In her corner Nellie began to giggle and dispense with the tawdry satin that she had been wearing when she was abducted.
“You can’t do this! You have no right!” Penelope cried in dismay as her lovely gown fell to the floor, leaving her clad only in a thin chemise and stockings. She wrapped her shawl over her breasts, but then she couldn’t reach for her gown.
Chadwell turned to grab Nell’s gown. “I’ll damned well do what I want! You owe me this one. What do you think you are going to do about it?” he bellowed as he jerked the cheap full skirt over Penelope’s tresses.
With a grin he caught her scantily clad waist and lifted her from the floor, extracting an outraged scream. Nell bent and grabbed the fancy gown from beneath Penelope’s feet.
“Give me a loud slap, sir,” Nell whispered, presenting her well-rounded bottom for his target.
Understanding, Chadwell gave her a resounding wallop, though done with cupped hand and little pain.
Penelope screamed at this idiocy, although comprehension finally dawned. Setting the shawl aside, she struggled into the gown he’d flung over her head. With dismay she discovered the old-fashioned, low-cut bodice nearly fell off her, and she was scarcely better covered than in her chemise. Chadwell’s appraising glance took note of the situation, but he did nothing more than grin at the sight revealed.
Nell was having a little more trouble struggling into Penelope’s snug bodice, and he hastened to help. With a gesture he ordered more screaming to cover the delay.
With great pleasure Penelope reached for the wretched washbowl and heaved it at his head with a furious crash. “You lying oaf!” She flung the pot next, hearing it splinter against the wall with great effect. “You rutting bounder! I’ll have you give me Spanish coin! The devil take you, I’ll not be made a cake of!” Running out of ammunition and epithets, she turned the washstand over with a satisfactory slam.
Chadwell grinned his appreciation and swept his cloak from the floor. He flung it over Nell, hiding the fact that he could not quite tie the bodice. “Don’t cut up stiff with me, my little Cyprian. If the color of my coin isn’t good enough, you can take yourself out of here. I’ll be damned if I’ll escort you!”
He gave Nell a shove toward the door. She didn’t need to be told twice. With Penelope’s scream of outrage echoing down the hall, she slammed the door and ran, clattering down the stairs as fast as she could go.
Chadwell threw off his coat and cravat and raced after her in his shirtsleeves, shaking his fist and cursing until she was well down the stairs and out the door. Not until he knew Nell was safe and on the way to his well-paid hack driver did he turn around and produce a sheepish look for the audience peering from behind half a dozen doors. With a mild shrug of his broad shoulders, he explained, “Fellow’s got a right to get what he pays for, ain’t he?”
With a swagger that nearly sent Penelope into convulsions, he returned to the room.
“Now what?” she hissed as he slammed the door and reached for his discarded clothes.
“We get you the hell out of here before you start talking cant any more fluently.” He jerked his coat on again and flung his cravat loosely around his neck while regarding Penelope with a mixture of admiration and confusion.
Now that the worst was over, the rush of excitement left her drained and nervous. She wrapped her shawl over the gaping bodice and avoided his eyes. “How can I go out like this? They’ll think me a. . .”
“A whore? Very good. That’s what I want them to think.” He tugged a curl to fall over her bare shoulder, creating a disheveled look with the other strands flying loose from his rough handling. “I’m sorry, poppet, but this is the only way to get us out of here. It’s quite obvious you’re not Nell, or one of their own. They’ll have to let us pass.”
His hand lingered too long on her shoulder, and Penelope held her breath as she felt the heated path of his gaze. Her breasts burned beneath the intensity of his look, and a tingle of desire took root as her hunger reacted to his. Her nipples rose against the slippery satin, and she knew he could see their outline through the thin layers of material.
She literally ached when he moved away without touching her more.
“One more performance, my pretty Penny,” he whispered hoarsely, flinging the driver’s redingote over his arm. “One more performance and we’ll be home.”
