Chapter Eleven

Neither Harriet nor Mrs. Bellingham had wakened by the time Claire departed for work in the morning. Her conversation with her sister would have to wait. Not that it was particularly pressing. There would be time enough later.

And in all honesty, her thoughts were rather obsessively devoted to Ormond anyway. Fond memories of last night occupied her thoughts, causing her to smile a good deal as she readied herself for work. There was no doubt why the viscount was in such demand with the ladies. He offered incredible pleasure with the most delightfully casual charm. As though carnal passions were perfectly natural‑perfect the operative word.

In anticipation of perhaps feeling perfect again today, Claire took particular care with her toilette. Passing over her serviceable gray and navy bombazine gowns that had become her uniforms of late, she chose a tartan silk skirt that had once been her mother’s and a muslin blouse she’d not worn in years. She was being silly, perhaps, she thought a few moments later, tying the bow on the collar of her pelisse. There was a very good chance Ormond wouldn’t remember their plans to meet after school.

She wasn’t entirely sure a man of his immoderate nature would recall what he had promised the evening past. Or care if he did. He’d left any number of women in the lurch, she suspected.

It might be wise to steel herself against disappointment. A not uncommon state since the death of her parents, she reflected, setting her bonnet on her head and tucking her curls under the brim. Silver linings seemed to have disappeared from her world.

As though in contradiction to her sober mood, the morning was sunny and bright as she walked the several blocks to work. The air was fresh and clear, not always the case in the city. Even the birds in the trees seemed intent on joyfully greeting the new day.

How could one not succumb to the glorious morning?

Having moved through the streets with all the other workers on their way to their labors, Claire reached the building housing her schoolroom and found even more bustle and activity. Dray wagons lined the entire block, waiting their turn to unload, while scores of workmen were busy carrying items of every ilk into the building.

The extent of the operation piqued her curiosity. Obviously a new tenant was moving in, but to what purpose in this neighborhood of small businesses and shopkeepers? Walking up to a man stationed at the front door with a notebook and pencil who was busy ticking off each piece of furniture or parcel as it passed by, Claire politely inquired, “Pray tell, what is going on, sir?”

“You ken ask, ma’am, but I know naught. Me orders is to see that everything delivered is carried upstairs. To the third floor, ma’am, if’n that’s any help. A new tenant, I surmise, but no one tol’ me and that’s a fact.”

Thanking him, Claire moved up the stairs with the laborers, going her separate way on the second floor to unlock her schoolroom. She set about preparing her lessons for the coming day and when her students arrived at eleven, all was in readiness.

But the girls were not prepared to learn anything with the exciting display of objects being trundled into the building and up the stairs. Despite her remonstrances, her students kept running to the windows to monitor the activity, delivering pronouncements on each and every item as if they were participants at a Christies auction.

“This is no concern of ours. Come back to your seats, ladies,” Claire would decree to what turned out to be an increasingly unresponsive group. Very soon, she felt as if she were trying to herd cats.

Claire attempted to discuss their reading assignment with her students, but they would have no part of Julius Caesar. While it was never easy teaching young ladies of wealth and privilege who rightly assumed they could do as they pleased, it turned out to be impossible on this particular day.

Finally, Claire gave up, dismissed class and allowed the girls to ogle and stare without restraint. Speculative gossip was rife, the vast amount of furniture and the equally large number of workmen on site suggesting countless possibilities for fertile young minds. In this case, young minds much too familiar with gossip as the sine qua non of life.

The scraping of furniture being put into place was audible overhead, as was the sound of someone playing the pianoforte that had been hoisted in through a window. Perhaps a music conservatory was about to open for business or an opera star was moving in the girls surmised. But when a host of female servants began carrying up a large amount of women’s clothing, the girl’s began to giggle and speculate along entirely unsuitable lines.

“That will be quite enough,” Claire sternly declared, nipping such inappropriate comments in the bud. “I’m sure there’s some perfectly reasonable explanation.” She wished to point out that the furniture passing by was too splendid for a brothel, but she didn’t care to explain why she would possess such knowledge. Nor did she have personal experience in that area. But she strongly suspected that however elegant a brothel might be, it would hardly be furnished with pieces of such superior quality.

When at last the girls’ carriages began arriving, she felt profound relief.

Or was it giddy anticipation?

It was relief, she silently insisted as the last silly school‑girl exited her schoolroom.

At times like this, she found the need to earn her own living more onerous than usual. An entire day of foolish chatter had been wearing on her nerves, while her students’ indifference to learning was exhausting both in terms of her patience and goodwill.

Or was it the sight of all the luxurious items passing by for hours that had brought her spirits low? She rarely allowed herself to dwell on the straitened circumstances of her life, but occasionally‑as today‑she was vividly reminded of the vast discrepancy between her past and present life.

Between her current poverty and her previous comfort.

Between what might have been and what had transpired.

