Sinful (10 page)

No, he owed Jane nothing, least of all monogamy. She had ruined him. Had destroyed any hope he had left in his life. Damn it, he hated this feeling nonsense. The sooner he returned to his old careless and embittered self the better.

“Madame Recamier’s,” Turner called as he slowed the carriage to a stop in front of an old Georgian mansion in the heart of Trevor Square.

Matthew pressed forward and peered at the green door and the triangular stone pediment that made the facade elegant and classical. From the outside, the house was the pinnacle of respectability. On the inside, it was a notorious bawdy house that catered to the whims and fetishes of the ton.

“When shall I return for you, milord? Or perhaps I should wait here?” his nervous looking coachman asked as Matthew slammed the carriage door shut behind him.

“I will send word to you, Turner. But I shouldn’t think it will be anytime soon.”

“Today, milord?”

“Not likely.”

“Tomorrow?” Turner’s voice cracked with nervousness.

“Perhaps.”

“Two days, milord?” he asked in awe.

“At the very least,” he grumbled as he straightened his waistcoat and strolled up the steps to the house.

“Ah, Lord Wallingford,” Madame Recamier said with a smile as she swung the door wide-open and waved him in. “
Bonjour,
my lord. It has been a long time.”

“Good day, madam.”

“You are very early this morning, my lord.”

“Let us cut to the chase. I am in need of a well-appointed room as I shall be occupying it for some time. I will also require women.
Skilled
women.”

“Oh, my girls are the very best,
monsieur.
Surely you remember that.”

“That is why you find me here at your doorstep at this ungodly hour. Now, a blonde and a fetching brunette, if you please.”

“At once, my lord. I shall send Chloe and Phoebe to you. I trained them myself. You will find them very…accommodating. They are both highly skilled in the more exotic arts.”

“Very good,” he muttered, slapping his gloves against his thigh. “Exactly what I’m looking for.”

Bloody hell he hoped one of them had green eyes. It would make the fantasy so much more real that way.

“This way, my lord,” Madame Recamier called as her wide-hooped skirt swished along the marble floor of the foyer.

For the first time in his life he wondered if he would even be able to complete the task ahead of him. He was absurdly numb. Not even the faintest hum of anticipation throbbed in his veins. His cock, he realized, was humiliatingly limp.

“Perhaps three women, madam,” he said as he climbed the stairs behind her. “And one with green eyes. Light green,” he clarified. “And a bottle of absinthe,” he demanded. He was going to need to get ripping sotted if he was indulging in this sort of play. He had no desire for his dreams to come out. With the green fairy, he could shove aside his past, could withstand the touch of them, their scent on his body in order to live out this fantasy. With the green fairy, he could fuck these women and pretend they were Jane. And Christ, it was a pathetic notion that he needed to pretend.
Fool.

“My lord.” The madam chuckled. “We are only too pleased to service you. Who could deny you?”

A woman named Jane, he thought bitterly. There was only one way to drive her out of his blood, and that was with the body of another—or three others—he thought savagely. Hell, he was going to have himself a grandiose orgy and then he would be good and rid of the chit. After this, he would never again close his eyes and see those lovely green eyes flashing at him from beneath black lace.

He wanted to hate her, but he couldn’t. Maddening as it was, his desire for her was growing, until it was all he could think about, until it was all he could see, taste,
feel.

He didn’t want to feel. Didn’t want to taste. He wanted to fuck. To purge her out of his mind. By the time he was done here, he would have forgotten Jane and the way she had touched him. When he was done, he would be cold and empty once more. Himself, he growled, as he reached for the
blonde who had entered the room. Tearing the flimsy nightgown from her body he saw that her nipples were already hard, and he cupped her breast, and bent to take a nipple into his mouth. He did not suckle her as he had Jane, but bit down on the small bud, eliciting a gasp of excitement.

“What is your name?” he growled.

“Chloe.” She sighed as he cupped her other breast and rolled the nipple into a hard, little point.

“No, it is not,” he commanded. “It is Jane.”

“All right,” she said, “I’m Jane.”

No, you aren’t,
he thought as he pressed her against the wall,
but it’s all I’ve got.

