The Earl of Windermere Takes a Wife (Lords of the Matrix Club #1)

by Jen YatesNZ

  At least they weren’t alone. Aunt Gussy and Lady Sherida had joined them for dinner and ridden in the carriage with them to the theatre. Was Jassie just as anxious not to be alone with him? He wished he could believe that but was more inclined to think she but bided her time, confident that in discarding the fichu that would once have modestly filled the neckline of her gown she was tempting him to abandon his plans to steer clear of their bed.

  And she was!

  He turned his attention to Lady Augusta, her patrician nose quivering as she commented on that ‘hussy, Harriette Wilson, parading about on the arm of the Prince Regent as if she were a lady of the highest connections instead of the cast-off paramour of any number of titled gentlemen’. Any distraction would do and he followed her disdainful gaze to where indeed the two promenaded with all the aplomb of the righteous.

  Rogan felt his lips twitch a little but thought it best to restrain his smile. Aunt Gussy would no doubt be openly scathing should he appear to condone such scandalous behavior, regardless that she was, to all intents, his guest. Glancing back at his companions he found Jassie watching him with eyes that glowed and reflected back to him the light from the brilliant chandeliers. He had the distinct impression she could scarcely contain her excitement. Worse, he was having trouble disengaging from the shimmering desire that blazed beneath the dancing reflections of light. He was being drawn into the heart of the flame, into the inferno that was his desire for Jassie.

  A knock on the door of their box was followed by the entry of his second cousins, Dominic Beresford, the Duke of Wolverton with Hades Delacourte, the Earl of Baxendene hard on his heels.

  Rogan leapt to his feet, relief flowing through him like a tide and set about convincing his friends they should remain through the duration of the play. It wasn’t difficult. Bax’s smoky grey orbs glowed with a typical satanic gleam as they settled on the ethereal and remote perfection of Lady Sherida Dearing. Almost of an age with Jassie, she could definitely be considered ‘on the shelf’, was rumored to have turned away more than a dozen hopeful swains and had thus acquired for herself the title of ‘the Heavenly Iceberg’. The wonder of it was that the Great Bax, as the ton had dubbed him, hadn’t decided to consider the challenge long before this. That Sheri was unimpressed or possibly even unaware the Great Bax had settled in beside her with a very predatory gleam in his eye boded for an interesting evening.

  Interesting enough, Rogan hoped, to keep his mind off his wife. Except that Wolverton chose to arrange his elegance in the seat at Jassie’s other side after possessing himself of her hand and lightly touching her fingertips with his lips, thereby assuring Rogan’s attention stayed very firmly on his wife throughout the entire three acts of the play.

  He knew he was building her expectations for later but he couldn’t keep his arm from the back of her chair or his fingers from caressing the warm skin of her back and shoulders. Never in all the years he’d longed for her had he allowed himself such liberties with her person but forced into close proximity, emboldened by the darkness during the acts and goaded by the presence of a hungering Wolverton on her other side, he’d succumbed.

  To the allure of Jassie. To the lash of jealousy. She was his; had always been his and he was beyond knowing what he’d do if now, after having known her as his wife, he lost her to Wolverton or some other man who could love her as she should be loved.

  Because it was pointless deluding himself. Now that Jassie had experienced the physical act of love her body would crave more and if he could not, would not, give it to her how could he condemn her if she sought that satisfaction elsewhere? How could he condemn Wolverton if he followed where his heart surely tempted him?

  As soon as the lights came up for the last time, Rogan was on his feet and ushering his companions out of the theatre. He had to get Jassie home and himself away from the house before he gave in to the ugly jumble of his needs and desires; before he could instigate a pathetic argument by asking Jassie whether Wolverton had pressed his thigh against hers or dared to lay his hand on her knee in the darkness during the play.

  As he handed Jassie up into the carriage after Lady Augusta and Sheri, he turned to Wolverton and Baxendene.

  ‘Where are you headed now?’

  Bax just shrugged but Wolverton’s mouth tensed and he muttered, ‘Eagle Street. Good night, Rogue.’