At least Harriet would have a comfortable life, she thought, pleased her sister would not be obliged to earn her way in the world. It was only a matter of Harriet choosing which of her suitors best suited her . Tonight, perhaps, Harriet would tell her who that person might be.

Feeling slightly mollified by her sister’s prospects, Claire began tidying up the schoolroom‑stacking the books on the shelves, putting the chairs back in order, picking up the papers scattered about.

Waiting.

Above all‑waiting.

She glanced at the clock once, twice, three times before she stopped herself and cautioned prudence. There was a very good possibility that Ormond had forgotten their appointment.

In all likelihood he had already dismissed her from his mind.

She would wait until half past four and not a minute longer.

Seated at her desk, trying to concentrate on tomorrow’s assigned reading, she found herself stalled on a single sentence. Julius Caesar’s history of his campaigns in Gaul had always been one of her favorite books and she’d hoped to instill that same love in her students. But, today, like her students who rarely read their assignments, she found herself equally distracted.

She heard the sounds from the street outside as though magnified; the tick of the clock was thunderous in her ears. Even birdsong insinuated itself into her schoolroom despite the windows being closed. Until suddenly, she realized the entire building was silent. Walking to the windows, she looked down on a street empty of dray wagons and workmen. Returning to her desk, she sat down and attempted to read.

But her senses were on high alert.

High, quivering alert.

She jumped at the approaching sound of boot heels in the corridor outside.

As the measured footsteps halted at her door, she went rigid.

When the door opened and Ormond walked in, it seemed as if her heart had stopped.

“I’m early,” he said, his smile inexpressibly beautiful as he moved toward her. “I hope you don’t mind. I confess to a novel impatience.”

She thought he’d said four, but perhaps he hadn’t. “No, I don’t mind at all,” she said, smiling back, pleased by his confession.

He stopped before her desk, darkly handsome and superbly dressed in black trousers, a soft white linen shirt and silk waistcoat, dark cravat and bottle green frock coat. “So then, do we have a few hours in which to amuse ourselves?”

A blush rose on her cheeks.

“You decide on the amusement, of course,” he graciously said. “We could have tea and talk if you like.”

“I must be home by six. I left a note,” she explained, nervously, not at all sure she was dégagé enough to decide on anything having to do with Ormond.

“Excellent.” Time enough to explain that he too had sent a note to Mrs. Bellingham’s. In his experience, a lady was rather more amenable to a change in her schedule once she’d climaxed a few times. “Shall we?” Moving around her desk, he held out his hand.

He was so splendidly attired, she felt like a church mouse even though she’d worn her pretty tartan skirt. But as she rose from her chair and took his hand, his smile mitigated her unease, lush pleasure warmed her senses, and their mismatched lives suddenly were inconsequential.

As they exited the schoolroom, the viscount casually inquired, “Did you have a pleasant day?”

She glanced up, misgiving in her eyes. Was she no more than another in a long line of women who entertained him?

“Forgive me. I was trying to put you at your ease and obviously failed.”

“I’ve never done this before.”

“I understand.” He smiled ruefully. “One falls into certain patterns. My apologies again. In truth, I have never done precisely this before either.”

“My life is not like yours. I cannot afford a mistake.”

His life had been a continuous series of mistakes‑most commonly waking up where he didn’t wish to be. “Then we shall see that no mistakes befall you,” he said with a gravity she’d not heard before. Ormond was not a somber man.

“I am somewhat relieved,” she said, mollified by his understanding.

“And I in turn will endeavor to see that you are further relieved of your concerns.” He lifted his chin as they reached the stairway to the third floor. “I believe tea is awaiting us upstairs.”

Her gaze narrowed. “You were behind all this activity today? The wagons and workmen and throngs of domestics?”

“I thought this locale would be more convenient for you.”

“Or you.”

He shrugged. “Very well. For us both. Come, don’t scowl at me before you see what I have wrought.”

A certain apprehension filled her mind as they ascended the stairs and walked down the hall. As Ormond stopped before a door directly above that of her schoolroom, he offered her a boyish smile. “I hope you like it.” Opening the door, he ushered her in.

“I am awestruck,” she whispered, standing just inside the threshold, gazing at a drawing room of impeccable style and beauty. The furniture was scaled to a woman’s size, many of the pieces spectacular in their ornament‑although of a sumptuous rather than a grandiose nature. She had an uneasy feeling several of the items might have once resided at Versailles.

“Catherine’s decorator will be pleased you like it. Come, sit down.” He waved her forward. “Our tea is ready.”

If she had momentarily overlooked the discrepancies in their lives downstairs, those distinctions returned with a vengeance. She wore a hand‑me‑down skirt and shabby slippers while Ormond casually assembled a luxurious apartment on a whim. “I don’t know…this is all rather overwhelming.”

“The tea is quite ordinary, I assure you.” Taking her hand, he drew her toward a small table set for tea. “Sit, relax, tell me of your day.” He pulled out a chair for her. “I watched all your twittering students depart. How do you deal with their babbling silliness and stay sane?”

