Title Sinful Tales of Desirable Ladies

by Lucinda Nelson

  “I heard you were an avid gambler,” Loraine answered. “I wanted to find out if it was true.”

  “What difference does that make? Everyone plays from time to time.”

  “That’s certainly true,” she agreed. “But not everyone plays so regularly and recklessly as you do.”

  She pulled her hand free and this time he let her. He was seething, but at least the anger was a pleasant distraction from what he’d been feeling before. The burn of anger was almost comforting.

  “You tricked me,” he accused her.

  “Gambling is a risky business.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “I wanted to see how good you are. But you couldn’t call my bluff.”

  “I didn’t know we were playing,” he insisted, in a stiff voice.

  Loraine smiled. A knowing, clever smile. “Yes you did. We’ve always been playing.”

  Philip didn’t know what she meant by that, but it sounded ominous. “I lost a lot of money, Loraine.”

  She made a sympathetic face that was entirely insincere. “How disappointing for you. Do you want me to repay you?”

  That would be even worse than losing the money, somehow. It would sting his pride. His eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “No. But you can do something else for me.”

  “What?”

  “You can kiss me again.”

  “That did not go well last time.”

  “I think it went very well indeed.”

  “It could have been a disaster,” she said.

  “But it wasn’t.”

  She started to walk away.

  “Loraine,” he called, though he wasn’t certain what else there was to say. He realized how close he was to begging her, and it wasn’t just about a kiss or the money.

  He felt like if he didn’t salvage this moment, he might not get another chance with her. The evening had been an absolute travesty and he felt like whatever progress he’d made with Loraine had been undone.

  He needed to redeem himself, but he didn’t know how.

  Loraine stopped again and looked back over her shoulder. She quirked a brow, waiting for him to say something. But nothing came. He just stared at her.

  With a small shake of her head, Loraine turned and walked back towards him. Then she held the lapels of his jacket and rose up onto her tiptoes. She kissed him softly on the mouth.

  Blinking in surprise, he was speechless. And then she smiled at him and walked away. “I’ll come see you in the morning,” he called. “I’ll need more kisses before this debt is paid.”

  Chapter 18

  Miss Loraine Beauchamp

  “Where have you been all evening?” Her aunt demanded after all the guests had left. Loraine had gone to her room the moment the last person had left and sat on her bed, looking out the window.

  She had a lot on her mind and she didn’t want to speak to Aunt Esther until her head was a little clearer. But her aunt had found her anyway.

  Loraine closed her eyes when first she heard her aunt’s voice. “I’m very tired, auntie,” she said, softly.

  “Where have you been?” She asked again. “I haven’t seen you all night.”

  “I was with Lord Blackhill,” she admitted.

  Aunt Esther came further into the room and sat in a seat beside Loraine’s bed. “And? How does it go?”

  “It goes well,” she said. And it was only half a lie. She felt like she had him, hook line and sinker, but she was also beginning to feel afraid that he had her too. “I spoke to Lady Mary tonight and he overheard, just as I’d hoped.”

  “Wonderful,” Aunt Esther said, nodding. “Now that he thinks he might have lost you, he’ll fight harder to get you.”

  She wasn’t sure he could fight much harder.

  “What else?”

  “Nothing else,” she outright lied. She couldn’t tell her aunt about what had happened in the study.

  “Nothing else? An entire evening and nothing else?”

  Loraine hesitated before answering. “Auntie,” she said, cautiously. “Do you not think this is going too far?”

  Her aunt blinked at her, shocked. “Too far? It hasn’t gone far enough. We’re just beginning. Whatever do you mean?”

  “I mean that we don’t know Lord Blackhill. Not really. What if he doesn’t deserve this?”

  “You spoke to Lady Mary yourself. What did she have to say?”

  Her aunt already seemed to know the answer, so Loraine didn’t provide one.

  “Perhaps he is changed. Perhaps his travels changed him. Maybe… maybe we should call the whole thing off.”

  “And perhaps you have fallen for his tricks just as the others did.”

  This felt like a slap in the face. Her aunt stood, shaking her head and she say something that she knew would haunt Loraine’s sleep. “I am disappointed.”

  And then she left, leaving Loraine alone with her own remorse and her own conflict. She curled her legs up against her chest and held onto them, looking back out the window at the darkness of the grounds.

  She didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts and, thankfully, she wasn’t for long. She heard a knock.

  “Little miss? May I come in and brush out your hair?”

