“And I need you.”
His capable hands climbed higher, beneath her knees, infiltrating the hollow of her inner thighs. A scandalous heat infused her body, welled up, washed through her veins in stinging awareness. Anticipation of her husband’s seduction, not flimsy silk, bound her to the chair.
“You could at least”—she broke off, gasping, as he lowered his head, leaving her with little choice but to address his broad shoulders—“close that door properly.”
“I’m preoccupied.”
“Sebastien, really.”
It was clear he intended to continue, privacy be damned. Excitement and frustration interwove into sensations too tangled to separate. Her feet could not find purchase with the floor until she accidentally stepped on his hat.
In desperation, she worked the toes of her pointed pump beneath the brim and kicked it across the room.
The hat shot through the half-opened door and landed in the hall.
His shoulders shook with laughter. “Well, if that doesn’t give us away, I don’t know what will.”
“I shall scream,” she said, looking as if she meant it.
“Please, don’t,” he replied, and before she could make good that threat, he rose, locked the door, and returned to the chair—this time twirling a peacock feather between his fingers.
“I’m not the least bit ticklish,” she said quickly, her breasts lifting with an indrawn breath.
“We’ll see.”
She stared down into his darkly mocking face, her body twisting. “The next time I won’t even leave you a feather. I should have let the mastiff get you.”
He brushed the feather across her mouth, then her chin, sketching it in sensual drifts to her throat. “That Mayfair Masquer is an undisciplined young man. He won’t get the better of me again.”
“Do you know that this is polishing day and it’s only a matter of time before the maids will want to come in?”
“It was my fault for underestimating you,” he continued, brushing the feather across the tops of her breasts. Her body quivered, a reaction she could not hide from him.
“Are you comfortable, darling?” he inquired softly.
She turned her wrists to and fro against the bindings. “How do I look?”
“Enticing.” He flicked the feather against the cleft in her chin. “Vulnerable.”
She moistened her lips. “This isn’t going to stop me.”
“It certainly slows you down a bit.” His gaze moved over her in appreciation. “Does the duchess know we are reconciled?”
“She knows we are working together.”
“And that we are again man and wife?”
She refused to acknowledge the question. Her body ached for relief even as she kept her gaze fastened on the door. The wretch had raised her gown again, this time uncovering her thighs. She dared not look down. The feather traced the vulnerable flesh below her corset, slipping, teasing, below to the wispy hair below her belly. What sinful delight he was inflicting on her. How dreadful of her to enjoy it.
“Open your legs wider.” His voice sounded stern, not to be disobeyed. “I’ll stop if you don’t.”
And as she followed his earthy directions, he dropped the feather on the floor and buried his face between her thighs. Wet. Swollen. He plunged his tongue into the delta of her sex. Almost immediately she died a little death. He had trained her to crave him, to anticipate relief the moment he entered a room. What hope was there for dignity?
He refused to stop. He drew her taut pearl between his teeth. Her pulses leaped. A flush suffused her. She bucked her hips. His hands clamped down firmly on her knees. She bit her cheek to keep from crying out. “Undo me,” she ground out, quite desperate.
“I am,” he replied, his voice muffled in pleasure, his tongue delving inside her secret place.
One of the maidservants working upstairs dropped something, a broom, a poker, a picture. Eleanor started in alarm only to feel Sebastien’s mouth distract her from this domestic crisis.
The sensations he provoked demanded immediate attention. Her cleft wept. She made a token effort at resistance. A waste of effort. She felt his hands nudge her thighs further apart. Let the brooms fall or take flight. She could not pretend to care.
She strained, then slid deeper into his power. His devilish voice soothed her. His silken tongue aroused. What did it matter that she desired him and enjoyed his bold nature?
The Mayfair Masquer might have pledged her loyalty to the Duchess of Wellington, and loyal Eleanor would prove to the end.
But she also understood that a wife’s first duty came to her husband.
And if the staff happened upon a black hat in the hallway, which raised a brow or two, there must be no interruption of duty, or of their lord and lady’s pleasure.
Chapter Sixteen
Sebastien congratulated himself on taking home affairs under control.
The tide had turned in his favor, and he resolved to grasp every chance afforded him. Soon he and Eleanor would put the duchess’s business, their estrangement, behind them—and it was time to start a family.
He felt like a man finally able enough to accept his own weaknesses, and possibly one who could even offer wisdom to his potential offspring. Satisfied, he wandered through his house until he found Eleanor reading in their private drawing room. She glanced up once, her eyes shadowed with pleasure.
“Off to bed?”
“Coming up soon?” He bent and gave her a quick goodnight kiss. “I don’t feel tired. I should. And you?”
“I think I’ll read for a while.”
“And you’re not going out?”
“No, Sebastien. Not at this hour.”
He grunted good-naturedly. “We aren’t expecting any visitors tonight?”
She drew her lap robe over her knees.
“You offended Sir Perceval, I think. He happens to be a skilled phrenologist as well as a fortuneteller. Do you know that he has personally examined the duchess’s skull?”