It was as if he not only understood how unmanageable her students were but fully sympathized with her plight. “I could use a few moments to relax,” she murmured, experiencing a sudden wave of self‑pity that effectively forestalled issues of unequal status. “Trying to impart anything remotely educational to my young ladies is indeed an exercise in futility.”

“I expect I was the despair of my tutors as well,” he said, sitting down in a large chair apparently selected for him. After pouring her tea, he looked up to see if she wanted cream.

“Yes, please.” How pleasant it was to be waited on. Especially on a day like today when her schoolroom had been continuously at sixes and sevens.

Pouring cream into her tea, Ormond added sugar without asking, as though he knew women always took sugar. “When I grew into maturity, I read a great deal, but as a youth‑” he shrugged‑“I was completely indifferent.” He lifted a liquor decanter. “Do you mind?”

“No, of course not.”

“Would you like some? It’s a very fine cognac.”

“Perhaps just a little.” She smiled. “I had a very trying day.”

Pouring them both a glass, he set hers down beside her teacup, leaned back in his chair, and resting his goblet on his chair arm, said very softly, “You wouldn’t have to work.”

“Pray, say no more.” She held his gaze. “What I have agreed to is temporary.”

He gazed at her over the rim of his glass. “I dislike seeing you in such reduced straits. It seems unfair.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, the world is unfair.” She smiled tightly. “Although, perhaps in your privileged case, that fact has escaped you.”

“Au contraire, darling. I have drunk away a good many years because the world has been unfair.” As though in illustration, he lifted his glass to his mouth and drained it.

“Then we need not argue.”

His smile was instant and above all amiable. “I agree.” Refilling his glass, he indicated her teacup with a dip of his head. “Drink your tea, try some of those pink frosted cakes, and we will speak of more pleasant things. Did your sister enjoy herself at Catherine’s rout?”

“She did. And I think she’s found a new beau. I hope you’re not offended.”

He laughed. “Not likely.”

“I’m not certain who it is. My aunt, of course, wouldn’t hear of anyone but you as a suitor, so Harriet dropped the subject.” Taking a sip of tea, she found the tension in her shoulders and neck noticeably lessen.

“I’d say it’s Seego.”

“He did look rather enamored last night. Might he be serious? I shouldn’t like Harriet hurt. By the way, these cakes are delicious.”

She had a delicate pink frosting residue on her lips that was tantalizing as hell. “I’ll let my chef know you liked them,” he said, restraining an impulse to kiss away the frosting. “As for Seego, he is most serious. He sought me out last night at Brooks. His concern was that I had some prior arrangement with your sister. I assured him that he was quite wrong in that regard.” Ormond grinned. “I have found the elder Miss Russell more to my liking.”

“If only you didn’t find every woman to your liking,” Claire sardonically noted, “your flattery would be more gratifying.” She smiled. “But thank you nonetheless. I find you extremely likable as well. As for Harriet’s prospects‑Seego is a highly eligible party. We must hope that he is the man who Harriet found favor with last night.” She made a small moue. “Not that Harriet couldn’t be influenced by a future dukedom.”

“You may rest easy. It rather sounded as though the two youngsters were mutually enamored. I believe Seego used the romantic designation of‑” the viscount’s brows rose‑“soul mates .”

“No!”

“Oh yes.” Ormond’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “The young boy was quite positive.”

Claire sank back in her chair and softly exhaled. “I must say, I am greatly comforted by your news. If indeed, the two young people have an attachment, I am pleased. He is so much more suited to Harriet than‑” she abruptly paused, realizing she’d almost been uncivil.

“You needn’t be tactful. I quite agree. And at the risk of offending you, I’m not likely to change.”

“I understand.” Ormond’s statement had been blunt in the extreme. “But then I am not an innocent like Harriet,” she calmly noted.

“So I discovered.” He peered at her with a searching gaze.

A small silence ensued.

“I needn’t explain to you,” she finally said.

“I just hope it wasn’t Charlie Rutledge.”

“No! My God, what do you take me for?” she cried, her face turning cherry red.

He was surprised at the degree of relief he felt. He was more surprised that he wished to be apprised of the men in her life when his philosophy had always been a cavalier live and let live. “If not Charlie‑who then?”

Picking up her cognac, she held his gaze. “You don’t see me asking that of you, do you?”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t care if you did. Tell me.”

“No.” She took a sip of cognac. “It has nothing to do with you.”

“Obviously,” he drawled.

“Should I leave?” Purse‑lipped, she set her glass down.

“No.” He could have said we have an agreement and I’ve already settled things with Seego, but he didn’t. Then perhaps because he had been selfish so long, and he was here today for his own pleasure, he sensibly shifted his stance. “It was wrong of me to press you,” he said with a conciliatory smile. “I apologize. Am I forgiven?”

How many times had he spoken thusly with that disarming smile and imploring gaze? How many times had women like her, forgiven him? “There’s no need to apologize,” she said, perhaps as selfish as he. “I just prefer not laying bare my life. I hope you understand.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

Neither could be faulted for their deft volte‑face.

