The Sins of Lord Easterbrook (33 page)

He eased her leg up, and propped her foot on the bed beside his hip. She glanced down at how her position exposed her. He played at her garter, released it, and slid the stocking down her leg.

She steadied herself by holding his shoulder. She appeared stunning and erotic. He could not decide whether to bother with the other stocking or not.

“It is not really your family that disconcerts me.” She did not whisper this time. “It is this bed. This chamber.” She looked in his eyes. “This is your true home, in ways Aylesbury was not. These are the chambers where you find privacy. I feel that I am intruding.”

“People are in these chambers all the time. Servants. Footmen. Phippen almost never leaves me alone.” Best to skip the stocking. He caressed her thigh, trusting his hand's path would distract her.

“Servants are different. Does anyone else come here?”

“My brothers were in the sitting room just today.” He cupped her mound. Its soft warmth entranced him. He gently stroked at the flesh below it and within its cleft. He watched ecstasy transform her face.

Her breath caught again and again and her hold on his shoulders tightened. He assumed he had overcome her misgivings in the best way possible.

He was wrong. She could barely breathe but she spoke all the same.

“You do not understand, Christian. I am not speaking of family in your sitting room. That is not the same as my being
here.
Have you allowed your lovers in here before?”

“Hell, no.”

“See? I am intruding.”

In a way she was. Except he had invited the intrusion. He had plotted it with great care all day.

He kissed a careful path around her nipple. “I want you here. In this bed, in this chamber. I want to take you here, and I want your scent to linger after you leave. I want the memory of our desire to haunt the rooms long after you are gone.”

New emotions joined the pleasure and desire in her eyes. He saw lights of resignation and sadness. And surprise, perhaps, that the memories would matter to him.

There was not much talking after that. She abandoned herself to him. She held her breast so he could lick and suck it while his fingers entered her and made her groan.

She held his face to an aggressive kiss while she moved on his fingers, finding her pleasure while she flexed and circled. She pressed the kiss harder and held his shoulders with both her hands so she would not fall.

“Do you know what a Chinese pillow book is?” she asked while her expression reflected every sensation.

“I have heard of them. I have never seen one.”

“I thought perhaps you had. Isabella has one, and some of the things that you do are in it. Like this.”

“You saw it?” He pictured Leona paging through a book with erotic images. He got so hard that his mind clouded.

“I just peeked. She left it with my bath today while I prepared to dress for the dinner. She is convinced I am too stupid to know how to please you.”

“I do not think that it is right that you saw it.”

“It was a very small peek.”

“I meant it is not right that you have seen it and I have not.” She was so hot against his hand now, so wet. He doubted he could wait much longer. He began unfastening his trousers.

Her foot left the bed. She helped him with the garments. She freed his cock and closed her hand on it. She broke the kiss and looked down to watch her two hands move.

She stood naked in front of him, her long, wild curls pouring around her, her face that of a woman lost in pleasure. Her gentle grip pumped and her thumb circled and flicked. He gritted his teeth so he would not lose control.

Her gaze met his. Dark eyes. Erotic eyes. Her tongue's tip slid along the edges of her barely parted teeth.

“I am feeling very wicked,” she whispered again. “I want you inside me. Filling me. I want it so much I could faint. But I also—” She looked down at her hands, then back in his eyes.

His jaw clenched. His whole body did. He almost begged. He almost commanded. He did not have to. She lowered herself until her beautiful naked body knelt
submissively. Her tongue laved, then she enclosed him in unbearable pleasure.

“Stay like that. Do not move.”

She turned her head to see him leaving the bed. Her body reacted with frustration. His caresses had her waiting again. Waiting with aching impatience. Her breasts tingled against the sheet below her. Her bottom rose a little without her intending it.

He bent down and kissed the small of her back. “I will return very quickly. I just realized that I have to call for the carriage. It will be dawn very soon.”

He pulled on a long garment cut much like a greatcoat. Its rich fluid fabric indicated its informal purpose. He fastened several of the buttons carelessly, and went over to pull the bell cord.

She had not noticed the hour. The night had seemed endless just a moment ago. She was sorry it would soon end.

She could not stay, of course. He had suggested it again. He wanted her living here, close by, so he need only pull that bell cord to invite another intrusion on his isolated habits.

She heard him speaking lowly in the sitting room, giving his command to a servant. She pictured him returning and seeing her like this, the way he had left her, naked and vulnerable, her arms stretched above her head and her legs spread wide. He had gently bound her wrists together with his cravat, but she felt enough slackness to know she could get free if she wanted.

There would be one more wicked pleasure before
she left. One more in a night of many. The lessons had left her so sensitive that the most sensual parts of her trembled while she waited.

He returned to the bed but did not rejoin her. He looked down, his hair barbaric in its disarray, his eyes scorching.

“Roll over.”

She obeyed. His taut arm stretched and he gently stroked her nipple.

Delicious pleasure streamed down her body at once. Impossible need overpowered her. She arched so her breast rose toward that touch.

“It excites you, this game of submission.” He glanced to where her bound wrists lay. “You know that you are not really afraid.”

He was correct, but it was not entirely a game. This vulnerability seemed a physical reaction that matched the instinctive one she had always experienced with him. More than her body felt exposed as she lay like this, spread and bound, naked to his gaze and erotic touch. She was helpless to his power unless she worked to get free.

