As if in answer to his thoughts, her hands came up and tugged at his cravat until the knot gave way. It was the first of many garments to fall under her questing hands. For himself, Gavin was equally occupied. Somehow, he’d managed to undo the buttons at the back of her gown and had slid the garment off her shoulders. She paused her own hurried undressing of him long enough to shrug free of the thing entirely. It fell away, pooling at their feet in a mound of blue silk.
Next he began to loosen the tapes of her petticoats, sending them to the floor as well. Without ceremony, Gavin lifted her free of the puddle of garments and carried her from the sitting room back into the bedchamber.
After placing her on the bed mounded with piles of blankets and pillows, he stepped back long enough to free himself of his boots and breeches. Fully nude, he made to climb onto the bed with her.
“Stop,” she said. “I want to see you.”
He grinned. “Shall I parade about? Do a turn?”
“No. Just stand there,” she said.
Gavin did as she asked. Proud, fully erect and without any shame at all, he stood before her with his hands on his hips and let her look her fill. When she reached out to trace the line of a scar that curved over his shoulder, he savored the cool and gentle touch of her fingertips on his already fevered skin.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
“A fight outside a tavern with a brigand who wanted my winnings,” he replied dismissively.
“Winnings?” she asked with a smile. “Cards?”
“Brawl. I throw a hell of a punch. Oddly enough, I’m even better at taking them and not falling down,” he said.
Then her hands drifted from his shoulder, over his chest, down to an ugly scar right above his hip bone. “And here?”
“Rope burn from rigging when I was sailing.”
“You sailed?”
“For a very brief time when someone decided I should be in the Royal Navy. Against my will, I might add.”
“You were impressed into service?”
“Very briefly,” he replied. “Even being a younger son of a younger son had benefits. When it was discovered that my uncle was the Duke of Westerhaven and he had no heirs, I was summarily dismissed from service and allowed to go my way.”
“How did you come to inherit?”
“Later,” Gavin said. Pressing her hand firmly against his skin. “I will tell you later.”
Bearing her back onto the bed, he stretched out beside her and began to leisurely undo the laces of her stays. “These garments are a menace.”
She laughed. “You say that when you want us out of them! But when we wear them and have our bosoms lifted to impossible heights, you are certainly in favor of their use.”
It was a point he couldn’t argue, in part because it was true and in part because the fabric had given way and she wore only a chemise beneath it that concealed nothing. So thin as to be completely diaphanous, he could see the dusky peaks of her breasts beneath the linen. Dipping his head, Gavin immediately pressed a hot, open mouthed kiss to one pert nipple.
She gasped in response, her hands coming up and gripping his hair even as she arched her back, lifting herself up to him for more. And what she wanted, he gave her. With lips, teeth and tongue, he teased those already turgid points into hard, aching buds. He lavished attention upon her perfect breasts until she was moaning and writhing beneath him.
“God above, would you just take me?” she demanded breathlessly.
“Yes,” he said. “Eventually. There are more glorious bits of you to taste, Aurora Sefton.” With that, he tugged the rumbled and twisted chemise from her until she wore naught but her stockings and garters. Then he knelt on the bed at her feet and leaned forward to press a kiss to the softness of her belly, the satin skin of her thighs. And when she was mindless from his teasing, then he feasted on her. Parting her thighs, he tasted the essence of her, savoring the slick heat of her desire and the knowledge that hw was the one she wanted.
Aurora couldn’t catch her breath. Wave after wave of pleasure crashed inside her. And still he continued his assault. For it could be deemed nothing less. Shaking, her body trembling with all that he had wrought, she cried out as she crested once more. Collapsing back against the pillows with a shuddered breath, she pleaded for mercy.
“No more, Gavin. No more. It’s too much,” she whimpered.
Only then did he lift his head, but he didn’t stop. Instead he watched her, his gaze locked with hers as his tongue once more played over that delicate nub of flesh until she was sobbing again. His name fell from her lips like an ancient pagan chant. With him watching her, with his gaze so focused on her, she felt more naked, more vulnerable and exposed. It was that which made the pleasure even more intense, which had her entire body convulsing with it as her release took her once more.
Still gasping, unable to truly fathom what had just occurred, Aurora felt him shift, felt him lever himself up the bed until the hardness of his chest was pressed against her. His arms were about her and he was kissing her neck with wicked intent. It was the most natural thing in the world to lift her hips, to lock her legs about his lean waist. And when she felt him pushing into her, the length of him filling her so perfectly, she let out a moan of pleasure. “Oh, yes. Yes,” she breathed.
“Christ,” Gavin murmured against her ear. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Well, don’t die yet. I’m just starting to really like you,” Aurora replied. Then she hitched her knees just a bit higher and arched beneath him, taking him deeper still.
There was no more chatter, no more words. Neither of them were capable of anything in that moment but feeling that ever intensifying push to completion. They strained together, sweat slicking their bodies and the sound their ragged breathing filling the room.
It was beyond powerful. It was beyond anything she’d experienced. Aurora closed her eyes, let her head fall back once more, and was swept away by it. He continued to move, thrusting into her once, twice more and then he stilled, his arms locking, and every muscle seized as he pressed his forehead to her shoulder and quaked with the force of his own pleasure.