“Are you finished?” He nodded at her tea.

There was an authority in his voice that demanded compliance or was it the seductive allure in his dark gaze that made her answer, “Yes.”

He stood instantly, as though he’d been impatiently biding his time, and walking around the table, he pulled out her chair.

She took note of the small tick over his cheekbone as he helped her rise and the hard, firm line of his jaw. “You’re still angry.”

“Not in the least,” he smoothly replied.

“Nevertheless, I’m uncomfortable with you looking at me like that.” Was this situation turning out to be more perilous than she’d foreseen?

Quickly composing his features, he offered her his most charming smile. “Better? And if you need further verification of my good intentions,” he said, waving her toward a inner doorway, “very shortly, I pledge to make you exceedingly comfortable.”

He was being gracious. She would be foolish to relinquish the pleasure he offered since she’d thought of little else the hours past. “I gather you don’t like to be thwarted,” she murmured, moving past him.

“Generally not.” He smiled, in better humor now that he was moments away from doing what he’d come here to do. “But I’ll make an exception for you.”

“As I will for you. We agree then.”

She was a stubborn little minx, but then she was a hot‑blooded little vixen as well and the latter easily trumped the former. “I gathered as much last night‑that we agreed…in any number of ways.” In the grip of a novel possessive impulse, he heard himself say, “In fact, I may decide to lock the doors and keep you here for myself alone.”

She smiled at his absurdity. “Even you would not be so rash as to draw my aunt’s wrath upon your head.”

His surprise overcome, he answered with the lordly presumption of his class. “I would without question.”

“Then I must find some other deterrent to your threat,” she offered, sportively, thinking surely he couldn’t mean it.

“Good luck.”

His curtness stopped her in her tracks. She shot him a look. “Have I mentioned how much I detest authoritarian men?”

“Do you know many?”

She understood from his tone that she’d broached a contentious subject, but she refused to be intimidated. “No, I do not. Satisfied?”

He wasn’t, nor would he be until he knew the extent of her amorous amusements. But he replied, “Yes,” because he neither cared to acknowledge why her amusements mattered to him nor‑more important‑did he wish to delay further having sex with her. Taking her by the arm, he propelled her forward into the bedchamber. “Perhaps we can concentrate on satisfying ourselves in other ways, right now. We can discuss your dislike of authoritarian men,” he added, crisply, kicking the door shut behind him, “after you and I both come.”

“I may not want to come.” Her tone was as crisp as his, her spine rigid with affront.

“Let me be the judge of that,” he murmured, astonished even as he spoke that his words had such an arbitrary ring. “As for what you may or may not want, need I remind you that you have already agreed to please me.”

A taut hush fell.

“Would you like to withdraw from our agreement?” he inquired, breaking the silence. “If so, I could tell Seego that my partiality for Harriet terminated once I had my way with her.”

“Knave!” Claire spat, her eyes hot with temper. “You would ruin my sister so callously?”

“That and more I assure you,” he calmly replied. “You know as well as I that I am a rogue. So what will it be? You decide.” That he was experiencing the pangs of jealousy, he would not affirm. That he wanted what he wanted was more easily acknowledged.

“I seem to have no choice,” she said with icy disdain.

“Virtue is it’s own reward, is it not?” he noted with excessive sarcasm. “I’m sure your sister will profit by your sacrifice.” He nodded curtly toward the bed. “Take off your clothes and wait for me there.”

She should summarily refuse. And had Ormond not threatened cruelly to wreak havoc on Harriet’s prospects, she might have, she thought, moving toward the bed. Although the harsh truth was that it was not Harriet’s happiness alone that caused her to stay‑but hers as well…however fleeting it may be.

At the sound of a key turning in a lock, she spun around.

“I’m not in the mood for interruptions,” he said, tossing the key on a table.

“You’re expecting company?” A hot, resentful query.

He didn’t answer for a moment, then he softly sighed. “I’m in a brutish mood. I apologize. Perhaps I’m too sober. I’m rarely sober at times like this.”

“My misfortune.”

He stared at her with a jaundiced gaze. “You’re a prickly little bitch. I should throw you out.”

“If the door wasn’t locked, you wouldn’t have to throw me out‑I’d leave!”

Taking a step toward the table on which the key rested, he picked it up and without explanation, slipped it in his coat pocket. “I need a drink. Sit down,” he said, nodding at two chairs flanking the fireplace. “Relax. I’m not going to attack you.”

Much preferring his last suggestion to his previous order, Claire quickly complied, sitting down on an elegant green brocade fauteuil. She watched him pour himself a drink from a decanter set on a small pietra dura table. She watched him drink it down, refill his glass and do the same once again with a kind of strange acceptance, as though his moodiness matched hers.

She knew very well that she shouldn’t give into her passions, that making a pact with the devil for Harriet’s sake was unwise. Any sensible woman knew that when all was said and done, Ormond would bring her misery. But as Dryden said, “We loathe our manna, and we long for quails.” And dear God, the wild, heady passion Ormond offered‑however transient‑was the undoing of every woman who came within his scope.

