Simply Voracious (11 page)

“And your point is?”

“If she was . . . forced, then bringing her here to such a blatantly sexual place might not be the best idea. She might panic.”

Paul shoved a hand through his hair. “I’ve thought of that, but you don’t know her as well as I do, Ambrose. She is very strong, and she is also determined that I show her my true nature before she commits herself totally to this marriage. She insisted that I be honest”

“Is she pregnant? Is that why she is willing to agree to try anything?”

Paul felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He fought for control before rising slowly to his feet. “She will be here in a moment. I’m going up to the main hall to meet her.”

“Be careful, Paul,” Ambrose said.

“I’ll do my best.” Paul nodded and went toward the door, his thoughts in a whirl. He hadn’t considered all the possible consequences of Lucky’s ordeal. Was Lucky even aware that she might have conceived? If she was, Ambrose might be right, and all her protestations of honesty might mean nothing. She had been protected all her life, so the thought of having a child out of wedlock would devastate her and thus her family.

More to the point, would he be able to welcome another man’s child into his life? At least he might give the dukedom an heir. Would Lucky be happy about that too?

By the time he reached the main hallway, he was no closer to knowing the answers. He intercepted one of the footmen who dealt with incoming guests and verified their membership.

“Jarvis, I’m expecting a lady. She will be wearing a dark brown cloak edged with fur, and she will ask for me by name. Send her into the first waiting room, will you? I’ll meet her there.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Paul went into the already warm room and took a couple of masks out of one of the drawers. It would be hard to conceal his identity when he was so well known at the pleasure house, but it was imperative that they concealed Lucky’s. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed nine times, and he started to pace the carpet.

He couldn’t ask Lucky if she was breeding. She might not even know herself. If he married her, he had to take on everything about her, even her child. It was little to ask in return for a dukedom and a life free of gossip and innuendo. He stared into the red heart of the fire. Sometimes he felt like he was being slowly smothered and that no one could hear his screams.

The door opened and Jarvis stepped inside, ushering a well-concealed figure.

“Your guest, sir.”

“Thank you, Jarvis.”

Paul waited until Jarvis retired before moving toward Lucky. She took down her hood and stared around the room.

“This wasn’t quite what I expected.”

He kissed her cheek. “What did you expect?”

She blushed and took off her gloves. “Something a little less like my mother’s morning room.”

“But you have been here before, haven’t you?”

“Only to the private part of the house on Barrington Square.” Her gaze strayed to the painting over the mantelpiece. “This is quite different.”

Paul grabbed her hands. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You will see things that might shock you.”

She smiled. “After what that rogue did to me, I fear I won’t be shocked.”

Paul didn’t say anything to that. “If you want to leave at any time, just tell me and we will go.”

“Thank you, Paul, but I am quite determined to see this through.”

For a moment, she looked just as resolute as her father, and Paul wanted to laugh. Instead, he showed her the blue velvet mask he held in his hand.

“You need to be incognito. Turn around so that I can tie this in place for you.”

She obediently turned, and he carefully positioned the mask on her nose and secured the ties at the back of her head. “How’s that?”

“Perfect.” She swung around. “Should I keep my cloak on as well?”

“That is up to you. It might get a bit warm in the various rooms.”

She took off her cloak and laid it over the back of a chair. “I borrowed this dress from my mother’s closet. But I don’t think anyone will associate it with her or me. She wears it when she does her charity visiting back at our country estate.”

The dress was cut almost like a riding habit, with buttons up the front to a high collar and tight long sleeves. The clean lines suited Lucky, and for the first time he could see how much she took after her mother. She’d eschewed her usual curls, and braided her hair on the top of her head in a coronet.

“You look lovely.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “I look quite unlike myself, which is the purpose, yes?”

“Exactly.” He put on his own mask and offered her his arm. “Are you ready, then?”

“Indeed I am.”

He opened the door for her and headed toward the grand staircase. “This evening I thought I’d give you an overview of the pleasure house and point out the places where I like to . . . enjoy myself.”

