Three Times the Scandal (15 page)

He’d never considered himself a violent man, but the urge to lash out and wipe the smirk from her face had him clenching his fists. Teeth gritted, he loosed a formidable growl instead. “Stay away from my room. I’d rather straddle a pox-riddled whore than lie with you.”

Two livid red spots of colour burned through the layer of carefully applied paint on her cheeks. “You’re my husband,” she barked far too loudly, causing voices around them to still.

“
Unfortunately.” His voice was low, but deadly. He’d intended it as an end to the conversation, but if nothing else, his wife was tenacious.

Her eyes narrowed to thin cat-like slits. “You’re supposed to plant your seed in my belly, Robert. Perhaps, I should mention your lack of interest in that area to your father.”

He grabbed the bib front of her dress, fingers sliding between the fabric and skin, and pulled her so close that his lips moved just an inch from hers. “You’ll keep your tongue to yourself woman, unless you’ve a particular desire to see Cattlewick again.” He held on tight, even when she struggled. “I’m told the barn is still habitable, though the roof is barely on, and the main house is hardly fit for chickens.” Her resistance wavered at the mention of the dilapidated property her father had settled upon her as her dowry. Cattlewick Farm had been a joke from the outset. It was as promised, a fourteenth century farmhouse, but what had been neglected in the details was that it was almost entirely ruined, consisting of two unfurnished habitable rooms out of a total of eight, and had a fresh water spring flowing through the main parlour.

“
You wouldn’t send me there.” For a moment she actually seemed wary.

“
Would I not?”

“
Robert,” her voice oozed silk. She peered up at him through her eyelashes, the very picture of ripe innocence.

Darleston wasn’t fooled. “I can only assume your interest in my person is due to a lack of other playmates. What troubles abound, Lucy? Has flagellation fallen from fashion, like my coat?”

“
Shhh!” Crocodile tears glinted in her eyelashes.

He glanced left and right, realized too late that they’d already drawn considerable attention. Increasingly, conversations were stopping and heads turning in their direction.

Lucy shielded her mouth with her fan. “That’s all they want, but not all I desire. I need a man who can fuck me afterwards. I like a hard cock wedged inside me after they’ve reddened my behind.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but he caught every plaintiff word. She was desperate, almost as desperate as he was to be rid of her.

“
You’d best prevail upon some other man. I can barely get it to stand for you. The only reason it worked between us two nights ago was because I’d already had my appetite whetted by another.”

That remark would sting, he knew, and enjoyed watching her bite back an insulting retort. She dared not utter it, as their host had appeared at her side.

Andrew Morton beamed brightly at them, his sallow skin, pockmarked across the cheeks and brow. Clemencè may not have ensnared a husband, but clearly the family’s beauty definitely ran along the maternal line. “Is there a problem, Lord Darleston?” he enquired, having performed a stiff bow.

“
Only in that my wife is a whore, sir, and begs a good hiding. The centre of your ballroom seems an inappropriate venue.”

Briefly taken aback, Morton gave him a hesitant smile. “Perhaps a room upstairs?”

Darleston only just managed to bite back an expletive. He’d meant to shock the man. Giles’s dislike of the Mortons had rubbed off on him and he had no patience with the man’s interference.

Morton peeped up at him, then his head turned and his gaze settled upon Lucy’s plump breasts. She smiled, and a pinkish flush warmed Morton’s sallow skin.

“
Thank you, but no,” Darleston said. “I think we’ll take our leave. Say good night to Mr. Morton, Lucy.”

“
Goodnight, Mr. Morton.” She curtsied with her head bowed submissively, whilst no doubt already calculating her future line of attack. Her hand lay rigid along his arm, until their carriage door shut. Then she collapsed against the velvet squabs in a fit of giggles.

“
Oh, you’re exquisite, Robert. You truly are.” She slapped him hard across the thigh, before hugging herself as tears of laughter began to tumble over her cheeks. “You won’t swive me yourself, but you’ll consent to pimp me out.”

“
I did no such thing.”