She was no different.

And perhaps therein lay the rub.

In fact, just the sight of him approaching her now, sent a shiver of anticipation through her senses. She sat up straighter as though uncompromising deportment might fortify her against temptation.

Taking the seat opposite her, Ormond set the decanter he’d carried over on the floor beside his chair, and slid into a lounging pose. “Why don’t you just tell me about the men in your life,” he murmured, appraising her with a moody gaze, “and I’ll become normal again.”

“Normal? I doubt it.” She’d heard all the stories. Who hadn’t?

“Normal for me, then. It’s not as if I’d ever slept with a virgin or even wanted to‑until you.” He smiled tightly. “Although, my luck held out. You weren’t.”

“How fortunate for you,” she replied, huffily, loathe to be categorized with the throngs of women in his past.

He ignored her huffiness; a few stiff drinks perhaps blurred the nuances. “I am mystified by my need to know,” he said, his singular focus undiminished. “But there it is. So humor me. Consider how gratified Harriet will be if Seego comes up to scratch.”

“Are we haggling here?”

“Call it what you like.” Picking up the decanter, he pulled out the stopper, lifted the cut‑glass bottle to his mouth, and poured a large draught of liquor down his throat.

Concerned that he might become even more unmanageable should he empty the decanter, Claire weighed her options‑along with her rather potent amorous desires‑and came to a decision. A foregone conclusion any objective observer might have pointed out. “If I tell you what you want to know, will this conversation be at an end?”

“Yes.” Immediately setting down the decanter, Ormond gave her his full attention, an anomaly in situations like this. His normal pattern with women was to be attentive only to the degree tact and courtesy was required to attain his sexual goal.

Claire didn’t speak for some moments, finding it difficult to exhume feelings long buried. She had never before divulged her relationship with John Darton. But with Harriet’s future at stake, she steeled herself against painful memory. “I was once secretly engaged,” she began, speaking briskly as though once having made her decision, she wished the conversation quickly done. “My fiancé did not have the means to offer marriage at the time and we were content to wait. A wealthy uncle of John’s consented to purchase a captain’s commission for him and John sailed for India with the Light Dragoons. He hoped to prosper there and we would marry on his return. He died of fever in Calcutta instead,” she finished, holding Ormond’s gaze for a moment as though to say‑Are you satisfied now?

“Your family didn’t know?”

She shook her head. “There was no point. Our marriage was impossible at the time. My father was retired on a colonel’s half pay; there was no money for my dowry and John’s family was in equal straits.”

“And there has been no one else?”

“Dear God, have you no heart?” she peevishly exclaimed. “I offer up bitter memories and that is all you can say?”

He shrugged. “I have no heart of late, it seems. My apologies.”

“Why does it matter anyway‑whom I have known?” she asked with asperity. “You and I are nothing more than partners in lust.”

“It matters. Don’t ask me why. I couldn’t tell you.”

His stark statement had none of his mannered nonchalance. It was blunt and grudging. “There has been no one else,” she shot back, speaking with equal bad grace.

He had been reaching for the decanter and stopped. His dark gaze held hers for a telling moment before he pulled himself upright in his chair. “I’m sorry for your loss.” His voice was gentle, the moodiness gone from his eyes. “Having traveled that mournful path myself, I offer you my condolences.”

Disarmed by both his humanity and his recognition of their shared afflictions, she answered him more kindly. “Time heals I’ve found‑at least to a degree.”

He smiled ruefully. “So I’ve been told.”

Experiencing a compassion she had not felt short moments ago, she wondered whether his sulky discontent only added to his allure, whether other women, too, felt the need to console him. “Let us not be blue‑deviled today,” she murmured, “when we have reason instead to relish life.”

He smiled faintly. “Indeed‑we should gather our rosebuds while we may.” He ran a hand through his ruffled curls. “I am grateful for your company, even though,” he added with a small grin, “I have done my best to disabuse you of that notion. Forgive my boorishness.”

She waved away his apology. “We both have our demons.” Perhaps now was the time to stop grieving over what might have been, she precipitously thought, her sudden postulate making her feel as though a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders. “Let us dwell on pleasure today.”

“Agreed. May I offer you a drink? I find the world is always more tolerable after a drink or two.” She might need time to deal with her confession, he reflected, while he, in turn, needed time to digest her disclosure. Another layer had been added to the intriguing Miss Russell.

She smiled. “Perhaps one.”

Ormond lit the fire that had been laid and with their drinks in hand, they watched the dancing flames in an atmosphere of harmony and calm.

“You color my world most pleasantly,” Ormond said after a time, smiling across the small distance separating them.

“You offer me a degree of pleasure I find impossible to resist.”

“How is it,” he murmured contemplatively, “that we found each other in this vast and brittle world?”

“I believe you were trying to seduce my sister.”

