He was looking at her, but the best she could do was to still any expression in her face. Her mind had been enveloped by the throbbing in her lower body. It yearned for him to continue. After a brief delay, his forefinger slipped to that most exquisite nub of flesh, teasing it to life.
Perhaps she had had more wine than she intended. Or perhaps it was because it had been too long. Though she had not been above bringing herself to satisfaction, it differed from the touch of a man. Somehow, the larger fingers, more imprecise, managed to flare greater sensations. And despite herself, they were beginning to flame with each stroke. Without knowing, she released a soft, almost imperceptible moan, as she lost the will to resist the desires of her own body.
Sensing her surrender, Broadmoor dipped his fingers into her wetness and began a rhythmic stroking of her now engorged bud. Darcy sank into the pillows and closed her eyes, allowing his caresses to draw her deeper and deeper into that familiar and ironic pleasure—a yearning that satisfied, a craving made more intense with each attempt to satiate. His fingers plied her with teasing tenderness, then increasing earnest as her climax began to build. This was madness, she knew, but all rational thought had been pushed aside. Despite herself, she cried out softly in her release.
His fingers slowed but did not stop their caress. Darcy kept her eyes closed as she savored the satisfaction of a craving met. The Baron was no novice lover, though she should not be surprised that this was the case. Even the most pious gentleman could entertain lovers, provided they were discreet, and still maintain their status as a gentleman. It differed quite unfairly for women.
“I take it that pleased my lady?” asked Broadmoor.
“A little,” Darcy murmured.
“We must be sure then.”
His strokes skimmed her arousal. Darcy shuddered. She should put a stop to this. Should she not? Was he not the man she loathed above all others?
But her body was to betray her once more as the desire between her legs flared anew. He had slipped a finger inside her even while he kept his thumb circling against her. For a moment she tensed as her mind struggled to gain dominance. It lasted briefly. When he intensified his touch, she found herself heading to a climax even higher than before. Her entire body shook. She lay with her eyes closed, soaking in the afterglow. And before she could rouse herself from her state of relief and bliss, she fell asleep.
When she awoke half an hour later, she was alone with no trace that Broadmoor had been present save for the lingering wetness between her legs. She imagined the smug satisfaction that must be on his face at having seduced her. Well, if he meant to play the game that way, she had her own cards in store for the proud Baron.
CHAPTER FIVE
RADCLIFF THREW THE cold water onto his face and took a ragged breath as it dripped from his hair back into the basin. It failed to wash away the memory of her. The feel of her. The scent of her. The sound of her. Those soft lilting moans echoed even now in his ears, causing the blood in his groin to throb. He was surprised at the intensity of his desire given that he had already relieved his arousal twice since arriving home late last night.
He felt a mixture of shame and triumph. Never in his life would he have thought it possible of himself to enter into a woman’s bedchamber without her knowledge and then refuse to leave. But there was no denying that there was something about Miss Sherwood that ignited a brazenness he never knew existed. Something that had nothing to do with her reputation as a harlot of sorts, but everything to do with the way she looked at him.
He had not intended to catch her undressing last night. Surprised that his customarily high sense of decency had not compelled him to excuse himself the moment she began untying her ribbons, he had sat in the dark corner of her room unable to take his eyes off her. He had watched the dress as it fell down her shoulders and past her rounded hips, glimpsed her bare stomach and naked breasts, and was then briefly treated to the curvature of her derriere before her nightdress descended from overhead.
His only thought at first had been to make her as uncomfortable as she had made him. If she desired him to act her suitor, so be it. He would play the part to her great unease. That he should force his company upon her was of her own doing. And, he thought with satisfaction, it was clear she did not completely revile his presence.
She had not seemed overly furious—perturbed, yes, but not frightened by his presence. He had half expected her to scream or attempt to ring for the servants. But when she displayed such nonchalance, he found he could not resist. He had to touch her. Had to please her. Had to teach her a lesson.
It surprised him how intoxicating her reactions were. He would have easily spent the entire night bringing her to spend time and time again had she not fallen asleep. He had been grateful that she had for he was beginning to doubt his own ability to curb the lust that had welled up in his body. His hand ached to touch her again.
Radcliff threw another handful of water at himself before reaching for the linen. After a shave and change of clothing, he went down for his breakfast.
“Any word from Wempole?” he asked his secretary as he consumed the ham, toast, eggs, and beans as if he had not eaten in days.
“No, my lord,” responded the gentleman, “but I am told he will back in London in a few days.”
After breakfast Radcliff decided to pay another visit to his cousin, who had taken leave of London shortly after his embarrassing loss to Miss Sherwood but was reportedly back in town.
“Wake him,” Radcliff instructed the butler, who had opened the door and explained that his master was still asleep.
Radcliff waited five minutes, then took himself into Edward’s bedchamber.
“Fiend seize it…” grumbled the young man in bed as he peered at Radcliff through half closed eyes, his soft brown hair tousseled about his boyish face. He was still in his dressing gown and beneath the bed covers. “It’s not even noon yet.”
