Wild, Wicked and Wanton: A Hot Historical Romance Bundle

by Natasha Blackthorne

  Peter walked into the kitchen wearing his wrinkled shirt un-tucked.

  She gasped. “I thought you left.”

  “I went to one of the guest chambers and proceeded to get very drunk.” He placed a hand to his head and winced. Then he looked up again and appraised her. A slow grin brightened his grayish complexion. “Well, well, you didn’t lie.”

  “What?” she asked dumbly.

  “You do hold your liquor well.”

  She blushed and looked away to the small kitchen window and stared at the closed checked curtains.

  “Please don’t be uncomfortable with me because of what happened last night,” he said.

  Emily inhaled sharply and now glanced down at her coffee cup, smiling to hide her nervousness.

  “It was just a bit of sexual dalliance,” he added, as if this would make her less uneasy.

  A nervous laugh escaped her.

  “And it was nothing Alex and I have not done with others.”

  That didn’t make her feel all that much better either.

  She swallowed hard, called on all her bravery and stared back up into his boyish, handsome face. His startling sky-blue eyes. “I am just not quite used to being so indifferent about things like this. I was completely innocent before Alex.”

  “I never thought otherwise, though, you know, innocence is not always a virtue.”

  “For women, it always is.”

  Peter made a wry expression. “No, I don’t believe that. Virgins are a dreadful bore.” His eyes glittered warmly.

  “You actually asked—I mean you suggested such a thing to Alex and he… he…”

  He shook his head. “I was tweaking at Alex. He has been so deliciously touchy and vulnerable of late. I tell you, I expected to get my arse trounced. Certainly I didn’t expect him to take me up on it.” He straightened his cravat. “This is not a good thing. No, it is not. Alex will not look on this well in his reflection upon it.”

  “If you knew that, then why did you go along with it?”

  He grinned. “Ah, but you were very enchanting… so uninhibited. How could I possibly resist? I don’t regret it. I can’t.”

  She nodded slowly then took a sip of coffee.

  “I don’t know what is wrong with Alex lately. Delaying the announcement of your engagement. Keeping you here in the house while his aunt is away.” He raised his brows. “Doing… allowing what he did last night.” He sighed. “He’s not the cousin I used to know. He hasn’t been since he returned from France—or wherever the devil he spent those missing years.”

  She caught her breath then leant forward. “What do you know about those years?”

  “Probably no more than you’ve heard from others. His arguments with his father—”

  “Was his father really such an ogre?” She couldn’t help asking.

  “He had definite ideas about how to raise his sons. He expected them to make high marks in school. Alex was no scholar–he was too restless and easily bored— and I think his arse stayed constantly sore from his father’s belt. Alex’s decision to sign aboard a privateer rather than attend Harvard almost unhinged his father. But know this: he did love Alex. The wreck of the Pollyanna, all those years when Alex was in France but didn’t bother to inform anyone that he was still alive. All of that took a hard toll on his father.”

  “You know something else… you must.”

  He rubbed his chin and then his eyes shifted away.

  She caught her breath. “There was something.”

  Peter nodded, his expression grim.

  “Well, you must tell me. I need to understand him.”

  “I had this mistress and she… Oh…” He laughed but the sound rang with discomfort. “We were at an end and she didn’t take it well. Alex—he is too sympathetic to women. He took her on. She wasn’t really someone who could hold his attention any more than she’d held mine.

  “She appeared very quiet and meek at first but she was volatile in her emotions. God, her tantrums could wear a man down. Alex grew weary of her quicker than I did. It was too soon after we had ended and she was never strong of mind. She took her own life rather…” His voice grew thin and he cleared his throat. “Dramatically.”

  The floor seemed to drop several feet at once.

  “What did she do?” She whispered, as if that could soften the moment.

  He went chalk-pale and would not look at her. “She threw herself from the roof of his mansion—no, not here, on the Schuylkill.”