He took her elbow and steered her toward the door. He pried her grip loose from the shawl and draped the loose material to show as little as possible, though the daring cleavage revealed her clearly as a woman of few morals.
“You must smile at me, Penelope. Cling to my arm and act as if I’ve just promised you all the queen’s jewels.”
She stared at him in disbelief, but the hard line of Chadwell’s mouth made it clear this was not over. Gulping, she offered a tremulous smile and leaned against him.
“Where’s the lion-hearted girl who dared call me a rutting bounder and flung a chamber pot at my head?” he whispered tauntingly in her ear, wrapping his arm about her waist.
“She is cursing the day she ever saw your face, sir.” Calling up a particularly vapid look she remembered from a loose-witted girl back home, she clung to his arm and beamed vacantly up at him.
He choked and spluttered, then grinned weakly. “Very good, my dear. Just hold that pose until we are outside.”
The hall was quiet again. Only the African remained at his post, and he showed no curiosity as the gentleman left with a common streetwalker instead of the elegant lady he had arrived with. Going down the stairs they could see several new arrivals in the lobby, but the bold beauty who had greeted them had apparently found a companion for the evening.
Penelope felt her smile freeze as Chadwell genially greeted the men openly ogling her nearly bare bosom. She longed to wrap the shawl on her arm over her shoulders, but that would be out of character. Only ladies wealthy enough to own such an expensive garment knew how to wield the yards of material well.
She clung to Chadwell’s arm and continued beaming witlessly at the dark shadow of his jaw as he exchanged words with a man who appeared to be the proprietor. The man scowled at her but said nothing as Cliff donned his hat, and they stepped into the night.
The hack had left with Nell, carrying her to safety, and abandoning them to this dark alley. Wordlessly they hurried toward a wider thoroughfare where transportation might be found. Penelope never felt more grateful for Chadwell’s frighteningly muscular size than she did now. The denizens of these streets backed away as he rushed her along. Their extreme wariness might have more to do with the rumors of the beast who stalked these streets murdering women. Chadwell looked fearsome enough to fit such a role.
Penelope’s teeth began to chatter by the time they reached a wider street without sign of a hack. Chadwell took the shawl from her and wrapped it around her bare arms, but the foggy night air had little to do with her chill.
As ease for her sorely frayed nerves, she began to talk. “How did you find her? Was it difficult?”
Keeping his arm around her waist, Chadwell hurried her down still another street. “Not at all. Nell comes from these streets and can take care of herself. She nearly decapitated the first man who tried to touch her. She hurt another so badly he won’t be able to touch another woman for a long time. When they thought to drug her into senselessness, she flung the plate in their faces. By the time I came along they had decided to starve her into submission. They thought it would be amusing to see what she would do to a gentleman, I suspect. When I went in and didn’t come out, they got bored and left only one guard to wait for me. He should get a good night’s sleep before they find him.”
Penelope shivered more at the way he said this. She glanced at the taut line of his jaw and chose to change the subject. “Where did you tell Nell to go? Surely she won’t be safe wherever you’ve been keeping her?”
Chadwell nearly came to a halt. “Keeping her? Keeping Nell? Do you mean to say you went in that place back there th
inking you helped me to rescue my mistress? Penelope, you are the most caper-witted gudgeon I ever care to meet!”
Before she could offer an indignant reply, Chadwell emitted an ear-piercing whistle and flagged a weary hack heading home for the night. The driver glanced nervously at his size and lifted the whip to urge his horses faster, but Chadwell grabbed the door, jerked it open, and jumped on the step to take the reins from the man’s hands. Before the terrified driver could flee from his seat in terror, Chadwell threw him a bag of coins and gave him Graham’s address. Then he stepped down and lifted Penelope into the coach and clambered up after her before the man could have second thoughts.
As the coach jerked into motion, Chadwell exuberantly gathered Penelope into his arms and kissed her cheeks. “I think I could learn to love a gudgeon like you, pretty Penny. Tell me you love me, too.”