Radcliff tossed open the curtains, flooding the room with light.
“I came to inform you,” he began as he sat in a chair opposite his cousin’s bed, “that I am placing your accounts—including Brayten—in a trust till you are deemed responsible enough to assume their command.”
Edward sat up. “I say! That is most unnecessary, Radcliff!”
“You shall have an allowance of three thousand a year.”
“Three?! That is hardly enough to sustain a man.”
“Provided you refrain from stepping foot into Mrs. T’s or any other gaming hell.”
“I shan’t agree to this.”
“You will if you expect me to secure the return of Brayten.”
“And since when do you serve as my guardian?” sniffed Edward indignantly.
“Since you lost your estate to Miss Sherwood,” answered Radcliff, though he felt himself in part to blame for not having taken a more active role in Edward’s development since the last time he had intervened in the matter of Priscilla Sherwood.
As if reading his cousin’s mind, Edward ventured with some hesitation to say, “I had thought perhaps to speak with the sister of Miss Sherwood…”
Broadmoor raised an eyebrow.
“…as she did hold a tendre for me once.”
“I thought you had said she was madly in love with you.”
“Yes, well…”
“And that she meant to ‘even the score’ against you,” Radcliff continued “It is clear to me the sentiments Miss Sherwood holds towards you. I can only imagine it worse with Miss Priscilla.”
“Oh, but Priscilla is quite different from Darcy.”
Radcliff crossed his arms. “Indeed?”
Edward looked away quickly. “I meant, well, they are both, er, indiscriminate as regards their lovers. Prime articles they are. I am quite grateful that you, er, helped me to realize that my youthful fancy to Miss Priscilla was greatly misplaced—but I think Miss Sherwood…well, she is in part descended from savages.”
“Have you any idea who the father of the boy
is?”
Edward colored and shook his head. “Haven’t the foggiest.”
Radcliff stood and surveyed his cousin with mixed emotions. “I suggest you leave any correspondence with the Sherwoods to me.”
“If you think it best, Radcliff. Will you be attending Lady Pinkerton’s dinner tonight?”
“I have…another engagement,” replied Radcliff and took his leave before Edward decided to ask what that engagement was.
Naturally, it involved Miss Darcy Sherwood.
When Radcliff arrived at Mrs. T’s later that evening, he found her laughing at something James Newcastle had whispered in her ear. Radcliff felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Why should it bother him that she flirted with the buffoon? Still, he could not repress a sudden desire to grab Newcastle by the collar and toss the man out on his head.
There was not a seat to be had near Miss Sherwood, so Radcliff entertained himself at one of the other faro tables from which he could keep on eye on her. It was not easy for one of the women at his table, decidedly tipsy, kept leaning in towards him, soliciting his advice on which card to play. She was not as drunk nor as stupid as she pretended to be, and he had little tolerance of women who felt the need to be inane in the presence of men.
He felt her hand upon his thigh beneath the table and was about to say something offending when he saw that the men around Miss Sherwood had risen to their feet. Leaving his ante on his table, Radcliff strode over to Miss Sherwood who had declared her intention to head to the dining room.
“Are you in need of an escort?” he asked.
She stared at him with a peculiar glint in her eyes. “If I grant you that privilege twice in two nights, people will think I play favorites. I never have favorites, Baron.”
She turned and took the arm of James Newcastle, who grinned idiotically from ear to ear.
“May I join your table then?” Radcliff persisted, satisfied that Newcastle’s smile turned quickly into a frown.
“Perhaps another time.”
It was not the last of her rejections that evening. He played the part of the attentive suitor, but she rebuffed his offer to get her a glass of wine as well as his request for a round of piquet. She kept him at bay all evening, and all he could do for the most part was watch her from afar. It was becoming difficult to bear, in part because she was succeeding in her efforts to humiliate him—something the Baron was not accustomed to feeling—but also because images of the prior evening kept returning to him. He realized he was lusting after her like some predator that could smell but not taste its meat. It made him feel more animal than man.
He decided he had done his best that evening at being one of her supplicants and turned his focus away from Miss Sherwood. He had a glass of wine and played a few rounds of hazard. Occasionally he glanced her way, and once or twice their gazes met across the dim and smoky room. She had something in store for him, he felt. But the hours dragged on, and Radcliff was falling asleep in the armchair that he had favored at his first visit to Mrs. T’s when the page handed him a note from Miss Sherwood.
It was a simple command for him to come to her chambers.
The blood began to pound in his head. Looking around, he saw that most of the patrons had retired for the evening. Only a few piquet players and a drunken couple who had fallen asleep against each other on the sofa remained. Folding the note, he quietly headed to the hall and up the stairs to her room.
“You have a terrible habit of entering without knocking,” Miss Sherwood informed him from where she sat without turning to look at him.
Seated at her vanity before a mirror, she continued to brush out her hair. Radcliff had never seen hair such as hers. The curls were tight and full, framing her head on all sides save where a headband secured them from falling into her face. She wore only her undergarments, stockings, and shoes.