He laughed. “Fortune, it seems, was on my side. I found you instead.”

“Or fortune was on mine,” she flirtatiously replied.

“Speaking of mutual desires,” he softly drawled, “might I interest you in trying that rather flamboyant bed over there? I’m told it was once in the Trianon.”

“I rather thought it had the look of France. And yes, you could indeed interest me in your bed.”

“Your bed.”

“We’ll see.”

He didn’t argue, but set down his glass instead, stood and offered her his hand.

He undressed her slowly, slowly, as though wanting to remember this occasion, as though these moments were auspicious.

She did the same for him with a kind of fastidiousness he found charming‑with a kind of breathless awe that was particularly provocative. Regardless of her engagement, she was still relatively uninitiated in the world of amour and for a man who had always preferred experienced women, he found her naivete wildly arousing.

When she at last stripped away his linen small clothes, her eyes opened wide at the sight of his upthrust erection. “My goodness,” she breathed, glancing up at him. “Did all of that fit inside me?”

He smiled faintly. “To perfection as I recall.”

“May I touch it?”

She was already about to do so, her fingertips poised a hairsbreadth away. Not that he would have said no in any case. “By all means. We would like that immensely.”

She glanced up at the amusement in his tone. “I suppose every woman asks you the same.”

“Some do,” he lied. His partners were not so virtuous as to be astonished at a cock in full rut. That they touched him, he couldn’t deny, but for reasons other than Miss Russell’s guileless sense of discovery.

She tentatively brushed the engorged head of his penis with her fingertips and watched amazed as his erection increased, stretching upward, each pulse beat fueling its expansion visible in the corded veins of his penis.

He took a small sustaining breath, his self‑discipline legendary in the boudoir. Along with his stamina.

“I know now why you are so much in demand,” she whispered, slipping her cupped fingers under his heavy testicles. “Everything about you is‑gigantic.”

“As long as you are tempted, I am content.”

She looked up again, his testis warm on her palm. “Everything about you tempts me. As you no doubt can tell.” No woman could resist him, she thought, gazing up his hard, muscled form, wondering if his amorous activities alone accounted for his strength and virility.

“And you me as you can see,” he murmured. “If you do this‑” he took her hand in his, curled her fingers around his rigid length and eased her hand downward‑“see what it does?”

“Oh,” she squeaked. She shot him a quick smile. “How exciting. May I do it again?”

She was an eager student and he in turn was highly appreciative, but there came a time when a man could only take so much. “Why don’t we see if you’re as ready as I? Come,” he said, easing away her grip on his penis. “Lay with me.” Without waiting for an answer‑he had no intention of climaxing before exploring her luscious cunt‑he drew her to the bed. Throwing back the coverlet, he lifted her onto the bed and joined her.

“Unlike last night, we don’t have to rush,” he whispered, lying beside her, leaning over and kissing her mouth and eyes, her fine straight nose and rosy cheeks, taking a novel pleasure in his artless spinster. He’d always avoided women of moral piety and yet his libertine soul liked the taste and feel of the naive Miss Russell.

Warmed by his kisses, by his hard, taut body lightly touching hers, by the delicious possibility of lying with him in this gorgeous bed‑like ordinary people might in love and friendship‑provoked such wistful longing Claire had to remind herself that Ormond had gone to these great lengths today for sex not love. That he had manipulated scores of people for sexual gratification alone.

Not that her lustful desires were not in full, impetuous accord, nor was she averse to orgasmic pleasure. In fact, the intensity of her passion was perhaps more fierce than his. A master of this game, he was a man jaded by sensation‑when she was not. While in terms of sexual restraint, she was clearly inept. He wasn’t even breathing hard, while her breathing was becoming erratic. “Are we going to kiss much longer?” she blurted out, hot desire spreading like wildfire through her blood.

“We don’t have to.” He pulled away enough to smile at her. “Would you rather move on?” he murmured, soft suggestion in his tone.

“That would be ever so nice. I don’t mean to‑er‑pressure you…but‑that is, I am absolutely famished for you.”

He softly chuckled, his gaze amused. “So I needn’t be polite?”

“Please no. I suppose I seem incredibly unsophisticated, but you felt so wondrous last night and made me feel more glorious than I’ve ever felt before and the thing is‑” she shuddered as a jolt of desire rippled through her vagina‑“I don’t think‑I‑can wait,” she gasped.

“Nor should you have to,” he gently said, smoothly rolling over her, more than willing to cut to the chase. How unlike she was from the usual ladies in his life who preferred flirtatious coyness to honesty.

“I’ve been wanting to feel you inside me all day and all of last night and ever since I first saw you at the masquerade,” she whispered, spreading her legs wide and clutching his arms as though he were her salvation.

He smiled faintly at her candor. She was soft and warm and sweetly willing, too‑everything he wanted in a woman.

