Harlequin Historical September 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Christine Merrill

  Her head was pounding, her temples aching.

  ‘And you are... You are off to seek them with other women.’

  ‘I will not seek them with you.’

  ‘And so you go to a brothel to seek them out with other women. And you would throw it in my face while not giving me information on exactly what it entails. So if you wish to harm me, do so by speaking plainly, rather than speaking around the truth of the matter.’

  ‘I am off to screw my way to oblivion. To forget everything that happened this day. To forget that you are my wife. To forget that my son is here. That is what I intend to do. And if you should like a more graphic description of all that I shall do, I am sorry to disappoint you. I can see that you are quite interested in a man’s cock, judging by how closely you were studying the statue. Mine will be inside another woman tonight.’

  It was so cool it took her breath away, and she still could not quite sort out why, except the idea of him sharing intimacies she was barely able to wrap her mind around made her want to vomit in the nearest shrub. And she knew that he wanted her to be hurt. That was the clearest and most obvious piece. What he was saying was designed to be harmful.

  And he well knew it.

  And before she could gather a response, he turned and walked away. She stood there, stunned for a moment, breathing in the sharp night air. And then she ran after him. Just in time to watch him walk out through the front door.

  She stood there, feeling tender, hurt. She did not want him to touch another woman. She was beginning to piece it all together, of course. For these were all the mysterious acts that must follow kissing. She had never even partaken in such a thing, and...

  Of course he would seek out other company. Even if she were his wife in truth he would likely find her boring, and her ignorance tiring.

  She was tired of her ignorance.

  She was tired. Tired of everyone else deciding what was best for her. Tired of her own limitations.

  She was tired.

  And still, she could not sleep.

  She decided that she would wait up for him to arrive home. Even if it destroyed her to do it.

  * * *

  Usually, a visit to Madame Lissanne’s was like a visit to an old friend. The velvet brocade and access typically felt like a homecoming. But not tonight. Tonight, his stomach was acid. He was angry, and he had taken it out quite unfairly on Beatrice. Beyond that, he had been intentionally as crass and mean as possible, and it was not what he had promised Hugh that he would do as husband to his sister. Truly, the only piece of his word that he had kept was that he had not visited his desires upon her. No. He would do that here. If Pamela was available, he would see her. She was curvy and lush, and excelled in her submission. Her demure manner would be a welcome change to Beatrice’s sulky mouth.

  Here, he was treated like a king. Here, he was given a glass of his preferred whisky, and ushered to a bedchamber to wait for a woman who suited his desires and was available. And indeed, it was Pamela. She offered him a shy smile, her eyes not meeting his.

  And he waited. For a rising feeling of excitement. For desire. For something. He waited to feel what he should for a woman this beautiful. A woman he knew performed exceedingly well.

  She made her way across the room, to where he sat, then dropped to her knees before him. She reached forward, making for the buttons on his trousers.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I did not tell you to touch me.’

  Colour swept across her cheeks, and she looked away. ‘I’m sorry, Your Grace.’

  And for some reason, when she said those words, he thought only of Beatrice. And how the words sounded on her lips. And he felt... Guilt. Guilt that he was here when he had married Beatrice. Most of all, over the way that he had treated her prior to coming to the brothel.

  ‘Stand. Take your dress off.’

  She complied, removing her gown, and revealing that she had nothing on underneath.

  Her body was lovely, her mons waxed clean, and normally, he would be feeling some sense of desire or excitement. He felt nothing. And perversely, she looked absolutely aroused by his complete uninterest. If only his uninterest were feigned. But it was not.

  He could obviously proceed. But he was too furious. And the woman he needed to be dealing with was not here.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He stood, walked forward and grabbed hold of her chin. ‘I’m not in need of your services tonight. I will still issue payment.’

  ‘Have I done something wrong?’ Whether or not hers was a desire to truly please, or concern she was losing a valuable client, he did not know. But it didn’t matter either.

  That she made it impossible to tell was why she was so good at what she did.

  ‘The problem is with me. And I must go and sort it out.’ The money would be put on his ledger, and he would settle the account later. There was no need for anything quite so common as for money to change hands then and there. He walked out of the den of iniquity and on to the far too busy streets. Then he began the journey home. And he called himself every foul name he could think of.

  He tore through the front door of the town house, intent on taking himself up to his bedchamber. And he saw that she was still outside.

  He could see that sweet, white nightgown, which she had been wearing the night that he had come upon her in the swing.

  She turned, eyes wide. ‘Seems a rather short visit to a brothel,’ she said, but her face betrayed her shock.

  ‘You have no idea how long such matters should take.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But given the severity of your manner when you left, I expected it to be a rather long night.’

  ‘And here you are.’

  ‘Do not flatter yourself. If you are suggesting that you think I was waiting for you...’

