Whisper To Me of Love (5 page)

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Authors: Shirlee Busbee

BOOK: Whisper To Me of Love
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Royce smiled to himself, thinking of the changes that had occurred in Zachary's life these past months since Dominic Slade had married Melissa. Upon Melissa's marriage to Dominic, who was one of Royce's closest friends, Zachary and Melissa had come into the fortune that had been placed in trust for them by their grandfather. Now, instead of a dilapidated house and overgrown acres, Zachary was the proud possessor of a completely refurbished home, and his lands were thriving under the expert guidance of a competent overseer; for the first time in his life, Zachary had leisure time
and
a sizable fortune resting comfortably in the bank!
Royce almost envied Zachary the early hardships he had endured. Being the oldest child of doting, indulgent, and extremely wealthy parents, Royce had never wanted for anything in his life. When he had reached his majority and might have been expected to strike out on his own, he had been saved, or perhaps cursed, by the providential death of his paternal grandmother, who had left him the bulk of her substantial estate. Yet despite all the good fortune that fate had so generously bestowed upon him, Royce remained curiously indifferent to the fact that he had been blessed with not only a tall, powerful body, handsome face, and an easy charm, but also with wealth and position.
Since he was generally an even-tempered man, some people made the mistake of dismissing him as an indolent dilettante, overlooking the keen intelligence that was constantly at work behind deceptively sleepy tiger eyes. For all his amiability, Royce Manchester could be a dangerous enemy, and if Lord Devlin was not careful, he would discover that not only did Royce possess tiger eyes, but also the tiger's lethal bite... .
Narrowly avoiding the overloaded farm cart that suddenly lumbered in his path, Royce smothered a curse, wishing he had recalled the crowded London streets
before
he had suggested this trip to Zachary.
Once word of the Treaty of Ghent, which had ended the War of 1812, had reached Louisiana in the early days of 1815, Royce, bored and restless for a change of scenery, had immediately written to George Ponteby, his third cousin on his father's side, in London. He told him that he would be coming to England just as soon as he could arrange passage, and would George also see about letting a suitable residence for him? The Treaty of Ghent ended the ridiculous war between the United States and England, even though word of its passage had not reached America in time to stop the terrible slaughter of the British by the Americans at the battle of New Orleans in January of 1815. But with the war at last over, the sea lanes between the two countries were now open again, and Royce had been eager to see London and his many friends there.
While it was true that boredom and restlessness had played a large part in his decision to visit England, Dominic's marriage to Melissa had also been a factor in his need to leave Louisiana. Not that Royce begrudged them their connubial bliss; their marriage merely brought home to him the fact that it was time he should think about finding himself a wife and setting up his own nursery.
As with everything, Royce had very definite ideas about what he wanted, and there were several requirements he had in mind when he began his search for a wife: Her family background must be impeccable—no wastrels or unsavory cads would be found lurking in the closet. She would have to be of good character, well mannered and biddable! She must, of course, be attractive, but he didn't care if she was a raving beauty, just as long as she wouldn't frighten the children. He wanted a sensible woman, one who knew what was expected of her and who would be content with keeping his home and bearing his children. A cynical smile curved his mouth. And one who wouldn't interfere in his extremely comfortable life too much!
Having arrived at his destination, Royce immediately left off contemplating the virtues of his as-yet-unknown bride, and with an insistent heat suddenly springing up in his loins, he entered Della's discreet little house. Having heard the front door open and close, Annie, Della's maid, appeared from the back of the house, and crossing the small, tasteful foyer, she took Royce's curly-brimmed beaver hat from him. “Miss Della is still upstairs. Shall I tell her you are here?”
Royce shook his head. “No, that won't be necessary.”
He was on the point of going upstairs when Della appeared at the top of the staircase. At the sight of his handsome face and tall, muscular body, a welcoming smile lit her lovely face. “Royce!” she exclaimed gaily. “I didn't expect you this evening.”
