A Rake to the Rescue

by Elizabeth Beacon

  His mouth was so emphatic on hers she wondered vaguely how they had ever managed to breathe without one another. She felt the groan in his hum of approval as she met him lip to lip and tongue to tongue and let her own hunger rage. Now his restless hands were exploring her supple backbone, up to a narrow ribcage that seemed to have the most delicious nerve ends where she had no idea nerve ends ought to be until this very moment. Closer, he wanted her closer.

  Could they get any closer? a sceptical part of her asked.

  Oh, yes, wanton Hetta replied and moved on to her toes to bend into his mighty body and stoke the fire even higher. He was so hot and right and hard against her, why on earth did they need all these clothes?

  She must have said that last bit out loud because he smoothed his hands over the pelisse she had needed with frost forming outside on the dreaming Heath and a vixen shouting to her mate. It was almost as if he had forgotten what clothes were in his haste to be with Hetta. How could they stand so many sorts of separation? she wondered restlessly as the restriction of them chafed, but the fading warmth even in here whispered they needed them anyway.

  ‘Never mind them. I want you,’ she tore her mouth away from adoring his long enough to tell him.

  ‘I’ll never get us upstairs in time at this rate,’ he said as if his tongue didn’t quite know how words should feel.

  The urgency in every inch of his body called out to the same in hers and agreed. ‘Nakedness is overrated,’ she told him as she tugged him close again with a laugh that forgot itself against the onslaught of his mouth as he scooped her in even closer and his absolute need was emphatic against her absolute need. So that was all very satisfactory, wasn’t it?

  A few fumbles with all this ridiculous finery and she was delighted when his bare hands got to her pantalettes and she blessed whoever invented them for leaving her free and him apparently very happy with the gap where they divided to make her life and his a lot simpler than it might have been. Easier to get to him, so she did and felt the absolute control he was having to clamp on his sex in the eager shaking of his body and the quiver of it as all the air sounded as if it was leaving his lungs when she spared a brief moment to admire him.

  ‘Now,’ she whispered, and that was enough to break the mighty shackles he must have been holding himself back with all this time. ‘Oh, now, and now and now!’ she gasped as he agreed and surged into the sweet hot heat at the heart of her, and he had made her feel so adored and crucial to him the newness of having the love of her life within and without didn’t hurt as she had almost feared it might after so long.

  He was here, her lover. Her only ever love. Her forever love. She squirmed delightedly to let him know how wondrous this was and felt him clamp some of those shackles back on his rampant manhood to stop himself finishing this right here and right now. Not that she would mind so very much if he had to, because she knew if she didn’t get all the way to ecstasy this time there would be plenty of other chances and probably tonight, considering how much they wanted one another.

  ‘We waited too long for that,’ he argued rather shakily as he took a moment to clamp more chains on himself and wait for her to catch up.

  ‘Can you read my mind?’ she whispered, and perhaps this lovers’ link of theirs was so strong he could right now. ‘Then you know how much I want you,’ she answered her own question and flexed the inner muscles that gloated all over again about how mighty he was so he moved with a moan of such acute pleasure that she did it again.

  She reaped a whirlwind for it, she decided in a sensuous daze as he took over the race and carried her, connected so intimately her legs wrapped around his narrow flanks almost by instinct so they could get to the nearest flat surface and ride their wild gallop for the ultimate fulfilment she could feel beckoning, but could not quite reach yet. He changed the rhythm, deepened the intimacy and stared down at her by the dim light of that one small lantern still somewhere near enough to show them this much of one another at least.

  ‘So beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘Keep your eyes open, love,’ he urged hoarsely as tenderness and all the love in his great heart stared back at her and suddenly all this was so new she felt like a virgin with her first love when he surged a great wave of love and need into her and they both flew, together. Staring into his glittering gaze, full of shadows and light all at the same time, she really felt as if they could fly, that there was nothing but air under their feet, as if wings were bearing them up so they could bask in the heat and glory of the sun and flex again and again in this mighty triumph of the senses. Skin to skin and breath to breath, with wide open eyes on each other to share, to convulse and strive, then drift down together in heat and joy.

  ‘I should have been more careful with you,’ he muttered the moment they had sense enough to realise where they were.

  ‘You great gallant idiot,’ she told him fondly as she luxuriated in the feel of his hands shaking as he smoothed them appreciatively over her lawn-and-lace-covered thighs. ‘I liked you driven and out of control, couldn’t you tell?’

  ‘Not half as much as I did you.’

