A virgin. Yes. She had been, anyway. Was glad not to be anymore. Was thrilled it was here, with him. She wrapped her legs about his hips, coaxing him in further.
“Do it,” she whispered into his neck. “I want you to.”
“I think I already did.” He remained motionless, as if afraid any additional movement might break her. “I didn’t know you hadn’t…”
“Now I have.” She tilted her hips toward his, forcing him to slide deeper within her. A sense of feminine power flooded her as a guttural moan of pleasure escaped his lips. “Please don’t stop. I want you. I want this.”
“Then this isn’t over,” he said as he sank himself fully within her. “Not tonight. Not ever.” His muscles flexed with every thrust inside her. “From this moment on, you are mine.”
Her body contracted about him as he staked his claim over and over with each long, demanding stroke of his hot, hard member. He locked his fingers with hers, pinning her hands to either side of her head.
“Mine,” he repeated as his hips bucked faster, rocking into her again and again. “Say it.”
“Yours,” she gasped against his shoulder as a second wave of ecstasy took her. Her hips rose to meet him even as her legs trembled helplessly in shocks of pleasure.
“Forever.” He gave a last, shuddering thrust and collapsed half on top of her, spent.
Her pulse pounded in time with his, the fingers of their hands still twined together as they gasped for breath.
He pressed his lips to her temple in a sweet, exhausted kiss.
Somewhere on the opposite side of the chamber from the main corridor, a door swung open. Camellia’s heart stopped at the unexpected sound. God save her. This bedchamber had servant access. Mortification swallowed her whole. Of course there was servant access. This was a ducal residence, after all.
Voices and candlelight spilled into the room as whoever had been in the adjoining room crossed the threshold into theirs.
Camellia froze with her bare legs locked about Lord X’s equally bare hips. Terror rushed through her as merrymakers swept in like a tidal wave.
“Knock me over with a feather,” came a shrill, laughing voice. “I’d recognize those handsome buttocks anywhere. One never forgets the strawberry-shaped birthmark of the Lord of Pleasure. Though I can’t say I recognize the shapely lady beneath you.”
Terror stole the air from Camellia’s lungs.
“Bloody hell.” He lowered his head as if to hide his masked face in her hair. “Please don’t let that be Mrs. Epworth.”
Camellia froze as reality cut through the fog of their lovemaking. The notoriously promiscuous Mrs. Epworth had recognized Lord X from a birthmark on his buttocks? Her entire body shook with fear and confusion. Humiliation engulfed her.
“What’s that?” the widow cooed loudly in reply. “Are we interrupting your pleasure? Pay no attention to us, Wainwright. We’ll let ourselves back out the way we came in—and we’ll lock the door behind us.”
Wainwright? Camellia shoved him off her in a flood of panic, her heart fluttering in horror. Heaven help her. She’d given her maidenhead to Lord Wainwright? Her throat gagged at the abhorrent thought.
The connecting door snicked shut, taking the observers—and the source of light—with them. Her body sprang to life.
Pulse racing in fear and panic, she threw herself blindly from the bed in search of her shift. It had to be here. Somewhere. She had to get away. Right now. Had to get out of this masquerade, out of this building, out of this costume and into a piping hot bath from which she might never leave.
“Lady X?” A hesitant stammer marred the familiar husky voice.
She yanked her gown over her head, shoved her arms through the sleeves. Lord Wainwright might think himself just as discomfited by the unexpected interruption as she was, but the devil knew he couldn’t even come close.
He cleared his throat from the other side of the bed. “Lady X, I’m…”
“Lord Wainwright,” she interrupted harshly, still unable to believe the depths of her folly. “I heard.”
“Yes, well… guilty on that count, I’m afraid. But it changes nothing. I swear it.”
He was wrong. It changed everything.
She grappled for her satin slippers and tugged them onto her feet as quickly as possible.
