Page 26 of Seduced by a Scoundrel (The Spinster Society #3)

M archioness Blackburn’s School for Young Ladies was the premiere finishing school in Mayfair.

Even when it did not officially exist.

There was an extensive waiting list. Those who could afford tuition paid exorbitantly, in order to sponsor those who could not.

As Sybil was no longer a spinster, and was a marchioness to boot, fading into the background had become a little more difficult. She would always be a Spinster, always a member of the Society—but her work looked different now. It had to. She had an annoying number of social calls and invitations to dodge. Or use to her students’ benefit.

Emmeline and Matilda stayed on with Priya. Clara, once a Spinster and now living at the seaside with her captain of a husband, had begun training chaperones.

Not the usual kind, naturally.

These chaperones knew the rules of Polite Society, of course. Clara had always been good at that sort of thing. But they also knew how to spot unsavory suitors. And slip laudanum in their tea.

Kitty continued to run her bookshop with her sister, who kept late hours when Kitty could not. Devil continued to send a veritable army to protect them both, but he had learned to be subtle about it. It was generally bad for business when one stopped in for a naughty book and was met with hulking military men of a dubious nature. And if there was one thing Kitty would not tolerate, it was something interfering with her bookshop business.

Peony split her time between Spinster House and the school.

Sybil was quite certain that, given a few years, the Spinster Society could take over London. England.

For now, she had two new students currently in the back garden with her three original students, Sophie, Jane, and Margaret. More applied every day, some with their parents’ approval, many without.

The Marchioness Blackburn had become very good at hosting tea parties.

If those tea parties usually involved target practice with knives, stabbing with hatpins, or tips on how to spot a fortune hunter from a mile away, that was nobody’s business.

And anyway, Peony’s brutal obstacle courses had more in common with the social obstacle courses of Mayfair than most people realized. The back garden was for something in between tea and target practice.

An old carriage waited under the shade of an oak tree. The paint was peeling and one of the windows was cracked, but it was otherwise sound. The door was open, steps leading up. It looked like any other carriage. In fact, one of their new students nodded at it. “My governess used to make me practice climbing into a carriage without flashing my ankles. Is that what we are doing today?”

Jane smiled. “Not exactly.” Her cheeks were no longer red with nerves but now freckled with the sun. Her mother did not approve. Jane had discovered that she did not mind half as much as she had feared.

One of the footmen emerged from the shadows.

“I hope at least one of you noticed him there,” Sybil said. The girls paused to stare at him, then at her.

Peony, who had sauntered in from behind a hedge, sighed. “No one even saw me back there, so I am not hopeful.”

“Who wants to go first?” Sybil asked.

No one volunteered, though Sophie, who had been through this course before, smirked.

“No one?” Sybil nodded to Lady Mary. She was very slight, with a delicate posture and a twenty-thousand-pound inheritance. She would need to know this. Posthaste. “Lady Mary.”

Mary hesitated, then marched forward with admirable determination. She knew only enough to know that something was afoot. That was good. Sybil taught her girls not only to be aware of their surroundings, but to know that everything could change without warning.

For instance, the footman was exceedingly dashing.

Ridiculously dashing. Distractingly so.

Being distracted was the first mistake.

Mary put her gloved fingers on his arm with a polite nod and peeked into the carriage.

Good.

But not quite good enough.

In the blink of an eye—or rather, a wink from a dashing gentleman—Mary was shoved onto the carriage and the door slammed shut. And locked.

“Hello?” She called out. “Lady Blackburn?”

Sybil waited.

Mary tried the handle. Pounded on the door. “Hello?”

“You’ve been abducted, Lady Mary,” Sybil called out. “And you are now, regrettably, on your way to Gretna Green with a man who is quite enamored of your twenty thousand pounds. Now what do you do?”

Mary screamed.

It was much louder than expected. Sybil and Peony exchanged an approving nod.

“Good,” Peony said. “But you’ll have to do better than that.”

“Sir!” Mary shouted through the cracked window. “I will pay you double what he is paying you to release me.”

Sybil beamed. “Oh, I do like you, Lady Mary. Well done! What else?”

The footman yanked open the door and Mary nearly tumbled out. She found her balance, but too late. He already had her. Again.