“I’ll do no such of a thing!” Indignantly Penelope attempted to extricate herself from his embrace, but he happily wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his side. “What was I supposed to think? That Nell was your sister?”
“Two of a kind we might be, but she’s not my sister.” He grinned foolishly. “I have no mistress at the moment, my lady. Would you accept the position?”
His laughter boomed through the streets as Penelope wrenched an arm free and tried to slap him.
The next minute, quiet reigned as he wrapped her in his arms and drowned her protests with the fierceness of his kiss.
Chapter 15
All the evening’s fears and excitements were released by just the touch of his lips on hers. Any thought fled as Penelope succumbed to the urgent hunger of Chadwell’s kiss and the thrill of his chiseled lips molding to hers. Her hands shifted instinctively to his chest as he pulled her closer.
With more tenderness than that first, fierce encounter, he plied her lips with butterfly touches that weakened her with tremors of desire. Penelope breathed deeply of the masculine scent of his skin. Her mouth feverishly sought to hold his, and when he obliged, her lips parted almost in relief.
The touch of his tongue was a warning she ignored, so absorbed had she become in the sensations sweeping through her. As his kiss deepened, she bent into his embrace until her breasts pressed against the coarse cloth of his cloak. Her hands rose to his shoulders, and Chadwell groaned against her mouth and pulled her across his knees.
It all happened much too fast after that, although at the time it seemed a long, sweet escape into heaven. The shawl fell away as Penelope leaned back against a brawny shoulder, and the overlarge bodice offered little protection against his caressing hands.
The heat of his kisses traveled to the sensitive skin behind her ear. From there, they led a burning trail down her throat. In her inexperience, she was helpless beneath the inexorable invasion of her senses.
The broad hand at her waist flattened to engulf her waist and belly, engendering wild fires. While she attempted to conquer these, his hand slipped higher, stroking the underside of her breasts. A strange lassitude replaced her fears, and Penelope’s head fell back against his shoulder as he slid the loose bodice from her breast and claimed the peak with his fingers. Shivers of excitement found a center low in her groin as her body responded to the pressure of his fingers.
His mouth returned to hers, invading and claiming her with all the triumph of a conquering hero. Penelope buried her fingers in his hair as she gave herself up to this intimacy. The cool night air blew across her uncovered bosom, but the sensation did nothing to cool her impassioned reaction.
Chadwell transferred his lips to the taut crest of her breast, and Penelope cried out her surprise and joy. Never had she known anything like this. As the heat of his mouth drew her in, she arched to meet his hungry tongue.
He was so much more experienced than she, so wise in the ways of love, that he took unfair advantage. As his hand slid from the relative safety of her stockinged calf to the bare skin above her garter, the carriage rolled to a halt.
The shocking touch of his heated palm upon her thigh at the same time as he raised his head to observe their location propelled Penelope from her lethargy. All the wonderful, exciting new sensations fled beneath a flood of shame, and she shoved from his lap.
Before he could even open the door for her, she grabbed her shawl and opened it herself, hopping down and flying up the walkway without looking back. Disheveled curls streamed down her back as she ran, and she had to lift her overlarge skirt above her ankles to negotiate the stairs.
Penelope fled past the sleepy footman, the guttering lamps on the stairs, and into the security of the small salon that joined her chamber with Graham’s. Frantically she glanced at his closed doors, and with swift decision she turned to her own. She could not go to him looking like this.
With the haste of madness Penelope stripped the cheap satin from her burning body, feverishly pulled the pins from her hair. She slipped into the lovely lace nightgown Augusta had sewn for her wedding night. Heart pounding, she advanced upon the door separating her from her husband.
As always, John answered her scratch, but this time, Penelope was prepared for him. Already disheveled and frantic, she had little performing to do as she pointed at the darkened far corner of her salon.
“A rat! A huge, hairy rat! John, get him please!” she cried with real anguish to the sleepy manservant.
