Three Times the Scandal (35 page)

Neddy pulled out of her, and his seed jetted over her stomach. Spent, he sagged onto the bed beside her and clumsily groped for a cloth with which to mop her, finding a discarded cravat.

For a moment, Giles wobbled unsteadily, too aroused to pull away, but desperate for release. He was shocked when Darleston pushed him away. Cock ramrod stiff and bereft of contact, his hips still pumped, while Darleston jolted and shot his cream up Fortuna’s bottom. “Giles,” he whispered, reaching out a hand.

Giles moved out of his grasp and clambered onto the bed next to Fortuna, who had rolled onto her stomach. Deliriously absent, he grabbed her hips with both hands, raised her. He kissed her bottom, put his head down and licked between the pert cheeks of her rear. Fortuna froze. Then her head came up. “Giles!” But her shocked tone didn’t stop him. He pushed his tongue a little deeper, urging the tip inside her sensitive opening, and listened to her groan with pleasure. The taste of her flooded his tongue. It mingled with the sharper taste of Darleston’s seed. He wasn’t sure why he was doing this, only that he had to. He wanted her, needed her, but she was slipping away. The urge to possess her became unbearably strong. He licked more anxiously at the delicate nerve endings, and the delightful cooing noises she made in response ripped at his heart.

This couldn’t end.

On all fours behind her, he pushed his cock into the enveloping heat of her quim. The warmth of her sheath surrounded him. It clasped him tight, rippled in time with his thrusts. Unable to hold back, his world contracted to one single point of reference, from which stars ignited along the length of his cock. The sensation whipped upwards into his spine. He drove forward, taking her so hard that her breasts quivered and the intensity of the motion rocked the whole bedstead. It sent pleasure crawling across his skin like a manic itch. And scratching it was all he could do.

His orgasm caught him by surprise. The faint numbness he sometimes felt lasted barely a fraction of a second, not enough time to think or respond, and certainly not enough time to pull out before he his body gave up his seed.

* * * * *

Giles woke hours later to find himself jealously wrapped around Fortuna like a blanket. They were both naked. He didn’t remember removing her shirt, but nor did he precisely remember much of what had happened once they’d come upstairs. The whole evening felt as if he’d lived through it months not hours ago.

Giles raised his aching head. His jaw felt particularly tender. Neddy lay sleeping at the far end of the bed, while Darleston had improvised a cot from the two armchairs and a pile of coats. He could only just make out one long leg hanging over the chair arm.

“
Are you awake? It’s almost daylight.” Whisper soft, her voice burred against his senses. She wriggled beneath him and Giles shifted his weight.

Daylight. He didn’t grasp the significance to begin with; too infused by the warmth and comfort of her slender body, and the sheer intoxication of her naked skin pressed to his. Idly, his mind still fogged by sleep, he brushed a thumb across one of her nipples. It perked immediately, whereupon he sucked it into his mouth.

“
Giles.”

Was that a little wall of resistance? He ignored it, and sucked harder, laved the nipple until it grew steepled and he heard her sigh. Slowly her body relaxed as his became more rigid, his cock stirring from slumber against his thigh to rise and seek her opening.

He wasn’t going to share her again, not ever.

Unless she desired it, said a quiet voice inside his head. She was her own person and he had no right to dictate how she lived. The contradiction pricked at his heart as he covered her again and joined them in a perfect bond. They made love, gently, quietly. She was crying when she came.

“
Don’t cry, Fortuna. Please don’t.” Giles cupped his hands around her fair head, feeling the shape of her skull beneath the sleek crop. “Was it too much?” He kissed the tears from her eyelashes. He should have been more sensitive to her wishes. They’d each demanded satisfaction of her last night, and she’d given it freely. No doubt she was sore. “I’m sorry, so sorry. Don’t cry.”

His words just seemed to make her tears follow faster.

“
I have to go home,” she mumbled. Giles brushed the longer strands of her hair back off her tear-stained face. Her plump lips were parted and slightly swollen. He moved to kiss her, but she shook her head. “I’d like to stay with you, but I can’t lead my family into ruin.”