Her fingers dug into his arm. Beneath her smiling exterior she wasn’t as calm as she wanted to appear. “You won’t go off and leave me to fend for myself?”

“Of course not.”

“Then how am I to see you ‘enjoying’ yourself?”

“That will have to wait for another evening,” he muttered. “If we survive this one.”

Lucky glanced around as they ascended the staircase and came out on to a large landing dominated by a portrait of an almost naked blond beauty. She nudged Paul in the ribs.

“Is that Madame Helene?”

“Yes, it is. I believe it was painted about twenty years ago by an admirer.”

“She is so beautiful.” Lucky sighed.

“Indeed, and as I’m sure she’s told you, beauty brings both great rewards and great trouble.”

Lucky remembered Helene’s sympathetic gaze and slowly nodded. “Indeed. I don’t think her life has been easy.”

Paul drew her farther along the landing toward a set of double doors. “Here we have the first of the main salons on this level. It is where most of the guests congregate to meet their friends and decide what particular type of entertainment they desire for the evening.”

Lucky peered around Paul’s shoulder and studied the large gold-and-scarlet room. At one end there was a buffet table, and footmen moved through the throng offering various beverages. After that, all similarity to one of her mother’s parties ended. Some of the guests were already naked and sprawled with others on the many couches and cushions spread around the space.

“I don’t have to take my clothes off, do I?” she whispered to Paul.

“Not unless you want to,” he replied, his expression serious. “But I don’t think I have ever survived a whole evening here without losing at least one article of clothing.”

“Oh,” Lucky said. “What else is there to do here other than . . . this?”

“I’ll show you. Just keep walking through the salon, Lucky. Don’t let anyone stop you, and don’t speak to anyone or let on that you know who they are.”

Before she could question him further, he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and moved forward, steering a fast and direct path to the other set of double doors that led out of the salon on the opposite wall. It was difficult for Lucky to keep her mouth closed. She’d already spotted two of her mother’s friends, and several of her father’s acquaintances from the House of Lords, in among the melee. And none of them had been behaving in an appropriate manner.

She let out her breath as they reached the other side of the room and again looked up at Paul, who seemed totally unperturbed by what he’d seen. She supposed that for him it was commonplace. Doubt crashed over her. Would she ever understand her enigmatic betrothed, or was she forever doomed to suffer from her own ignorance?

She swallowed hard. “These people look as if they are enjoying themselves.”

“I think they are. They pay a lot of money to belong to this particular club and have the freedom to explore their sexual desires.”

She met his gaze. “
I
didn’t enjoy it.”

His brown eyes hardened. “That’s because the man who touched you was a complete bastard, who used your body against your will. When two people come together willingly, the result is far more pleasant. I hope to show you that.”

She leaned back against the wall. “Sometimes I feel that my whole life became
fantastical
from the moment he forced himself on me.” She gestured at the salon. “And all this? Seems no less fantastical to me either. I know I should be shocked, but I’m not. If this is another, better form of physical pleasure, I can only be glad of it.”

Paul smiled at her and she frowned.

“What is wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong. I’m just impressed by your ability to think these things through.”

“But I’m not. I’m simply allowing myself to experience this without judging anyone.”

“Ambrose thought bringing you here might be a mistake.”

“But he was wrong.” She shook her head. “I can’t explain it, but this is far less frightening and shocking than what happened to me in that garden.”

“Perhaps it feels like that because you are not actually involved.”

“That’s true, but I’m not scared, Paul. I can assure you of that.”

He held her gaze for a long moment and then nodded.

“Then we will carry on with our tour.” He pointed down a long carpeted corridor with doors on either side. “The house is deceptive. It is actually quite deep and extends into the mansion in the square behind.”

“What are all the doors for?” Lucky asked.

“Each one conceals a particular scenario that guests enjoy watching.”

“Such as?”