John rubbed his eyes and stared at her with disbelief. His chivalry finally waking, he grabbed a poker from the fireplace and advanced into the room in the direction indicated.
Triumphantly Penelope sailed into Graham’s chambers and toward the safety of her slumbering husband’s arms. By morning, she would be wife in more than name, and Chadwell’s charms would no longer have an effect on her.
Not daring to hesitate lest her determination waver, Penelope approached the heavily draped, massive bed on flying feet. Throwing back one of the velvet drapes, she prepared to launch into rapid explanations.
The bed was empty. Untouched.
Penelope’s mouth dropped open at the sight of that bank of unblemished pillows. Before her mind could even fly to find reasons, John appeared in the doorway, and a light knock rapped at the far door of her chamber.
She wanted to run and hide and disappear into the wainscoting, never to be seen again, but she could not. She was the Viscountess Trevelyan, Baroness Wycliffe, and she had to hold her head up and keep on living, whatever happened to her heart and soul.
Feeling her insides shredding into little pieces, Penelope marched past John and flung open her chamber door.
Chadwell stood there, his forearm leaning against the door frame as his gaze took in her delicate nightdress, then swept to John clutching a poker. His face drained to a shade of gray. “Penelope, if you’ll just let me in, I’ll—”
She slammed the door in his face, hoping it hit his perfect, aristocratically long nose. With vengeance in her eyes she pointed at Graham’s open door. “Out, get out!”
John ran for cover. He darted into Graham’s chamber and very gently closed the door. A flying object flew against the wooden panel as it closed.
Emotions unexercised by this reprehensible fall from decorum, Penelope dropped against her silken sheets and wept as she had never wept before.
The next day dawned without any improvement in her humor. Eyes red and puffy, Penelope ordered her maid to go away before the poor creature could even enter with a tray of hot chocolate. Her body ached as if it had really been molested. She could feel the rawness of her skin in every place that Chadwell had touched with his lips, and shame flooded through her.
Burying her face in the pillow, she tried to shut out the memory of last night, but humiliation brought the images alive to play over and over again in her head. She kept seeing that obscene door with its portrayal of virile masculinity superimposed on the image of Chadwell standing before her in his velvet frock coat. Then she saw herself naked in his arms, his hands and lips touching her in unspeakable places, and she felt as if she
would shrivel up and die of shame. She could never come out and face him again. Never.
Then her memory would fly back to Graham’s empty chamber and rage would replace humiliation. Where did he go at night when she thought him ill and resting under the effects of laudanum? For she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was not the first time Graham had left her alone.
He had told her to find lovers, not to interfere in his life, that this was a marriage of convenience. Why had she not believed him? In her pride and arrogance had she thought she would be the only woman he would set his eyes on? Had she thought no other woman would have him and that he was hers to do with as she wished? Fool, unadulterated fool!
This was London. This was society. She could have surrendered her virtue to Graham’s cousin last night and no one would have waggled an eyebrow. No one would praise her for her sheltered loyalty to her husband, or would they condemn her for her shameless surrender to Chadwell’s seduction. No one cared. No one gave a damn one way or another.
A combination of fury and humiliation and pride finally brought Penelope to her feet. She would not let this degrading world bring her to her knees. She would hold her head up and go about as usual and do what she should have done from the first… pretend Graham was a casual friend and his cousin a devil straight from hell.
Donning the brightest yellow gown she could find, tying the sash herself, Penelope swept down to brunch. Blessedly there was no one about but herself, and she sifted through the morning’s flood of invitations as she ate.
Deciding she was not prepared to confront either of the male occupants of the house, Penelope sent for her bonnet and gloves and set out to walk to Dolly Reardon’s. The fresh air would be healthy for her lungs if it could not heal her soul.
Fastening her gloves as she strode down the front stairs, Penelope noticed any fog left from the prior evening had burned off in the warm June sun. She made up her mind to stroll in the park before returning home. She missed her garden in the country.
Love Forever After Page 14