He stroked the other nipple, devastating her until she squirmed.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

He got on the bed. Both hands teased her breasts while he knelt tall between her thighs. “I am going to watch your delirium grow while you tell me about that pillow book. Then we will try one of its secrets.”

Her face warmed. She was not sure she could describe such things without using scandalous language.

His head lowered and his teeth gently nipped her breast. “Tell me. I command it.”

He made good on his word to make her delirious. His tongue and mouth, his mere size dominating her, made the excitement frantic. She tried to describe one of the pictures. The mere attempt made it vivid in her mind again. Only she did not see two Chinese people this time, but Christian and herself.

That aroused her in ways she never expected. She described another more freely, giving herself over to the erotic details. Her body responded very specifically to words and images.

“We will try that one.” He swung away from her and lay with his back propped on pillows.

She was desperate now, with a sensual craving so intense that she could think of nothing except wanting him. She turned on her side and scrambled to kneel. Her bound wrists interfered and she held them toward him.

“I think we will keep that part,” he said.

“It was not in the book.”

“The artist lacked imagination.”

He helped her to stand. She positioned herself with her feet flanking his hips. She lowered herself down to a crouch that faced him, one so folded that her knees touched her own breasts. He entered her as she settled. He filled her fully, deeply. His hardness pressed high in her and made her lips and passage throb.

She held his shoulder and moved. She sought ways to feel him better, harder as she circled and rocked. Her control brought indescribable pleasure that drove her toward an aggressive completion.

She was still exposed in this position, to his gaze
and then to his touch. He reached between her legs and their bodies and caressed above their joining, carefully playing at that sensitive nub in ways that made her feel him inside her even more.

Ecstasy sent its first rippling trembles through her loins, pooling where she surrounded him. She lost control and circled and tensed and cried with frenzied need. He grasped her hips and lifted her enough that he could take over. She became submissive again, her pose making her vulnerable, her body accepting. He held her firmly to a long, hard ravishment until her scream of fulfillment filled the chamber.

He helped her to dress, then pulled on his trousers and shirt. He escorted her down to the front door. Outside, a carriage waited. Only the coachman was there, but he lifted a pistol when Christian looked his way.

Christian handed her in. “My carriage will be at your house tomorrow at three o'clock,” he said through the window.

“Where am I going?”

“I have arranged for you to meet Alfred Howard.”

Howard was another shipper, only his company was not as big as St. John's.

The reference to her duty dimmed the night's joy. It was good of him to help her the way he had promised, but they both knew what finishing her mission meant.

She leaned out the window to kiss him. “Thank you.”

He laid his fingertips on her lips, as if to stop her expression of gratitude. He brushed them in a feathered
caress. “The next day we will call on Denningham together.”

He astonished her. She had given up hope of pursuing that other goal. She was not even sure that she wanted to anymore.

She tried to read his expression in the night. She saw only his shadowed face and darker eyes. He stepped back, and gestured for the coachman to drive.

T
wo days after Christian informed her of the meeting, Leona entered the Earl of Denningham's London house on Christian's arm at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon.

The servant escorted them to the library. She trusted that this would be a very brief meeting. She hoped that Denningham would explain about that death notice in a way that required no further speculations.

A portly tawny-haired man, Denningham greeted Christian warmly and beamed at her during the introductions.

For the first half hour he expressed interest in China and flattered her beauty. He joked with Easterbrook about some sins from their university days. He waxed eloquent about a new rose he was growing.

He impressed her as a simple man, for all his titles and status. She doubted that he had ever done anything mysterious, least of all commission a death notice for a man he did not know. Denningham was Easterbrook's foil, all shallow brightness and happy optimism.

Finally Christian took advantage of a lull in the conversation. “Denningham, Miss Montgomery learned something that troubles her. I suggested that she speak openly to you about it.”

Denningham's pliable face directed curiosity at her. “If I can help, I of course will be happy to do so.”

She had brought her copy of the death notice with her. She removed it from her reticule. “I discovered that this was published when my father died. It appeared in
The Times.”
She read it to him.

He listened politely. When she was done he waited for her to make her request. His perplexed expression implied he could not imagine what that request could be.

“I found the man who wrote this. He said that he was commissioned to do it. He said that you had paid him and supplied the facts regarding my father's life and death.”

Denningham reacted with astonishment. He looked at Christian, who shrugged.
I told her,
that shrug said.

“Miss Montgomery, this writer, whoever he is, lied to you. I would not have any reason to do what he claimed. I have never heard of your father.” He laughed and flushed. “I am not even sure I could find Macao on a map.”

She doubted he could. “It appears that he did lie. He must have plucked a name from society, to appease me. Forgive me. That any notice was published is peculiar. That one like this print distressed me, and I had to ask.”

“No need to apologize. None at all. I am almost sorry it was not me, so that you could be done with it.” His smile forgave her. He turned to Christian. “What
ho, I hear there will be nuptials soon for your lovely cousin. Rumor says the groom has nine thousand a year.”

The conversation slid away from her. She tucked the notice back in her reticule.

Christian made movements for departure. The gentlemen stood. Denningham offered his hand to help her rise. “You must come back when the garden is in full bloom, Miss Montgomery. I have one of the best in London, if I do say so myself.”