Page 8 of Only Earl in the World (Taming of the Dukes)

Briar burst into cackles at the insulting nickname as Greydon collected his fervid wife and drew her into his arms. “Not everything is about you, my love,” he said with an apologetic look in their direction. “Come on, Viper, let’s get you some water.”

The silence stretched as the Duke of Greydon guided his protesting but quite inebriated duchess away.

It was Vesper’s first ball after the birth of her daughter, Audra, who had arrived rather early but was thriving now, thank goodness.

It had been a tough few months for them, but mercifully, they had just turned a corner, which was why the couple was out tonight.

They deserved the respite. No wonder her friend was in her cups.

“Sackless?” Lushing murmured, not even hiding the glee in his tone when they stood alone once more.

Briar swallowed her snort. “Don’t you start.”

“I wasn’t.”

She glared. “You were . You simply cannot help yourself.”

“You’re right,” he admitted. “Not when teasing you and collecting randomly thrown shoes have now become my life’s mission.”

A laugh broke from her, making those blue eyes of his light with a burst of true pleasure.

Briar blinked, words suddenly evading her.

His eyes were beautiful, but in that singular moment, crinkled at the corners and sparkling with joy, they shone.

She cleared her throat. “I want that boot back, by the way.”

“What will you give me for it?”

“My gratitude.”

He canted his head. “Perhaps we should dance like my sister suggested and discuss terms of surrender.”

“For a boot ?” she asked incredulously.

Flames lit in his eyes. “Or in general.”

Briar inhaled sharply, a lick of heat curling up her spine as her knees went stupidly weak beneath her skirts. She must have misheard him. Of course, he didn’t mean her surrender, even though that was exactly how it sounded. Why did the thought of ceding control leave her so breathless?

“Vesper’s foxed,” she said, striving for equanimity. “I wouldn’t put much stock in her demands. And she probably won’t remember any of this anyway.”

“Afraid, Prickles?” he taunted.

Goodness, when did being called Prickles start making her feel warm inside?

She hated the sobriquet. Her breath hitched in her throat as that singular gaze roved over her features, and she nearly drowned in that ocean-blue, unreadable stare.

Her chest constricted with that strange ache again.

Their normal testy push-and-pull had lost its sharpened edge.

Cheeks warming, she ducked her head. “Hardly.”

“Then dance with me.”

The soft request felt…weighted, as if something momentous were shifting between them.

Or perhaps that was only her, being mesmerized by a pair of pretty eyes and imagining scenarios that did not exist. Despite their tetchy relationship, Briar did care about him.

He’d been a part of her life for so long that he was a permanent fixture.

Was that why seeing him moving on with someone else hurt in a way she couldn’t parse? Had he felt the same when she’d accepted Preston’s suit?

Lushing had always been the perpetual bachelor, never settling down with any one woman. Until now…until she had become engaged.

Briar frowned. Was that why? The timing did seem peculiar, but perhaps she was reading into things.

Perhaps it was entirely accidental. She glanced over to where Preston was still occupied in deep conversation, his expression somber and grim.

Her fingers flitted up to her jaw, where her face was still tender.

A surge of despair filled her, followed by anger.

She wasn’t married yet .

“You know what, Lushing? Let’s dance. In fact, I’d be delighted to.”

Briar pulled her cloak tighter around her neck as an unseasonably cold wind blew through the streets of Piccadilly.

The pamphlets in her hand were nearly distributed.

It was a risk for her as a peeress to be handing out such contentious information so publicly, but they were short-handed, and her friend, Millicent Fawcett, the founder of the London National Society for Women’s Suffrage, had asked her a personal favor.

The latest pamphlet had been printed out of necessity to combat the recent demeaning article in the Times . Briar could recall the scathing editorial almost verbatim.

No woman has yet pretended to be on a level with men in physical strength.

They have at present the privileges and the protection of the weak.

Let them undertake to defend themselves, and they must be content with the bare rights they can enforce.

Instead of gaining any additional rights, they would risk some of the rights they possess; and they would inevitably lose the peculiar influence which is now derived from their very subordination.

Just thinking about the inherent misogyny made Briar boil.

The weak, her fractious arse! It was a slap in the face, considering the wide distribution of the newspaper, but it was also a rallying cry to everyone fighting for a woman’s right to vote, including a steadfast handful of aristocrats. Briar was one of them.

Sadly, and perhaps ironically, the movement did not have the support of the current female monarch who proclaimed their effort a mad, wicked folly and had apparently called for both Viscountess Amberley and Briar to get a good whipping.

Apart from the personal attack toward them, the queen’s reaction had been disheartening to say the least, setting them back leaps in their work toward any equality of the sexes.

Their small but fierce group fought against the patriarchy at every turn, only to be undermined by a woman in a unique position of power who should have been their strongest advocate.

It was entirely frustrating.

Briar scowled. Despite what many thought, women weren’t meant to be subordinate to men.

They had their own capable minds and deserved governance over their own minds and bodies.

A woman’s place was in some part the home, true, but she should be given the choice in what she wanted in addition to that.

Their existence was by nature political.

Claiming politics was unfeminine was an excuse to pigeonhole women into accepting the lot that was decided for them by someone else.

When Millicent had asked for help, Briar had readily agreed.

She’d already planned to visit her printer that morning to discuss the latest circulating copy of her very secret but lucrative publication: Lady Ivy Thorn, Or A Study in Secrets , a fictional heiress turned courtesan who narrated her sexual explorations.

