Three Times the Scandal (41 page)

He lifted her free of his cock before spilling his seed. “Why?” she asked.

Still dazed after his release, Giles mopped the mess from her thighs and his stomach. “Because, let’s not fill the nursery just yet. I want you to myself for a while. We’ve plenty of time to make additions.”

“
But I like to feel you come inside me. Isn’t there a way? I’ve heard tell of sheaths with ribbons.”

“
Have you indeed!” He sank back laughing. “Then I’d best set Leach to the task of acquiring some. They’re a goddamn nuisance though, Fortuna. You have to soak the things for an hour just to get them on.”

“
Perfect for a lengthy build up,” she said brightly.

Giles snorted. “Dear God, what have I created? I’m not sure I’ve the stamina to keep up with you.”

“
Yes you have.” She leaned forward to kiss his lips. “I love you, Giles.”

“
As do I you. Which is why it’s now time we left this carriage.”

The street had been clear when they had first pulled up near the Allenthorpe’s house. Now, as they stepped down from the carriage, it was to find themselves surrounded by vehicles. Sir Hector’s barouche occupied the space immediately before the Allenthorpe’s front door. A wave of nausea troubled Fortuna as they passed it and ascended the steps.

Giles raised his hand to knock, only for the door to be flung wide. Mae and Alicia greeted them in eager excitement. “I’ve only just told them you were gone,” said the latter. “You could hardly have timed your arrival more perfectly. I saw you leave, of course.”

Fortuna flung her arms around her sister. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Giles wrapped an arm securely around her shoulders and drew her indoors. More confident, Fortuna led the way. They would end this whole sorry affair and make everything well again.

The family was gathered in Mr. Allenthorpe’s study. Her father still grey and ashen sat hunched behind his desk, Sir Hector straining over the wood to reach him. Her mother and sisters, stood like ballroom wallflowers against the extensive shelving.

“
Fortuna,” her mother gasped. Mrs. Allenthorpe ran to her daughter. “Where have you been? Why have you brought this man here?”

Giles squeezed her shoulder reassuringly tight, and Fortuna offered her parent a conciliatory smile. But her mother, merely grasped her hand in alarm, and raised it up to better see the golden band around her finger.

“
What is this?”

“
I have married Mr. Dovecote, Mama.”

Every drop of colour leeched from her mother’s face. “Dear God, child you have ruined us all.”

Giles stepped forward. “No, indeed, she hasn’t.” He bypassed Mrs. Allenthorpe and headed to the desk. Macleane eyed him maliciously, Mr. Allenthorpe, in alarm. “I’m sorry for the rather unorthodox fashion in which I have married your daughter, sir, but I hope you will see it in your heart to forgive my presumption. I wonder if there is a representative of Knapsley and Cox present, for I believe they have something of Fortuna’s in their care.”

Mr. Allenthorpe, half shook his head, then nodded towards a wigged gentleman seated quietly to the right of the study door. All in the room turned towards that gentleman who stood and came forward carrying a small worn chest.

“
Sir,” he nodded to Giles and then to Fortuna. “Am I correct in my understanding that this is to be handed to you?”

Fortuna smiled.

Giles shook his head. “You may give it to Sir Hector.”

Macleane’s piggish eyes lit up. He strode to meet the solicitor, and snatched the casket from him. The tiny key looked ridiculously small in his troll-like hands as he impatiently opened the chest. The room hushed as he drew the spray of rubies from within and bounced the Star of Fortune in his palms.

“
You’re a fool, man,” he sneered at Giles, as he kicked away the wormy box. “You’ve just given away her only asset.”

Fortuna slipped her hand into Giles’s and squeezed tight. Too well she knew his temper. She recognized the sparks flaring in the green of his eyes.

“
Take your winnings and leave, sir,” Giles insisted.

“
Oh, I shall.” Macleane gave Mr. Allenthorpe a mocking salute, then left, still quietly gloating.

The room fell quiet after his departure, as the remaining occupants inhaled a welcome breath.

“
Is it over?” Mrs. Allenthorpe asked.

