The Wild Marquis (10 page)

“Yes,” he urged. Encouraged, she applied her caresses with greater confidence, reaching everywhere she could, even to his buttocks, firm and shapely under her seeking fingers. His erection pressed against her pelvis and hardened even more.

She felt a surge of power and issued a little moue of complaint when he pulled back from her, until his fingers slipped between her lower curls and started to caress her
there
.

She’d never felt anything like it in her life. She could feel herself warm and wet as he stroked with unerring precision, finding a place that aroused the most extraordinary tension. She settled onto her back to give him easier access and maintained her own attentions to his shoulders and arms. With a corner of her mind she knew she wasn’t giving him equal measure, but every fiber of her being was concentrated on the sensations he generated at her very core. Just when she thought she couldn’t stand it another moment, would burst, go mad if something—she didn’t know what—didn’t happen, he removed his hand, came on top of her, and entered her.

He was long and hard and she felt stretched to the breaking point. Yet when he began to pump she found she was wet enough to accommodate him without discomfort. Curling her legs about his thighs she
shifted herself up to meet him. Somehow, though she enjoyed the feeling of being filled, it wasn’t quite the same as when he’d used his hand. That bursting sensation returned but with less intensity and she felt further from that nameless conclusion.

Cain had raised himself onto his elbows as he thrust and continued to kiss her and murmur encouragement. He worked in her a long time and there were moments when that feeling crested again, then retreated.

Suddenly he withdrew and lay beside her, continuing to hold her close.

“It’s not going to work, is it?” he said softly.

“No,” she said, feeling a wave of inadequacy, though not sure exactly how she was lacking.

“We’ll do it this way.”

It took minutes, perhaps only seconds. His fingers found that spot again and she tumbled into bliss, waves of heat emanating from her core up through her torso and down every limb to the tips of her fingers and toes.

She cried out, probably senselessly.

“That’s it,” he said and came into her again with a few hard, accelerating thrusts. He collapsed with a hoarse shout as she felt his seed gush inside her.

She was boneless, didn’t believe she could ever move again. The waves of heat subsided to a hum, and as the humming sensation abated a delicious well-being continued to pervade her mind and body. She thought she’d happily remain buried in the warm cocoon of her bed, in Cain’s arms, forever.

“Hey,” Cain said, his voice teasing and amazingly
strong. “It’s rude to go to sleep afterward.” He rolled off her, sat up, and started arranging the pillows, including the one beneath her head, which he pulled out despite her muttered grumble.

By that standard Joseph must have been the rudest man in England. He always went straight to sleep.

Cain hauled her up beside him and settled them back against the pillows, tugging the blankets up under their chins. She protested a little but let him tuck her in his arm, her head nestled in his shoulder.

“This mattress has a lump in it,” he complained.

“That’s why I sleep on this side.”

“Don’t you think you should let a guest have the comfortable side?”

“I’m not much in the habit of entertaining.” Her wits were returning, just.

“I’m honored to receive your hospitality. I enjoyed myself immensely.” The caress in his deep voice was followed by a lingering closemouthed kiss. She felt herself melting back into a state of semi-somnolence.

Cain had other ideas. “Tell me how you learned about books.”

“Do you want to talk? Now?”

“It’s the best bit. Well, perhaps not the best, but I’ve had some excellent conversations after lovemaking. And it fills the time till we can do it again.”

“Again?”

“Give me a few minutes.”

“A few minutes?” She seemed to have turned into an echo, but the concepts of postcoital conversation and a repeat of the main event were new to her. But
not unwelcome, she found. It was rather cozy tucked up in bed with Cain’s lovely warm body. Her sleepiness faded away.

“How did
you
learn the difference between calf and vellum?” he asked.

“I was six years old when my g—grandfather showed me my first rare book. It was a first edition of Montaigne’s
Essays
.”

“Advanced reading for such a little thing.”