“I won’t ask what he found, or didn’t, rather. I don’t believe in fortune-tellers.”
“Neither do I,” she said, half-smiling. She laid aside the newspaper she had been reading. “Do you want to talk to me?”
He wished suddenly to sit down beside her. He could remember his father reading with his mother on peaceful country evenings. “Anything interesting in the news?”
“There’s always a mention of the Boscastle family.”
He nodded, revealing little emotion. “The London branch.”
She bit her lip. She seemed to have forgiven him for tying her to that chair. “You do come from a large family.”
“Some would call us ignominious.”
“I’m not sure of that. One of your cousins has just announced that she will admit wayward young girls into her elite academy. Just think. I could have had a spot.”
He smiled. “Our family never did follow the rules.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I fear the Prescotts are not much better.”
“Pity our children.”
“The thirteen?” she asked, glancing up quickly before he had a chance to conceal his reaction.
“Thirteen.” He laughed. “I remember that conversation.”
“So do I,” she said with grim humor.
He stared down at her. Sometimes a truce was a win. “Sleep well,” he said in a low voice.
“And you, Sebastien.”
He left the room, resisting the urge to return to her.
If a husband and wife could outwit each other and laugh about it afterward, the future offered no end to its blessings.
No matter that his wife had still not agreed to abandon her questionable obligations to another, her unrestrained enthusiasm in the bedchamber gave him great hope that he would presently sway her to his sensible point of view. And now they were becoming friends.
Only fleetingly did it occur to him that hers would be the stronger influence.
He had her in hi
s bed, at his side, under his protection. As far as his other duties went, Sebastien maintained contact with the Home Office and Wellington’s agents, confident that when the duke returned to England, he would ask Sebastien to serve in some useful capacity.
And that his wife would have her hands otherwise occupied and cease her unseemly pursuits.
Thirteen. An improbable but pleasant number. Unlikely or not, he relished the prospect of raising sons and daughters, having come from a big family himself. And even though he, the other Boscastles, and his three brothers had parted ways long ago, he recalled their earliest years with deep affection.
He had loved the beasts, especially his older brother Colin, who’d taught Sebastien everything a seventeen-year-old boy thought he needed to know.
At least the lessons they had learned together had mattered then. They had run away from home when their father died.
Sebastien hadn’t realized at the time that both of them had been running away from what really mattered and that sooner or later, if a boy ran far enough, he would come back as a man to what he had hoped to escape.
His father’s death had broken his family apart.
Joshua Boscastle, Viscount Norwood, had filled his house with energy until the very day he’d been found dead on his own doorstep. The doctor said his heart had failed.
But Sebastien’s older brother Colin claimed that their father had dined the evening before with an old friend who held a grudge against Joshua for a business venture that had gone bad.
Colin swore that their father had been poisoned.
He said the doctor was a drunk who couldn’t piss in a straight line, let alone see the evidence of arsenic when it stared him in the face. Colin’s mother refused to believe him. No one did except Sebastien.
The two brothers made a blood pact.
They would leave home and not return until they’d hunted down Joshua Boscastle’s murderer. They could earn enough money cleaning stables and clearing stones from fields across the world if they needed to. They’d felt strong, invincible, fueled by righteous anger.
Of course Colin and Sebastien’s grand scheme had ended in utter failure.
One night, after almost two years of chasing justice, they’d woken up in a barn and realized they had no money, no more leads to follow, and that Colin’s good shirt was hanging from his brawny back in tatters.
Worse than being penniless was being beaten down in spirit.
When Colin shook Sebastien awake that night after he’d just fallen asleep, he acted and sounded ten years older.
Sebastien only had to look at his brother’s terse, grimy face to acknowledge what they’d both realized but couldn’t admit—they’d gone on a wild goose chase after a man too clever to get himself caught.
Sebastien, his skinny arse freezing, had been on the verge of tears until Colin kicked him in the knee. “It’s time to grow up,” Colin said.
“You mean give up,” Sebastien replied bitterly.
“Look, for all we know, it might have been his heart that killed him.”
“That’s a lie.” Sebastien’s voice rose into the rafters of the barn.
“Maybe it was a lie before.” Colin was already putting on his boots. “I don’t know the damned truth, Sebastien. I’m not even sure I care after all this time wasted tilting at windmills and dragging you along like a lost puppy.”
“Are we going home?”
“I’m joining the army.”
“Then so am I.”
Colin shook his head and swore. “I don’t want you at my side for the rest of my life. Find your own way.”
And so he had.
Family. His wife. Did anything matter more?
He had begun to move what little personal belongings he possessed from his boat into the wardrobe that he and Eleanor now shared.
He carefully avoided the drawer that held the unused christening gown.
He hung his ornamented regimental jacket beside her grandest evening gown, the one he’d noticed bore a wine stain.
Still puzzled by this apparent aberration, he drew it toward him by the delicate, pearl-buttoned sleeve.
She ought to have new frocks. He could well afford them.
His unspeakable deeds in France had not gone without compensation.