  Loraine felt her heart tighten at the sound of Mrs. Barrow’s voice. “Come in,” she called.

  Mrs. Barrow came inside and gestured for Loraine to sit at the dresser. Loraine did so and Mrs. Barrow picked up the brush. She unpinned Loraine’s hair and started brushing it out gently.

  Loraine knew that she hadn’t been kind to Mrs. Barrow since she and her aunt had hatched the plot. Which Loraine suddenly regretted horribly. “I’m sorry I’ve been curt with you,” she murmured, as the motion of the brush in her hair soothed her.

  She could see Mrs. Barrow’s face above her, crinkled and smiling. “Don’t be, my darling. I understand. You’re under a lot of pressure.”

  She would have denied that earlier that week. Loraine didn’t like the implication that she wasn’t her own woman. And the suggestion that her aunt could apply pressure to her implied just that.

  Loraine swallowed.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I feel torn,” she murmured. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  She hesitated, then started to nod. “I think I do, in part. He’s a womanizer, a drunk and a gambler.”

  “That does not sound promising,” Mrs. Barrow said.

  “No it does not. But I feel like there is so much more to him that I don’t know. Things that, in my gut, I believe may be able to redeem him of everything else.”

  Mrs. Barrow put the brush aside and started easing her fingers through her hair. It was a sensation that had always consoled her. She closed her eyes.

  “It sounds like you aren’t sure,” Mrs. Barrow deduced.

  “I’ve never been less sure of anything.”

  “Then perhaps, for a time, you should try to put your aunt’s plot out of your mind. And concentrate on figuring out who this gentleman really is.”

  “He’s an enigma,” Loraine reminded her.

  Mrs. Barrow smiled. “You’re a clever woman, Loraine. If anyone can figure this gentleman out, it’s you.”

  ***

  Lord Philip Everton, Marquess of Blackhill

  “Where are you going?” George asked, as Philip picked up his coat and headed for the door.

  “To see Loraine,” Philip answered. As he put his hand on the door knob, he looked back and up at the top of the staircase. He half-expected to see his father standing there, looking down on him. But he wasn’t.

  In fact, his father had been largely absent since Philip had returned. Despite the relationship they’d had before Philip had left to go traveling, which had been fraught with conflict, there was now nothing between them.

  “Where’s father?” Philip asked.

  George’s expression softened into solemnity. “Probably in his room.”

&
nbsp; Philip frowned. “Is he avoiding me?” He could understand this, but somehow it still stung.

  George shook his head. “No,” he said. “He’s always like this.”

  He hadn’t been like that before. Their father had always made his presence known, often by stamping through the house and yelling from his study. But he should have expected that he’d be a changed man, after their mother died.

  Philip felt a pang. He’d always hated his father, despite longing to impress him. But for the first time in his life, he felt sorry for him. He wondered if he should go upstairs and try to speak to him.

  But he lost his nerve when he thought of going into that room, where his mother had often held him when he’d had nightmares. While his father was off doing God knew what.

  Philip hadn’t known where his father was at the time, having been too young to guess. But as a man who was not so dissimilar from his father in many ways, he had a good idea of where he’d been.

  Which made the scene of his mother holding Philip in their marital bed that much sadder. He opened the door.

  “Is Loraine the only woman you’re seeing?” George asked, before Philip left.

  Philip paused and said, “She is. Why?”

  “I had hoped she might be,” George admitted, with a small smile.

  Philip frowned at him and thought about asking him what he meant. But he felt impatient to see Loraine, so he didn’t. “I’ll see you later,” he said instead.

  When he knocked for Loraine, it wasn’t Mrs. Barrow who answered. It was her. She didn’t invite him in, but stepped outside and shut the door behind her. “It’s a nice day,” she said. “We should spend it outside.”

  This greeting surprised him. He quirked a brow at her. “You’re not going to pretend you don’t want to see me?”

  She smiled, amused. “Not today.”

  “Lucky me,” he answered, with a grin.

  Loraine took him by the hand, which was even more shocking, and led him down the path into the grounds. She sat down on the grass and patted the space beside her. He sat and looked back at the house.

  He could see a woman standing in one of the windows. “Is that your aunt?” He said, squinting.

  She didn’t even look. She just knew. “Yes. Try to ignore her.”

  His brow crinkled. “She’s staring.”

  “It’s rather unnerving, isn’t it?” Loraine sighed.

  Philip looked at her. “Is that why you don’t want to take me inside?”

  “She’s very intense,” Loraine said. She’d said this before.