“
I never suspected Andrew Morton for a moment,” she continued, her voice high and giddy. “Never, never, suspected. Oh, but I shall enjoy his hand on my arse. He has such lovely big hands. Did you notice that? And a lovely big cock. He was positively straining to conceal himself as we left.” She squirmed against the upholstery so that her thighs rubbed together, the resulting friction added an extra sparkle to her sudden glow. “Yes, yes,” she muttered continuing to jiggle.

Darleston slouched against the ox-blood leather in dismay.

“
Oh, but—” Her laughter abruptly ceased to be replaced by something he could only describe as pure malice. “That’s it. That’s why Giles hates him so much. He can’t bare the idea that his precious Emily was probably having her naughty little backside spanked before being roundly fucked every night.”

“
Stop it.”

“
Why I bet Morton did it to her with a hairbrush, a nice flat silver-backed one. Probably shoved it up her cunny too, got her all excited for his prick.”

“
I said, stop it!”

“
Oh, I shan’t, Robert.”

His reflexes reacted faster than his wits. He had his cane in the air and against the carriage top before he’d actually made the decision to leave. “Stop the carriage, John.” He swung open the door and dropped down into the mire of filth and slush in the gutter. Irritably, he swatted the dirty gobbets of mud that splattered his coat. “Drive on. Take her ladyship home. I’ll make my own way.”

He stood back from the road beside a row of snow-encrusted railings and watched the carriage rumble away. It was another bitter night, but walking would keep out the chill. At least the air was relatively sweet, the wet scent of snow masking the usual stench of the gutters. He headed east to where he knew he could find what he was looking for. In the glow of a wavering streetlamp, he took stock of his possessions—three guineas and a pocket watch, nothing of genuine value. Certainly nothing he would mourn the loss of.

He crossed the street to a house, and was let in by a bearded man in a dress.

Chapter Six

“
Emily! No, no… Please, Emily... Please wake up.”

The cries tore through Fortuna’s own dreams of languid sensuality and forced her into wakefulness. Beside her, Giles lay naked, his arms clamped tight around the pillow, cradling it to his chest. As she wriggled over to him, another deep pitiful whimper escaped his lips. “Giles?” She sought his brow and found it bathed in sweat. “Everything’s fine, you’re dreaming. Wake up.”

He took a deal of shaking to rouse. Finally, he blinked uncertainly up at her. “Fortuna,” he said after a rather significant pause.

“
You were calling for someone…a woman.”

“
Not you, by your expression.” An enormous yawn stretched his mouth, which he masked with his hand. “I’m sorry, how inconsiderate. Do you want me to leave you in peace?”

She grinned and shook her head, refusing to think the worst. She traced the contours of his face, where a day’s growth of stubble peppered his jaw, leaving it curiously abrasive. “I’d much rather you stayed. It’s nicer together.” She could count on one hand the nights she’d occupied a bed alone. She and Alicia had shared since childhood.

“
You’re not jealous of my dream woman?”

“
It sounded more like a nightmare. Besides… Is Emily your sister, Giles?”

A wary glint lit his eyes, but he nodded. “I seem unable to completely let go. We were close, or were before her marriage.”

Fortuna moved her caress to his lips and smoothed a finger over their delicate surface, causing him to shiver. A low rumble of arousal vibrated through his chest. When the velvety tip of his tongue teased her fingertips, it set a shiver of pleasure chasing through her limbs.

“
Come closer,” he purred.

“
I’m not sure I should,” she giggled, stretching out her toes into the warm bedding. “I suspect you might do something wicked.”

“
Oh, I promise you, I will.” A large hand settled over her bottom and urged her astride his lap. He dragged the covers up over her shoulders cocooning her in warmth and the hazy musk of his scent. “Fortuna, I do believe you’re the most enchanting creature I’ve ever met, the most bewitching, the most beautiful, and definitely the tastiest.”

