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Page 21 of When the Marquess Needed Me (The Rake Chronicles #4)

Chapter Nineteen

W hen they returned to the town house, Beatrice disappeared with Sally, who had started to look a bit green in the carriage.

Leith supposed that one tupping was enough for Beatrice anyway, so he retired to his own chamber. He took up his book. He was reading Waverley again. He supposed it was boring of him, but he loved the story. The plain but noble hero; his attraction to the vibrant Flora but his eventual choice of the lovely Rose; his clashes with Highland warriors—the combination of familiarity and adventure suited him extremely.

But as he read, his mind kept drifting away from the plot and characters and towards, instead, the garden tonight with Beatrice.

Usually, when he slept with a woman, he was focused on his own pleasure. But now he kept thinking of her exclamations, her praise, for him—the way she had so frankly enjoyed their encounter. He had never believed women before who had said they enjoyed bedding him, and he certainly had put in little effort to make that be the case. But he believed Beatrice when she said that she wouldn’t lie to him. He believed that her pleasure had been real.

It warmed him, that knowledge, and kept dragging his attention from his book. He gloried in how well they had seemed to fit together, how natural she had made even awkward, messy things feel, like that infernal, soiled French letter.

She had said nothing about his cock. Or his lack of erotic skill. Which gave him slightly more confidence.

He heard a click from across the room.

And found Beatrice striding into his room.

“My God,” she declared, “I forgot how addlepated one is at eighteen. She was completely foxed! She had her face in the chamber pot and then fell, completely insensible, on her bed.”

She came up to his bed, slid onto it, and crossed her legs over the coverlet. She was wearing, as far as he could tell, only her shift and a dressing gown.

“Of course, I was as much of a thickhead at eighteen as any. Sally is a daydream compared to me at that age. But still. It is shocking to see up close. And I nearly forgot all about it because she is usually so sensible.”

She seemed completely unaware that she had invaded the sanctity of his bedchamber. Usually, his mistresses remained almost completely on the other side of the adjoining door.

But it seemed that he had missed his opportunity to inform her of this rule.

And, worse, he wasn’t even sure that he didn’t want her here.

“It is true that it is a trying age. Although Charles is a strikingly mature lad.”

“Did you see the way he was staring at Sally? I beg to differ.”

He smiled. “I did see that. But you can’t blame a boy for that.”

“I suppose not. I suppose that you were the only sensible eighteen-year-old the world has ever seen.”

“No,” he said, laughing. “Not in the slightest. And if I would have been bad on my own, my friends made sure I was even worse.”

“What did they have you do?”

“Oh, the usual things. Brothels. Dueling. Ever more than five or six glasses of champagne.”

“I would scold you for being predictable, but I was hardly better myself.”

“What were your youthful sins?”

“Ruining myself, of course. Exactly what the well-bred girl should not do and so I did it. As wild, well-bred girls often do, when they cannot bear to live quietly.”

“Was it worth it?”

“For him? Not at all. For what came after? Most definitely. But, of course, for some time, I thought my life was truly over. My father was ghastly. If it weren’t for my mother, he would have cast me out.”

He winced at her matter-of-fact recounting of events that, surely, must have been far more painful at the time. “I am sorry that you were put in such a position. And that you were so ill-used by your father.”

She shrugged. “It is what men of his class do. Would many men of your sphere—or you yourself—behave differently?”

If she had asked him last week, his answer would have been no. Now, however, he was not so sure.

“I could never cast my child out of my home.” He paused, needing to know the answer to a question but not sure how to ask it. “Who was he? The man who took your virtue?”

“Lord Gilchrist,” she said, in the same straightforward manner. “He was a viscount or, well, he was to be. Not a particularly wealthy one—their estate is hardly larger than Parkhorne Hall. But the family was very puffed up on their title. They insisted it was one of the oldest in England.”

“I don’t know him.”

“No, I suspect that you wouldn’t.”

“He wouldn’t marry you, afterwards?”

“He might have done. But his father, Lord Holcombe, was resolute. In the end now, though, I wonder if he regrets it.”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed. “He died. Lord Gilchrist. After what happened with me, he went somewhat wild. And—well, it’s horrible.”

“What?”

“He got the pox. And apparently, when it became clear what was happening to him, he shot himself.”

Leith winced. “My God.”

“So, instead of a daughter-in-law that he thought was beneath him, Lord Holcombe will now leave the heap of which he is so proud to a second cousin.”

“Do you mourn him? Gilchrist?”

