Dedication
To Rosalyn Rosenthal
For her loving kindness and generosity
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Announcement
About the Author
By Lorraine Heath
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
London
1840
The Earl of Elverton scowled at his latest bastard, blotchy and naked, held aloft by a midwife, as though she were offering him a treasure discovered in the ruins of Egypt or Pompeii. He wondered if he should present this one to his wife, tell her to suckle it at her teat, and announce to the world she’d given birth to it.
Why the devil couldn’t he get his countess with babe when he had such success at it elsewhere, with every woman he bedded save her? Perhaps if he were more enthusiastic when it came to the taking of her—
But she was a plain, docile thing, the daughter of a marquess his father had forced him to marry when he was nineteen. Naught about her made a man’s cock stand at attention, although he did manage it. Yet still, after a decade, not once had his seed taken root.
He should probably rid himself of her. A trip down the stairs, a fall from a rowboat in deep waters, a tumble from her horse. He could make an accident happen. He had before with a brother who should have inherited the title ahead of him.
A shooting accident when they’d been out hunting grouse. No one was surprised. The heir apparent had never been comfortable around weapons or truly mastered the use of firearms. “He tripped, his finger on the trigger,” Elverton had told everyone. “The gun discharged quite by accident.” No one doubted his word, no one suspected it had been his finger on the trigger that was responsible for his brother’s demise, not when he blubbered and produced tears. He became the victim, the one everyone comforted, because he would have to live with the horror that he’d witnessed due to his brother’s clumsiness. Fools all.
Now he slid his gaze from the bawling babe to the woman in the bed recovering from her ordeal, watching him, waiting for his decision. If he were to arrange to pass this by-blow off as his legitimate heir, he would have to dispatch her to a watery grave at the bottom of the Thames in order to ensure her silence. He was not one to take risks of discovery when misdeeds were done. While at present—with her bedraggled hair sweaty and her skin clammy—she wasn’t much to gaze upon, when she was at her best, she was the most beautiful, exciting woman he’d ever plowed. She also possessed a luscious mouth that knew its way well around a man’s cock. He grew hard just thinking of placing his once again between her luscious lips.
“Swaddle it,” he ordered the midwife.
“Can I not keep this one?” his favorite mistress asked.
He glanced around at the lavish furnishings he provided for her in the fine town house he leased. “Not unless you want to keep it and yourself on the streets. Bastards are tiresome, a burden I do not tolerate.”
“But you will ensure he is well cared for and loved, will you not?”
No good would come of changing his plans, but where was the harm in a small lie that would keep her enthusiastically welcoming him between her thighs? He gave her a much-practiced reassuring smile. “For you, I will do near anything.”
Perhaps he’d even replace his wife with her when the time came, if it came, if his countess did not bear fruit soon.
Taking the boy from the midwife, he headed from the room. Because he paid for his bastards to be “put away”—killed in baby-farming circles—he preferred to spread them out, never using the same farmer more than a couple of times. He’d recently obtained a new name, a woman he’d not visited before. He’d gladly hand over the required fee to Ettie Trewlove to ensure he was never again inconvenienced by this brat.
Chapter 1
London
Early March 1872
She was in want of a man.
And not just any man would serve. She had a particular one in mind.
Standing in a shadowed corner of the Elysium Club, an exclusive gaming hell singularly for ladies, Selena Sheffield, Duchess of Lushing, watched as the club’s owner prowled the floor with lengthy, lithe strides, reminding her of a large sleek lion, predatory and dangerous. His black fitted coat caressed his wide shoulders, as she suspected many a lady had. His black brocade waistcoat molded itself around his lean torso. His white shirt and knotted snowy cravat were pristine, a direct contrast to the swarthiness of his skin. He didn’t appear to be a man who spent all his time indoors.
She’d first caught sight of him last summer at Lady Aslyn Hastings’s wedding, when the daughter of the late Earl of Eames and ward to the Duke of Hedley had taken Mick Trewlove as her husband. Selena had known nothing about the Trewloves until that day, until she’d caught tidbits here and there as people whispered about the disreputable family that was naught but by-blows.
Then the Duke of Thornley had married Gillie Trewlove—a tavern owner of all things, for God’s sake—and the whispers had turned into a dulcet tone of alarm. More recently, one of the Trewlove brothers had taken Lady Lavinia Kent, sister to the Earl of Collinsworth, to wife, and suddenly no one could talk of anything other than the Trewlove bastards and the swath they were rapidly cutting through Society like Genghis Khan’s hordes intent on conquering what had once believed itself unconquerable.
She considered herself immune to their spell but had to admit to being intrigued by Aiden Trewlove ever since she’d seen him standing at the altar looking nothing at all like his brother, but then only God knew who had sired him, who had given birth to him. However, it had been more than the cut of his bristly shadowed jaw or his patrician nose or those full, sensual lips that had made it near impossible to take her eyes from him.