She wrapped her leg around his hip and dipped her hand between her thighs, spreading herself as he watched her fingers between her folds. “What are you going to do to Jane?” she teased as she brought her fingers to his lips.

“Make her pay.”

When he found her—Jane—he was going to make her suffer. It was one of the things he was good at, making people hurt. That, and fucking. Pain and screwing. It was all he knew.

Sunrise.
How he loathed the dawn.

It was just another bloody reminder that another interminably long day loomed ahead of him. Hours and hours of idleness and boredom were his daily penance. How the devil did he continue to exist, enduring the endless monotony? His days had been carried out in the same manner for the past eighteen years. His stint at Madame Recamier’s brothel had been no exception. He had been bored then, too. Just carrying out the act in a physical, nonemotional manner.

He remembered those days at the brothel. The women who had pleasured him lay in sated sleep around him as he stared up at the ceiling, physically replete, emotionally void. Even two days of debauchery and numerous bottles of absinthe had not made the unsavory feelings of guilt, remorse and unquenchable longing release their hold on him.

Christ, he had not been able to shake the thoughts of Jane. It was obvious that no amount of sex, no matter how skilled or debauched it might be, was going to be enough to drive
away the memories of that afternoon when he had kissed and touched Jane. No breasts were as beautiful and full as Jane’s. No skin was as flawlessly smooth and sweet tasting as hers. Even when he had requested that one of the women stroke him to orgasm with her hand, the release had not been the same. He had merely emptied himself in her palm. It had been cold and emotionally vacant. The charged shudder, the shattering experience of burying his face in scented skin as he came, had been missing, and he had felt utterly devoid of any feeling.

The memories faded and he felt the warmth of the spring sun on his face. He was damn certain that this morning, with its obscenely brilliant sunrise, would not hold anything other than the usual amusements and diversions that occupied his days. Certainly it would not be like the days when he had waited to see Jane. Those days of hope and pleasure were gone.

Radiant shards of yellow and orange shot through the bed curtains, piercing his closed eyelids. Groaning, Matthew rolled onto his belly, burying his face in the pillow in an attempt to shut out the sunrise and his thoughts of Jane.

“I don’t give a bloody damn what the devil he is up to. I pay your wages if you will remember, not the wastrel beyond the door.”

The sound of the bed curtains being thrust aside shot through his brain, setting off a mad tattoo of thundering drums in his head. Christ, he was suffering this morning. He was growing too old for the sort of carousing he had indulged in last evening.

Reaching for the corner of the blanket, he covered his head from the unsightly sounds and the unwanted light.

“You will rouse yourself this second, Wallingford! I demand to know what the hell you were thinking when you decided to drag me into another one of your goddamn scandals!”

“What in Christ’s name is
that?
” Matthew snapped, his voice muffled beneath the thick woolen covers.

“Sunlight, milord,” Marlborough, his valet, murmured with characteristic sarcasm.

“Not that,” Matthew growled. “But
that.
”

The irritated, petulant breaths reached his ears once more. Awkward silence ensued and he could only imagine how his poor valet was bearing up beneath the weight of the twelfth Duke of Torrington’s glacial glare.

“
That,
milord, would be your father.”

Matthew groaned deeply and cursed a filthy expletive, eliciting the desired effect from the duke.

“Get up this instant, you indolent, worthless—” His father’s tirade ended in gasping, stuttering outrage as Matthew’s bedmate stirred and stretched, purring like a well-fed kitten. Fuzzy images of sex-flushed skin flashed before his eyes.

Bloody hell, who the devil was it lying partly beneath him? And why the devil had he brought her to his home? And why were they in bed? He never fucked in bed.
Never
had women spend the night, for Christsakes.

His gaze caught the absinthe bottle, the slotted spoon and the granules of sugar that littered the table like diamond dust glistening in the sun. That’s why, he thought, savagely. Too much green fairy.

“Outrageously satisfying, my lord,” came the husky purr. “How do you come up with these naughty little amusements?”

A woman he remembered to be a buxom music-hall dancer slid her delicately arched foot along his calf, oblivious to the fact that another man was breathing fire at the side of the bed.

