Wicked Little Secrets (18 page)

He felt his blood surging to his cock. Virgin or not, this lady better be careful. He needed distraction. Fast. He picked up the wine. “Good God! This is 150-year-old Vinho da Roda.”

“A what?”

“A special Madeira from Portugal. They ship it around the world. The heat and motion of the ship temper the wine.” He rubbed his finger over the Dutch East India label. “Your uncle might have been a homicidal lecher, but he had excellent taste in wine.”

He rose, strode over to his commode, opened the drawer, and pulled out a filigreed silver dagger from India. He held it to the lamp, letting the light dance on the blade, and then winked at Vivienne. “See, I told you I’m dangerous, love.”

She visibly shivered. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer but put the blade between his lips, for effect, and then snatched up a crystal glass beside his brandy decanter.

Returning to the wall opening, he knelt before the bottle of Vinho da Roda and slid the knife from his mouth. “You might want to back up, love. I could hurt you.”

She didn’t budge but continued to stare at him with large liquid eyes. He could see the pink edge of her tongue through her parted lips.

He forced himself to focus his attention on the bottle like a Japanese Kendo master. He took a breath and imagined the motion of the knife as it sliced the air and made the perfect cut on the glass. Everything was about the right action at the right time.

Then, in a smooth motion, he pulled the knife back and with a flourish of his wrist, snapped the blade, cleanly taking off the top of the bottle.

“That was beautiful,” he said, awed by his own prowess. He checked her response to see if she were duly impressed. She just looked bewildered.

“Uncle Jeremiah didn’t imbibe. That could be poison.”

“That’s a chance I’m going to have to take,” he said, as he poured the deep garnet wine into the glass. “Speak well of me when I’m gone.”

He whirled the ancient wine, giving it air, then took a sip. The mellow liquid flowed over his tongue, where it blossomed into an ecstasy of ripened grapes, aged wood, and sunlight. “If it is poison, it’s worth dying for. Try it.”

He gently pressed the glass’s edge against her soft lower lip and carefully poured the Portuguese nectar into her mouth. She closed her eyes, her lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. He watched the small contraction of her neck as she swallowed. “Oh, Dashiell,” she moaned and seized his hand, forcing him to further tilt the glass.

“Slowly, love, savor it,” he said, pulling it from her lips.

“But my day was simply hideous.”

“I met you today. Surely I didn’t ruin your day.”

“You were—are—the best part.” She smiled, making those little dimples come out of hiding for a moment. She clamped her fingers on his and made him lift the glass for another long sip. “Meanwhile, my fiancé is in some disreputable place like Seven Heavens with his
wedding
present
.”

Anger clenched his body. He wanted to eviscerate John Vandergrift in the time-honored English way: slowly remove the man bowels while he was still alive to feel it. “John is a dark cully. You should find someone else.”

She leaned through the hole and placed a finger on his lips.

“Hush,” she whispered. “You know I can’t.” Her intimate touch shot through him like a spark of electricity. He wanted to pull her across the wall and take her on the floor, ruining her for John and easing that almost painful throb in his own sex.

She removed the glass from his hand and drank it down. A bead of red wine rolled from the side of her mouth and down her neck.
Dear
God.

“This is so soothing,” she murmured. “I’m beginning to feel so light and good, as if this evening didn’t happen.”

Her eyes, now glittering, took in his chamber, clearly unaware of his dark thoughts or that her robe gaped, allowing Dashiell a glimpse of her luscious breasts and their pink tips through her thin nightdress. He wanted to cup one in his hand, let his tongue flick—

“Your chamber is filled with naked women,” she said, a small giggle trembling on her lips.

“But they’re old and missing lots of arms and other appendages,” he tried to joke, while shifting to hide his growing ardor. “None of them could compare to you.”

“Even with clothes on?” She chuckled, a low and throaty gurgle.

Did she not realize the danger she was in? Another provocative word or touch, and Dashiell would be forced to free those beautiful breasts that taunted him and—

“Wait, there’s something else!” She stared into the crevice between the brick and his wood paneling.

She slid her fingers into the crack and then pulled up the paper. When she opened it, the stiff, yellowing pages gave an audible crackle. Inside, he could see a thin stack of other pages.