It was the way he’d seemed amused by the entire affair. Whenever he peered over his shoulder or faced the crowd of people who had packed themselves onto the pews, desperate to watch a lady of such a storied family marrying a man of such a scandalous one, he’d studied them through half-lowered lids, as though taking their measure and not wanting them to see exactly what he thought of them, of how much he found them lacking.
But when Lady Aslyn had glided up the aisle, the warm smile he’d bestowed upon her, expressing his acceptance of her and welcoming her into the family, had marked him as not only kind but immensely approachable.
And Selena was in need of a man harboring both characteristics in order to calm her fraying nerves and ease the guilt threatening her resolve. She was where she should not be, standing with her back pressed against a wall, wearing a gown of deep royal blue, a mask of the same shade, because Aiden Trewlove offered women sin and secrets. Not all the women hid behind masks, not the bold ones or those who had nothing to lose. She imagined the freedom one must feel to stride through the rooms unmasked, to be unafraid, to be liberated. But it was imperative that no one ever learn of her presence in the scandalous environs provided by Aiden Trewlove.
To women, he had opened the heavens where gods plotted and revealed the delicious mysteries within. A club they whispered about among themselves, a place unknown to fathers, brothers, and husbands. A domain in which women ruled and did as they pleased. He’d given them a paradise within the shadows of London that was theirs and theirs alone. He’d known what they wanted, what they needed. And he’d provided it.
A man who created all of this, who understood women so well and knew the entertainments for which they yearned, surely would not sit in judgment and would know how to provide a safe haven where a woman could do what she ought not without fear of her actions being revealed to others.
And so she watched as he whispered in the ear of one lady, making her laugh, while his words to another caused her to dip her head and blush profusely, a shy smile curling her lips upward. To various other women he nodded or grinned—the grin given slowly and seductively as though the one to whom it was given was the only soul in the room for whom he had a care. He placed his hand over one lady’s, stopping her from moving a stack of wooden disks into the pile at the center of the table. Then, with a devastating wink that no doubt took the lady’s breath, he tossed one of the chips onto the mound.
Then he carried on striding through his dominion—
No, not through. Toward. Toward her.
Her heart kicked frantically against her ribs; within her gloves her palms dampened. She wasn’t yet ready to step out of the shadows into the golden glow of the gaslit chandeliers above. She wasn’t yet prepared to meet, to speak with this man who might prove to be her salvation—if only her courage would not desert her.
It was more than his good looks that unsettled her. It was the way he moved as though each movement was calculated to bring attention to him while giving the impression he wanted none at all. The manner in which he observed so keenly, so thoroughly, as though he could decipher all mysteries, make them blossom before him. Choosing him could turn out to be a colossal mistake because she had secrets to hold close. If she were wise, she would turn on her heel and flee. But if she’d never fled the circumstances of her marriage, she certainly wasn’t going to run off now, simply because his thorough gazing of her was disconcerting in the extreme. No man had ever looked at her as though she were a confection to be nibbled and enjoyed.
He stepped from the light into the gray and leaned one shoulder negligently against the wall papered in curlicues of dark burgundy and light rose. The shadows prevented her from discerning the exact shade of his eyes, but not his keen interest in her, not the slight tilting up of one corner of his mouth. “You’re new here.”
His diction was more polished and refined than she’d expected, not fully aristocratic, but close. She wondered if his father had seen him educated. Not that it mattered as his schooling wasn’t a deterrent to her purpose, although her nerves were certainly vying for that role. Somewhere within the recesses of her soul, she found the wherewithal to shore up her confidence and force it into her words. “You can’t possibly know that. I’m masked.”
“I can identify the ladies who visit, mask or no. It is not only a face by which one might be recognized.” Slowly his gaze roamed over her, not in an insulting or lascivious way, but with an appreciation that had her skin prickling as though it longed to be nearer to him. Then his eyes were back on hers. “What is your name, darling?”
She didn’t want to remember how she had once longed to be someone’s darling, to have endearments, not apologies, whispered in her ear. “Lena.”
A shortened version of her name, a name no one would recognize her by should they hear it. A name she never used.
He cocked his head to the side, gave her another thorough going-over, shook his head. “I don’t think so. Too simple a name for far too complex a woman, I wager. Helena, perhaps, Helena of Troy. Or something fancier.”
Licking her lips, she glanced around nervously, noting she’d snagged the attention of a few ladies, those not masked known to her, which meant she was known to them and probably to a few of the masked ones as well. She didn’t want to consider the embarrassment and shame she would bear if her presence were discovered. “I don’t wish others to hear my name spoken.”
“It will be our secret,” he murmured, his voice low and seductive, causing unexpected warmth to sluice through her, along with a desire to trust him completely, with everything, but she wasn’t quite as foolish as all that.
“Selena,” she whispered back, thinking no word on her tongue was nearly as sensual as any syllable on his.