“
You can’t marry him,” he said, believing that with every ounce of his being.

The look she gave him, her eyes so vividly blue due to the tears, made his heart turn over. Pangs of guilt twanged inside his stomach. It was his fault that they’d reached this point. He shouldn’t have tempted her to run in the first place. He should have found a way to placate Macleane. If he’d only concentrated on that instead of bedding her and enjoying her company. Only he hadn’t the funds to pay the man off.

“
I don’t want to marry him.” Tears clung to her eyelashes. “If it were just me, if my actions wouldn’t hurt anyone else, then maybe I could believe in your ideals, Giles. Maybe we could share a future, even though I know I would be cut everywhere I went. It’s different for you, for men. People expect lewd behaviour of you. They accept it. It gains you a reputation, but hardly an ill one.” She broke off and stretched one bared thigh from beneath the covers. “Even when you’re married you’re expected to wander.”

“
It’s frowned upon,” he said, stunned. Did she expect him to wander? He wanted no other woman but her.

“
Frowned upon, but not exactly castigated.”

“
Don’t go,” he begged. His chest felt so tight, he thought he might have been stabbed.

Fortuna wriggled from beneath him and swung her other leg out of the bed. “I have to. I have to save my family. If you know of another way besides marrying Sir Hector then tell me and I’ll gladly stay.”

His brows furrowed into lines. There was another way, but even now he couldn’t force himself to say it. Couldn’t even force himself to admit it internally. “I’m begging you, Fortuna. Don’t hand yourself to him like this.” He needed her to stay, to give them a little more time to work things out.

“
No, you’re not.” She took his hand in hers and gently patted the back of it. “This is simply the end of our adventure. We knew it would come. It’s been wonderful and I wish it could go on, but—”

“
No, no,” he hushed her. Perhaps he
could
buy Macleane off, maybe not alone but Darleston could surely be persuaded to help. Her eyes shone, like two bright pools, so emotion-filled he thought he’d drown in them. She sidled out of the bed and he watched, numbed, as she pulled on her male attire.

“
There is one way. You know it, Giles. All you have to do is ask.”

She waited, her teeth troubling the already tender surface of her lips.

He waited too, but he couldn’t do it, couldn’t actually force the words out. He’d made a promise to himself, and she was asking him to break it. He couldn’t demand her submission like he’d demanded his sister’s. “Fortuna, I can’t. I’ll help you in any way I can. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep you hidden. But I won’t bind you, even with golden shackles.”

“
This isn’t about ideals, Giles. It’s about us and the realities of our lives.” The pain of rejection shone in her eyes. Her words spilled quickly, her voice rising with each syllable. “I don’t wish to marry, but since I have little choice, I’d much rather bind myself to a man I at least love. Do you not see that you’re not freeing me with your principles, but damning me?”

The twins stirred in their respective beds as he tried to form a reply, though if they were awake, they both maintained a respectful silence.

“
Fortuna,” he went on, “I love you. Truly, I do, but don’t ask that of me. I won’t be bullied into submission by that boor of a man. There are ways around this. There have to be.” The last he said as much to convince himself as her.

Darleston chose that moment to emerge from beneath the pile of coats fully dressed. He peered at them both from beneath his shaggy crop of auburn hair. “Whatever’s ado now?”

“
Tell her not to leave, Darleston,” Giles replied. He slipped from the bed and began pulling on clothes that he soon realized belonged to Neddy. “Make her understand, because I seem to be failing.”

“
I believe I said my piece last night.”

“
You did,” Fortuna agreed. “You told me to marry another. Well, having taken me to your beds, have none of you the decency to take me to wife too? We all know it’s the only solution. My godfather’s will is quite clear over the matter of inheritance, is it not? And we all know that Macleane will not give up. He’ll tear my family apart, and see my sisters ruined and left destitute.”

“
Giles,” Darleston pinned him with a steely gaze.

“
Neddy?” Fortuna pleaded. She turned her back upon Giles when he didn’t immediately speak up. Giles hurriedly pulled on a shirt.