  ‘Oh? Now I think we were about equal,’ she said, feeling the sadness of being just Hetta again as he withdrew from them and so gently lifted her down from the side table in the hall she felt cherished and glowing as her feet hit the floor, and he didn’t let her go until she could stand on them again without feeling as if her knees were suddenly made of jelly. He was so different she banished her only other lover from their lives as a half-forgotten fool who gave her a son. Bran never even got close to the intimacy she was going to share with Magnus for the time they were granted together on this earth. She felt sorry for him for a brief moment because he had been too selfish to ever share so much with another being. Then she waved him goodbye without regret.

  ‘We need a fire,’ Magnus said as the dim light of the lantern she now saw was on the floor near the door said what a hasty, love-driven pair they were.

  ‘Maybe upstairs,’ she said and why bother to be coy when they only had a few hours before she had to be back at Lady Carrowe’s breakfast table looking as if she had no idea how it felt to want her lover so much they could barely get in through the door before falling on one another like wild animals in the spring. ‘When is your birthday?’ she asked, suddenly upset she didn’t know so many things about this man she knew so deeply and intimately the answer ought to be already in her mind, as if they gave all the keys to their inner selves to one another with such a climax of love.

  ‘July. I was celebrating it in my own unique fashion the day we met for the second time, Mrs Champion.’

  ‘Were you, now? No more birthdays like that one for you, then,’ she said sternly. ‘And I don’t want to be Mrs Champion any more,’ she added with a moue of distaste.

  ‘Mrs Haile, then, in two days’ time.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘I had noticed.

  ‘You’re just as bad.’

  ‘Worse,’ he said and Hetta could see from the raffish gleam in his eyes he wanted her again already, but was being gallant about it and trying to pretend he was quite happy to play the gentleman if once had been enough for her.

  ‘My feet really are cold now,’ she said as she thought about the options open to them with an empty house and only a few more hours to make best use of it. ‘Race you upstairs?’ she offered and he barely gave himself time to pick up the lantern, but she was already off and running, laughing like a fool as she got to the landing first and dashed for the first door that was open and plunged inside shedding clothes as she went in order to save time.

  ‘I am going to light the fire this time,’ he informed her gruffly, averting his eyes from her scattering layers of clothing as she went like a very impatient wanton, so he could hold on to his willpower and his rampant masculine needs long enough to find a taper, light it from their lantern, then set a flame to the invitingly la
id fire. He even managed to wait beside it long enough to feed it some coal as it built and put a guard in front of it as she sulked about his self-control, but loved the care of it all the same.

  ‘You could at least have shut the door,’ he complained as he did it for her, then turned round at last to see her hold up the bedcovers invitingly as she lay back on the bed with as much of her naked body on show as she dared leave out on such a cool and typically English night.

  ‘How comfortable for me to have a bed-warmer. Only think how useful you will be while we tramp about the country on Isabella’s business,’ he said pompously even as he rid himself of his clothes so fast she had visions of sewing buttons and hooks back on for the next week.

  ‘It’s cold in here,’ she told him with a frown as she tried not to gloat over every new glimpse of manly grace and urgency.

  ‘It’s cold everywhere. Do you want to go back to your beloved Mediterranean?’

  ‘No, I want to be with my beloved Mr Haile in our beloved British Isles.’

  ‘You don’t mind, then?’

  ‘I think the trade is in my credit, and if you will only keep me warm instead of the sun, I shall hardly even notice it above once or twice a week.’

  ‘We could go back. I can find something else to do.’

  ‘Nothing that suits you so well. You love this land and have taught me to like it, too. If you try hard enough, I dare say I shall love it by Christmas.’

  ‘We could be with child by then,’ he said rather impassively as he got all his layers stripped off at last and slid into bed beside her.

  ‘Would that matter?’ she said as she forgot seducing him for a moment to consider the idea and decided she loved it. Toby had been her saving grace from an unhappy marriage, but Magnus’s child would be such a joy to add to the ones she already had.

  ‘No, I would like you to myself for a while, or as much as we can be just us when we have a ready-made family, but I do want more children if we should be granted them. I am a greedy man and I certainly can’t get enough of you.’

  ‘You are a good man, Magnus Haile,’ she informed him with shaken tenderness as she loomed over him in this very comfortable bed she suspected belonged to the master and mistress of the house. She hoped they wouldn’t mind another pair of lovers taking advantage of it for the night. ‘Even if you are lying there like a sultan in a harem, expecting to be seduced.’

  ‘Well, there’s a challenge for you, Henrietta Haile.’

  ‘Hmm, it could be, couldn’t it?’ she said, and it turned out she was equal to every single one he threw at her and even a few he forgot to mention.

  * * *

  If you enjoyed this story,

  don’t miss this other great read

  by Elizabeth Beacon

  A Wedding for the Scandalous Heiress

  And why not check out her

  A Year of Scandal miniseries,

  starting with

  The Viscount’s Frozen Heart

  The Marquis’s Awakening

  Lord Laughraine’s Summer Promise

  Redemption of the Rake

  Keep reading for an excerpt from A Vow for an Heiress by Helen Dickson.