“Selena,” he repeated, his voice going even lower, a velvety caress that nearly had her leaning toward him, toward those lips that created such mesmerizing resonances. “I’m Aiden.”
“Yes, I know.” Did she have to sound so breathless of a sudden? “The owner. It’s quite a spectacular place.”
“How would you know? You haven’t left this spot since claiming it after coming through the door.”
Oh Lord, the man was too observant by half. Choosing him could turn out to be an error in judgment. Without another word, before she claimed another breath, she should take her leave, but his gaze held her hostage as though she were a butterfly beneath glass. “I can see the entirety of this room.”
“Ah, but this room is only a small portion of what I offer.” He held out his hand, ungloved, large, rough-hewn. It would swallow her breast. Where had that thought come from? Yet at that particular moment, she could envision those long, slender fingers doing little else than kneading what no man had ever touched. “Come, my lady. Allow me the honor of giving you a tour.”
She almost corrected him. She wasn’t my lady, but Your Grace. However, the less he knew of her, the better. In addition, considering the way he studied her, she wasn’t entirely certain if he was addressing her with an honorific or claiming her as his lady. A silly thought. An even sillier one was that she wouldn’t mind if the latter were the case, but it was imperative that he not have a care for her and she not have one for him, that tonight’s little adventure leave behind no fond memories to be mulled over in the days and years to come.
Swallowing hard, she placed her gloved hand in his, surprised how the warmth of his burned through the silk. He tucked it within the crook of his elbow and began leading her out of the shadows.
“I’m looking forward to introducing you to the pleasures of sin.”
Aiden Trewlove escorted the lady into the dim light where he could get a better look at her. In contrast to his, her hair was the shade of wheat with the barest hint of red, as though she’d eaten strawberries as a child and the fruit had become part of her. But it was her eyes that drew him in, the blue of the hottest flames dancing upon a hearth, and he had the unsettling thought that with her he could get burned.
Not likely. He was not one to become overly involved with a lady. Having watched as one had nearly destroyed his brother when they were younger, randy, and wild, Aiden had made a vow to never allow any woman to capture his heart. He would enjoy them, ensure they enjoyed time spent with him, but he’d walk away if he ever felt a spark that threatened more than a casual encounter, more than a frolic between the sheets.
He’d noticed this one the moment she entered his establishment, although he made note of everyone who came and went. It wasn’t unusual for a woman, upon first arriving at his club, to be a bit shy, to hover in a corner, to be hesitant about going forward and embracing what he offered. But this one had been neither shy nor hovering nor hesitant. She’d been watching. Not the dice games or the cards or the roulette wheel. Not the well-dressed men walking through offering champagne, brandy, and port. Not the young bucks leaning over a lady’s shoulder whispering tips on how to play and compliments into her ear. No, none of that had caught her attention or sparked her curiosity. She’d been watching him.
He’d felt the caress of her gaze like a physical force traveling the length of him, and the urge to preen had hit him strong. But he was not one for preening. She either liked what she saw or she d
idn’t. Based on the fact that her hand was now nestled in the crook of his elbow, he assumed she liked.
He was desperate to see her without the mask that covered three-quarters of her face, leaving only her mouth and chin visible. Her chin reminded him of the bottom half of a heart, but more delicate, finely etched by fate’s gentle hand. The gods had taken care in creating this one.
She had luscious lips, a rosy pink, not red. His mind started to wander to other areas of her that might be pink, and he abruptly brought it back to the task at hand. Too soon to travel there. Besides, he didn’t need to be walking about the place, looking as though he’d stuffed a tent pole in his trousers. He was introducing these ladies to sin, not decadence. “Do you have an interest in these games?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve not played them.”
“So you only have an interest in that which you know? Where’s your sense of adventure, darling?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? My presence must demonstrate I’m in possession of a great deal.”
“But you’re not entirely comfortable with your surroundings or your daring to come here.”
“I suppose the mask was a hint, but no, I’m not. I had to give myself several lectures before convincing myself to come.”
“Nothing will happen here that you do not want to happen.”
She looked up at him, a bit of deviltry reflected in the blue depths. “So I will not lose my coins should I sit down at the tables?”
He laughed, grinned at her. “Point well made.”
Her lips twitched and for half a heartbeat, he thought she might at least offer him a hint of a smile. He wanted to see the upward curl of her lips, the joy reflected there. A sadness, a sorrow, hovering about her was calling to his protective nature, the irritating side that caused him to make sacrifices regardless of the cost to himself. It was the reason he now owned this club, a gift from his brother Finn, for whom he’d once humbled himself before their maggot of a father. Finn had seen it as a way to repay Aiden for a debt Finn felt he owed in spite of Aiden insisting he didn’t. But the tug he felt to protect this lady was far greater than anything he’d ever experienced before. Was ludicrous to the extreme. He didn’t know her or anything about her. He couldn’t imagine she didn’t already have a protector.
The Duchess in His Bed Page 1