  ‘I would never suggest such a thing,’ he said.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Because,’ he said, taking a step towards her, ‘of you.’

  ‘What have I done?’

  His blood was boiling now. And he knew that he should not move even one fraction of an inch towards her. But he did. He did, and as he did, his desire drew up tight inside him like a bow. And he was on the edge of control. Which did not happen to him. He was a man who prized control above all else. It was his linchpin. The most important thing to a man such as him. He could never afford to be out of control. Not ever.

  ‘Ask me your questions.’

  ‘I have no more questions for you. Except perhaps why you insist on treating me so poorly?’

  ‘You wish to know the secrets of the universe. You wish to insert yourself into my life. Do you wish for me to stop protecting you?’

  He could see her running quick mental calculations. He could also see that she had no idea what he was asking. And it was not a kindness that he was doing it.

  ‘You wish to step into this role in William’s life. You wish to understand the world. You wish to be trusted to go to war. Then you tell me now. What is it you wish to learn?’

  ‘Everything,’ she said, the words exiting her mouth in a rush.

  And then he reached the end of it. The end of everything.

  And he took a step forward, wrapping his arm around her waist and drawing her up to his chest. He could feel her breasts pressed against him, lush and supple. And the way she looked up at him, her eyes full of wonder, did something to him that he could not adequately describe.

  He could kiss her. But instead, he gave in to a much darker temptation. He put his hand on the back of her head, grabbed hold of the thick braid that hung down the centre of her back, and tugged, hard.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Beatrice’s heart was thundering like a galloping horse. The sharp pain that started at the base of her neck spread out over her skull, delightful prickles of sensation cascading over her, and uncomfortable warmth.

 
And she felt... Fortified. Strong. Held tight there in Briggs’s hold. And she could not understand why this was happening. Why he was now standing so close to her, why he was making her feel this way. And why he had the power to do so.

  He had told her that for some pleasure and pain was one in the same. And the deep, curling sensation at her midsection made her feel he had been right. And more unsettling, she had a feeling he had known he would be right about her.

  He was looking at her with a blazing heat that spoke only of confidence. He had known that he could do this. That she would not cry out or pull away from him. He had known that she would want to press herself more closely to him.

  It was his certainty that rooted her to the spot.

  It was his certainty that intrigued her.

  That infuriated her.

  The certainty of this... This man who was infinitely harder than the stone statues all around them.

  He pulled again, and forced her chin to tilt upwards. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, and she withstood. She felt proud. Infinitely so. For she was strong. And free.

  Here, in this moment, she felt as if she was proving it. Not just to him, but to herself. To anyone who had ever found her weak.

  This was her moment, to step into the role of warrior. Prove she could withstand.

  And that thought alone brought her an infinite sense of satisfaction.

  And then his mouth, oh, his mouth. It was on hers, and it was not the stuff of romance and softness. It was a hard sort of heat that she had never imagined. It was devastation. Each movement of his lips was expert and, combined with the intense tug on her hair, made her feel as if she were drowning.

  Oh, she felt she was drowning.

  And then, he slid his tongue between the seam of her lips, and her legs folded. But he caught her. By her hair. And the resulting tug drew a scream from her lips that he swallowed. His hold was firm, and he did not let her collapse completely. Briggs would never let her collapse completely, and in spite of everything, she felt that to be true. In spite of all the anger that had just passed between them, she trusted that.

  She trusted him.

  She found herself being pushed backwards, right up against that naked male statue. Because she had been right. Briggs was just as hard. But he was hot. The marble was cold beneath her back, and it dawned on her slowly, as she shifted her gaze for a moment to stare at the statue, that the very hard thing she could feel pressed against her stomach was...

  Well, if she was correct, the statue paled in comparison to Briggs.

  He was kissing her. She could not quite believe it. Did that mean that he... Did that mean that he wanted her?

  She was so new to this. To the idea of desire. Of want. But he had said that people did this for reasons other than procreation. He had said that it was about pleasure. And pain.

  And then she found the top of her gown, the chemise beneath, being pushed away, revealing her breasts.

  He took a step away, only for a moment, and stared down at her, his expression hungry.

  She was confident in that. His expression held hunger. She did not know how, but it was as if some ancient wisdom inside her body had materialised for this moment.

  And she did not feel confused. Somehow, the absurdity of her lips meeting his, of his tongue sliding against hers, crystallised these mysteries, and if anyone had asked her how it would do that, she would have said she did not know. She would’ve said it was impossible. She would have said that she did not wish to be licked by Briggs, and yet now she knew she did. And that she wished to lick him in return.

  He moved forward, holding her breast with one large hand. And then he pinched her. Slowly, carefully, applying even pressure to one tightened bud. And then, he made it hard.