She held up the top page. “It’s a list of names with money and dates. This has to mean something! This could be a list of people who bribed him!”

He took the paper. On it were four neat columns, like a ledger. In the first column were surnames. Beside each name was a series of numbers separated by commas. The column had amounts. None exceeding four pounds—hardly worthy of bribery. In the last column was a date. The first entry was made on 21/2/12 and the final was almost a year later on 22/1/23.

He heard Vivienne gasp. He jerked his head up. Some dark emotion had stricken her eyes. Horror? Fear? He couldn’t discern it. She hugged the remaining pages to her chest.

“What is it?”

She released her arms, and the pages spilled onto the floor of his chamber. One floated near his knee. An obscene caricature, the crudely sketched kind he and his young friends passed around at Eton. A buxom expressionless lady was sprawled on a table, her pink dress hiked up and her fleshy limbs high in the air, as a tubby man possessing an absurdly long nose sank his penis between the lady’s thighs. His pastel yellow coat was open, and his pantaloons puddled about his ankles.

There were about two dozen of these ribald caricatures and several pages of realistic nude sketches.

Dashiell reached to gather the offensive pictures, but Vivienne clasped his hand, stopping him. Her eyes were large and ripe with raw desire. “Is it… like this?”

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. He reached up and brushed her cheek. “What happens is beautiful, truly.”

She set her finger down on a particularly explicit caricature of a woman pleasuring the tubby, long-nosed man with her mouth.

“Do ladies do this to you?”

Oh God. He needed to stop this conversation. He let out a ragged exhale. “I think you need to go back to—”

“
Do
they?
”

He stared at her face, so plaintive, so trusting. He could sink into those liquid eyes. As much as he fought or teased her, he knew he couldn’t deny her a single thing. “Yes.”

Her gaze drifted to where his shirt pooled over his pelvis and then back to his face. “How does it feel when a lady touches you like that?”

He gritted his teeth. “Please don’t look at me all dewy-eyed and irresistible with your robe loose. I’m a rake, Vivienne. I’m no good. Now you need to go to bed and forget about this conversation.”

“How does it feel?” she repeated, frustrated. What did she know? Had anyone told her about the relations between a man and woman?

“Do you really want me to tell you?”

She nodded, her mouth parted.

He ran his hand through his hair and then shook his head.
No, Dashiell, send her away
, he thought, but said, “Very well.”

He returned his hand to her cheek, rubbing his thumb along the bottom edge of her lips. “It’s an acute pleasure. Everything leaves my mind but the feel of the motion of her mouth moving up and down my… um… cock.”

He felt her shudder at the word “cock.” He wanted to shock her, scare her away. Instead, she pushed against his thumb, letting it sink into her mouth. He felt the ridge of her teeth and the wetness of her tongue as it curled about his finger.

“Vivienne,” he murmured and sank his thumb deeper into her. She let out a hum-like cry and tightened her lips around him. He could feel her desire pulling heavily on her body—the same desire that caused his penis to strain against his trousers. This woman should have been bedded long before now. She was dangerous with repressed desire.

Rebelling against the inner voice warning him to stop, he brought his lips to the edge of her ear. Her vanilla and jasmine scent released a drunken, heady sensation a thousand bottles of Vinho da Roda couldn’t. “I feel this mounting intensity,” he continued, letting his lips graze her ear. “Growing and growing. I want to release myself, let the sensation overcome me, overwhelm me. But I resist and let her pleasure me this way for a while, but ultimately I want her to spread her legs and let me inside her.”

Vivienne gasped. Dashiell covered her mouth with his and sank his tongue deep into her mouth, tasting her, plundering her, ravishing her. And ignoring the little voice in his head that warned he was close to losing control.

“I can make you feel the same,” he whispered. “There is a sensitive place between your limbs, the smallest bulge, that if I touch you like this…” He flicked his tongue over the center of her top lip. “I can make you tremble and cry out my name as I take you to the peak of the most intense pleasure you’ve ever known.”

