Page 4 of Only Earl in the World (Taming of the Dukes)

“How rude! Fine, if you insist, but solve a riddle for me first: what will your perfect viscount think of your nocturnal habits?” Jasper asked when they walked down the street toward the waiting plain black coach sitting outside a tavern.

At least she hadn’t come on horseback this time—he’d much rather she keep a coachman with her instead of being alone. And he also trusted Olsen.

Though if Jasper ever suggested she take a carriage for safety, he knew she would do the opposite just for spite.

Her pettiness when it came to him knew no bounds, and he secretly adored her for it.

He liked a bit of sass in his women. Not that Briar was his …

but he enjoyed the sharpness of her wit and the fact that she kept him guessing.

“Preston won’t know,” she muttered eventually.

Jasper released a low chuckle. “He won’t know that you aren’t at home beside him in bed where any dutiful wife should be, begetting the next crop of blue-blooded heirs?”

She gave a sharp inhale, and if he hadn’t been paying attention, Jasper would have missed the wrinkle between her brows as if the very thought of bedding her future husband was an eventuality she hadn’t considered. “We shall sleep in separate rooms, of course.”

“Do your parents sleep in separate chambers?” Jasper asked.

“Well, no, but they’re in love,” she replied. “This is a marriage of convenience and suitability. There won’t be any of…that.”

That …

Jasper couldn’t help his smile at her revolted tone. He did not, however, dwell on the fact that the thought of Briar in bed with anyone—much less fucking Sackley—chafed in a way that illogically made him want to break something with his bare hands.

“What about heirs?” he prodded.

One shoulder rose in a dismissive shrug. “I am certain I do not know what you mean, my lord,” she said.

Oh, this was too rich. In her haste to deflect, she’d left herself wide open.

The little imp absolutely knew what he meant, considering the company they both kept at Lethe with the women who were in the family way and needed their help.

A wicked laugh left him. “Well, not that I expected to provide an impromptu anatomy lesson this evening, but when a husband and a wife want to procreate, he puts his co?—”

Briar spun so quickly, he barely had time to move before her hand smashed over his mouth. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence, you insupportable rogue! I am well-versed in what private appendage goes where, thank you very much.”

“Are you?” he taunted, voice muffled against the press of her palm.

The scent of her soft skin—that night-blooming jasmine and the salt of her sweat—made his mouth water.

He wanted to lick between the creases of her slender fingers.

What would she do if he did? He pretended to gnaw at the fingers closed over his mouth, catching the tip on one of them between his teeth, and she yanked her hand away with a gasp .

She glared at him. “It’s not as though I don’t get enough of an education from the women at Lethe on the intricacies as well as the consequences of seduction and copulation.”

“Isn’t the consequence the whole point?”

Furious green eyes rimmed in thick curling dark lashes flashed up at him, and Jasper was arrested by the faintest silvery glimmer of her freckles over her nose bridge. Usually they were more pronounced, but in the moonlight, they were muted like flakes of snow on her light brown skin.

“Don’t be obtuse. Of course I intend to have a family eventually.

It’s the obligation and duty of every aristocratic heiress, isn’t it?

Seed our wombs with future generations. Our value as human incubators is well-nigh law.

” Her blush heightened as the words flew from her in a torrent.

Jasper stared, mesmerized. God, he relished her precocity.

“And as far as conjugal relations, I assure you, Lord Lushing, you needn’t worry your tiny little vacuous brain about it.

Besides, I’d wager I know more about the act of coitus than you do, even with all your vast realm of experience. ”

His nether regions twitched at those provocative words. Riling her up had always been one of his favorite pastimes—it was like a drug he could not get enough of. Those flashing eyes that promised violence and the pouty lips holding back the vilest of insults were like fucking oxygen to him.

“Is that so, Prickles?” he asked in a drawl that was sure to provoke the beast. “That’s quite the boast from someone of your…delicate sensibilities.”

The challenge dropped between them. Would she back down? Concede the point?

Her mouth opened and closed, and Jasper braced giddily for whatever scathing riposte would leave that razor-sharp tongue.

“That is so,” she said, glowering at him.

“And it’s no boast at all, regardless of my sensibilities .

Half the men in the ton have no clue about female pleasure at all.