It wasn’t any hardship to hand out the pamphlets afterward.

No hardship…unless Briar was seen by someone she knew, which was not likely.

Certainly not at this early hour of the morning.

Everyone in the pampered ton was still abed.

A twinge of discomfort ran through her at the thought of her fiancé.

Preston would not approve of this. She grimaced and shook her head.

What the viscount didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

This, Lethe, and her writing…

Her thoughts turned back to the latest installment of her own work that had taken London by storm for the past few years.

Thanks to the encouragement of the Hellfire Kitties, and certainly to Vesper who had named Briar the resident rhyparographer—scribe of sordid things—she’d taken the steps to publish under a pen name years ago when Laila had married Marsden.

It had been self-funded with her pin money at first until the income had started flowing in.

To the surprise of no one, at least in her progressive circles, women were salivating over the racy stories that challenged the status quo and put female pleasure at the forefront.

They were much too accustomed to being silent, inert receptacles for impregnation and being taught to be ashamed instead of seeking satisfaction for their own sensual desires.

Thanks to Lady Ivy Thorn, Englishwomen were being armed with a wealth of sexual knowledge one scandalous, consensual story at a time. Lady Ivy didn’t shy away from her needs or taking what she wanted when she wanted. The latest issue had been Briar’s wickedest yet.

None of the stories were from actual experience, but a collage of ideas cobbled together from tales told by the women who worked at Lethe in addition to Briar’s meticulous research across the globe, as well as her own secret fantasies…

which more often than not featured a man with to usled auburn hair, the tongue of a serpent, and the charm of the devil.

It wasn’t Lushing .

It was simply a fluke that her fictional lovers were tall and broad-shouldered with eyes resembling the ocean at twilight and a pair of sinful lips that would put the most talented of Parisian courtesans to shame.

In truth, Lushing had been a convenient, harmless fixation at first. Until he opened his mouth.

Admittedly, Briar had been infatuated with her best friend’s brother for years, but when that infatuation had evolved into mutual loathing—started by him —her fascination with the man had grown fangs and turned into a monster.

She reviled him…and yet, she desired him.

Thereafter, her most intimate fantasies had become utterly depraved…

things that no modest lady could ever confess for fear of accusations of hysteria and confinement in an asylum.

Dreams of being commanded and praised, even degraded to some degree.

She was what Preston would decidedly call a horny abomination, not that he or any of her friends, for that matter, knew how far her wantonness descended.

She wanted to be on her knees, being told when to breathe, choking on…

Bloody hell .

Briar flushed, even with the bite of the cold wind, her entire body heating.

Perhaps of all the Hellfire Kitties, Effie had an inkling of some shared erotic interests, though she wasn’t a woman to judge or share her private opinions on sensual matters.

Effie was a quiet contradiction. She had always been the most reserved one in their group, and yet, she was the one who advocated heavily for self-pleasure and had pursued lessons in carnality with her duke.

Then again, there was an adage about still waters running deep for a reason.

Too bad your own waters runneth over in every direction.

Briar chuckled and bit her lip.

This was why Viscount Sackley would be good for her.

Beyond the material gains of the Bath estate and not being particularly attracted to her as far as she could discern, he was sedate and reserved.

Pious and proper. He would not incite the feral, sensual creature that hummed beneath her skin and was desperate for escape.

In fact, she hoped he might calm it, even suppress it.

Contrary to what Vesper thought, the viscount was the perfect husband for her, especially considering her own impetuous nature, and a man like Lushing—even imaginary—would only enflame proclivities better left buried.

For everyone’s sake.

With a sigh, Briar handed out the last of the pamphlets to a passerby without looking up and froze when the person’s palm closed over hers in a punishing, pinching grip.

“I beg your pardon—” she spluttered, and then then her voice trailed off as her eyes collided with an irate face…one she never expected to see, even though she’d just been thinking of him.

“I had hoped the disturbing news I received this early morning would not be true,” the enraged viscount snapped, his voice a whip of displeasure. “That you were not here, conducting yourself with such impropriety unbecoming of a lady. ”

Briar’s stomach dropped. “My lord, wait. I can explain?—”

Preston lifted the pamphlet in disgust and crumpled it in his fist. “But after that performance with that degenerate rake the other night, I should not be surprised. I forbade you to make a spectacle of yourself, and you still chose to make a fool out of me.”

Goodness, was he talking about the quadrille ?

She and Lushing had barely touched, though the undercurrent she’d felt between them hadn’t dissipated the entire evening.

The strange tension had been present, but she hadn’t dwelled on it, chalking it up to some kind of nostalgic yearning at their diverging paths.

Had others like the viscount noticed something untoward?

“Preston, please. The earl is an acquaintance, nothing more. I…”

His mouth curled into an ugly sneer as he cut her off. “In the future, should our paths cross, you will address me as Viscount Sackley, Lady Briar, or perhaps not at all, which would be vastly preferable. I should not like to surround myself with such…vulgarity.”

Those pale eyes glimmered with rancor, and beneath the judgment, there was something else she couldn’t quite name. Something darkly sententious that made her shiver, her gut sparking with instinctive alarm. “What are you saying?” she asked.

“I must withdraw my suit.”

“My lord?—”

But the viscount was already walking away.

Trembling, she watched in horror as all her carefully laid plans vanished with the wind.