“I mourn anyone who dies in so sad a way, but, for myself, no, I do not. Our dalliance was too short—and was more youthful rebellion on both sides than anything else.”

Her dark eyes had a melancholy look, but they revealed no great pain. Perhaps, then, she was telling the truth about Gilchrist.

“Will Sally recover by the morning?”

“I expect so. Although I fear Charles may not.”

“I will let that affair of the heart take its own course. I must say, though, that you are very solicitous of your maid.”

She looked away. “It is much as it is with you and Charles—I have known her family for a long time.”

“Still, a maidservant getting foxed at Vauxhall—many mistresses would be furious. Some might even dismiss the girl.”

Beatrice shook her head. “That is not possible.”

“Because you care for the girl?”

“Yes,” she said. “But not only that. Our relationship is more than maid and mistress. I suppose there is no reason that I cannot tell you. She is my sister.”

Leith reared back. “Your sister ?”

He thought of Sally, with her pretty, refined features. He supposed he could see a resemblance to Beatrice, although not a particularly near one.

“My half sister,” she said, by way of explanation.

“Ah,” he said, understanding dawning. “From your father?”

“She is certainly not my mother’s. Although given how beastly my father was, I couldn’t blame her.”

“Tell me the story.”

“It is as typical as my own ruination. My father seduced a local girl—not a first for him—the daughter of a thrifty, religious woman. The girl died giving birth to Sally. It was always said she was my father’s daughter, although he did nothing for her. When her grandmother died, I insisted that she be hired at Parkhorne.”

“Your mother did not mind?”

Beatrice shook her head. “Not in the slightest. She regards Sally as her own now. And it is strange, because they are much more like than I am to either of them. But I did not come into your bedchamber to talk about Sally.”

She smiled up at him, then. Her hair, dark and beautiful, hung down loose. He had never seen it unbound before and it called out to him. He loved when his mistresses unbound their hair and now, that it was Beatrice, he loved it more than ever.

“Oh, why did you come, then?”

“Why do you think?”

Then, she leaned over, and kissed him.

Her full lips on his own were a surprise, but certainly not an unwelcome one. He responded in kind to her sweet assault, matching her taste for taste.

“I thought you would have had enough,” he said, drawing back. “After the gardens.”

She shook her head. “No, I was only beginning.”

It pleased him to see her here, smiling and preemptively undone. But anxiety also prickled over his skin at the expectation in her voice.

“And what is that you expect?”

“I thought you might like to see me. Unclothed.”

He gritted his teeth.

It had been years since he had seen a woman properly unclothed.

He usually didn’t care for it.

Or, rather, that wasn’t true. He didn’t like the expectation that it created. Of reciprocity. His mistresses, of course, would have done anything he asked, but staying clothed while they undressed—it seemed to him deeply embarrassing.

She brought her hand to the collar of her robe.

Christ, but he did want to see her naked.

“I don’t want to undress.”

She paused. “I would love to see you,” she said. “But if you would prefer not, then I will not ask it of you.”

He was under the counterpane, but beneath that he was only wearing his nightshirt, so his body was hardly hidden. But he couldn’t tolerate the pressure of showing himself.

“I would prefer to stay clothed. But I want to see you.”

“Very well,” she said.

She stood and peeled off her robe. Then, she pulled her shift over her head.

She stood bare before him, and he felt his mouth go dry.

As it turned out, Miss Beatrice Salisbury was a vision without her clothing on. From the full, round breasts that were slightly too large for her frame to the nip of her waist and the dark curls between her thighs, she was maddeningly beautiful. He craved her, as if she were a particularly choice morsel that he wanted to taste.

He swelled beneath his nightshirt.

“You are beautiful. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said, unable to control the words.

She laughed. “How long has it been since you’ve seen a woman nude?”

“Not the point.”

“I’ll take the compliment.”

“Turn around. I want to see all of you.”

She obliged, turning to reveal the smooth length of her back and her large, lush arse. God, her naked form made his mind fill with indecent ideas—the kind of ideas that usually held no appeal for him. He imagined riding her from behind, feeling the clench of her quim around him in that position, which he had liked on the occasions when he had tried it when he was younger. Or, well, he had , before he had seen, through a flash in the mirror, the absolute boredom on one of his mistress’s faces, when he was inside of her in that position.

He shook his head.

He doubted his cock was large enough to make such a position pleasurable for a woman.

“What’s wrong?”

He snapped back to the present. To the unimaginable gift of her body. His thoughts had wandered—that was true.