She was also, he decided, as he obliged her and slid inside her honeyed warmth, a woman who incited a degree of pleasure quite separate from the sensational, slippery friction of cock against cunt, of raw nerve endings vibrating in fervent unison. She was a woman he felt an unquenchable need to fuck‑when in the past sexual glut and swift boredom were always the norm.

In some undefined and inexplicable way, she inspired previously untouched emotions. Or was it simply her high‑strung, frantic neediness and the wild oscillation of her hips beneath him? “You’re going to have to stop me when you’ve had enough,” he murmured, feeling a kind of reckless indiscretion foreign to his persona. “I’m not in a particularly reasonable mood.”

“I know what you mean; don’t worry,” she breathed, raising her hips high into his downstroke, shutting her eyes at the fierce, flame‑hot spasm shocking her senses.

He wasn’t worried for himself‑his penis was calloused from hard use. Her vaginal tissue on the other hand might be more fragile. But a second later, he dismissed speculation in favor of raw sensation for she’d wrapped her legs around his hips and was drawing him in with some amazing, vaginal muscles.

In very short order she was frenzied and frantic like he remembered. She was dripping wet and flame‑hot simultaneously‑a combination that offered him the sleekest plunging descent and the most silken of withdrawals. She was deliciously tight‑really, a‑gift‑from‑heaven tight‑their ensuing flesh to flesh contact jolting through his brain with such wild delirium he literally gasped on each downstroke.

She didn’t notice, her own feverish respiration claiming her attention, the deafening echo of her heartbeat in her ears further adding to the tumult in her brain. A manic litany‑in and out, up and down, harder, deeper, more, more, more‑overwhelmed her senses and insensible to all but her selfish, volatile, all‑consuming passions, she exchanged reality for a phantasm of overwrought bliss.

Until she abruptly cried out‑a small suppressed sound.

“No one can hear,” he breathed, recognizing her preorgasmic utterance no matter how restrained. Immediately sliding his hands under her hips for better traction, he said, “Scream all you want.” Then, lifting her into his downstroke, he crammed her full, wanting her to feel every possible taut, shimmering sensation, each deep, forceful downthrust‑a not entirely unselfish intent. “Am I in far enough?” he murmured, swinging his lower body forward, driving in deeper. “Can you feel me?”

She promptly screamed‑and screamed some more, her high‑pitched cries echoing her orgasmic tremors, initiating the Trianon bed in its new London location, bringing a satisfied smile to the viscount’s face‑in due time leaving the lady prostrate and in thrall to Lord Ormond’s sexual expertise and phallic perfection.

After a time, she opened her eyes very, very slowly and gazed up at the viscount with a balmy, sybaritic smile. “If you could do that again I would be ever so grateful,” she breathed. “Or do I have to wait?”

He smiled at her beguiling query. “You don’t have to wait.” His capacity for dalliance was honed to perfection; self‑control was rarely an issue. “You tell me when you’re ready.”

“Would you think me too greedy if I said, now?”

“Not in the least.” Holding her impaled on his cock, he rolled over on his back.

“How strong you are‑everywhere ,” she whispered, easing upright astride his hips, shifting her bottom in a little voluptuous wiggle that made his erection surge higher.

“How pink and plump these are.” His fingers slid over the high rounded curves of her breasts, down the deep Vee of her cleavage. “And your nipples‑” he squeezed the taut buds lightly. “I’d say they’re ready for sucking.”

She softly moaned, awash in blissful sensation‑his erection buried deep inside her, his fingers delicately stroking her nipples, her vagina bathed in a fresh rush of slick arousal.

“I can’t reach you,” he whispered, tugging on her breasts to bring her closer, half rising himself in a ripple of stomach muscles until her nipples were within reach.

As his mouth closed over one taut peak, she gasped at the flame‑hot rapture streaking downward to meet the seething pool of frenzied nerve endings in her vagina and clit. Obsessed, ravenous with desire, she ground her bottom against his crotch in a frantic gyration of her hips, greedy to feel every virile flesh and blood contour of his huge, rigid erection.

He watched her through his lashes with an inexplicable pride, as though he was the means and instrument of her delight, as though he had discovered this unravished beauty who wished now to be ravished by him.

How was it that her innocence stirred him so profoundly? Why did her dewy‑eyed sensuality disarm him so completely? More shocking‑why did Miss Russell and the thought of permanence suddenly leap into his mind? Never one to allow an injudicious thought to endure, however, he quickly turned his attention to more pleasant conceits.

She came twice more before he decided to take his turn. It was either that or come in her‑a consideration so beyond the pale he instantly dismissed it. Although she said afterward, “It wouldn’t really matter if you came in me once would it?”

He stopped breathing for a second, her words the equivalent of a trap about to spring. “It probably wouldn’t be a good idea,” he replied in an excessively courteous tone. “For your sake, of course,” he added, quickly easing away from her. “Let me get a towel.”

What had come over her to even voice such a question? Claire restively thought, alarmed at how close she had come to disaster. It just went to show, how passion could overrun reason. How the gratifying pleasures of sex with a gorgeous, superbly endowed man like Ormond could affect one’s better judgment. How infatuation could turn too quickly to fondness or more when in Ormond’s embrace. It would not happen again, she silently affirmed.