Their breathing slowed. Slowly, their skin cooled, and silence descended. It should have been awkward. After all, they hardly knew one another and had yet engaged in something terribly intimate. But it wasn’t. Not at all. He shifted his weight from her, rolling to his back at her side. With one arm still about her, he tugged her close, holding her against him. Aurora curled into him, her own hands drifting over his skin, testing the different textures and the heat of him.
Finally, Gavin broke the silence. “How long can you stay?”
Glancing at the clock on the mantle, Aurora sighed. “An hour more perhaps. I have to be home in time to see that Helen is properly escorted to tonight’s entertainment.”
“And that is?”
“A musicale at Lady Deerfield’s,” she offered with a grimace.
He shuddered. “As remarkable as this afternoon has been, and as glorious as it will be again as soon as I recover, nothing could induce me to attend.”
“Nothing?” Aurora asked.
“Nothing.”
Taking the challenge, Aurora rose and moved quickly until she straddled his hips. He stirred beneath her, belying his need to recover. “Are you so certain?”
Then he grinned at her. “Prove me wrong.”
CHAPTER SIX
The musicale was as dreadful as he’d imagined. Ignoring the off-key warbling of a soprano whose best attributes could only be the voluminous nature of her bosom as she sang rather than the quality of her voice, Gavin felt his gaze drifting once more to the corner of the room occupied by Aurora and her niece. Stephan was fawning over the younger girl and Aurora was chaperoning them.
He’d told her to prove him wrong and so she had. He’d gladly capitulated and agreed to attend the bloody event just so she wouldn’t stop doing—well, he couldn’t say precisely what it was but it had involve
d her tongue and the roof of her mouth and there was not a man alive who could have resisted her.
“You’re looking rather pleased with yourself.”
Gavin turned to find the hostess had come upon him. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” Lady Deerfield said, inclining her head. “Though I daresay you should be. She is quite discerning in whom she takes to her bed.”
Gavin’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. “Whom she takes to her bed is not a topic of conversation that anyone who is not her friend should be engaged in. Or are you not her friend?”
Lady Deerfield offered an elegant shrug that set the copious number of diamonds at her throat to winking in the glittering light. “We are friendly. There is a difference. Personally, I have always admired her. When she made her debut, no one was more successful in society. Flawless in everything she did. And then her brother married her off to that ogre, Lord Sheffield. Did you know that when they wed, he was more than thirty years her senior?”
“No. I know nothing of the man,” Gavin admitted. He didn’t want to be indulging in gossip and yet the woman had struck a chord. She’d discovered his vulnerability which was his curiosity about the woman in question.
“The Lindens have always been a good family. They excel at making money and producing beautiful people. especially the females of the line. But they have not always married well. Her brother decided to change that. He wanted a title in the family and decided that Aurora’s youth and beauty was the key to getting it. He has now adopted a similar attitude toward his own daughter, Miss Helen Linden. You know her?”
“We have met,” Gavin stated. It was definitely a leading conversation, but leading to where remained to be seen.
“Your young charge, Mr. St. James, seems quite taken with her. ’Tis a pity, then, that I understand the contracts are all but signed for Miss Linden’s match with the Earl of Rothsey.”
Rothsey, in addition being more than sixty, was a grotesque figure of a man. With overly large false teeth, heavy jowls, and perpetually runny eyes, there was little about him that was not to be found wanting. What man could see his only child married off to such a creature?
“You may wish to warn Mr. St. James not to be so obvious in his regard,” Lady Deerfield stated. “Despite the very clever diversion that you and Lady Sheffield have created, his adoration his not gone unnoticed. I daresay it has even sparked Mr. Linden to action, for he felt the need to make haste in the arrangement. Rothsey is even now attending the man at his home.”
With that, Lady Deerfield smirked and wandered off. Cursing under his breath, Gavin made his way to where Aurora and Miss Linden were seated. “We need to talk, Lady Sheffield.”
Aurora glanced over to where Stephan was gazing adoringly at Miss Linden. “I don’t wish to leave them alone.”
“That is just as well, because this is a conversation that involves us all,” Gavin replied. “We are out of time, it would seem.”
“The garden,” Miss Linden said. “There’s a secluded grotto to the left of the terrace.”
Aurora glanced at the girl suspiciously. “How do you know that?”
Miss Linden’s answering flush as well as Stephan’s quickly averted gaze were all the answer that was required. “It doesn’t matter. Stephan and I will go first,” Gavin stated. “In a few moments the two of you will follow.”
Aurora walked about the room, ostensibly taking a turn with her niece that they might see and be seen. After all, their lavish gowns and jewels were shown to their best advantage when in motion. But their idle turn held great purpose. With each step, they were closer to the terrace doors. When finally they paused before them, facing the room as if they were quite content to stand there all night and listen to the most hideous musical performance ever, Aurora felt the breeze as the door was opened. She stepped backward, as did Helen. And then they were outside in the darkness, the door closed between them and the glittering ballroom where everyone had gathered to have their senses assaulted.