The thought of spoiling her, of surprising her with generous gestures, appealed to him.
But the light revealed a truth that the other evening had been kind enough to conceal.
With a frown, he saw clearly it was not a wine stain that marked the low-edged bodice, but a blotch of oil paint.
Chapter Seventeen
Eleanor felt quite confident that she could keep her husband under control, or at least divert him so that he did not interfere with her work. She intended to play two roles, one as the duchess’s agent, the other the dutiful wife. Admittedly acting as a woman who loved her masterful lord required little sacrifice on her part. As it did not benefit her to protest Sebastien’s authority in certain private matters, she submitted when he pursued her.
And vice versa.
And while she might not have succeeded in tying him to a chair and seducing him insensible with a feather, she did manage to implement certain of her own feminine instincts when the mood arose.
He appeared to be in the mood every waking hour.
She was also aware, however, that regarding her other obligations, Sebastien was not to be trusted even while he slept. She could not thump her pillow during the night without him rolling up against her, his large body impeding any attempt to escape from their bed.
“Bad dreams?” he’d ask. And she would stare into his slumberous blue eyes, resisting the urge to smooth his rumpled hair.
“There are dangerous things outside in the dark,” he whispered once, his arms enfolding her.
“Not to mention the one lying in this bed.”
He chuckled. “Haven’t I behaved myself?”
She gave a tiny shrug of assent.
“At least acknowledge that I’m trying.”
She shrugged again.
“It’s better this way, you and I together on a cold night instead of … those other activities.”
She smiled. “Perhaps.”
And then, just as she felt a wave of tenderness for the scoundrel, he added, “I knew you’d come around sooner or later. I’m only surprised it took this long.”
He would indeed have been surprised had he realized that when she wandered each afternoon to the back gate to purchase wares from the curd-and-whey seller, she was in fact receiving her current instructions from the duchess.
Employing the glib street girl as her courier, the Duchess suggested that Eleanor would be wise to delay any covert activities until further advised.
Her grace cautioned that the Bow Street Runners had stationed seasoned detectives throughout the West End, in the hope of catching London’s elusive celebrity.
“Seasoned detectives,” Eleanor said with a scornful smile, and hid the message in her shoe.
It only proved how far afield the runners were in capturing the Masquer.
She turned, frowning thoughtfully, and walked straight into her husband. “Not more curds and whey,” he said, raising his brow at her.
She stared down at her bowl. “Yes, I—I’ve taken a powerful fancy to them.”
“Any particular reason?”
“I—”
“Let me carry the bowl for you.”
“It isn’t heavy,” she said quickly.
“Don’t worry, Miss Muffett. I’m not going to eat your snack.” He glanced past her to the gate. “That girl isn’t selling her wares to any other house. Are you sure she’s not planning to rob us?”
She grasped his arm and propelled him toward the house. “I thought you were meeting with the architect in the library.”
He looked down again. The contents of the bowl were sloshing dangerously over the sides. “Yes. We’re discussing the renovation of the Sussex house.”
The
ir country estate, if one could call the small manor that.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped off his knuckles. “That’s actually why I came to fetch you.”
“To seek my opinion?”
“Naturally.”
“That’s very sweet of you, Sebastien.”
But when she followed him into the library, the architect immediately showed her the blueprint for the nursery addition that Lord Boscastle had planned for the country house.
A very large nursery. One that even the architect’s apprentice slyly remarked took up the whole upper West Wing, and was his lordship hoping to raise a cricket team?
When she went upstairs to dress for supper, she discovered that he’d gone through her wardrobe again. The evening gown with the stain hung in plain view, as if he were letting her know he’d noticed it. And wasn’t pleased. Her husband was anything but subtle.
She bit her lip and would have felt guilty had she not realized a few minutes later that the rascal had also been nosing through the drawer of the writing desk. He might have been devious enough to pick the lock of the small escritoire, but he had left evidence of his illicit entry. The imperceptible coating of rice powder she routinely sprinkled before closing the drawer had been unsettled.
Nothing appeared to be missing, not any of her personal correspondences, nor the last two letters yet to be delivered to the duchess.
But the peacock feathers she had left crossed at a certain angle had been cleverly rearranged, although not in their previous formation.
Did Sebastien assume she would never notice? True, he had flummoxed her with his silk scarves and chair seduction. Was it possible she had not followed her cautious routine as well as she should have?
She closed the drawer carefully. Despite their precarious marriage, she’d always felt she could trust his integrity. He had convinced her he didn’t give a farthing about the contents of the duchess’s letters. Only about her. He didn’t even read the gossip papers.
It was one thing for him to accompany her on her assignments, but quite another for him to snoop in this manner.
There was a bite in the air when Sebastien sat down to supper with his wife three hours later. He noticed that although fresh coals had been laid in the grate, burning fitfully, Eleanor had not bothered with her shawl. Her gleaming white shoulders rivaled the water pearls at her throat for simple beauty.
A Wicked Lord at the Wedding Page 12