“It wasn’t meant to be read.” She rolled her eyes and punched him in the chest playfully. “As a matter of fact he showed it to me because I told him about the book I
was
reading. Perrault’s
Fairy Tales
. He’d never shown much interest in me before that. My nurse would take me to his library for ten minutes every evening and I remember it was always awkward. After he discovered I liked books, things changed. He taught me a game. I had to identify the kind of leather in a book binding and when I got it right he gave me a peppermint drop.”

“I can see your childhood was one dissipation after another.”

“I enjoyed it.”

“Actually I envy you. I never did anything half as amusing with my parents. Did you go on reading fairy tales?”

“I did,” Juliana said softly. She’d read them so often the volume fell apart like a pack of cards. She was sorry for it. The Perrault had belonged to Cassandra.

“Did you dream one of those princes would ride up on a white horse and carry you away?”

“I got over that.” She didn’t tell him her real dream
was that her mother, of whose identity she was then unaware, would come and rescue her from the loneliness of Fernley Court.

“Very wise,” he said. “Men are never princes.”

Juliana didn’t want to talk about her disappointed dreams. “As I grew older,” she said, “I had to guess the age of the binding as well.”

“Let me try one,” he said. A pile of books tottered on the small table that filled the space between the bed and the wall. “What about that big one?”

He had to reach across her to get to the volume but stopped halfway. He tugged the blankets down to expose one of her breasts.

“Smooth,” he murmured, stroking it with the tips of his fingers. The breast tingled happily. “Soft as silk.” He closed his eyes with a look of deep concentration. “Some kind of skin is my guess.”

“Idiot,” she said. “All leather is some kind of skin.”

To her regret he removed his hand and pulled up the cover again. “Thanks, Juliana, for spoiling that moment. Before I start associating breasts with old boots, hand over that book.”

“It’s heavy. Can’t you feel it from where you are?”

As she hoped, Cain almost rolled on top of her. His lovely firm chest rubbed against her, setting up a renewed tingling and an enhanced appreciation of the concept of “doing it again.”

“Interesting texture,” he said, stroking the worn cover. “A male beast, I believe, but not entirely virile. A rather shy badger? Am I right? Is it badger skin?”

“No.”

“A bashful beaver? No?”

He rested his head on her chest, which was heaving with laughter, and appeared to be lost in deep thought.

“I’m on the wrong track,” he mused. “I know! It’s a smaller animal but a strong one. A stout stoat? A rapacious rat? A very vigorous vole?”

She couldn’t speak, only shake her head.

“Give me a hint. Is it a small animal? No? A big one then?” She nodded. “An elephant? I don’t believe you. Another hint, please.”

The sound disintegrated into giggles but Cain managed to recognize a “mooo.”

“A cow!” he cried in disgust, rolling off her and sitting up. “All the time the creature was a female. How could I have got it wrong? I may have to retire to a monastery.”

“The book is bound in calf,” she said. “The sex of the animal is not specified.”

“What is it? A rare tome, I suppose, too precious to be sullied by a common eye.”

“Actually it’s not very valuable and extremely dull. A collection of documents and newspaper extracts relating to the recent history of the Church of England.”

“And how do you come to possess such a fascinating miscellany?”

“I wish I knew. It was one of the last things my husband bought before his murder. The whole lot was rubbish.”

“Your husband was murdered?” Cain appeared
shocked. It hadn’t occurred to her he didn’t know. “My God! Did it happen here?”

“Not here.” She shuddered. “At an inn in Salisbury.”

“Did they catch the murderer?”

“No. The magistrate said it was a common robbery and the killer escaped.”

Cain put an arm around her and gathered her close. “I’m sorry. You must miss him very much?”

“Yes,” she answered baldly. As usual she felt guilty for not missing her husband more.

“Are you lonely living all by yourself here?”

“Sometimes,” she confided. “And lately I think it’s made me a little mad. I hear noises in the night, downstairs.”

“What kind of noises?”

“I don’t know. It’s more of a feeling really. A couple of times I’ve woken with the sense there’s someone in the shop. It happened last night. But nothing seems to be missing, or even disturbed.”

“Under the circumstances I’m not surprised you’re afraid of robbery.”