Lie there and think of England. How shortsightedly unoriginal.

It’s rather selfish on their parts, really. ”

Jasper captured her wrist and arched a brow, holding her in place before she could flee from him with that devilishly incendiary parting shot and escape into her waiting coach across the street. “Enlighten me, then, oh wise one.”

“Pleasure is not a male-limited endeavor,” she snapped.

“Nor should it be.”

Her nostrils flared. “If I had my say, women should always come first.”

Surely, she didn’t mean…

But the emphasis on come as in climax was stark. Jasper’s breath stuttered, blood already rushing south. Her expression went gloriously defiant as if daring him to contradict her, and he couldn’t help it; he smirked with elated disbelief. “I happen to agree wholeheartedly.”

“And they should not be afraid to ask for what they want in the bedchamber or out of it. Pleasure should never be a point of shame, whether it’s alone or with a partner.

It’s my hope to change that with every story I— ballocks .

” She cut off abruptly, those impassioned green irises widening as if she hadn’t meant to admit that, and her lips pinched shut in dismay.

Story ? Jasper’s curiosity was pricked. His mouth quirked at the aghast expression she couldn’t smother. “By all means, Sweetbriar, don’t stop now when you have my rapt attention.”

She scowled and waved a dismissive arm, though her tense body betrayed her ambivalence. “Stories from the women at Lethe, of course.”

“That’s not what you meant, and we both know it,” he said.

“What kind of stories? Penny dreadfuls? Contributions to a lady’s magazine perhaps?

Or a circulating publication?” Her stifled inhalation made him grin.

“I’m getting warmer! A novelette supplement in the newssheets? Or perhaps a yellowback? A serial?”

Her scowl grew. “You couldn’t be further from the truth, Lord Jackass.”

“You only call me that when you’re hiding something,” he said, watching her like a hawk. “Like being a secret author. Who is the publisher? Routledge? Chapman and Hall? H. Smith. Thomas Judge.”

“How do you even know all those names? You’re grasping at straws. Stop before you hurt yourself.”

He smirked when she lifted her jaw. He’d spent enough time with her to recognize that tell-tale chin jut whenever she was prevaricating. “Keep your secrets, Prickles. You know I’ll figure them out eventually.”

If looks could kill, he would be floating down the Thames with a thousand cuts over his poor body. “Damn and blast, you are…bloody nauseating!”

“You love me,” he said.

“On the contrary, the word you’re looking for is loathe not love. Now, bugger off.”

He only grinned as he followed her across the street. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Or is that part of your saucy literary persona?”

“Worry about your own mouth, you lout. And no, you bring this side spectacularly out of me. ”

He chuckled. Likewise .

London had its share of writers, especially female ones, who hid their true identities.

In the early part of the century, Mary Shelley and Jane Austen both penned novels anonymously, and the Bronte sisters wrote under male pseudonyms. Most gothic literature, even ones written by men, was under pen names or nameless.

Jasper, along with most of London, had read the enormously provocative novels of John Cleland and the Marquis de Sade as well as many other anonymous erotic titles. The thought of Briar penning a potentially salacious novel made his growing arousal sharpen.

Years ago, Jasper had overheard whispered chatter of a secret writer in his sister’s tight group of friends, though he’d never seen any obvious proof of the fact.

He’d assumed it to be a passing hobby of one of the girls, but this sounded…

bigger than a mere pastime. Did she write and publish racy stories inspiring female pleasure?

By a simple process of elimination, it wouldn’t surprise him if it were Briar.

His sister preferred numbers to words, Marsden’s marchioness was a fashion designer, the Duchess of Montcroix was a ballerina, and the Duchess of Vale was obsessed with her animal shelters.

Briar, however, was unapologetically vocal in her opinions, especially when it came to women’s rights and bodily autonomy, and in her spare time, she adored reading.

Sensation fiction, particularly, and especially of the gothic and romantic variety.

Christ, was the little virago a secret erotic novelist?

Given their collaborative efforts at Lethe, the social and gambling club in West London he owned, he wasn’t surprised in the least by her earlier boasts that she would be privy to scandalous gossip in the upper rooms—some of the women they rescued who chose to become employed at the establishment weren’t shy about their former professions as courtesans.