Ned, caught in the act of drawing on some breeches, paled and shook his head. “You want Giles, not me. I’ll not step in the way, and I’d not give Macleane any ruby either.”

Giles snorted in fury at the very idea. Neddy wasn’t having her—not that his friend wanted a wife—Fortuna was his.

Fortuna swept the candelabrum from its perch. She clasped it tightly and gave an overwrought laugh. “Well gentlemen, you certainly live up to your reputations. I suppose it was foolish of me to expect otherwise.” She looked at the candlestick. Giles tensed, expecting her to throw it. Hell, if it’d been him, he’d have smashed it to pieces by now. Instead, she opened her fingers and simply let it slide from her hand. It hit the floor with a dull thud.

“
Don’t’ be an idiot, Giles! Man up, for God’s sake.” Darleston lunged toward him and smacked Giles across the face.

Giles found himself dashed sideward as he absorbed the blow. “What! My house burned down last night. Do you expect me to burn my principles too? If she stays put she’s in no immediate danger.”

“
But my family are,” Fortuna interjected.

Darleston smacked him again.

Giles’s ears rang. He shook his head and straightened up. A scuffle seemed to have broken out in the corridor just outside the room. The annoyance only added to his agitation. If only they’d all stop shouting and let him think. “Yes, all right. I concede that’s a problem.” He shoved Darleston away and looked around for something to smash. Having failed to spy anything, he resorted to tugging at his hair. “It’s social slavery,” he muttered to himself. It had killed his sister. “I don’t want to be the one to strip you of every right you have.” He wanted to love her and for her to love him just as wholeheartedly, without the fetters of some poxy marriage contract. The possibility of binding her such and then being forced to watch her fade away until she took the only possibly way out and killed herself as his sister had done knotted up his guts so tight that even the wave of nausea surging upward from his belly seemed to stick part way up his throat. He floundered, wordless, unable to rationalize his feelings into words she’d comprehend, and unable to dislodge that lump in his throat.

He’d killed one woman by trying to do the right thing. He had no desire to make Fortuna a second on that list.

“
You speak of rights, Giles! What rights?” Her voice was soft but tempered with steel. “I don’t have any rights. I belong to my father to do with as he pleases and he pleases to sell me to Sir Hector. In fact he did so months ago. All we’re doing here is delaying the inevitable, and you know it. So, will you offer for me, or not?”

He wouldn’t see her marry that brute, but a war of principles still raged in his heart. Was this how an animal felt when cornered? He was almost relieved when a smart rap upon the door demanded their attention. Giles pounced upon the handle and flung the door wide. “What do you want? You’re interrupting,” he growled at the squat figure of a youth he expected to see, only to find himself staring at the waistcoat of a fully grown man, be it a somewhat stricken one.

“
My daughter,” Mr. Allenthorpe squeaked through bloodless lips.

Giles did a double take. Allenthorpe! How? Someone amongst the crowd in the molly house last night must have led him here. Despite the Allenthorpes best efforts, word of Fortuna’s absence had leaked out, or mayhap she’d simply been recognized by someone amongst the guests. They ought to have flown last night. Left London and risked the obscene weather and headed north. It still wasn’t too late, if they could just get away from here. “Rob…Ned,” he called in warning, knowing the twins would recognize his distress and keep Fortuna safe. Not that there was an exit through which they could flee besides this one. The room possessed only one door, it was currently blocked by Mr. Allenthorpe, Macleane and two monster thugs with gap-toothed grins.
Aw hell!
Things were about to get ugly.

“
Not here,” Giles tried to slam the door in their faces.

“
Dovecote,” Macleane bellowed. He shoved Mr. Allenthorpe aside and thrust the jewelled head of his walking stick into Giles’s exposed stomach. Nauseous pressure sallied upward through Giles’s lungs. He gave a winded cry and bent double. Macleane struck him again upon the back, which drove Giles onto his knees. Then the thugs piled on top of him. Giles feebly raised his arms to protect his head as he was forced into a foetal position on the floor. They struck at his ribs and judiciously applied their boots to his kidneys.