His tightening embrace comforted her. “I think I must be imagining things. Perhaps I am upset by the approaching anniversary of Joseph’s death.”

It seemed wrong to be discussing her late husband while she lay in bed with another man. Perhaps Cain felt the same restraint.

“I admire you for continuing your business alone,” he said finally.

“What else could I do? Besides, it’s what I wanted.
I can’t imagine a life without books. And thanks to you, my lord, I am about to become more successful. It was a very lucky occurrence that brought you to my shop.”

“I think so too.” He squeezed her breast. “Happy to be of service, but I have the feeling you would have managed to meet a few people tonight without me. Mr. Gilbert, I am sure, would have been glad to oblige.”

There was an edge in his voice. “Perhaps he’d like to buy that volume. My mother would probably find it fascinating. Ironic really, that we should both have become book collectors. At least I can be sure we won’t be rivals for the same things. Our tastes could hardly be more different.”

She tried to turn aside his bitterness with a joke. “I’m not so sure about that. You must be aware that the Book of Hours is a prayer book.”

“Yes,” he said shortly.

“By the way, I looked into the history of the Burgundy manuscript. It was a gift from the King of France to Henry VIII. Then it disappeared from the royal inventory without any record of its disposal. Most unusual for such a treasure. One history surmises that the king gave it to someone, a favorite perhaps.”

She was about to add that she had another source to pursue when Cain interrupted.

“He did. My many-times-great-grandmother.”

“You know! And you had me spend hours looking. Wait a minute. Did it belong to your family? Is that why you want it?”

“You’d be forgiven for doubting I had much familial reverence.” His voice was at its most derisive, yet Juliana had the feeling he’d confided something important.

“I don’t understand why no one knew where the manuscript was,” she said. “Your family is famous.”

“That’s the point. Famous for its piety. But the original Godfrey title was granted because the recipient’s wife was Henry’s mistress. None of my reverend forebears wished it to be known they owe their fortune to a woman sharing the bed of a king. My father showed me the manuscript and told me the dark family secret when I was eleven years old and about to leave for Eton. He made me swear I’d never reveal to anyone outside the family that my ancestress was a whore.

“Whores are some of my favorite people. I would have liked that grandmother,” he said with a smile, but Juliana noticed the humor didn’t reach his eyes. Cain was up to his usual trick of saying something shocking to deflect criticism or questions. She refused to be distracted.

“You kept the family secret.”

“I don’t know why. You are the first person I’ve ever told.”

“I won’t tell a soul.”

Cain relapsed into uncharacteristic silence. All his insouciance had fled while they spoke of his family. She had no idea how to console him.

“It’s more important than ever not to let anyone know you want the manuscript,” she said briskly, retreating to her own area of comfort. “The other bidders will run you up to the heavens.”

“Perhaps I should just let it go. Iverley wants it.”

“For the binding I suppose. What an idiot to want a Limbourg masterpiece and only care about the cover.”

She’d love to defeat the woman-hating bibliophile in the auction room. Not to mention that she wanted the commission from buying such an expensive treasure.

“Iverley’s reason might be better than mine.” He worried his lower lip with his teeth. “God only knows why I should care about a family tradition.”

“Or you could buy it and reveal the truth to the world. Secrets can be unhealthy.”

She spoke from her own experience. And had far greater reason than he to hide the truth about her past. An ancestor’s three-hundred-year-old indiscretion, especially one involving royalty, was almost something to boast about.

“You mustn’t let such a masterpiece go,” she said firmly. “And your information about Iverley is very useful. By the time it sells we’ll make it our business to know every interested bidder.”

The prospect of an auction room fight failed to revive Cain’s enthusiasm. He slumped back against the pillow looking depressed. She feared the conversation about his parents had dampened his fervor in other areas.

Well, she might not know much about bed sports, but she had been married and knew a sure way to cheer up a despondent male.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “For once I have food in the house.”

C
ain loved morning sex.

Of course he loved sex at just about any time: languorous afternoons in a boudoir; a hasty stolen coupling in an anteroom at a ball or a hidden garden alley; a way to break the tedium of a long carriage journey; long energetic nights in bed.