  Feeling the heat rising up his neck and his fists clenching, Rogan turned abruptly and leapt up into the carriage, slamming the door and rapping on the roof with his cane as soon as he was seated beside Jassie.

  Wolverton kept a mistress in Eagle Street whom he patronized far too infrequently for her liking. That he felt the need to visit her now told Rogan more than he needed to know about how his friend had been affected by sitting alongside his wife through the interminable and gloomy rendition of Hamlet.

  He could barely find civil, let alone intelligent comments to add to those offered by his aunt, who was quite outspoken in her praise for Keane’s acting abilities and criticism of the rumored eccentricities of his personal life. Little caring to offer an opinion on either, he was very relieved to see the ladies to their door in Grosvenor Square although that meant he was now alone with Jassie in the carriage.

  His brain told him to sit on the opposite seat just vacated by their guests but his body, with a will of its own, returned to the space beside Jassie. His feeling of victory for having left a gap between them was short-lived for his beautiful wife immediately slid along the smooth leather so her thigh fit snugly against his. As if pulled by a puppeteer’s strings, his arm slid behind her shoulders and she turned to snuggle against his chest with a purring sigh that stole the last shred of his sanity.

  He lowered his head, breathing in the scent of violets from her silken curls, then cupping her face he lifted it for his kiss, a harsh groan of surrender vibrating through his being.

  ‘Jassie.’

  Her name was a prayer on his lips as he lifted away for a breath then sank back into her honeyed softness. This was where she should always have been; in his arms as she was in his heart.

  Her arms stole round his neck, a soft little moan sounded from the back of her throat and Rogan felt the blood draining from all points of his body to coalesce in his groin. It was a long time since he’d tried making love to a woman in a carriage and memory said it was difficult and uncomfortable but the only memory retained by the body cells located in his groin was the ecstasy of the release. And, that Jassie was the woman in his arms ensured no other cells in his body were any longer functioning.

  Tilting her head, he traced kisses down the heated velvet of her neck, sinking into the hollow at her collar bone and tasting her with his tongue.

  ‘God, Jass, you taste like ambrosia.’

  Her head fell back on her shoulders and she surrendered the creamy expanse of skin to his ravening mouth. Nipping and laving, he tasted his way to the glittering edge of her bodice, aware that his breathing had become choppy, and his hands were trembling.

  But not enough to keep him from sliding his fingers beneath the cloth to find the nipples that had so tormented his imagination earlier in the evening.

  ‘Oh Rogan,’ Jassie murmured, her voice a husky cry in the darkness that strummed across his nerves as if she’d physically touched him. ‘Yesss—’

  Reverently he freed one perfect globe and then the other and lowered his head to feast with a noisy greed he was beyond controlling. This woman was his everything, the very air he breathed. Her body melted in his arms and he gently began easing her back onto the seat and groping for the hem of her silken skirts.

  His only awareness other than Jassie abandoned to his loving was the burning, swollen ache in his trousers. He was going to have to open his falls soon or the buttons would pop. But not yet.

  ‘Rogan!’ she gasped as his fingers found her heat. ‘Oh Rogan—oh God!’

  He covered her quivering lips with his, thrusting his tongue into her moist mouth just as his cock was planning t
o plunge between her nether lips. Damn, he wanted inside her. Now.

  It took a long minute to realize the carriage had stopped. Damn!

  Coming upright, he hauled Jassie up after him, dragging her cloak up around her shoulders from where it had fallen behind her.

  ‘Hold it together,’ he whispered fiercely as it seemed she was still lost in the haze of sensual longing that had engulfed them both and was unaware of the imminent exposure they faced. She’d scarcely come upright when the door opened and Deacon’s face filled the aperture.

  ‘Jassie!’ Rogan rasped again. ‘Have you got hold of your cloak?’

  Lord knows what the very proper butler’s reaction would be if he got a glimpse of the Countess’s beautiful breasts propped wickedly atop the edge of her bodice.