Her ragged breath heated his neck. “Show me.” She slid through the wall opening and gave herself to him, her mouth feverishly kissing him, her tongue swirling his mouth as her hands ran down his shirt, under his shirt. Her touch felt like warm feathers on his skin. He moaned in her mouth, his back arching. Then those dangerous fingers drifted down, down, finding his erection straining against his trousers. His cock jolted; the blood surged so hard he burned.

She pulled her mouth from his. “I heard you speaking to your grandfather.” She spoke low, uninhibited with wine and desire. “I-I didn’t understand it all, but…” She kissed his jaw, still tender from Sidney’s blow. “Dashiell, do you desire me?”

Say
no. You’ll only hurt her like the others. You know you will push her away and catch a boat to somewhere. Say no.

He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a cry, like an injured wolf. Using every bit of will he could muster, he lifted her hand off his penis.

Undeterred, she wrapped her fingers around the opening of her robe and slowly pulled the sides back. A deep glow burned in her eyes as she reached for the drawstring at the neck of her nightdress.

“No!” He grabbed her hands, stopping her. If he saw those beautiful bare breasts, he shivered to think what he might do. “Please, Vivienne, don’t. You’re not thinking clearly. You’ve had too much to drink.”

“Don’t you want to see me?”

“I’m a scoundrel, Vivienne. I’ll just hurt you, don’t you understand? I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“I dream about you,” she continued, her eyes searching his face. “I dream about how you would feel.”

“You’re a virgin, for God’s sake. I can’t take that responsibility. I would have to marry you.” He combed his hand through his hair. “I’m… I’m incapable of being a good husband. And besides, you’re already engaged. Remember Mr. Vandergrift?”

A frigid draft of silence swept through the room.

The terrible realization of what had just happened dawned in her eyes.
How
could
I
have
done
this?
she thought.

Dashiell muttered a curse, and then his arms were around her again. He was making hushing sounds, trying to comfort her.

“This is my fault,” he said. “You didn’t know what you were doing. I did. I let everything get out of hand.”

She shook her head. She knew enough not to kiss another man, not to let her fingers roam freely over his body. She knew enough to know that she could have destroyed her forthcoming marriage.

“You did nothing that can’t be undone,” he continued. “John, or whomever you marry, will never know. I’ll be silent to my grave. I give you my word.”

“More lies.” She shook her head. “All I do is lie. Now look at what I have done. I’ve betrayed my fiancé.”

His fingers cupped her chin and lifted her head. “Listen,” he growled. “You are innocent. This is nothing. And I can guarantee that John is doing a great deal more than kissing. Do you think he feels any guilt? Of course not.”

“But, but I feel so guilty in my soul. I’m not a good lady.”

She crawled blindly toward the open panel. Dashiell caught her by the waist.

“Let me go!” Vivienne twisted her body, tearing herself from his arms.

“Wait. Let’s just talk.”

She scrambled through the hole, spilling onto the floor of Uncle Jeremiah’s library.

“We just kissed,” he cried. “That was all.”

She grabbed the fabric panel and slammed it back in place before Dashiell could wake up her aunt or Miss Banks.

Still, she could hear him call her name. She turned onto her backside and pressed her feet against the massive bureau. The ugly thing resisted, as if Uncle Jeremiah’s ghost were there, trying to punish her. She saw the fabric on the panel jiggle. Dashiell was trying to come through. She took a breath and shoved. The old desk slid across the floor into place.

Ten

Vivienne couldn’t sleep. Guilt consumed her body like a raging fever. She tried to pray, but feared even admitting to God what had happened. Through the night, she tossed in her bed, imagining a horrible play with scenes of John telling her that he had spied on her and Dashiell. Not only had she talked to Dashiell as John had instructed her not to do, but she had sneaked into his room and kissed him. And not just a small kiss, but a deep kiss that released a passion in her that John never had, removing all her good sense and making her beg to mingle her wicked parts with Dashiell’s.

Inside her heart, what frightened her most was admitting that if Dashiell hadn’t stopped her, she would have given herself completely to him, ruining her engagement and sending her father to prison.

Dear
Lord, lead me not into temptation again and deliver me from evil and Lord Dashiell. I promise I’ll be good.