She cursed. Clawed. Tried to bite him.

Peony nodded at him, and he tossed the girl into the grass.

She landed on her back, wind knocked out of her, hair falling from its pins. Sybil leaned over to look down at her. “First lesson: a helping hand into a gentleman’s carriage could turn into an abduction by a fortune hunter heading to Gretna Green.” She glanced at the others. The new students gaped back. “There are steps to take should that occur. Messages to leave at inns along the Great North Road and so forth. We’ll get to that. But the first step is not to be taken. Who’s next?”

“Don’t worry,” Margaret added, helping Mary to her feet. “It gets easier. And later we get to punch a dummy filled with straw. It’s very cathartic.”

“Try it again with a flour sack over her head,” Sybil said.

Mary gulped.

Seeing as everything was well in hand, Sybil went back to the house. She had a ridiculous list of invitations to decline. Behind her, the girls shouted encouragement at the next effort to escape the carriage. It was the best sound in the world. And the best weapon.

The house was bright and not quite tidy. It was home as much as Montgomery House was home, now that it had been stripped of every drapery and gold tassel and delicate teacup. The ornate atrocity of a clock was sold and the funds used to furnish her school.

Strong hands pulled her abruptly into one of the closets where they stored sharpened hatpins and parasols with fortified handles. The door shut firmly behind her. She knew those hands, the curve of that mouth against her neck, even in the darkness. “Is this a test?” she teased. Peony enjoyed springing situations on her students almost as much as she enjoyed springing them on Sybil herself.

Keir’s only answer was a gentle nip at the side of her throat, and she leaned into him, already tingling with need. She gripped his arms, adoring the bulk of muscle shifting under her touch, the heat of his body already warming her. “What are you doing here?” she murmured on a gasp when he dragged his teeth up to her earlobe. “Shouldn’t you be at home? Doing whatever it is that marquesses do?”

“You left too early this morning, and it’s been very quiet over there. Very well mannered,” he complained. “I don’t care for it at all.” He backed her against the wall, kissing her deeply. “And this is what a marquess does. He makes love to his wife.”

“How very”—she whimpered when he used his boot to nudge her legs wider—“proper of you.”

“I take my duties very seriously.”

“Thank God.”

The kiss seared her even after all these months. Still. Always.

His mouth was clever and demanding and he was desperate for her, almost as desperate as she was for him. She nipped at his bottom lip, at his tongue, until he pressed against her, pulling her knee up to better rock into the cradle of her thighs. She gasped at the friction, the perfect pressure.

When there was a sound from the hallway, Keir turned the key in the lock without moving his attention away from her. He gripped the inside of her thigh under her skirts, trailing up to slide his fingers through her wet heat. Her gasp turned into a whimper. Need pulsed through her, her bud already swollen and throbbing.

“Shh,” he scolded in her ear. “You need to be quiet, my little scoundrel.”

Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “You first, Lord Blackburn.”

She finally managed to fumble his buttons open so she could feel the silky hardness of him jutting into her palm. He slipped his fingers inside her, curling for the angle she loved so much. It was a contest, a competition to see who could become undone first.

The very best kind of rivalry.

When he groaned, she slapped her hand over his mouth.

“Have you seen the marchioness?” one of the maids said from the other side of the door.

“No, but I’m sure she’s about somewhere. I saw the marquess just now.”

“Dear God, you’re new, so I’ll warn you not to go inside any closed rooms without knocking first.” A pause. “Even a closet.”

Sybil and Keir grinned at each other as he thrust into her, sliding her back up against the wall, pinning her with his body. She bit into his shoulder to keep from crying out, his mouth still against her palm. She clung to him as each stroke brought her closer and closer to release. He reached down between them, stroking her bud, his big body easily holding her up. He waited until she was fluttering around him, squeezing him with the waves of her pleasure before giving in. They came together, panting, holding tight.

Keir smiled down at her. “Scoundrel,” he murmured fondly.

“You know how they are,” the housemaid continued as she crossed on the other side of the door. “It’s sweet, really.”

“He doesn’t much act like a marquess, does he?”

Sybil kissed Keir softly, their panting breaths mingling, her legs still wrapped right around his waist. “And thank God for that.”