“
It would seem so.” Mr. Allenthorpe emerged from behind his desk, and came to stand beside his wife. “Fortuna?” He beckoned his daughter. “A perfect rakehell?” he remarked of her new husband, his brows impressively raised. “Though a gentleman beneath, it seems. I’ll trust, sir, that you can keep my daughter.”

“
Admirably.”

Gabriel shuffled forward. He shook Giles’s hand and kissed his sister. “Can we not welcome him? He’s saved our skins, father. And I for one shall like him far more as a brother-in-law than that odious man.”

Mr. Allenthorpe nodded. “I do welcome him, Gabriel, and I recognized my debt. You did not have to do that sir.”

Giles shrugged, as if he gave away ruby necklaces every day. “Of course I did.”

“
And I apologize for the events of our last meeting.”

“
Which I entirely accept the blame for.”

Then the family huddled in around them, so many young women, crushing against them. Overcome, Fortuna sniffed into her kerchief. Her ribs and ankle still ached and she wanted to sit down. Instead, she leaned heavily against Giles and murmured a request to leave. Only for the Darleston twins to arrive along with a score of other guests come for the wedding breakfast. They all chatted and murmured their approval over the last minute change of groom. No one seemed at all sad to see the back of Sir Hector.

“
Isn’t there a meal to be had somewhere?” Neddy asked. Both he and his brother looked a little worn this morning, their shadowy eyes more than matches for hers and Giles’s. Apparently, they’d found something to entertain themselves with following their abrupt exodus from Acton church. She made a note to ask them about it later. Meanwhile it would wait.

“
Considerate timing,” remarked Mr. Allenthorpe sometime during the breakfast. “I do appreciate your good sense, my fellow. It would have broken Mrs. Allenthorpe’s heart to see all this good food go to waste. I’ll trust I can rely upon you to keep the details of the arrangements with Sir Hector to yourself. Wouldn’t want to tarnish the family name, though there’ll be uproar enough over the last minute switch about. You are flush, are you not?”

“
Father.” Fortuna huffed.

“
Now if we could only see to getting Mercy and Patience settled,” said Mrs. Allenthorpe, turning her gaze upon the unwed men in the room.

Fortuna rolled her eyes. “May we run away now please, Giles?”

* * * * *

Soot smeared Fortuna’s nose. “Home,” she cried as she danced in the grubby entrance hall of Giles’s town house. He’d brought her home to stay this time. Married. Bound by the law of the land and before God, who’d have dreamed it?

“
I thought your ankle pained you,” he said.

Fortuna laughed and continued to swirl. “It does.”

Giles caught her hand and led her up the stairs as he had done seventeen days earlier, but this time he headed straight for the master bedroom. They were bound together. There’d be no sleeping apart. No, his room and hers. He lifted her and threw her onto the dark tester bed that dominated his rather masculine room. Perhaps once the drawing room was restored they’d have to make a few feminine adjustments here too.

Fortuna squealed, then smiled dreamily up at him as he divested her of her shoes and stockings. He kissed the curves of her calves, the hollows at the back of her knees, her ankles, and inner thighs. Just the smell of her was enough to see him primed, without the additional tactile and emotional pulls.

He loosened her stays eyelet by eyelet, until he could peel the edges apart and let her breasts fall free of the confinement. He loved her breasts, with their small perfect ripeness and huge enticing nipples. He latched on to one, sucking it hard.

“
Giles, look.” She pushed his shoulders, until he was forced to turn.

Above the mantle a new oil picture hung. In it, he and Fortuna lay together positioned as if they were spoons, their bodies perfectly coupled. Bliss showed in both their features.

“
Darleston.” Giles remarked. He always did have an eye for detail.

“
Darleston! You mean he’s the artist. But Giles, we’ve never done that. How could he know we’d fit together so well?”

Giles shook his head. Maybe the image was from memory, or at least part of it. He didn’t feel like spoiling her amazement by pointing out their friend had likely hired models to pose. “Remarkable, isn’t it?” he said instead, although not as remarkable as her, the real woman squirming in his arms. He’d save his study of Darleston’s gift for a moment when he didn’t have her wanton and willing in his bed.