Della Camden was a tall, voluptuous brunette, and except for the fact that the others had all been blond, she resembled any one of the dozen or so women he'd had in his keeping from time to time since he turned eighteen. Watching her approach, Royce's eyes wandered appreciatively over the lush charms displayed by the low-cut amber satin gown she was wearing. Her full white breasts seemed to spill out of the black-lace-edged bodice, and remembering the taste of that soft flesh in his mouth, Royce felt a tingle of anticipation run through him. Reaching the bottom stair, she put out her hands, and kissing them, Royce murmured, “But where else would I be? Having had the good fortune to snaffle you out from under the noses of several persistent rivals, do you think that now I shall neglect you?”
Her brown eyes twinkled and she answered slyly, “And is
that
the only reason you've come to call? Fear of your former rivals?”
Royce laughed and pulled her into his arms. Staring down into the beautiful face artfully framed by dusky ringlets, Royce brushed his mouth teasingly against her full, pouting mouth and said huskily, “Fear never entered into it—from the moment I laid eyes on you, there was never any doubt in my mind that you would soon be in my keeping! And as for my reasons for calling ...” He kissed her with sensual expertise, his lips pressing warmly against hers, his tongue seeking and meeting hers in an age-old duel.
Della was pliant and breathless when he finally lifted his mouth from hers. Dropping a tantalizingly brief kiss on her bosom, he lowered his hands to her hips and pulled her firmly against him, making her vividly aware of how very aroused their kiss had made him. Brushing his lips against her ear, he muttered, “Any other questions, sweetheart?”
“God, no!” Della admitted candidly, eagerly pressing her warm body against him. It had been quite a feather in her cap to have caught his interest and she had angled shamelessly for his attention, the other rivals for her charms paling beside Royce's forceful personality and handsome face and form. Fingers tangling in the thick, tawny locks, she looked up into his dark, chiseled features and confessed, “There has never been anyone like you in my bed!”
A frankly carnal cast to his mouth, Royce's hands caressed her buttocks and he murmured, “Well, then, I suppose it is up to me to keep you thinking that way, isn't it?”
Sweeping her up into his arms, he effortlessly carried her swiftly up the stairs to her room. Slamming the door shut with his booted heel, his mouth captured hers, and slowly lowering her, he let her yielding body slide sensually against his.
On fire for him, Della frantically tore at his clothing, fairly purring when her seeking hands touched the warm, hard flesh of his naked chest. But he denied her further exploration. Catching both of her hands, he pulled them behind her back and held them prisoner in one of his hands; with the other, he proceeded to make short work of the frail barrier that kept her sweet breasts from him. One deft tug and the full, pink-tipped mounds were freed for him to touch and taste.
Della groaned with pleasure when his mouth closed over the aching tip and helplessly she pushed herself against him, nearly melting with the hot desire that coursed through her. Her lower body was pressed tightly next to his, and through their clothing she could feel the rigid power of his arousal. With her arms held prisoner behind her and his mouth wreaking passionate havoc on her breasts, she could only twist in erotic abandon in his embrace, the greedy hunger for his possession growing with every passing moment.
As he felt her wild writhing, a tight smile crossed Royce's face. “Easy, easy, sweetheart,” he murmured thickly against her breast. “We have the entire night to pleasure each other.”
Her eyes glittering with the passion he had aroused, the full mouth red from his kisses, Della shook her head. “No!” she said thickly. “I want you!
Now!”
The handsome face suddenly hard with desire, Royce muttered, “Very well then—anything to please a lady!”
He released her, his own hands sliding warmly up under her gown to caress and fondle the waiting warmth he found between her legs. Deliberately he aroused her further, his fingers teasing and preparing her even as she undid his breeches and his swollen manhood sprang free. He allowed her to caress his hard length but for a moment, and then, with a low growl, he lifted her and, with her skirts bunched up around her waist, her legs wrapping hungrily around his hips, in one powerful thrust, he entered her.