“Shall we indulge again?” she asked in a throaty whisper, “for you are gloriously large and hard this morning. One would hate for such a magnificent cock stand to go to waste.”

“You licentious, worthless…” As the duke struggled to find the words, the woman stiffened beside Matthew, at last aware they were no longer alone.

“Out of that bed, you shameless hussy. Out at once, I say!” his father roared as he tossed her her chemise. “Have you no morals? I will not have any depraved acts being carried on in any home I pay for.”

With a derisive snort, Matthew rolled over onto his back and propped himself up against the headboard. A bit too late to consider the thought of depravity. What a damn fool his father was. Her Grace, his father’s wife—the woman his father placed on a pedestal as a paragon—had the morals of an alley cat.

Matthew caught the eye of his bedmate as he scratched his back against the headboard. A queer pang began to squeeze in his chest. Refusing to examine the emotion, he reached for the money pouch that sat atop the commode and tossed it to her. “That’s for transportation back to Soho. And for the night,” he said, letting her know that their interlude was nothing but a transaction. He had purchased her body because he had needed to come, not because he desired anything more meaningful from her.

With a grateful curtsy, the dancer clutched her clothes to her chest and let herself out of his chamber with the help of his valet.

“You will not be taking that trollop beneath your roof. I forbid it!”

“She’ll not be my mistress if that is what concerns you. I have no need of a mistress. I never bed a woman more than once. Everyone is well aware how bored I grow after the initial bout of sex.”

“Have you no shame, sirrah?”

Sirrah.
Gritting his teeth, Matthew strove for composure. He
hated to hear that word sneered in his father imperial, autocratic tone. Nothing grated his nerves like the duke—especially while suffering through the undesirable effects of too much drink.

“Well? Haven’t you an ounce of honor?”

Matthew shrugged and ran his hands through his rumpled hair. “None whatsoever, I am afraid.”

“Now, you listen to me,” his father growled. “You’ve been gone nearly a year, traipsing about the East, whoring and drinking, and I’m through with it. Scampering off to Constantinople last spring was the last bloody straw. I’ve indulged you in this reckless behavior long enough.”

“Indulge? Surely you jest? Or have you developed a sense of humor, Your Grace?”

His father colored an unbecoming shade of scarlet. Matthew watched as the duke’s hands slowly curled into fists. Inwardly he smiled, triumphant that he was unsettling the old bastard.

“You have a duty to this estate and the title. You have a duty to me.
You owe me,
” his father enunciated with chilling ruthlessness. “Whatever you may think, sirrah, you have an obligation to me.”

“I have been obliged to you in one way or another for nearly thirty years.
‘Be a good boy’,
” he murmured in mocking tones, imitating his pompous father. “
‘I demand respect, you owe me at least that. Pass your courses, you owe it to me to be intelligent so that you may provide something useful to the title.’
I have owed and owed my entire life long. Pray tell me, how very expensive is one successful drop of your essence, Your Grace? For I have been paying for that dear drop the whole of my life and the cost seems a bit steep.”

“Oh, that is so very clever of you,” his father thundered. “Be the satirical wit, then, if you must. Lord knows you haven’t the brains to be the intelligent wit.”

The rebuke stung. Matthew ruthlessly shoved the old barb aside, allowing his skin to thicken even more. “I did not ask to be born into this world as your heir, Your Grace.”

“I did not ask for it, either, but there it is. You are my heir and you will start conducting yourself as such.”

“Haven’t I been doing so? And here I thought I was getting along rather well in the role. After all, it is an heir’s duty to sit idly by with too much money in his pocket and too many hours to spend searching for amusement and vice. I thought I was spending your money and succumbing to vice with perfect alacrity.”

Matthew continued, heedless of his father’s florid expression. “It seems we have both been doing our bit to fulfill the responsibilities of this unwanted relationship we share. I have been playing my role, and you have seen to your duty. Am I not correct, Your Grace, that your duty as the interred duke is to keep the profits rolling in from the estates for my safekeeping, and then promptly expire, leaving everything to me?”

“Let me assure you, sirrah, I am nowhere near perishing. Your fervent hopes and prayers have all come to naught.”