  ‘Oh—um—oh yes,’ Jassie managed at last and Rogan stepped down from the carriage, blocking Deacon’s view of the interior and hopefully giving Jassie a few more precious seconds to pull her senses together. He turned to offer her his hand and she took a moment to fumble the edges of her cloak tightly together with one hand before carefully extending the other to clasp his as she stepped from the carriage. When she reached the pavement her body sagged against him as if she’d lost all stiffening in her limbs. Keeping a wary eye on the silken gloved fingers clenched on the edges of the cloak he nodded his thanks to Deacon and with his arm firmly about Jassie’s waist, he almost carried her up the stairs and into the blazing light from the chandelier in the ornate marble floored entry of Windermere House.

  With a curt word of thanks, he dismissed the butler the moment he closed the door at their backs.

  ‘We’ll see ourselves upstairs.’

  Thankfully Deacon understood better than to linger and the moment they were alone, Rogan turned Jassie to face him. Her eyes, as she glanced up at him, shone with the dancing light of a thousand candles and her mouth quivered, lips red and glistening from his kisses. It was all he could do not to lower his hand to his groin to try and ease the agony that was going to seriously impair his ability to walk for some time.

  But walk he would. Out of that door. Away from Windermere House. Away from the gut-wrenching temptation that was the Countess of Windermere.

  His Countess. His wife.

  She’d read his intention in his eyes and her own began to darken, blaze with a shimmering, stormy fire. Her hand shot out to grasp his wrist, the velvet cloak falling with a soft swish to the marble floor, exposing her in all her bare-breasted glory.

  ‘Don’t-do-this-to-me-Rogan,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t—’

  ‘I have to, Jass. Can’t you see? I have to!’

  ‘No! You don’t! I want you to make love to me, Rogan! I—I need you!’

  Oh God! Wrenching his wrist from her clutching fingers he ran for the door.

  ‘I’ll not hurt you again. I will not!’

  Slamming the door at his back, he ran headlong down the stairs to yell at the coachman who had the carriage almost to the corner of Charles Street ready to turn for the Mews at the back of the house. Rather than wait for the equipage to back up and risk Jassie chasing after him, for he had no doubt she was capable of it in her present state, he ran down the street, opened the door of the carriage and hauled himself in, calling, ‘Chapel Street.’

  The Matrix Club was the only place he would find surcease for the terrible need riding him, to prevent him from going back into the house and taking everything Jassie was offering; to lose himself in her unconditional love; to use her—abuse her. Not ever again. Please God, his determination wouldn’t weaken whatever provocation his beautiful wife posed for him.

  He would save her from what he was.

  Her head would explode with trying to hold in the dreadful invective she wanted to hurl after Windermere as the door slammed on his fleeing form. How dare he leave her like this, her whole body on fire for him, her knees shaking with desire, her mind filled with visions, hopes—desperation. Slowly she brought her hands up to cover her naked breasts, the nipples throbbing and hard, still remembering the pull of his lips, the rasp of his teeth.

  ‘Damn you, Rogan Wyldefell,’ she whispered into the clanging silence of the elegant hall as she slowly bent and groped for her cloak. What did she have to do, she wondered, as she dragged the voluminous velvet garment around her. What could she do to make him understand that she could cope with most anything he might do to her—so long as he loved her?

  Walking unsteadily to the base of the broad sweeping staircase, she gripped the balustrade and with slow dragging steps pulled herself upwards, still clutching at the edges of her cloak. She traversed the echoing hallway to their rooms at the end, her feet slowing as she passed the door to Windermere’s room. Briefly she thought of throwing herself onto his bed and awaiting him there, begging him to continue from where they’d left off in the carriage. But she still retained a modicum of the lady-like strictures his mother had striven to instill in her and she continued past, finally having the presence of mind to make an effort towards pressing her aching breasts back into the confines of her bodice.

  By the time she reached her own room she wanted nothing more than to curl into a fetal ball in her bed and seek shelter beneath the covers; hide from this needy, craving mess she’d become. If she’d understood it could be like this she might have made a different decision about seducing Rogan into making love to her—perhaps. Though truth was, she still felt her life had more purpose than it had held in all her previous twenty-five years.