Della moaned excitedly as she felt herself impaled upon the magnificent size of him and eagerly she rode him, her head thrown back in mindless rapture. His shoulders braced against the door, his hands cupping her buttocks, Royce joined her in the eager race for ecstasy, his lean body slamming again and again into hers as he drove them both toward the sweet release they sought. Della found it first, a soft scream escaping from her as her body convulsed around him and his mouth crushed against hers, but a moment later Royce, too, reached that scarlet oblivion.
C
HAPTER
2
T
he day of the sparring match dawned clear and sunny and, for London at this time of year, quite pleasant. But for Pip, lying on the thin pallet and staring up at the grubby ceiling overhead, the weather held absolutely no interest whatsoever. The implications of last night's conversation were far more important than whether or not the sun was shining!
Pip wondered grimly what the future would hold for the Fowlers. They were not yet in utterly desperate straits, but knowing that the dimber-damber held the power of Jacko's life or death in his hands made their situation rather bleak. It was only a matter of time until the dimber-damber demanded something of them that they were not willing to give.... Pip swallowed painfully, dismally positive that forcing them to become housebreakers was only the first step in his nasty plans for them and that his ultimate goal was possession of
her!
Despite the male garb she wore and despite the fact that she had been dressed and had been treated like a boy from the time she had been barely four years old, Pip was actually a girl. In the beginning she had not understood why Jane had insisted she dress as her older brothers did. It was only as she grew older and became aware of what went on about her that she understood the wisdom of her mother's strange decision—the hopeless faces of the pitifully young whores who roamed about the mean streets of St. Giles made appallingly clear to Pip the tawdry future that her mother was trying to help her avoid.
A shiver suddenly shook her slender frame as she imagined what her fate would have been if Jane had not taken steps to postpone it. And unless fate intervened
soon,
she feared that it would not be long before the dimber-damber forced her into becoming a harlot. Just as he had always wanted, she thought grimly, remembering the ugly argument she had overheard a long time ago ...
She had been almost ten years old and had been sleeping in her mother's bed, recovering from a particularly severe earache, when she had been awakened by loud voices. Confused and still half-asleep, she had listened foggily to the angry words between Jane and the dimber-damber, and only belatedly had she realized that
she
was the bone of contention between them.
“I'll not have it! And before I'll let you set her feet on that path, I'll put myself back on the streets!” Jane's voice had been full of rage and grim determination.
“Don't be more of a fool than you have been all of your life!” the dimber-damber had shot back furiously. “Listen to me, Jane, it'll be a fortune for us! Now, I'm a reasonable man; I understood your feelings when she was younger and why you were against the idea at that time, but she's ten years old now! This nobleman will pay us a princely sum to be the one to take her virginity—nearly as much as he would have when she was five. I tell you that you're daft to say no.”
“My God, Rufus! She is a child!” Jane had answered. “Let her be! You don't need another whore—you have a whole stable full of them. Please, if you bear me any affection at all, leave her alone.”
“A child?” Rufus had repeated scornfully. “I have several
experienced
little darlings in my string now who are younger than she is! And if she's a child, whose fault is that? I told you when I brought her to you not to get any ideas. She's
mine,
and by God, I'll do with her what I want!”
Until that moment, Pip had never known that the dimber-damber had a real name, but even that knowledge was pushed aside by the horror that coursed through her as she realized precisely what the dimber-damber had in store for her. She didn't understand all of the ramifications of the conversation, but what she had heard was enough to wring a small moan of distress from her.
Jane must have heard the tiny sound she made, because a moment later, Pip heard Jane say, “Hush! She has awakened. We'll talk about it later—but my mind is made up, and it was no idle threat that I made. Unless you want to see me on the streets again, forget about her!”
The dimber-damber and Jane must have discussed the situation further, but though Pip was constantly on the alert, she never again gained any clue from their actions. She was able to surmise, simply by the fact that she had not been forced into prostitution, that Jane must have won the argument—and without having to resort to becoming a streetwalker again.