  Emily put her hand to her throat. “My goodness!”

  “Alex did not take it well. In fact, he grieved over her death as though he had loved her.” Peter shook his head. “However, he had not loved her. On the contrary, he had paid her careless attention and given her no fidelity whatsoever. I counted at least twenty other women–here and in New York—during the period of time he kept Alice. And that’s just what I noticed.”

  “Yet he grieved?”

  “He lost weight. He seemed perpetually nauseated, terse and preoccupied by turns. Given to wild swings of generosity. He acted like a man consumed by guilt.”

  “How long did this go on?”

  “Weeks. And then he ran away. God, Cornelia and James were vexed with him over that. But to his credit, he’d done as much as he could to repair things. He’d paid dear sums to keep the whole matter quiet and out of the papers. He’d given Alice a private yet decent burial.”

  “He ran away?”

  “Yes, to the Orient on one of Sexton’s ships. He had only just returned when he ran into you that night at the Blue Duck.”

  Emily’s head had begun to ache slightly, making her wonder if in fact she really her wine all that well. She frowned and rubbed her temples. “If he didn’t care for her— But he must have cared for her to have grieved so deeply for her.”

  Again Peter shook his head. “He clearly blamed himself and he grieved… but it didn’t make any sense. Alice was—” He glanced up at Emily and chuckled nervously. “Eh, I ought not to have said her name. You cannot repeat her name to Alex. Promise me.”

  Emily stared at him, dumbstruck with shock at his tale. “Of course.”

  Peter took a deep breath and sighed. “Good. Because it won’t help anything. It will only make him worse about what… whatever is preying on his mind now.”

  He looked spent, even a bit ill. She felt the same. She poured them both another cup of coffee and they drank in silence. Slowly she regained her equilibrium.

  “Whatever is plaguing Alex, he must have space and time to sort things out,” she said firmly, as much for herself as for Peter.

  “I think what he should have is a stout kick to the arse.” Peter frowned then rubbed the back of his neck. “Emily, I came here last night to convince you to come with me to my sister’s house. We could still go there. It’s early and Cornelia always has a clutch of tabbies come to visit on Saturdays. We could simply slip in the back and pretend that you spent the night there.”

  “Oh, no, I think I’d better stay here.” She took a deep breath, rolling her shoulders to stretch an unaccustomed ache out of them. “I should be here when he returns. He was acting rather strangely this morn.”

  “Emily, if you stay here with him and it becomes known—and it will—you will be ruined if your wedding doesn’t happen.”

  “So if I go with you it will look like I don’t trust him.”

  “I don’t care what it looks like, it is what you should do.”

  “I trust him. I have to trust him.”

  ****

  “Dalton?” The urbane yet irritated male voice cut through the haze of pensive thoughts going round and round in Alex’s mind as he sat in Asahel Sexton’s room at City Tavern, only half listening to the older man.

  God, he was tired today. He made an attempt to sit up straighter and he lifted his brows.

  Sexton frowned slightly. “As I was saying, I made the inquiries you requested.”

  Sexton’s son, Grey, sat up straighter as well. Hi
s eerie pale-gray eyes were intent as he so obviously took note of every word spoken. He had always unnerved Alex.

  Pale and thin, as though he spent all his time sitting at a desk or hunched over a table in the counting house, poring over endless ledger books. The boy was too quiet, held himself too rigidly like the worst sort of milksop.

  But that was so unfair to the boy. He had only become the same thing Alex would have become, had Alex given in to his own father’s demands.

  Sexton was still speaking. Alex made an effort to cue in to what he was saying. “I found some rather disquieting things about Captain Thomas Eliot.”

  Queasiness began to twist Alex’s guts. God, he had hoped it would be all for naught. “How bad is it?”

  “We need to rethink our association with Miss Eliot and the Naval cause. The daughter of any man so unscrupulous as to trade in slaves—”

  “She’s just a girl.”