But nothing said “good morning” like a sleeping woman, just waiting to be awoken and aroused to desire.

Juliana’s glorious hair spread over her pillow, catching the gray morning light from the small window and brightening the room. Her head rested on one curved arm and she slept deeply.

How extraordinary that their conversation—perhaps the thought of his mother—had effectively killed his lust for the evening. A simple but oddly fulfilling impromptu meal of crusty bread, butter, and honey washed down with milk had nourished his spirit but failed otherwise to revive him. Instead it brought back memories of innocent days in his nursery. Afterward they’d fallen asleep, curled up together like babes in the wood.

He’d found her attempt to raise his mood with food touching. He was sorry it hadn’t raised anything else—if indeed that was her desired effect. It was hard to know. Unaccustomed as he was to sexual novices, Juliana’s inexperienced enthusiasm in bed, her astonished awakening to pleasure, was utterly satisfying. Why, then, had he not been ready to repeat the performance the night before?

He was most certainly ready to repeat it now.

He detected a warm hip, sweetly curved under his caressing hand. Small but perfectly shaped and like silk to his touch. She shifted onto her back and parted her thighs. Still asleep, she knew by instinct what she wanted, and he was most willing to oblige. Tracing the shapely lines of her legs, the petal-soft skin between her thighs, he felt his morning erection swell.

“Good morning,” he murmured against her lips, which issued a responsive murmur of approval. Her eyes remained closed but he could sense her ascent from the arms of Morpheus, her relaxed pleasure at his touch.

He ventured a kiss, his tongue running over the seam of her lips requesting entry, an invitation accepted with a sigh. She still tasted of honey.

Beautiful. This was not a moment to hurry. They had all morning. Perhaps all afternoon too. He had energy to spare and was prepared to lavish every care developing her sensuality. With practice his little bookseller promised to be a mistress of more than usual reward. Who would have thought it?

Propped on one elbow he gazed at his sleeping
beauty. Her lips curved a little. He knew just how to turn that faint smile into cries of delight. His fingers parted soft curls to discover wet warmth. He’d take it slowly, ensure her complete readiness, suppress his own urge to mount without delay. A wriggle of her hips communicated her enjoyment.

Playing with her gently, with enormous care, he postponed the moment when his thumb found that certain sweet spot. He could feel her becoming warmer and wetter. Her body was coming to life and his own tightened with anticipation.

Suddenly she bolted upright.

“What time is it?” she demanded, looking around in bewilderment and clutching the covers to her chin.

“Time to enjoy ourselves. It’s early. We have hours.”

He tried to embrace her but she shook him off.

“Oh Lord!” she wailed.

This was not going as planned.

She thrust both hands through her hair. “I must know what time it is. Do you have a watch?”

Hoping it was still early, he leaned over, found his waistcoat on the floor, and groped for the timepiece in the fob pocket.

“Only half past eight.” Very early for him.

She slid off the bed, dragging the blankets with her and leaving him chilled, in more ways than one.

“You have to leave. At once.”

“Why?”

“I have an appointment, in the shop.”

Accustomed as he was to the company of working women—he’d kept a succession of actresses and opera
singers since gaining his inheritance—he’d never spent the night with one whose profession entailed early rising. It was most inconvenient.

“I’ll wait up here until you’re finished,” he said, not giving up hope of his morning sport. The bed wasn’t that uncomfortable and he could take the unlumpy side.

She turned from the chest of drawers where she’d been searching through her linens. “No,” she said, snatching his clothing from the floor and throwing it in his direction. “No one must suspect you’ve been here. I can’t risk it.”

“Who are you expecting that is so important?”

She managed to look self-conscious while attempting to step into a pair of drawers. “Mr. Gilbert. He wished to come before the auction today.”

Gilbert. That prig.

She pleaded with him as she tugged on her shift and worked on her front-fastening stays. “Please leave quickly. And be discreet about it. I hate to think what it would do to my reputation if you were seen leaving here.”

“It may take me some time to find a hackney. Or I could send a linkboy for my carriage but I might have to wait half an hour or more.”