Giles plucked at the ribbon fastening of her petticoat. She wriggled up out of it, and kicked it onto the floor while he shrugged off his coat and waistcoat.

Fortuna grasped the end of his cravat, which unfurled from his throat as she tugged him further up the bed. Her gaze fastened on the point where the edges of his shirt parted, her pupils dilating, her expression becoming eager. “Take it off,” she insisted.

He could see her delight in his body clear in her expression. That warmth, the attraction, he wanted to roll them both up in it, bind them so tight they were almost one. But he wanted this moment, and her expression of wonder to last too.

Coyly, he clasped a hand to the linen covering his chest. “You wish me to remove my shirt?”

“
And your breeches and any other garment you happen to have beneath. I’m naked. Why shouldn’t you be too? Besides, I want to feel your skin pressed to mine.”

“
And what will you have us do when we’re pressed so snugly together?”

“
Don’t tease so.” She lay back, and he found himself half-dragged, half-crawling across her. Her hot dainty hands grasped the globes of his buttocks and pulled him down so their hips and genitals met with a welcoming slap.

“
Come into me.”

He grinned. “Are you asking me to fuck you?”

“
I think I might be demanding it.” She pushed against him and rolled them over so that she sat astride him, gazing dreamily down at him as her fingers wove a path through the dark vee of hair upon his chest. She licked a trail down his body, teased his nipples and the soft skin around his navel. Her exploration stopped shy of his cock. Instead, she closed a hand around his shaft and angled him towards her puss. She held him there, teasing him with the slick heat of her cunny lips, and pressing his sensitive glans to her clitoris.

“
Now who’s teasing, Mrs. Dovecote?” Just being able to call her that gave him a curiously contented sense of pleasure.

“
I am.” Fortuna pressed him just inside her entrance. Her eyes closed, she purred with pleasure, and then engulfed him entirely.

As their bodies sighed, in the final throes of pleasure, something hard scratched the back of Giles’s hand. Irritably, he tried to brush it away, but it fell cold into his palm from between the mound of pillows.

Fortuna’s eyes widened in alarm; “How?” she gasped.

The candlelight sparkled amidst the web of stones of the Star of Fortune as Giles lifted the stem of rubies. The light hit the centrepiece and fractured into a halo of rainbow-colours.

“
Sir Hector,” she breathed, the sound slightly panicked, “he wouldn’t have come here, would he?”

“
Certainly not.” A suspicion waked in Giles’s mind. A small card was tied to the necklace clasp. “Read it,” he offered it to Fortuna, his concentration wavering. He couldn’t concentrate on anything beside the grip of her body around his twitching cock.

“
A present from Aunt Hattie.” She frowned quizzically at the card. “Giles, how? She’s been dead eleven years.”

He smiled serenely up at her, allowing her to draw her own conclusions as he was rapidly drawing his. The reverse of the card bore the distinctive watermark of the Darleston coat of arms.

Fortuna had been delighted to find they were marrying at Acton when she’d stepped from the carriage last night. The village had been home to her godfather and his wife, and was where the latter was buried. It didn’t take Giles much of a leap to imagine what his friends had been up to in the graveyard last night. The twins had clearly encountered Aunt Hattie and taken another sly visit to Knapsley and Cox.

“
It’s from Neddy and Robert,” he said, lifting his hips so he surged up into her, knocking her forward into his arms. “I imagine they had it copied. Neddy has a good memory.”

He didn’t believe that, but he didn’t want to spoil the moment by filling her mind with doubts, and he wanted to be sure of the truth before he shared. His gaze tracked towards the fireplace. Later, on a night that wasn’t his wedding night, he’d toss the damn necklace in there and watch to see if the blood red stones turned lustrous green in the embrace of the flames. Meanwhile, he fastened the web of stones around her slender throat, so that the Star of Fortune lay nestled between her breasts like a heart.

“
It has two stars within it,” she purred in delight.