From that day onward, Pip was more conscious of the sordid ugliness around her than she ever had been before, more aware of the appalling youth of some of the whores and harlots she had formerly ignored, more aware of what a despicable fate lay just in wait for her. But Jane had been there. And now the one person who could protect her from the dimber-damber's monstrous plans was dead!
The future certainly looked bleak to Pip this bright, sunny morning. Instinctively she knew that it would not be much longer before the dimber-damber made his intentions for her clear, and whether he wanted her as his mistress or merely as a new addition to his stable remained to be seen. The end result, however, would be the same—she would be forced to become a whore. Everything inside of her recoiled at that thought. And yet, if she could save Jacko's life ...
Her fine mouth thinned, and a determined glint entered the heavily lashed gray eyes. She was going to find a way out of their dilemma. She would
not
become
any
man's mistress and suffer her mother's grim fate! Precisely how she was going to accomplish this feat escaped her at the moment, but it was not her nature to meekly accept a fate she found abhorrent.
Jacko came out of the other room just then and grumbled, “Are you two still lying abed? I thought you would have been up by now.”
Rubbing his eyes, Ben sat up and retorted, “I don't know why you're so grumpy about it—you just got up yourself!”
Jacko mumbled some reply, and Pip smiled slightly. Neither one of her brothers was particularly amiable first thing in the morning. Jumping lithely to her feet, she ran a hand through her mass of tumbled black curls, and momentarily putting aside her gloomy thoughts, she asked brightly, “Are you through with the washstand? I'd like to use it if you don't mind.”
Jacko waved his hand, indicating his permission, and Pip scampered through the doorway into what had been Jane's room. It was almost like entering a different world. The delicately carved mahogany bed was a massive thing, nearly filling the entire little room, the bed curtains a billowy mass of expensive green silk—Jane's favorite color. Upon the floor lay an Oriental carpet that looked as if it belonged in the home of some nobleman. There was also a tiny satinwood dressing table with a matching mirror above it, and crammed into a corner was a green-marble-topped washing stand. A fine bone china pitcher and bowl sat on it, and Pip felt a pang, as she always did whenever she entered this room. This room held the remnants of Jane's other life, the elegant life she had lived before her rich lovers had deserted her for younger women, and it was a constant, pitiful reminder of how far Jane had fallen, how very drab and dreary the life of her children was.
The life she lived never bothered Pip, except when she entered this one room; then for a moment she was struck by a sense of sadness, almost despair, wondering if it were her fate to live the rest of her life in squalor with the threat of danger always hanging over her head. But then, realizing that at present there was no chance of changing things, she would carelessly shrug her slim shoulders and go about her way, just as she did this morning.
Walking to the washstand, she poured some of the tepid water from the pitcher into the bowl and gave her face and hands a quick wash. Then, stopping in front of the satinwood dressing table, she picked up a beautiful tortoiseshell brush and dragged it through her short curls. She seldom glanced into the mirror, but this morning, perhaps wondering why the dimber-damber wanted her, she was curious about her charms or lack of them.
Her face was heart-shaped, with a determined chin and delicately molded, high cheekbones, but as far as Pip was concerned, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Neither were her mouth and eyes particularly noteworthy, Pip's critical gaze completely missing the full, almost sultry beauty of her lips and the impact her smoky gray eyes, with their long, thick lashes and strikingly arched black eyebrows, had on people. The deliberately cut short, black, curly hair rioted over her small head in untidy ringlets that barely brushed the nape of her neck, the blue-blackness of her hair intensifying the almost alabaster hue of her fair skin. To Pip, everything looked completely wrong, her mouth too large, her eyebrows too marked, her hair too dark with her pale skin, and the smoky gray color of her eyes rather dull. Only her nose found favor with her—it was straight and delicately formed, with just the slightest tilt at the end. And as for her body ... Pip grimaced. She was small, scrawny as a starved chicken, Jacko said, and whatever feminine curves she may have possessed were easily hidden beneath the bulky boy's clothing she wore. She imagined trying to hide Molly, the barmaid's quivering mounds of plump flesh beneath her own clothes and smiled at the picture that presented itself, the cheeky grin revealing even white teeth. No. She was much better off with the small, firm bosom she did possess than to lay claim to Molly's obvious charms.