  “She’s his daughter and—”

  “She’s just an idealistic, naïve girl.” He cleared his throat. “She thinks her father is innocent.”

  Sexton cut a glance up at Alex and fixed him with his eerie pale-gray stare. “She says she thinks he’s innocent.”

  “I won’t tolerate a word said against her.”

  Sexton blinked several times. “I see.” He compressed his lips then he continued speaking, fully disclosing a long list of disturbing actions taken by the deceased Thomas Eliot.

  Oh God. How would he ever tell her any of this? Nausea twisted through his guts at the very thought. Well, he needn’t tell her quite yet. No, he would wait until they had been wed for a time. Let her gain the security of his name and then the taint of her father’s sins wouldn’t feel so shameful. Right?

  Yes, it would be better that way. For he had no idea what her frame of mind would be today, after—Christ, why had he seduced her into the debauchery of last night? Alex couldn’t stop asking himself. Regret seared into his heart.

  Her relative innocence.

  Why would he destroy that which he loved so much?

  God, he didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand himself.

  Suddenly, he missed her. Dreadfully. He longed to be at her side.

  He pushed his chair back and stood.

  Sexton’s eyes widened as he stared up at him.

  “I have to leave.”

  “I see.”

  “Why don’t you come to my house tomorrow? You can meet her and see her work.”

  A short time later, he was sitting on the edge of his bed, watching her sleep, tracing her petite, slender form.

  God, she looked too damned young to be here. She looked too sweet, too innocent.

  Memories of the night before flashed into his mind. The passionate way she’d kissed Peter. Her wicked, womanly laugh.

  His cock went hard as iron. He shifted to make room for the throbbing, almost painful swelling. He leaned down and put his lips to hers.

  She stirred. Moaned deep in her throat.

  He put his hand on the coverlet and pulled it down in one jerk, baring her body.

  She was naked. She always waited for him like that.

  He flattened his hand on her lower stomach and moved down over her mons then slipped his fingers between her outer lips and delved into the inner folds. She was slightly moist, the folds slightly swollen, her nub partly erect. Partly aroused as she often awoke, seduced by her own naughty dreams. He stroked her, a gentle circular motion, and watched her face.

  Her thick, dark lashes fluttered open, briefly. She gave him a small smile and closed her eyes.

  But the small smile was his signal to continue.

  He stroked her and stroked her and she grew wetter and wetter. The scent of her arousal filled the air. His erection throbbed painfully against his pantaloons.

  God.

  He stopped touching her and wrenched his fall open. And then he was on her, spreading her legs.

  She gasped, her body tensing.

  He put his open mouth to her neck and nipped her lightly.

  She laughed, that same wicked, womanly laugh as the night before. When had she begun laughing like that?

  God. God.

  He put his cock to her wetness.

  She opened her mouth and her lips quivered as she moaned.

  He entered her in one fierce, hungry thrust. Her tight heat encased him, hugged his shaft snugly. He groaned.

  She wrapped her legs about his body and he sank deeper and deeper inside her as her limbs moved higher and higher. She writhed and arched her pelvis up and down.

  “Alex, Alex—” she panted, impatience sounding in her voice.

  He grabbed her hips, stilling her. Then he pounded into her, over and over, stopping only when he had to stop to pant for breath.

  She squeezed him with her inner walls.

  “Fuck, fuck,” he murmured against her neck.

  She laughed huskily. Wickedly.

  He tightened his grip on her hips and began thrusting again. But too quickly, his cods began to draw close to his body. He couldn’t come yet. He couldn’t disappoint his girl. He held himself still and fastened his open mouth on her neck, sucking. Need pounded through with each pulse of his heartbeat.

  “Alex, Alex—” She moaned his name and dug her nails into his shoulders.

  He drew his breath in a hiss then bit lightly at her neck.

  She clutched him a little tighter.

  He was a little sorry for his shirtsleeves, which dulled the effect of her nails. God, he loved the feel of her claws when he was embedded in her like this, when her need drove her to spur him on.