“Could you hide around the corner?” she asked.

“I suppose I could do that,” he said with a pout. “If it isn’t too chilly. Or raining.”

He swung his legs over and sat naked on the edge of the bed. “Do you expect me to dress myself?”

“Oh for God’s sake! I’ll help you.” She gave the laces on her corset a hasty tug, found his shirt and stock
ings, and flung them at him. “Can you at least manage these by yourself?”

Her panic was changing to exasperation and he decided he’d tormented her enough. “Relax, my dear. I’m teasing you. Of course I’ll walk home. No one will find it odd to see me wandering around London in broad daylight wearing evening dress. And I don’t need your help getting dressed.”

He could have told her he didn’t even employ a valet. He clothed himself, and Mel had found some “ladies” who knew how to keep a man’s wardrobe in good repair.

“Fine,” she snapped.

“Will I see you later?”

“There’s nothing at the auction today that either of us wants.”

“You wound me. I don’t just love you for your books.”

“Very well,” she said with a harassed look. “Come at the end of the day, when I’m closing up.”

The rap at the street door sounded barely ten minutes after Cain’s departure. Mr. Gilbert, it seemed, was a punctual man. Juliana opened the door to greet not Matthew Gilbert’s pleasantly refined face but Arthur Nutley’s fleshy one.

“Arthur!” she exclaimed. She let him in out of the light drizzle, but grudgingly. His portly figure quivered as he wiped his feet on the doormat. She couldn’t help contrasting his appearance with Cain’s elegance. And wishing he’d leave. The presence of a respectable but undoubtedly common tradesman would hardly
assist the image of refined scholarship she wished to project to Mr. Gilbert.

“Good day, Juliana.”

“What brings you here on such a dreary morning?” She suppressed her irritation and felt some compunction at her uncharitable thoughts. “Is all well?”

“I am in good health, thank you. It is about you that I wish to speak.”

There was something portentous in his tone. She hoped she wasn’t going to have to deal with a marriage proposal.

“It’s kind of you to call. Won’t you come into the shop. I expect an important customer but I can give you a few minutes. If the matter isn’t urgent I’d rather wait.”

“Chase?” The word came out in a hiss. “Is it Chase you expect?”

Thank God! Cain must have got away from the neighborhood in time.

“Are you seeing him again so soon after last night?”

Juliana leaned against a bookcase, frozen with shock. Could Arthur possibly know?

“That’s what I’ve come to talk about,” Arthur continued. “I know you came home in his carriage. Such intimacy can only damage your reputation.”

She relaxed slightly. If Arthur knew exactly how far her “intimacy” with the marquis had progressed, he would surely have opened with that accusation. “Lord Chase was kind enough to offer his escort home from an evening party,” she said cautiously.

Arthur’s frown deepened. “It would have been
wiser not to accept. Word reached me early this morning that his carriage was seen at your door at an advanced hour.”

One of her neighbors, likely the butcher’s busybody wife, must have seen it. It wouldn’t take long for the news to travel a few hundred yards to the Strand.

“Really, Arthur,” she said, annoyance gaining the upper hand over fear. “I don’t know who has taken it upon themselves to report my private affairs, but I’d prefer they minded their own. I can assure you,” she added with a straight face, “Lord Chase behaved like a perfect gentleman.”

“I know you better than to suspect you would allow otherwise. But it is not the first time His Lordship has called in the evening. Word will spread.”

Unfortunately he spoke the truth. The community of merchants in the West End of London was every bit as tight-knit and gossipy as a small village, or the world of their upper-class patrons.

Arthur hadn’t finished, of course. “The morals of successful tradesmen are not those of the aristocracy. I am aware that you were born to better things but you have chosen to make your life among us. Close relations with a nobleman of ill repute are unacceptable.”

Juliana detected a threat in the statement. Arthur was hinting that should her reputation suffer from her association with Cain, he would no longer want to know her, let alone wed her. Well, there was one positive effect, she thought dryly.

“It’s only business,” she said, attempting to mollify him, if only for the sake of her reputation in the neigh
borhood. “And most advantageous. I don’t intend any indiscretion.”