  She cried out, pain radiating through her body, an answering echo between her thighs. And it was like an exultant hallelujah chorus. A burst of bright, sharp hope echoing through her body.

  A wash of strength pouring itself over her like liquid gold, coating all that she was and reinforcing her.

  She felt like a warrior in this moment.

  Real. True.

  She felt weightless. And she felt fearless. And then, he moved to the other side, but he did not build his pressure quite so slowly; this time he clamped down, his eyes making contact with hers as he did so.

  Until she had to let her head fall back against the statue’s abdomen and surrender. She closed her eyes and shivered, shook, as pleasure and pain mingled together until she could not sort one from the other. Indeed, she wondered if they were different.

  For one showed her that she could withstand, and the other was the reward for that patience. For that endurance. Then he fastened his mouth to her neck, sucking hard, before returning to her lips and kissing her, kissing her until she couldn’t breathe. Until she was senseless. But then, perhaps she had already been senseless. Then he bit her lip at the same time he pinched her again, and she felt something unravel inside her, and then bloom. And it radiated through her in a wave. On and on and she could barely breathe. Could barely think. And it reminded her of dying. Like when she would lose her breath and float towards that space where there was no sound, no light.

  And then bursts of fireworks.

  The vision of something bigger, greater than herself. And when it subsided, she shuddered. And slid down the statue. All the way to the ground.

  And Briggs stood above her, his gaze something like triumphant, and something like terrifying.

  He bent down, and gripped her chin. ‘You did well.’

  And she realised she was shaking. Shivering from the cold and from something else that she could not name. She found herself gathered up into his arms and held close to his chest. And then he lifted her up off the ground, and carried her into the house, carried her up the stairs. Her heart leapt like a wild thing. She didn’t know where he was taking her. Or what would happen next. He took her to her room. And laid her gently on the bed, his manner suddenly soothing and entirely different to the way it had been moments before.

  ‘Sleep,’ he said.

  ‘Briggs,’ she whispered.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Do not speak.’

  ‘But I need to... I need to know. Are you going back to the brothel?’

  ‘No,’ he said, his tone hard.

  ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘I do not answer to you, darling wife.’

  ‘I know. I do not wish you to go, though. And I would hope that that matters, whether or not you must obey me.’

  ‘I will not return to the brothel tonight.’

  And that she knew was the best she would get from him. But was that what he went to the brothel to do? To touch other women like that? To make them... She had no idea what he had done to her. She had never felt anything like it. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before, and she was desperate to experience it again. But also terrified. Because the way that it made her feel... Desperate and aching and restless inside... Well, she did not particularly care for that. That, she found, was almost entirely unbearable. She wanted him to hold her. She realised that with stunning clarity. But all of the confidence that she felt in that moment, all of the strength and brilliance and perfection seemed to fall away from her. She was simply... Undone. And she hated it. As much as she had loved all that had come before.

  For a moment, she had felt strong. For a moment, she felt like a warrior. For a moment, she had felt like a woman. And now she was just back to being Beatrice. And it was enough to make her dissolve.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Briggs was in hell. Because he had spectacularly ruined everything last night. And she had been... She had been a triumph. She was everything that he had suspected she was. And what a cruel joke that his best friend’s younger sister should be made quite so perfectly in such a twisted, glorious fashion that she could fit u
p against every kink in him? It was a cruelty. But she had come apart in his arms from just a bit of pain and pleasure, and he had a feeling that were he to push her further, faster, they would find heights together that... It did not bear thinking about.

  Today, he had to deal with his son.

  Today, he would be taking him to see the sights around London. For they had endured the trip all for that. On one score he suspected Beatrice might be right. That if William had the distraction of those things which he was most interested in, he would weather everything else quite well.

  And after that nightmare of the trip, there had to be some compensation. He was practised enough in the art of indulging himself in a bit of mastery and then going back to being the Duke of Brigham, and father to William, without allowing any of the night’s previous indulgence to affect him in any way. Or to linger into the day. And yet he felt affected by this. By his indiscretion in the garden with Beatrice.

  An indiscretion with your wife? A new low, and who knew you could still reach those?

  He would laugh, but it wasn’t funny. Nothing about the damned situation was funny.

  He decided to find William and try to ply the boy with toast and drinking chocolate prior to presenting him with the day’s itinerary. If he knew one thing about managing William, it was that an itinerary was very important, but he had to be sure to stick to it, because if he did not, then his son would be sure to let him know all the ways in which he had failed. And the point of this was not to fail.

  But when he arrived at his son’s room, Beatrice was already there, sitting on the floor beside him, engaged in what looked like a very intense conversation about shoes.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said.

  She looked up at him, a deep blush staining her cheeks, and something inside him roared in satisfaction. She was remembering last night too.

  She had been beautiful.

  He could teach her.