  He gave her an impish grin. “And you want to be alone with me.”

  “Perhaps I do,” she admitted. It was the first time she’d ever been open about wanting to be around him. “You look as if that surprises you.”

  “It surprises me that you admit it. I’ve always known you like being with me.”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re rather arrogant?”

  “I think you mean confident.”

  “Cocky,” she corrected.

  “Assured.”

  Loraine laughed.

  “You’re rather assured yourself, you know.”

  She smiled at him, from ear to ear. “You mean arrogant.”

  He laughed too and, not for the first time, was enamored with her wit. Loraine lay back on the grass and pointed up at one of the clouds. “I’ve been watching that one all day. It hasn’t budged.”

  He laid down beside her and looked up. “That one?” He pointed.

  “No.” She took hold of his hand and guided it so that his finger was pointing at the right cloud. “That one.”

  He turned his head and looked at her. Her hand was spooning his knuckles softly. He twined their fingers in the air and smiled.

  She smiled too, with a look in her eye that he’d never seen before. It was almost uncertain.

  Loraine and Philip spent the whole day together, out in the gardens under the sun. Sometimes they walked, hand in hand, other times they lay on the grass and talked about the sky.

  And other things too.

  That was perhaps the most shocking thing about this visit. That they actually talked about real things for once. They didn’t just banter or perpetuate whatever games they were each playing.

  And that was something he’d never experienced with Loraine before. Or with any woman really. He even found himself talking about himself.

  “Tell me a secret,” she said, as they lay shoulder to shoulder.

  “Ask nicely,” he replied, with a smile.

  She rolled her eyes and turned onto her side, propping her head up on her hand. “Please tell me a secret.”

  “Better,” he said. A lock of her golden hair fell forwards and he lifted his hand to touch it. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything.”

  “I thought you wanted to know a secret.”

  “From what I understand of you, Philip, you could tell me anything and in all likelihood you’ve kept it a secret from someone.”

  No truer words had ever been spoken. “You make me sound very enigmatic.”

  “You make yourself seem very enigmatic,” she countered.

  He mused for a few moments, shuffling through all the things he could possibly tell her. He was looking for something that she might find amusing, but that didn’t reveal too much. But there was only one thing that came to mind.

  “I was kicked out of Oxford,” he said.

  “Kicked out?” She echoed, with raised brows. “Why? Were you failing?”

  He shook his head. “I was a rather good student actually, in an academic sense. But behaviorally…” he left the sentence hanging.

  “You made mischief,” she deduced.

  “You could say that.”

  “What did you do?”

  “It really wasn’t that bad.”

  She gave him a patient look, making it clear that she wasn’t going to take that for an answer.

  After a moment, he gave in. “Okay,” he began. “So I might have defaced a statue.”

  “You defaced a statue.”

  “In my defense, I was very drunk.”

  “That is not a defense. What did you do to it?”

  “It wasn’t just me,” he added.

  “What did you do?” She pushed, for the second time.

  “It was a sculpture of a woman,” he said, chewing his lip. “And I had a vision for it.”

  “A vision that didn’t suit the original sculptor’s vision, I imagine?”

  “Oh, it was such a dull thing!”

  “So what was your vision?”

  “Well, perhaps it is too bold to say it was my vision.”

  “Philip…” she said his name slowly, warning him that she wouldn’t wait much longer. He laughed and the truth spilled out.

  “I wanted her to look like Venus de Milo.”

  Loraine paused, and then she burst out laughing. She rolled onto her back and held her stomach, laughing so hard that her face went pink. He moved onto his side so that he could watch her, smiling like a fool.

  The Venus de Milo was a sculpture of Aphrodite by Alexandros of Antioch. But rumor had it that the statue had lost its arms during a fight for its possession.

  “How on earth did you manage to take the sculpture’s arms?” She asked, through laughter.

  “With a lot of brute force and the help of a few strong men.”

  Loraine’s laughter quietened and she looked up at him, smiling. “You never cease to surprise me,” she admitted, in a strangely soft voice.

  Taken by the sight of her, lying in the grass with her hair in a golden halo around her, Philip leaned down and kissed her gently.

  When he lifted his head, she was blinking up at him.

  “Don’t stop,” she murmured.

  So he didn’t.

  Chapter 19

  Miss Loraine Beauchamp

  The next day, Philip asked her to come meet his friends, which she considered to be extremely out of char
acter for him. It was another thing that made her wonder if perhaps he wasn’t the man his reputation made him out to be.