Fortuna put a hand to his stomach to hold him back as she recalled how they had licked dollops of frothy lemon syllabub from each others skin. Bowls and silverware, the remains of dessert, still lay scattered across the floor surrounding his bed. The sharp contrast of cold and hot had had her writhing off the bed, pleading for him to possess her again. Which he’d obediently done, but not until she’d first licked the lemony froth from his rampant cock.

The memory of tasting him like that set her cheeks aflame. It was so intimate, joyful, but it had left her overpowered, her arousal hiked to volcanic proportions. She shifted a little, uncomfortably aware of how wet the memory was making her, and how closely her quim was now pressed to the taut muscles of his abdomen.

“
Shuffle back a little.”

Giles coaxed her down so she straddled his hips and his cock rose up against her bottom. He wasn’t stiff enough to give her pleasure yet, but rising. The thought of him entering her again sent another stream of pleasure coursing through her body.

“
Now, closer.”

The sharp buck of his hips set her flying forward. She caught herself just short of squashing him. Her arms braced either side of his head.

“
You do realize I may never let you leave this bed again.” His eyes shone with sin and affection as she flicked her sheet of blonde hair over her shoulders. Their mouths met, and his tongue stroked hers in welcome as he drew her deeper into his embrace.

Fortuna felt herself falling. The descent so swift it was impossible to prevent. The bed beneath them seemed to spin. Elated, but curiously nerve wracked she clung to Giles. While he held himself at the ready, she relished the slow glorious sliding together of their genitals.

Earlier when he’d filled her, their motion had been frantic, the whole episode one marathon of desperate coupling as they tried to get as close as possible as quickly as they could. This time it was slower. It felt as if he were pouring golden light into her, filling her up with great bursts of energy. Fortuna fluttered her muscles around him and drew him deeper. More, she demanded, and he gave. He took her nipples one at a time into his mouth and sucked until her mewls of pleasure lapsed into speechlessness. Only then did he really begin to fuck her.

The pleasure mounted, infused every part of her body. Fortuna clawed his chest. She loved the feel of him insider her, had already learned to crave certain of his touches, such as the way he entwined his fingers in her hair as he bucked into her. With Giles, she could be true to herself. Nothing was forbidden.

She felt no shame, only intense fiery pleasure. How different from that first time, when she’d been embarrassed by the mere sight of her own skin. She would never deny that her first time had been pleasurable. It had been a wild ride, shocking, but also breathtakingly sweet, but with Giles, she felt something different again, something altogether more wholesome and wonderful. She thought it was the knowledge that he cared for her. If only she could be absolutely certain of that fact.

A loud crash from downstairs froze them both.

Giles rolled her over and was off the bed, before her body even had the chance to mourn his loss. Naked, he palmed a candlestick and stood poised by the bedchamber door.

Her ears pricked to every sound, Fortuna remained huddled against the mussed pile of pillows with the covers pulled up to her chin.

The stairs gave an eerie creak.

Surely this was the end of her adventure. Somehow she’d been found out. The thought of being bound to Sir Hector squeezed her heart, making her breaths seems short. Oh, but she was compromised. She’d be disgraced, and yet, some of her fear had lost its edge. She had faith that Giles would keep her safe. Her gaze shot to him. He was poised, weapon brandished, ready to strike. Still, she trembled as the brass doorknob rattled and turned.

The shadowy figure tumbled through the door. For a moment, Fortuna wasn’t certain if Giles had felled him, or whether the man had simply stumbled. Either way the string of expletives the intruder loosed was certainly colourful.

“
Neddy!” Dovecote dived on the fool and hauled him upright. “What the devil are you playing at? How did you even get in?”

“
I did knock. S’cold on the doorstep, and nobody heard, so I gave the drawing room window a bit of a jiminy.” Neddy removed the remained of a bowl of syllabub from his foot and placed it on Giles’s dressing table.

“
You climbed in?”

“
You would have done the same.” Neddy brushed his snow-wetted hair from his eyes. In the dim light, the auburn-red was dimmed to chestnut brown. “Say, do you mind if I sit down? Heads spinning a bit.”