When the viscount returned to the bed, he brought two items of jewelry as a means of diverting the lady from further thoughts of his coming in her. Jewelry, he’d found, generally soothed over any and all awkwardnesses.

As he placed the two items in her palm, Claire murmured, “You shouldn’t.”

“Take them, they’re small.” Sitting next to her, he added, “Try them on.”

They weren’t small, of course, the necklace and earrings of large pearls an extravagant gift. “Are you sure?”

“I couldn’t be more sure.”

Indecisive, she looked at the pearls, then at him.

“Come, darling.” He held out his hand. “Pearls are a innocuous gift. Let me help you put them on.”

She had never had so grand a gift. “I don’t know…”

“Leave them here to wear if you’d rather,” he offered, suspecting her reservations had to do with propriety. “No one need know.”

Her misgivings eased by Ormond’s discrete alternative, she gave into wistful desires. “I thank you then, most kindly. They’re very beautiful.”

Her delight pleased him more than he would have thought possible. After helping her put on the baroque pearl earrings and necklace, he watched her flushed smile as she gazed at herself in the hand mirror he’d brought over. How fortunate he was to have invited Miss Harriet to his masquerade, he reflected. If not for that calculated lure, he would not have met this little auburn‑haired tigress with her lush body and greedy cunt. And he would not now be trying to decide how long he wished to keep her.

Which thought prompted him to rise from the bed, walk to the armoire and take out one of the new gowns he’d commissioned. He, better than most, understood how a new wardrobe could influence a lady’s decisions.

“No, no, I can’t possible take it!” Claire exclaimed as he carried over a sumptuous yellow tulle gown embellished with diamont sparkles that shimmered like sunbeams.

“I thought this color would go well with your coloring,” he said, ignoring her protest and dropping the frothy cloud of tulle on her lap.

“Oh, my goodness,” she whispered.

“You could wear it to Catherine’s next entertainment,” he said, knowing that Madame Leonie’s creation had accomplished its mission.

“How did you know the size?” Claire inquired a few minutes later, twirling before the cheval glass, wide‑eyed in awe.

“I guessed.” He was standing nearby after having hooked up the back of the gown, admiring her mounded breasts spilling over the low décolletage.

She stopped twirling. “Because you do this often.”

“Never,” he lied. “Don’t look at me like that. I was fortunate. I guessed right, that’s all. Now come here so I can take it off. I’m going through withdrawal already.”

“What if I say no?” Whether she was half teasing or dead serious, she wasn’t quite sure. Her obsession with him was unnerving; everything about this luxurious apartment he’d forged in a day for his sexual pleasure was disquieting.

“I’d say don’t waste your time.” He crooked his finger. “Come here.”

“I don’t have to do everything you say.” Could she resist or couldn’t she? Did she even want to when he offered a degree of pleasure beyond her wildest imagination?

“Of course you don’t,” he murmured, advancing toward her.

“James, don’t you dare!” She ran behind a chair, her feelings volatile and capricious. Her body on the other hand, already liquid with longing.

He stopped in his tracks, gauging her response, assured after surveying her flushed cheeks and heaving breasts that what she said and what she meant were at odds. “That chair’s not going to save you, darling.”

“If you must know, I’m fighting my obsession with you. There, I have confessed. You may add me to your adoring ranks of females.”

“We are both obsessed, darling. I’m obsessed with everything about you,” he said, surprising himself with his honesty. “And to be perfectly frank‑” he paused for a moment, debating whether to voice his surprising thought‑“I’ve never felt this way before.” There, that was truthful and ambiguous at the same time; he relaxed.

“Oh, that is excellent above all things,” Claire said with relief, “because I’m not sure I can actually do without‑well‑” she paused, her gaze on his upthrust erection lying flat against his stomach.

“This?” Back on familiar ground, he smiled. “It’s all yours,” he added, running his fingertips up his turgid cock.

She took a small breath as his erection soared higher. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she whispered, passion and reason at loggerheads.

“I do,” he said, very, very softly, moving forward, lifting the chair aside. “You and I are going to make love,” he murmured, taking her in his arms. “And afterward I’m going to hold you close and tell you how wonderful you make me feel.”

“This is very strange,” she breathed, gazing up at him.

“It’s good strange, darling.”

She nodded and smiled and gave herself up to the pleasure he so casually dispensed.

Her gown was removed with dispatch. Ormond’s facility for undressing women was second to none. In the course of the afternoon, they made love in infinite, passionate variety. She had a tyro’s enthusiasm that could awaken the most jaded appetites, while his expertise was put to the test by the lady’s insatiable desires.

At last, recognizing she was becoming weak from pleasure‑her last climax ending in a voiceless sigh‑he paused for an intermission.

Not that he wasn’t still in hot pursuit.

But for the interim, he was hugely and unconditionally gratified.

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 504