He smiled down at her. “Let me put it another way. When you can’t sleep at night, what do you dream about? Who comes to your bed?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

He cupped her chin so that she had no choice but to look into his brown eyes. “You must have dreamed of, say, a prince taking you away on his stallion, or a pirate king, or
something?
I know the books you like to read, Lucky; you must have pictured yourself as the heroine of at least one of them.”

She gazed into his eyes. She could hardly tell him that most of her romantic dreams had featured him. But maybe there
was
a way to do so after all.

“I dreamed of saving the life of a wounded warrior. Of watching him wake up and fall in love with me,” she said breathlessly.

His eyes narrowed as he considered her. “I think there might be something to your taste here, after all. Would you like to try it?”

“I will if you are with me.” She hesitated. “Or will you be in it?”

“Not this time. I don’t want to leave you by yourself tonight. If you enjoy the experience, perhaps we could find something we could appear in together on another night.”

“Together?”

“Why not?”

Lucky took his hand and he led her down the long corridor, pausing at every door to read the handwritten card in the brass holder. Eventually he stopped near the end of the hallway and nodded.

“This should do it. Are you game?”

Lucky took a deep breath. “Yes, I am.”

“Remember, if you want to leave at any point, just do so, and I’ll follow you out.”

He carefully opened the door and ushered her inside. To her surprise, there were already a few people sitting in the chairs that surrounded a central stage-like area. It was too dark to see anyone else’s faces, and Lucky didn’t really try. She sat down where Paul indicated, and he kept hold of her hand.

In the center of the stage was a narrow pallet occupied by a man who looked like a rather battered Roman soldier. Armor was piled up beside the bed, and a small earthenware oil lamp flickered, throwing light on to the man’s face. His head was heavily bandaged, and he moved restlessly on the sheets, moaning some garbled form of Latin.

A woman approached him from the darkness wearing a dark green tunic and a plaid shawl, and carrying a pottery bowl. Her hair was red and worn in two long braids, and crowned by a bronze circlet. Lucky found herself holding her breath as the woman knelt down beside the man and started to wash the exposed parts of his skin.

He groaned more loudly and suddenly grabbed her wrist. His eyes opened and he stared at the woman.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Lady Carys.”

“And why are you caring for me? From your speech you are my enemy.”

The woman resumed washing the man’s face. “Because I could not let any man die.”

Lucky watched, transfixed, as Carys pulled aside the thin blanket and undid the ties of his tunic, exposing the man’s muscled chest. She found herself sitting forward as the woman continued to wash her way down the man’s body. She wondered what that felt like, the warmth of his skin, the crisp hair on his chest, and the way his muscles flexed as the woman touched him.

Jeremy hadn’t undressed at all. All she remembered was the roughness of his coat pressed against her face, almost suffocating her, and his knee forcing her legs apart.... She shivered, and Paul squeezed her hand.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded and looked back at the man and woman in the center of the room. Carys was untying the man’s belt now, pulling his tunic completely off to reveal a scrap of cloth covering his loins. A cloth that wasn’t lying completely flat.

“What is your name, sir?” Carys asked softly.

“Flavian,” the man replied. “When you’ve made me well, will your menfolk drag me out and kill me?”

“Not if I can prevent it,” Carys murmured and dropped her head to kiss the soldier’s battered face. Lucky found she was holding her breath as the kiss went on and on. Flavian brought his hand up and undid the woman’s braids, burying his fingers in the woman’s beautiful red hair.

Carys dropped the washcloth and removed the linen covering Flavian’s groin. Lucky swallowed a gasp as his
protuberance
sprang free....

She nudged Paul. “What is it called?”

“His cock?” he whispered. “His shaft, his rod?”

She stopped listening to him as Carys wrapped a hand around Flavian’s “cock” and began to rub it. The man groaned and kissed her harder, urging her closer, tearing at her clothes in an effort to reach her skin. Not that Carys seemed to mind. Lucky had minded her dress being torn, but even she could see that this was very different.