Arthur accepted her statement as a sign of remorse and, unfortunately, took her hand in his own pudgy one. “As a woman, you are liable to make errors, and I am happy to be able to enlighten you. Delicacy has prevented me from retelling all of the marquis’s sins but perhaps it is better you should know. It pains me to inform you that the man resided for a while in a brothel.” The last word was uttered in a whisper.

“My understanding is that he was very young.”

“And since then he has maintained a string of mistresses,” Arthur added, clearly taken aback at her calm reaction to his revelation.

“Shocking, I am sure, but surely common among young noblemen.”

“Worst of all, he comes from one of the great families famous for piety and moral rectitude. I am not privy to the details but I have heard his late father, who was revered by all, dismissed him from his house for unspeakable acts of moral turpitude.”

If by “unspeakable acts” he meant pleasuring a woman in bed, Juliana was in favor of them. But she couldn’t dismiss the warnings out of hand. As Arthur had pointed out, she had chosen to make her life among his kind and needed to live by their standards. The trouble was she couldn’t summon up the requisite indignation about Cain’s immorality. If she truly belonged to the merchant class she would think like a member of it. Which meant perhaps that she didn’t belong.

She’d never really belonged anywhere.

Matthew Gilbert entered the back room and added three more volumes to the already substantial pile of purchases.

“May I offer you tea?” Juliana asked. “I took the opportunity of a quiet moment to run upstairs and boil a kettle.”

Mr. Gilbert sank into a chair. “Thank you,” he said gratefully. “Your establishment is busy. Visitors require so much attention. It’s why I don’t maintain a shop but prefer to see people privately.”

Juliana poured them both tea without mentioning that the morning’s half-dozen customers, all of whom she’d met the night before, were a delightful surprise. “Sugar?”

“Please.” He took the offered cup and smiled with distinct approval. Juliana knew she looked her best today. For whatever reason she’d decided to forgo the unflattering bonnet-style cap. Instead she wore a delicate lacy affair that merely perched on top of the head, her Sunday best from the days when Joseph was alive. She’d inserted enough pins that her hair had survived the morning without descending from its simple knot.

“I’d like to show you my collection, but of course you can’t call at my house alone. My lady visitors are always chaperoned.” Gilbert disdained words such as
stock
and
customer
. A gentleman bookseller was as much an aberration as a female one.

“How did you find yourself in our profession?” she asked, upgrading it from a mere trade.

“After I came down from Cambridge I was em
ployed as secretary to Sir Humphrey Warburton.” She nodded. Warburton was an important collector as well as a prominent Member of Parliament. “I found myself spending most of my time in the library, and in the end he took on another man to do his parliamentary work. I found book collecting much more engaging than politics. I discovered a certain talent for bibliophilia and as time went by I acted for some of Sir Humphrey’s fellow collectors, particularly after the Duke of Roxburghe’s sale.”

“That must have been thrilling. I wish I had been there. The Tarleton sale promises to be just as remarkable.”

“I recall many happy hours in Sir Humphrey’s library, talking about books with his friends. I have tried to emulate the atmosphere in my own house. I hope you will join one of my gatherings. When other ladies are present of course.”

“I’d enjoy that. I have my own memories of such conversations, with my guardian Mr. Fitterbourne and Mr. Birch.”

“Mr. Birch of Salisbury? An excellent bookman. I was sorry to hear of his passing. I understand your late husband was employed as his assistant.”

“When Mr. Birch’s nephew elected to take over the business Joseph decided to set up his own establishment.” She didn’t add that he couldn’t have done it without her fortune.

Gilbert held out his cup to be refilled and regarded her earnestly. “I would like to assist you now that you are alone in the world. Sir Henry Tarleton feels the same way.”

Juliana looked down and made a play of stirring her tea. Surely she didn’t imagine that he was looking at her with more than impersonal sympathy. “I can’t imagine why,” she said. “You must be aware of the former rivalry, indeed enmity, between my guardian and Sir Thomas Tarleton.”