“At least tell me your name,” he said, his tone desperate. “I meant everything I said, everything I did. I want you to be mine inside these walls and out. You mean… everything.”
Camellia had meant it all, too. At the time. But now she knew better.
She had been a fool.
Heat stung her throat. She did not trust herself to open her mouth. Didn’t know what she might say if she dared to speak. She hurried to the door while her shaking legs still obeyed her commands. Somehow, her fingers managed to release the lock.
“Please,” he begged. “Just your name. You are…?”
“Gone,” she answered softly.
Camellia raced from the room, the back of her gaping gown flapping against her bare shoulders, exposing her for the fool she was. Her gaze blurred as she stumbled through the crowd as quickly as she could.
She needed a hack. She needed to get home. She needed to die from humiliation and self-loathing.
Perhaps sensing her desperation, the crowd parted to let her through. Who cared if they noticed the telltale wrinkles in her gown and bed-mussed hair? She wouldn’t be back. Ever. She was no longer Lady X.
Now, she was simply ruined.
Chapter Twenty
Michael dashed from the empty bedchamber into the crowded corridor wearing only one of his infernal Hessians, but it was already too late. Lady X was nowhere to be seen. He slammed his fist against the doorjamb in frustration. Damn his unforgivable arrogance.
He’d taken her virginity… and she hadn’t even given him her name.
“Looking for someone?” came a coy, laughing voice. The blasted Mrs. Epworth.
Naturally.
He ducked back into the bedchamber and threw himself onto the edge of a chaise longue to yank on his other boot.
The widow followed him inside. “Lose your paramour, darling? I’d be happy to take her place. As I mentioned at the museum, it’s been years since we—”
“No,” he said curtly as he shoved his arms into his tailcoat.
Either Mrs. Epworth could not discern the vehemence of his glare from behind his feather mask, or she simply did not care.
She dragged the tips of her fingernails along the bed. “Who was that divine creature, darling?”
“Lady X.”
He had to find her. Desperation trembled his fingers as he buttoned his waistcoat. He snatched his cravat up from the floor and turned back toward the door.
“Don’t be that way,” Mrs. Epworth pouted. “You can tell me your ladybird’s name. I won’t breathe a single word.”
Michael glared at the unrepentant widow, as irritated with himself as he was with her. How could he divulge Lady X’s name to someone else when he hadn’t the foggiest notion what it might be?
“Why, look at this exquisite piece of craftsmanship.” Mrs. Epworth lifted something from between the pillows. “Never say Lady X lost a glass earring in her flight from your arms?”
He leapt toward the bed and plucked the sparkling jewels from her gloved palm. It was indeed one of the green-and-crystal teardrop earrings Lady X had been wearing. His pulse jumped. He closed his fingers about it for safekeeping and strode toward the door.
“Wait,” Mrs. Epworth called from her position of repose upon the bed. “May I not tempt you into staying? Just once, for old time’s sake?”
He paused at the threshold only long enough to glance over his shoulder. “I thank you for promising not to breathe a word of this to anyone.”
Whether her offer of silence would last beyond the current hour, however, was anyone’s guess.
Although she would be banned from all future masquerades for her loose tongue, the widow
might consider it a fair trade. The fame of imparting such delicious gossip would garner her the attention she craved. Invitations to parties where one wasn’t required to wear a mask.
Michael ground his teeth. He couldn’t worry about that. Not right now. The only thing he cared about was finding Lady X.
With a scowl, he stalked through the lavish corridors full of elegant merrymakers. Some of the masked ladies tipped their champagne glasses as he passed. He barely noticed. Didn’t care.
He hadn’t been interested in any other women since the day he met Lady X… whose true name he didn’t even know, and whose maidenly innocence he’d just taken extreme liberties with.
Damn it. Michael clenched his jaw in frustration.
He had never been with a virgin before. Hadn’t realized any such creatures had ever attended the duke’s licentious masquerades. The idea boggled.