“How very unnerving, to think the great creator has not heard any of my bedtime prayers.”

His father’s nostrils flared. The old bastard was in high dudgeon, and Matthew took perverse pleasure in seeing it. He, himself, was in a hell of a mood, and as the old saying went, misery did indeed love company.

“In case it escaped your notice, I have a family to consider—
you
have a family to do right by.”

“Have I?” he asked, acting bored. “I don’t recall.”

“You have a mother and three sisters, by God.”

“Correction. I have a stepmother who is only seven years my senior. A woman who was nothing but a girl and whom
you married the moment your mourning for your wife—
my mother
—was over. Then you saddled me with three half sisters.”

“She was of a marriageable age, damn you!”

“She was barely eighteen and you were five and thirty!” he retorted. “She led you around by your cock.” He snorted. “And you played the smitten fool perfectly.”

“You, sirrah, will treat my wife with the respect that is owed her.”

“Why? You never treated my mother to anything she was entitled to. My mother would have done anything to make you happy, yet you ignored her as though she was nothing but a shadow on the wall.”

“I refuse to discuss that woman with you.”

“
That woman
was my mother. I am the product of your relationship with her. You may have dismissed her, but I am not so easy to send away. You need me. Proof of just how much you need me is evident by the fact that you are standing in my bedchamber while I am half-naked and still in bed.”

“You truly are worthless. Oh, aye, you’ve done a remarkable job making a damn joke out of your life—sitting about doing nothing but chasing skirts and spending my money and painting scandalous, pornographic portraits. Damn me, I had to hear of the whole sordid affair at my club. And you know how much pleasure it brings me when my nightly port is poisoned by reports of my useless, worthless son.”

Matthew shrugged and wiped his hand along his whiskered jaw. “Had you not decided to pinch pennies, I would not have been forced to pursue other avenues to secure what I need for my gallery.”

“Your gallery.” His father snorted. “Painting was for sissies when you were ten, and it is even more so now. Bloody hell, get an occupation. Take a seat in the Commons. It will be no
great trial to have you voted in for my riding. Learn the ways of parliament and great men so that when you take your rightful seat in the House of Lords you will be a force to be reckoned with—as any Duke of Torrington has been. At the very least, ride the estates with the steward and learn to do something useful with your days. Christ, a gallery. You’ll make me a laughingstock.”

“You have done that yourself—and quite admirably, I may say.”

His father’s blue eyes became angry slits. “From this moment forward you will do as I say or you will find yourself penniless in the streets. Do you comprehend me? Do you understand that I will make it so that you are completely dependent upon me?”

Matthew eyed him sharply, knowing what was to come. He would not be a part of whatever damn scheme his father had concocted for his future. He would not, by God.

“Now then,” his father said with a sniff of superiority, “you’ve spent enough time fucking everything in a corset. I assume, after all these years, you’ve gotten the skill down pat. You may now set that particular talent of yours in a more useful pursuit and begin by finding a wife to force your infamous member upon. I want another heir to secure my bloodline will continue in the years to come.”

Remaining deceptively calm, Matthew crossed his arms against his naked chest and glared at his father. “A wife and brats are the last bloody thing I want in my life.”

“A wife and brats are going to be your only means of survival,
my lord,
” his father said with a self-satisfied smile. “You will marry and you will do so within the year. I want her breeding as soon as may be.”

“No.”

His father looked incredulous. “I beg your pardon?”

“I will not marry because you command it. You, Your Grace, may go to hell.”

His father came forward and tried his best to stare him down as if they were two mongrel dogs fighting for the last bone in the rubbish bin. “Obviously you’ve failed to understand what I am saying. You
will
marry, or you will be cut off from any financial support from me. And just so you know I am not blowing smoke, I will take this time to tell you that your monthly income has been reduced yet again.”

Matthew struggled to show little emotion. His father would be searching for signs of it. The last thing he wanted his father to know was that he cared that he might very well wind up in debtors’ prison.

“Do what you must,” he said with a careless air. “I am still not marrying.”

“Are you by any chance attempting to challenge me, sirrah?”

“Consider the gauntlet tossed to the ground, Your Grace. In this matter, I will fight to the death.”