“Unlace my stays,” she said as she coiled her hair to her neck with one hand, exposing her back.
With more composure than he felt, Radcliff walked over to her and wordlessly did as she bade. When he had loosened the ties, he stepped back and stared at the sensuous curve of her shoulder blades, wondering how she would react if he pressed his mouth between them. The light of the few candles in the otherwise dark room glowed enticingly upon her skin.
She stepped out of her stays and pulled up her skirts. Kicking off a shoe, she propped one foot upon a padded footstool before saying, “Undo my stockings.”
It was her gaze as much as the extended leg that almost had him undone, but he knelt down beside her without much expression and reached for her garter. He thought he heard her inhale sharply when his fingers grazed her thigh. His hand was so close to her womanhood. He needed to bend only a little further to be able to look up her petticoats. He breathed in what he could of her.
With a simple release, he untied the garter and gently slid the filmy stocking down her leg and past her toes. He noted they were unpainted. He had expected the toes of a harlot would be painted.
She propped her other leg up before him. He inched the stocking down and could not resist pressing his lips to her inner thigh. As he pulled the stocking down with one hand, he caressed the flesh made bare with the other. He thought he heard her emit something similar to a soft purr, but once he had drawn the stocking off, she moved quickly from him.
He stood to look at her. The stare she fixed upon him had the effect of rooting him to the spot while emboldening him at the same time. He watched as she shed her petticoat and stood only in her shift—a flimsy material in need of repair in certain areas and through which he could see the shadow of her body. He had an urge to rip the garment off her to see what he had only glimpsed for a few seconds the night before.
Standing near the post at one corner of the bed, she lifted her chin—an act that seemed to dare him to approach her. Radcliff needed no encouragement. Shedding his coat, he strode towards her. His body yearned to press itself against her.
“You make it difficult for one to be a gentleman, Miss Sherwood,” he said as he looked down at her, his face inches from hers.
“Are you a gentleman?” she challenged.
“In the presence of a proper lady, without question.”
“Are you suggesting that I am not a proper lady?”
Radcliff raised an eyebrow. “How many proper ladies do you know invite men to their boudoir and command them to undress them?”
She smiled. “Would you prefer that I were a proper lady?”
Hell, no, was his initial thought as he dropped his gaze away from her eyes and down to her lips, her collarbone, and the tops of her breasts.
“Surely the exalted Baron Broadmoor would not favor a tramp?” she continued. “A harlot? A lowly creature that crawls with its belly to the earth?”
A muscle rippled in his face, and he now felt flushed for another reason. That he had no response for her only made him angry.
“Hang being a gentleman,” he said before he cupped the base of her head and forced her lips to his.
This was her aim, he knew. She had won and he succumbed. But he could no longer stave off the painful tightness between his thighs. Every inch of his body cried out for her as he greedily moved his mouth over hers. Her lips hung so sweet and soft beneath his. He delved his tongue into her mouth for a deeper taste.
With his free hand, he grasped a breast through the shift. The heavy orb felt made for his hand. He massaged it with his fingers and brushed a thumb across her nipple. The little nub instantly hardened. He circled his thumb around the pebble while his mouth continued to devour her. He slid the hand away from her breast and down her side to the small of her back. Pulling her to him, he molded his body to hers.
When he felt her kiss him back, his head began to swim. He was about to lose his last shred of propriety and ravish her in a most ungentlemanly manner when he heard her urging him to lie down. Unaccustomed to being told what to do—especially in the midst of lovemaking, Radcliff pulled away to look at her and
verify that he had heard correctly.
“Lie down,” she repeated as she gently pushed him around the edge of the bed and onto the mattress.
He lay on his back and watched her crawl on top of him. His arousal was throbbing like never before. He grabbed both her breasts as she reached above his head and kissed them through her last article of clothing. He circled his tongue around one nipple. She jerked slightly at the touch. If she didn’t remove her shift soon, he was going to rip it from her.
He was about to pull the neckline of the shift down past one breast when she grabbed his hand away and pulled it past his head. She snapped something about his wrist. When he looked up to see what she had done, she had pulled his other arm up and done the same.
Shackles! The woman had shackles attached to the posts on the bed. Radcliff pulled at the binds. They rattled but remained in place. By the time he looked back at her, she had already undone his cravat with a speed that would have astounded Beau Brummel’s valet.
“I believe one good turn deserves another,” she told him with a small mischievous smile as she began to slowly unbutton his shirt.
Radcliff was still too stunned to respond. What did this woman intend to do to him? he wondered as he watched her lower her head over his chest. She blew lightly upon a nipple before licking it. His erection sprang back to attention. She swirled her tongue against the nipple and blew at it once more. The moisture cooled against her breath and hardened it.
She ran her tongue back and forth against the nipple, pressed her mouth around it and sucked. Radcliff groaned. His nipple had never received so much attention before. He closed his eyes but they flew open an instant later when he felt her pulling at his nipple with her teeth. His groan was now of a different nature as she alternated between caressing the nipple with her tongue and biting it.
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