“Nothing.”

“You went somewhere. In your mind. You don’t have anything to worry about, you know. With what you said earlier. I want to bed you.”

For all these years, with his mistresses, Leith had taken succor from the money that changed hands between them. He assumed that any desire they expressed for him was feigned, because he was paying for his pleasure, not theirs. The conditions of their arrangements had allowed him to distance himself from their lack of interest. But now, with Beatrice, the idea that she would not be sincere pained him. And, of course, he couldn’t be completely sure that she was being sincere. The idea that she would lie to him about her desire, that she would just be pretending, was mortifying and unaccountably dreadful to him.

“Need I remind you?”

She moved towards him, drew back the counterpane, and slid into bed next to him.

The warmth of her body against him, through his thin nightshirt, was almost too much for him to bear. He could feel the firm warmth of her breasts and the brush of her quim. He wanted her so much that it made his bollocks ache. He felt seed, just a little, leak from his cock. He was threatening, he was sure, to humiliate himself, but he couldn’t even care when it felt so good to have her next to him.

She took his hand once more and brought it to her core. As he had earlier this evening, he felt her wetness. She was very wet. It did calm him to know that. To know that, most likely, she couldn’t fake this .

“I’m not pretending,” she said, looking into his eyes. Those brown depths that he had once regarded as opaque were now alight with clear excitement.

“Neither am I.”

He had meant to jest.

“I can feel how hard you are. Can I touch you?”

He froze. He hadn’t had a woman’s hand on his cock in ages—not since an incident at a brothel many years ago. It had been maybe a year after that first time. He had been back at a similar place with his friends. He had selected a courtesan, a wonderfully voluptuous girl with blond hair, and before he had been able to make clear his preference, she had reached down and felt his cock. Oh, a small one, she had giggled.

He had nearly died then and only the lust of youth, the desire to not have such a thing matter to him, had allowed him to follow through with the encounter. But that comment, so incidental, had decided things for him. After that, he had only slept with mistresses, women he had already worked out a financial arrangement with ahead of time.

“I—no.”

She looked surprised at that. But she merely nodded.

“Very well. I won’t touch you then.”

His body screamed out at that. Of course, he wanted her to touch him. And he knew he was being, on the balance, absurd. He had had his cock inside of her. She must be aware that he didn’t have a large cock. But he nevertheless feared what she might say feeling him with her bare hand. Even through his nightshirt.

“I can touch you.” His words came out unevenly. “And then we can tup. With the letter.”

He wanted her. He didn’t want her to think otherwise.

She had a little furrow between her brow. He knew she wanted to bed him in more exciting ways. Tonight, at Vauxhall, on the bench with her, he had thought he could change. He could be different. But now that seemed impossible.

Nevertheless his head was swimming with desire. He was sure that if he put his cock inside of her now he would spend in an instant.

He bit his lip and tried to beat back his desire. He wanted to make her come again. To make her feel good.

“Very well then,” she whispered.

Leith stroked her as he had on the bench, glorying in the velvety slide of her on his fingers.

She made a contented, sighing sound.

“That’s good,” she repeated. “I love that.”

The words, so simple, gladdened his heart—and spurred his cock onward.

He kept stroking her, moving from her core to her clit.

“Oh, Thomas, that’s wonderful.”

Why did he love to hear her pleasure so much? He felt another spurt of seed slip out of his cock and he groaned.

She had her hand on his hip. He imagined her cupping the head of his cock with her hand, her sweet hand that was so elegantly shaped yet lightly calloused, not at all like a typical courtesan’s. He let out another groan just at the thought.

“Thomas,” she panted, as he continued to touch her. He knew she was close. When he went deep inside of her with his fingers, she was tight and pulsing. “I will touch you, if you allow me.”

“No, don’t,” he said, but even to his own ears the words did not sound convincing. His cock was screaming at him to let her. Her hot quim on his fingers was driving him into a frenzy of insensibility. The sensation of her naked body against his own, even through his nightshirt, was unbearably intense.

“Have it as you want—ah.” He had found that spot inside of her that she had seemed to enjoy him touching so much in the garden. “Oh, that’s sweet. I am going to come.”

Her words did something to him. He felt himself come, just a little, once more, and he let out a ragged sob. But he kept stroking her, concentrating on that internal spot, and then she was spasming over his fingers, crying out his name.

The sounds of her pleasure undid him. Behind his eyes, he saw stars.

And to his mortification, he was spending against her hip.