Annoyed by her introspection this morning, she stuck out her tongue at her image and left the room to join her brothers at the table. Breakfast was a hurried affair, the three Fowlers falling upon the stale bread and cheese like starving animals and washing it down with the dark, bitter ale they had brought home with them the previous evening.
There was little conversation between them, each one busy with his or her own thoughts, and though nothing was said, Pip knew that her brothers were thinking about last night and how they could escape from the dimber-damber's control.
Having swallowed the last of the bread, Pip inelegantly and in a fashion that would have gained her an instant reprimand from Jane, wiped her mouth on her sleeve and asked suddenly, “Jacko, if England is not safe for us, couldn't we go to America? Surely the dimber-damber's arm is not
that
long! I've heard tell that there is a good life for the common man there—if you're willing to work, and God knows we are. We might even be able to buy a farm, like you wanted.”
Jacko and Ben both looked up at her words, and for the first time in many a day, there was a sudden gleam of hope in Jacko's blue eyes. “By God! Why didn't I think of that! We could leave all of this behind us ... even take on different names and start a new life entirely.”
Ben appeared as excited by the prospect as Jacko, but a bit more cautious than his older brother. “Getting passage without the dimber-damber finding out about it will be damned tricky.”
“And we'd have to leave behind all of Mother's things—the instant we tried to move anything from here, he would know,” Pip added with a frown.
“I don't think that Mum would want us to risk our lives merely to keep her treasures,” Jacko said. “There are a few of her trinkets that we could put in our pockets, but we would have to leave with just the clothes on our backs—and with what gold we have hidden in our shoes.”
All three nodded solemnly, each one aware that without further discussion, a decision had been made. Her face alight with enthusiasm, Pip leaned forward eagerly. “How soon can we leave?”
Running his hand over the stubble on his chin, Jacko said slowly, “First we'll have to find out when the next ship is leaving ... and then somehow we'll have to secure passage without the dimber-damber discovering what we are about. It'll be risky... .” He cast a questioning look at the other two. “If we fail ... we'll be done for; you know that—the dimber-damber will make certain we die or go to Newgate.”
“We know,” Pip said firmly, “but I'd rather try to escape from him than to remain here at his mercy.”
Jacko gave her a keen glance. A dangerous note in his voice, he asked, “He hasn't tried anything with you, has he?” Before Pip could answer, he reached across the battered table and touched her gently on the hand. “I'd kill him, Pip, before I'd let him make you work in his stable.”
“Aye,” Ben chimed in grimly. “We've been anxious about you since Mum died, but you don't have to worry that he'll get his filthy paws on you—me and Jacko will take care of him if he dares try to put you on the street.”
Her voice thick with emotion, Pip said hesitantly, “I didn't know if you were ...”
“Aware of his plans for you?” Jacko inserted grimly. “Darling, just because you dress and act like a boy doesn't mean that Ben or I have
ever
forgotten that you are our little sister.”
“Mum explained it to us a long time ago,” Ben chimed in softly. “And while you might have thought you were turned loose on the streets by yourself, we always kept an eye on you.”
“Aye! And we'll not
ever
allow the dimber-damber to hurt you in any way—we'd kill him first and take our chances on riding the three-legged mare,” Jacko finished harshly.
Jacko's reference to hanging made Pip shiver with fear for them, even as a wash of relief sped through her. Just knowing they were there, knowing that she was no longer alone with her fears, gave her a sense of comfort. Feeling the unaccustomed sting of tears in her eyes, she sent her two brothers a tremulous smile. Her heart full of love for them, she tried to interject a lighter note. “Well, you see, that settles it! We have to go to America now—I can't have you two risking your lives for me!”

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