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  A Vow for an Heiress

  by Helen Dickson

  Prologue

  1816

  The Indian sunset was magnificent, illuminating the towers and domes of the Rajinda Palace in a princely state in the north of India. They caught the light—bright gold in the flaming glory of the setting sun. On the wide horizon the gold gradually turned to rose and purple. It was a vision of fantastic splendour—one William had marvelled at since he was a boy. A deep, aching sadness touched his heart. He was soon to leave this beautiful country, the land of his birth—his home, never to return.

  Having served as an officer with distinction in the honourable East India Company, William’s ambition and ability elevating him to the position of Colonel, on receiving a letter informing him of the demise of his cousin, bound by the ties of family, he had resigned his post. He was to go to England to take up the position of the sixth Earl of Ashurst, an event he looked on with little joy. India held his heart and his imagination, and it would be hard adapting to life as a member of the English aristocracy.

  Throughout the years with his regiment he had been motivated by a sense of adventure and driven by the excitement of battle, but the sights of the battlefields and the loss of his friends had left their scars.

  He passed through an enormous gated entrance, large enough for elephants two abreast and an army to pass through. Being a familiar figure at the palace, allowed to come and go at will, he was not apprehended. The vast, marble magnificence of the ornately decorated royal residence with its orchards and groves inside the massive, crenellated Mogul walls never failed to impress him. He walked beneath tall archways and through scented courtyards full of statuary and on through marble pavilions to a place where a cool breeze drifted through detailed latticework from the flower-scented gardens. Colourful ring-necked parrots graced the branches of mango trees, loud with quarrelling monkeys and squabbling mynah birds.

  As a surgeon in the British East India Company, William’s father had come to the palace on the request of the Rajah—the present Rajah’s father—to treat his youngest son, Tipu, who had been thrown from his horse and almost trampled to death. His medical skill had saved the boy’s life, although the accident had left him crippled. His father had been highly thought of by the Rajah and he had brought William with him on many occasions to spend time with the Rajah’s youngest son.

  William watched as a figure materialised from the shadows. This was his friend Tipu Chandra, dressed in silks and winking jewels. He was small and slight, his eyes brilliant and watchful. Tipu was intelligent and imaginative, a man of brains and breeding whose enthusiasm for life had been broken by the crippling riding accident. He was twenty-six years old, yet he shuffled towards him like a frail old man, dragging his injured leg behind him. There was close friendship and brotherhood between them, and a great measure of mutual respect. The two men embraced, then Tipu stepped back.

  ‘William, my friend. I am so glad you have come. I understand you are to go to England.’

  ‘I am. I have had word that my cousin has died. I am his heir and must return to take over the running of the estate—such as it is at this present time. According to his solicitor it is practically bankrupt, so you understand my haste to leave India.’

  ‘
Knowing you, my friend, you are most reluctant to leave. I know you look upon India as your home.’

  ‘You are right, I do, and I would not have left without seeing you, Tipu.’

  ‘And you will not forget me when you are no longer in India?’

  ‘I could never do that.’

  ‘That is good. You are much changed from the boy who came to the palace with your father all those years ago and took pity on the crippled child.’

  ‘I never pitied you, Tipu. You know that.’

  ‘I do and thank you for it. I always looked forward to your visits and valued the time you spent with me. Few people wanted to spend time with a cripple, but you were different.’

  ‘I’d like to think I saw beneath your disability. You are my lifelong friend and I shall miss you. I got your message saying you wanted to see me. What about?’

  ‘My nephew—Dhanu. I have an important and rather delicate task for you to do for me. In fact...’ he paused, studying William’s face ‘...it is a task I am taking a tremendous risk in entrusting to you. But I know that you can do it. If anybody can, it is you. I want you to take Dhanu with you when you go to England.’

  William’s eyes opened wide. ‘What? Why would you want me to? Tipu—has something happened?’

  ‘I am afraid for his safety. Here anything might happen to him. It is not only wild beasts that prowl beyond the walls that are a danger to him. It is here, within the palace. My brother’s wife, the Rani, and her brother Kamal hate him. Kamal is ambitious. All he wants is power, lots of it. He is greedy and cruel and if he could get rid of my brother so much the better, once he has dealt with Dhanu. He will use his sister’s children like counters in the games he likes to play and once he has achieved his aim, he will sit upon his achievements like a large spider and weave his plots. The boys will be like pawns in his games, to be put forward as bait, to draw rich prizes into his web. I do all I can, but I cannot watch Dhanu all of the time.’