But he’d meant what he’d told her. What he’d felt at the time, and still felt now. His fingers jerked as he raked them through his hair. After an interruption like that, however, he wasn’t certain Lady X would believe him. She might prefer to remain masked from him forever.
He burst out a side door of the ducal residence and ran toward the queue of empty carriages lining the street. One by one, he quizzed each driver to see if anyone had glimpsed a masked beauty in emerald silk dash from the exit.
Three of the drivers told him the same thing: She had climbed inside the first available hack and tore off like the hounds of hell were on her tail. She was long gone.
Michael was too late.
Chapter Twenty-One
Heart pounding, Camellia shivered in the back seat of a hackney cab. Bloody, bloody, bloody misfortune. What was worse—that she had been in bed with the devil, or that he still held her heart?
Her feather mask fell onto her wrinkled lap. She touched her bare cheeks in nameless horror. How long had the ties been loose? Had the mask been sliding down her face as she fled through the crowd of merrymakers? Did any of the revelers recognize her as she ran past them with her gown undone?
Good grief, had Wainwright recognized her? What was she supposed to do now?
She twisted in her seat, grappling for purchase on the silk-covered buttons lining the back of her bodice. It was impossible. Her gown simply could not be fastened without the aid of a lady’s maid…
Or of the gentleman who had unbuttoned it to begin with.
She slumped against the side of the carriage and covered her face with her hands. Of all the people to fall so recklessly for, why did it have to be Lord Wainwright? Why couldn’t it have been… a cobbler, a chimney sweep, anyone else in all of London but the one man she could not abide?
She halted the hack a full block from her home so that her neighbors would not see her race up her front steps with her spine bared to the moonlight. Instead, she hurried through the hedgerows and the shadows and slipped through a servants’ entrance at the rear.
Careful not to disturb the sleeping hall boy, she managed to sneak up the stairs and into her private bedchamber without awakening anyone in the household.
But her troubles were far from over. They were just beginning.
She sank onto the padded stool before her vanity table and reached up to remove her teardrop earrings.
One. She only had one. A gasp of panic tangled in her throat.
Then she realized an earring was the least of what she’d lost.
With shaking hands, she tossed her mask and the sole remaining earring onto the vanity and bent her forehead to its otherwise neat surface.
Nothing else in her life was neat or tidy. This was more than a mere pickle. Now she not only had to turn down Mr. Bost’s proposal… she couldn’t marry anyone, ever. She was ruined.
And the one man who should be obligated to take her was the one man she could never accept.
Even if she forgave him for his remarks to her sister, Lord Wainwright would still be the most celebrated and infamous rakehell in all of England. His deeds were as thoughtless as his words.
Camellia’s limbs shook. She would rather be a ruined spinster living with her parents into infinity than lie alone inside a sumptuous earldom while her promiscuous husband warmed someone else’s bed.
What on earth had she been thinking? Lord Wainwright, of all sinful creatures. The man was such an unrepentant libertine, his naked rear was recognizable by a birthmark she hadn’t even spent enough time with him to see!
Distraught, Camellia pushed away from her vanity table and threw herself face up onto her bed. She rubbed her face with her hands and wished more than anything that they had never been discovered.
An hour ago, she had believed Lord X to be the most exemplary gentleman in all of London.
An hour ago, baring her soul and her self to him had seemed the most perfectly natural thing she could do.
An hour ago, she had been utterly, recklessly, hopelessly in love.
She rolled over to bury her face in her pillow. Who was she fooling? She was still tied up in knots, blast the wretched man.
The nights they had shared. The bonds they had made. Physical, emotional. The closeness she had felt before she’d known who he was.
Before she’d realized it was all part of a well-practiced game.
Her throat stung. Blast it all, no. She would not cry over him. He did not deserve it.
She pushed herself up into a seated position to pluck the pins from her hair, mussed from Wainwright’s strong hands as they made love.
