that lovely young lady you’re carrying could use some.”

Reed eased the woman down his body, wincing as she slowly slid over his erection. She clung to him still. He shifted her to his side, unsure if he could safely let go of her. She might rush back to Clermont’s attentions.

She didn’t seem to mind that he merely held her against him. She leaned her upper body weight against his arm, spread her legs, and rode his thigh, rubbing and panting as her core pushed against him. Her head was thrown back, and her blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders and down her back.

The doctor gave a low whistle. “Jesus, man. Now that’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing more often.”

Reed glared at him. “Shut up. She’s in need of help, damn it.”

“I can see that. Come here, dear. What’s your name?”

She gave a thin cry and convulsed against Reed, her legs squeezing so tight around his thigh, his knee almost buckled.

“Yes, yes, oh please,” she shouted. Why did she have to say almost the same words he’d heard from Rosalie?

He could feel the moist heat through his trouser leg. This whole suit would reek of female excitement. He gave a small sniff and realized he didn’t detect the musk of sperm from her. Perhaps there would be no risk of a baby after all. Hopeful thinking, he supposed as he gently disengaged her arms from his body while trying to retuck her makeshift red garment so it wouldn’t fall off her.

“She’s lovely,” the doctor said. “Some men have all the luck.”

Reed couldn’t think of a reply that wouldn’t involve obscenities, so he remained silent. He stepped away from Maggie but kept his hands on her shoulders as the doctor carefully measured some green liquid into a glass and handed it to her. She sniffed it and threw it down. The glass crashed on the parquet floor. Arms wide, she dived at the doctor, who caught her and didn’t seem to mind as much as he should have. He murmured and stroked her back and tangled his fingers in her hair. She clung to him and hungrily met his mouth, and they exchanged a long kiss.

Reed grabbed the doctor’s shoulder and spun him around so the kissing pair disengaged.

“Get her the medication. Now,” Reed said. “Even if you have to inject it into her system.”

“I don’t know why you’re so angry about all this. She’s not hurting anything or anyone. Not even herself.”

“Of course, she isn’t. But you of all people should know this behavior isn’t her choice. I’m worried about her, you idiot. I’m angry this is happening to her.”

“Oh, very well. You’re right. But I still say no harm when it comes to my interactions with her. I’m not going to spread the word that she’s in this condition. And she is so very lovely. Delicious mouth too.”

Maggie moaned and wrapped her arms around the doctor’s waist. She laid her head on his shoulder. “Thank you,” she said. “You taste good too.”

Reed was startled that she was listening. He’d almost forgotten she was a thinking human.

Animals.

“Please, Maggie. Drink the green stuff the doctor gives you,” he urged. “Leonard, I’m not sure I trust you, but I have to find someone to guard the door to the small parlor. And I’ll get someone to clean up the glass. Take care of her bare feet, will you? Doctor—damn it, no, that doesn’t mean you should pick her up.”

The man who’d drunk a dose of the green medicine was sprawled on the floor, snoring. Reed paused at the door. “Looks like that sedative of yours works. Have you given any to Miss Ambermere?”

“No, she said she hadn’t taken a huge dose of the glandular powder and could control herself. Seemed to be in control too.”

“How did you test her control?”

Leonard gave him a toothy grin. “Scientific method?”

Reed quelled the urge to shake the doctor only because he needed him. “No more scientific method when it comes to attractive females,” Reed said. “I’m warning you.”

The doctor’s laughter followed him out the room.

Rosalie wanted to run, feel wind stroke her face. Actually she wanted to feel a breeze on every inch of her skin. Air bathing. But no, she dragged her mind from her body’s raucous senses. Help her guests.
Now.

But perhaps she could take a moment to find Gideon again, press her face to his neck and inhale, taste in her throat and mouth and nose that essence of the man she already missed and craved.

The small parlor door was closed. Oh dear. No servants guarded it. She went to it and paused only a moment to feel the delightful coolness, the ridges and curves of the brass doorknob.

Inside the room, bodies writhed and groaned. So many of them, she was taken aback for a moment, her usual inhibitions and dismay rising from the place they’d been imprisoned. But then the curve of a shoulder blade distracted her. A lovely, shifting shape. Warm, no doubt. Not Gideon’s, so she didn’t have the immediate heavy lurch of desire, but anyone would want to stroke the smooth skin marred only by a few freckles. She tilted her head to the side and recognized Mr. Trevner, the man Mr. Clermont had brought to dinner.

Mr. Clermont would be in here, then. Yes, there he was. Naked, of course. He would be. And not so unattractive. Pale and thin, perhaps, with no body hair, which she associated with masculine beauty. But he was muscular, and how happy he looked because a woman’s mouth moved on his cock.

It never occurred to her that such a thing might be possible, but then she remembered the swooning joy Gideon had given her with his mouth. Her mouth began to water. A cock would be warm, heavy, redolent of the rich scent of a man. Of course she wanted to taste Gideon.

And the same woman who got to taste a man had another man behind her, filling her with his cock. He reminded Rosalie of a dog, the way he hunched and moved. So much skin for the lucky woman with two men touching her body. Stroking and—

Rosalie’s breathing ceased. Oh. The woman on Mr. Clermont’s cock. Rosalie couldn’t pull in a breath. No, this wasn’t the right thing for her to witness.

Her head swam, and a wave of nausea filled her.

She must have stumbled from the room, because she stood outside the door now, panting hard to make up for all the breathing she’d forgotten how to do in the room.

Thank God Gideon was there next to her. “Are you all right?” he asked. How many times had he asked that tonight?

He didn’t move away or protest when she put her arms around his torso, under his jacket, and pushed her face against his neck, just as she’d dreamed of doing. Only now the dreamy quality and her delight in the senses had dimmed. She was aware of too much.