It had been the duke who had opened the door to aid their escape. Quickly they all made their way to the small grotto where Mr. St. James was waiting.
Once they were all well concealed inside the stone arches and behind the tall hedges, it was the duke who first spoke.
“Miss Linden’s father, if gossip is to be believed—and by gossip I mean our hostess, Lady Deerfield—is even now negotiating contracts for her marriage,” Gavin stated.
Aurora felt her heart sink. It wasn’t fair. Helen hadn’t even enjoyed her first season. There had been no time for the girl at all. “To whom?”
“Rothsey.”
“I will not do it,” Helen said immediately, her voice rising hysterically. “I do not care what Papa has said or what he has promised him. I will not marry that odious man.”
Rothsey. Aurora sank down onto the bench. He wouldn’t do that to Helen, surely! Not after… But of course, he would. Rothsey had been great friends with her late husband. The man had, on more than one occasion, accosted her and taken liberties which he’d informed her that her husband had given him permission to. On the last such occasion, Aurora had taken a small pistol from the pocket of her gown, concealed in the folds of her dress, and shot the man in the foot. It had been put about as an accident while he’d been cleaning a gun, but he’d never bothered her again. He was a lecherous old man and rumor had it he was even riddled with disease.
“We’ll go away,” Aurora said. “I won’t let him do that to you.”
“If you talk to him—” Mr. St. James began.
“Then he will tell Helen precisely what he told me when he married me off to Lord Sheffield: Be thankful your husband is old and that you might be widowed sooner than later,” Aurora said. “No. He will see the match done, and no protests, specifically not mine, will stop him.”
“Unless he has a reason not to want me,” Helen said quietly. “If I were to be publicly ruined… If it were known that I was not chaste, then he might cry off.”
“We will not see you ruined and shamed,” the duke stated. “I will come to your home tonight, Aurora. Stephan will wait in the carriage. Miss Linden, you will sneak out the back and climb into the carriage in the mews where you will not be seen. The two of you will make for Gretna Greene and elope immediately. And for the next few days, both Lady Sheffield and I will avoid society. We will stay home, pretending to be ill and claiming that both of you are ill as well. It will not provide much time, but it might give you a day or two to make Scotland. I’ll see to it that you have adequate funds for the journey.”
Aurora stared at him as the realization of what they were doing was sinking in. She would be openly defying her brother. But, in doing so, she would be saving Helen from a fate that was perhaps worse than even the one she had suffered. It was the right thing to do. “Is that what you both want? Do you really want to marry? Because trading one unwanted marriage for another, despite the more pleasing countenance of the groom, is not salvation!”
“I do want to marry Stephan,” Helen said. “We’ve been talking about it for months. I’ve been holding out hope that Papa would relent, but I knew when he brought me to town that it wasn’t to be. An elopement! I would marry Stephan anywhere in the world, under any circumstances in the world, so long as it means I can be with him!”
“And you, Mr. St. James?” Aurora asked.
“I’d have eloped with her months ago if she’d have said yes. My stance has not changed,” St. James replied with conviction.
“Very well. Then we are all complicit in this,” Aurora stated. “We shall try to buy you as much time as possible.”
“And the two of you? What will you do in our absence?” Helen asked looking from one to another. “Surely your ruse of being lovers can stop now.”
But it wasn’t a ruse, not anymore.
“Leave that to us,” the duke stated. “We will work out the best way forward.”
“I think our act shall begin now. Helen,” Aurora instructed, “You wil
l help me into the drawing room and I will act as if I am feeling faint. Overheated from the excitement of the evening. We shall leave early.”
And so it began.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was nearly three in the morning. Gavin helped Miss Linden into the carriage and watched it roll away.
“Your brother will be furious,” he said, “with us both.”
Beside him, Aurora, huddled in her wrapper, nodded. “We do not speak. We are not hostile towards one another in public, but we typically simply avoid being in one another’s company. He has never had any great affection for me. He only ever took notice when I was of use to him.”
“Because of the marriage he brokered for you,” Gavin surmised.
“That is part of it,” Aurora admitted. “After Lord Sheffield died and I was widowed, he came here thinking to take over my finances. He thought I would simply hand the reins of all that had been left to Will over to him to use as his own private funding source. I knew better. My brother acts as though he is incredibly wealthy, but the truth is that he is deeply in debt. His investments have not borne fruit as he would have everyone believe.”
Gavin frowned. “How deeply in debt?”
“I’ve given him money in the past. Enough to see Helen turned out for a season and to keep him from the Fleet, but I fear that things have only gotten worse since then. I think he may have borrowed from the cent-percenters. He’s facing far more than just the fear of embarrassment. And that is why he will be infuriated that we have circumvented his will when it comes to Helen’s match. There is so very much at stake, but Rothsey? Dear heavens!”
“She should not be forced to pay for his mistakes. I’ve only been in town for a month, and even I know, to some extent, the depravity that Rothsey is capable of,” Gavin said. “When we know that they are well away and hopefully married, then I shall speak with your brother.”
The Other Wife (The Dunne Family Series Book 3) Page 5