Camellia swallowed. Best not think of him, if she could help it. She would concentrate on one moment at a time. Brushing her hair. Readying herself for bed. Facing her looking-glass in the morning. Hoping she had not been recognized in her half-dressed flight from the masquerade.
Her chest tightened until she could barely breathe.
The best she could hope for was not to end up a caricature in the scandal columns and have her one moment of mad passion ruin the lives of the rest of her family.
What had she done?
Panic flooded her anew. She desperately wished she could escape to her river rock. The one tranquil place where she could still find peace and serenity. Forget she’d bedded the Lord of Pleasure. That her mask had fallen even as she fled from her mistake.
But of course she could not. If she had been spotted, if her name was now on everyone’s tongues…
Camellia could never leave her house again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Michael was still awake when dawn snaked between the curtains of his bedchamber. He hadn’t been able to sleep. Hadn’t been able to turn off his churning mind for even a moment.
All he could think about was how perfect things had been with Lady X… until he’d ruined it. Not by something he had done, but by someone he had been. Long before he’d ever met her.
He groaned and covered his face with his hands. Had he feared his scandalous reputation might frighten Lady X away? Try having a past lover recognize him while in flagrante delicto. Because of a strawberry-shaped birthmark on his arse.
His spine curved in guilt and chagrin. He was no longer the careless rake he once was. He didn’t want meaningless encounters with temporary lovers. He wanted to make a lifelong commitment. His chest grew tight. If Lady X would still have him.
She must have been as embarrassed as he was by the unexpected turn of events. More so. He rubbed the back of his neck in desperation. She’d made the monumental decision to gift him her virginity, and then all of a sudden—
His stomach soured. Their perfect moment could not possibly have gone worse.
Now that he realized the magnitude of her decision to make love to him, he could not imagine how embarrassed, confused, and furious she must be. He would not be surprised if Lady X believed he considered her nothing more than just another conquest.
She could not be more wrong.
Lady X wasn’t the conquest. He was. She held his heart in her hands. Nothing would give him more pleasure than being able to co
urt her openly, in the manner in which she deserved. He longed to make their connection a true courtship.
If only he knew who she was. The real her.
He wanted more than her name. He wanted her to look into his eyes and see the truth shining back when he told her he loved her. That whoever she was, whatever her background, there could be no more perfect countess than having her share his life.
But how? He had already asked Lambley her identity. The duke either did not know, or refused to say. Which left what?
Fairfax.
Hope expanded Michael’s chest. Anthony Fairfax was the doorkeeper at the Duke of Lambley’s masquerade balls. He would have to know the identity of Lady X!
Michael leapt from his bed and rang for a bath. The last thing he wished to do was postpone his chat with the doorkeeper, but if there was any chance of meeting Lady X face-to-face this very day, he would need to be presentable. More than presentable—marriageable.
He hid his impatience as much as possible as he suffered through an abbreviated version of his valet’s primping, then had his driver take him straight to Fairfax’s residence.
The doorkeeper was not at home. He and his new wife were promenading in Hyde Park.
Blast.
Michael would never be able to find them whilst ambling slowly along in his stately coach, so he requested his driver take him to the mews instead, where Michael forwent the ponderous carriage in favor of his fastest black steed.
As soon as he had mounted, he raced the stallion through the streets of Mayfair and into the cavalcade of Hyde Park. In haste, he nudged his horse between this landau and that curricle until at last he spied a shiny black barouche with Fairfax and his wife at the reins.
Michael dashed forward on his stallion. “Fairfax!”
“Wainwright.” The doorkeeper’s hallmark smile was even brighter with his wife at his side. “Heading to a ride on Rotten Row?”
“I no longer care about such distractions.” Michael waved away the idea. He didn’t have time for such nonsense. All he cared about was finding Lady X. “You must tell me who the divine creature was in the emerald dress. The one in the scarlet-plumed mask with the diamond eyeholes. I am desperate.”
It Happened One Night: Six Scandalous Novels Page 121