  She rocked her hips against him. “Please, please—”

  “Love you.” He kissed her neck in between panting breaths. “Love you.”

  He’d never last now. He lifted his head and adjusted his body so that he could reach between their bodies and touch her nub. The small protuberance rose up firm against his fingertips.

  She began to moan and thrash.

  Inexorable surging began deep inside of his loins. Her inner walls hugged him in a frantic, rhythmic fashion. But it was her soft scream that sent him over the edge.

  He lay afterwards, with his heart racing, waiting for his breath to slow.

  “Alex!”

  He startled. “What?”

  “You’ve got all your clothes on.” She gave him a thump on the chest with her fist. “Even your boots!”

  He captured that fine-boned, girlish fist. “I did take off my coat.”

  “Your boots!“ Her voice was filled with laughter.

  “You tempted me,” he counter accused.

  “Well, get up and strip off!”

  “In a moment—good God girl, let me catch my breath.”

  She smiled up at him, her eyes shining with the same sparkle, the same freshness and openness as ever.

  Last night had not affected her in the way he’d feared.

  He had feared looking into her eyes and seeing the same haunted, debauched look he’d seen that morning in Turkey, after he had first capitulated to the demands of the Dutch devil.

  She was a little more experienced tonight yet still uncorrupted.

  Hadn’t that been what he had wanted for her?

  Now he couldn’t be sure what his motives had been and he didn’t want to examine them. They had just had satisfying relations. Normal, satisfying relations in the way a man and a woman were meant to join. Face to face and heart to heart.

  Any married man would have counted something like this, once or twice a week, as a most fortuitous thing.

  But Alex still wanted something else from her. Something more.

  He fought the temptation. He should just hold her and let them both drift to sleep. He should not contaminate their connection any further with his past, his unnatural needs.

  “Are you going to sleep in your clothes?”

  Her words spurred him to rise.

  As he undressed, he was aware of her gaze upon him.

  He
’d undressed before many, many women. Some of them would watch with exaggerated salacious interest, as though that made them more interesting as bedmates or could give them a type of sexual dominance or power equal to a man’s. Or out of false primness or a prideful need not to appear too interested, they pretended not to watch.

  But he’d never known a woman to watch him with such frank yet healthy feminine interest. Such open admiration. Under Emily’s eyes, he felt the absence of shame.

  Shame he had not fully realized had been there under the eyes of all those other women.

  Once he was naked, he fully intended to go to the bed and lay beside her. To sleep.

  On a long, exaggerated yawn, she rolled onto her stomach and arched her back. Her bottom, so surprisingly round and lush for such a thin young woman, made an arresting view. Lust began to pound through him anew.

  Without giving himself a chance to think any further on the matter, he went to the chest at the foot of his bed, opened it and withdrew some items. Two of them he laid on the closed chest lid.

  But he took a paper wrapped stick to the bed.

  She rolled over and sat. “What’s that?”

  “It’s kohl.”

  She drew her brows together, bemused. “That’s face paint…from the East.”

  She sounded completely aghast.

  “It is.”

  She blinked at him for a few moments.

  He took a deep breath then rushed into his next statement. “I want you to wear it.”

  “What?” She sounded as though she couldn’t believe her ears.

  He shouldn’t ask this. It felt too wicked, too forbidden. The past should stay buried. Buried.

  But he wanted it.

  “Please.” He tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. ”Do it for me.”

  He could hear the echo of his plea for long moments after he had spoken. He knew it for what it was. A plea for absolution. He was thinking strangely. His thoughts confused him.

  He stopped trying to think.

  Her expression softened. “Of course, Alex. I’ll do whatever pleases you. You know that.”

  He nodded.

  “But why?” Comprehension lit her eyes. “Algeria?”

  He caught his breath and his heart was pounding in his ears.

  “You—knew women who wore this when you were in Algeria?”