  Dismissing Ruby as soon as the maid had unlaced her gown and corset, Jassie threw her clothes over the ottoman, pulled on a creamy lace and satin night rail and crawled into her bed. Her hands crept down her body and in an effort to cool the throbbing heat she cupped her mons while she rocked and alternately cursed Windermere and the unknown woman who’d made him as he was.

  Rogan handed his cane, hat and gloves to Knightsborough’s butler before passing into the Red Salon where the patrons of the Matrix Club gathered to socialize, play hazard or whist, and set up their liaisons for the evening. There was an accepted format to the procedure by way of an ironic nod to polite society. One accepted a drink from a waiter who appeared at the moment of arrival. One surveyed the gathering, assessing the proclivities of those present and selecting those who would best suit one’s needs. After a few moments, in which those already in the room also had the chance to consider one’s person and appeal, it was then acceptable to engage the selected ones in conversation and by an exquisitely polite exchange of ambiguous questions which were likely to garner equally ambiguous answers, a language all members understood perfectly, a mutual agreement to engage was reached—by two or more parties depending on the needs expressed.

  Rogan was not in a mood to be polite or patient. Tossing back a brandy and slamming the glass down on the startled waiter’s tray, he swept the room with a glance, giving a grunt of satisfaction when he saw Mrs. Marcia Grey, sitting quietly in her usual dim corner, playing patience. The demure, almost puritanical air she contrived to portray was a complete solecism. They had partnered one another on a few occasions and she would suit his purpose admirably. She craved pain as an alcoholic craves strong drink.

  She was also a stickler for the protocols but tonight he had no patience for such. If she baulked he was likely to begin her punishment right here in the public room. Not that any member of the Club would be unduly shocked by such an event but he was not into putting his alter ego on display as many other members did. For even after all the years he’d suffered the affliction, he still viewed it as shameful, something to be hidden, even denied if he’d thought he could manage it.

  Reaching her table, he gripped her wrist, arresting her dealing of the cards.

  ‘I need you now,’ he growled. ‘Don’t argue or I’ll start your punishment right here.’

  Something almost feral flashed in the pale eyes before she dropped her gaze and let the cards fall from her fingers. He was dimly aware of his cousin rising to his feet from where
he’d been deep in conversation with the aging Lord Basingstoke and an elegant, bold-looking woman he’d not seen before. The Earl of Knightsborough watched over his patrons like a broody hen and he’d be keenly aware that the Earl of Windermere was not his usual urbane self tonight, if only for the fact he’d neither greeted nor acknowledged anyone, least of all his kinsman and host, before homing in on his quarry. Knightsborough took pride in the fact his was a house where high society’s misfits could safely indulge their damaged psyches, the perfect cover for his hidden identity as Chief of a clandestine courier service. Tonight he could probably be forgiven for considering Windermere a threat to that general safety.

  Curling his fingers like a manacle around Marcia Grey’s wrist, Rogan turned his back on Knightsborough and marched his willing victim out of the room and along the hallway until he found a vacant room. He slammed the door at his back and dragged her round to face him.

  ‘Beg,’ he snarled. Someone had to pay for what he’d lost, what he’d become.

  What he couldn’t have with Jassie.

  Heat flared in her eyes, fleeting, glittering, before her lashes drooped, hiding her excitement from him. Slowly she sagged to her knees.

  ‘Please, Master, please, please punish me. Please—’

  She’d started in a whisper but ended in a desperate husky cry.

  Starting somewhere in the center of his brain, a shudder ripped through his body leaving his hands tingling, trembling; the familiar onset of the madness. Not even trying to hold it at bay, he wrenched her to her feet and pushed her over a long padded stool, roughly but loosely wrapping the attached ropes around her wrists.

  The miasma that had threatened at the edges of his consciousness when Jassie had cried out her need of him finally flooded the whole of his being.

  ‘Oh I will punish you, you fucking whore,’ he growled and threw her skirts up over her head, exposing the perfect satiny cheeks of her backside.

  Thwack! A whimper.