by Liz Carlyle
Bentley just laughed again and began to nibble at the swell of her bottom lip, sucking it between his lips and gently biting. Soon he’d worked his way down her throat, nipping and tasting, moving lower and lower, until, at last, she tried to push him away. “Go!” she ordered. “Stop trying to distract me.”
With one clever hand, he tugged loose the tie at the throat of her nightdress—the nightdress he had insisted his invalid put on. “How heartless you are, Freddie, to use me and then toss me aside,” he murmured, his lips sliding across the swell of her breast.
“You have never been tossed aside by a woman in your life, Bentley Rutledge.”
He lifted his mouth from her breast and looked at her through a shock of disordered black hair. “But how can I leave my wife when she is so clearly in need of further ministrations?” he whispered, flicking a quick glance down at her nipple, taut beneath her gown.
Frederica squeezed her eyes shut. “You are trying to distract me,” she said in a warning tone. “Go to dinner!”
For a moment, he stared at her through dark, somnolent eyes. “All right,” he said more seriously. “Just promise me you will be in this bed when I get back.”
“I promise.”
He began to slide from the bed, but, on impulse, she stopped him. “Bentley, I—”
His gaze softened. “What is it, Freddie?”
She smiled crookedly. “I’m sorry, Bentley, that I gave you such an awful fright.”
He shifted his weight until he sat on the edge of the bed. “You surely didn’t mean to, Freddie,” he said, gently stroking his palm over her hair. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”
Frederica shook her head and swallowed hard. “How can it be a mess when…when I love you so?” she whispered. “I do love you, Bentley. I know it now. Shocking, isn’t it?”
He looked at her strangely. “Freddie—”
She cut him off. “No, don’t look at me like that! Don’t smile at me as if I’m some adorable but misguided child. I’m not, do you hear me?”
For a long, silent moment, he held her gaze, as if looking beyond her eyes, beyond her thoughts, and into something deeper still. Then, as if waking from a dream, he shook his head, bent forward, and slanted his mouth over hers in a kiss which was infinite in its gentleness. When at last he lifted his head and began to pull away, she caught his hand again.
“Bentley?”
He turned back at once. “Yes, Freddie?”
“Are you…are you keeping anything from me?”
His eyes darkened at once. “Is that what those words of love were all about?” he asked a little roughly. “Emotional bribery, Freddie? It won’t work.”
But Freddie held firm. “Just answer the question.”
He shook his head disbelievingly and cursed beneath his breath. “What would I possibly hide from you?” he asked. “What is it you suspect me of? Have I not danced attendance on you like the most faithful of lovers?”
“You have.” Frederica pursed her lips. “That is not what I meant.”
His expression gentled. “Then you have the answer to all the important questions right there, Freddie.” His mood seemed light again. As if to prove it, he bent and kissed the top of her nose.
“And Bentley?”
“What?”
She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “Make things right with your brother, won’t you? Will you try?”
His smile was faintly mocking. “It is not that simple, love.”
“Why not? Families should always get along.”
He looked at her very gravely. “You are my family now, Freddie, aren’t you?” And then, as if to distract her—or perhaps to distract himself—he set his hands on either side of her shoulders and took her lips again. But this time, it was no sweet, delicate kiss. It was a kiss of urgent hunger yet almost sinfully slow and languorous. And it did distract her, damn him. Every serious thought flew from her head as Frederica felt her body melt against his, wordlessly begging for his touch.
To torment her, Bentley slid his tongue back and forth along the seam of her lips until she could not resist, and then he eased into her mouth on a groan. With slow, sinuous motions, he plumbed her depths, until Frederica’s hands became restless on his body, sliding down his back, pleading and seeking.
And then, slowly, he pulled away and gave her a rueful grin. “Damn, Freddie, look at the time,” he said. “You’re making me late for dinner.”
“You wretch!” Her words were but a whisper, yet he chuckled softly. “Can you never be serious five minutes running?”
Bentley shrugged, and made her no answer. After dressing for dinner, he breezed past, pausing just long enough to kiss Frederica once more before leaving. Feeling the need to move and stretch, she got up and began to tidy the room. Her dress, chemise, and fichu still lay across the chair where Bentley had tossed them. Frederica picked them up and carried them into the dressing room. It was only then that she realized her pearl scarf pin was missing.
Frederica’s heart sank. The pin had been a birthday gift from Winnie. Suddenly, she remembered having taken it off to pry open the lock for Ariane. She considered it but a moment before throwing on her dressing gown and going out into the corridor. Besides, she had been trapped in bed with her thoughts all day, and, for reasons she could not explain, she’d grown increasingly curious about the contents of that chest.
With everyone at dinner, it was no trouble at all to slip out and down the stairs. The corridor was dark, with only a wall sconce to light the landing, but she made her way to the bedchamber with no trouble. Once inside the room, however, it was very dark indeed. Frederica stubbed her toe on the chest, cursed soundly, then knelt down to feel her way around it. She found the pin just where she’d dropped it and paused long enough to jab it through her dressing gown.
Frederica stood up—slowly this time—then, on second thought, bent down and lifted the lid. Impulsively, she thrust her hand beneath the old blankets and, one by one, extracted Cassandra Rutledge’s journal and the books beneath it. She felt a little guilty for doing so, but she was growing deeply curious about Lord Treyhern’s first wife. What had she liked to read? What had her daily life been like? Ariane did not seem to pine for her mother. But whatever she’d been or done, Cassandra Rutledge was dead now. So what harm was there in flipping through a few old books to alleviate one’s boredom?
Moments later, Frederica was back with no one the wiser. Eagerly, she dumped the books in the middle of the bed, then settled down beside them. The first was a tattered copy of an old gothic novel. Frederica tossed it aside and snatched the second, a book of French fashion plates, at least a decade out of date. She flipped through it, chuckling at the high waists, protruding feathers, and jutting breasts, then tossed it aside, too.
Then she grabbed the third, which was large but not thick. Illustrations, Frederica guessed. She looked at it curiously. The book was bound in a garish shade of red morocco, and if ever there had been a title stamped on the spine, it had worn away long ago. There was an inscription on the flyleaf, dated almost twenty years ago. Frederica peered at the flamboyant, feminine handwriting:
To my delightful Randolph—
Paris has many pleasures, and I have brought one home to you. May it serve to tempt and to inspire.
—Your ever-admiring Marie
What an odd inscription. So the book was not Cassandra’s at all. Instead, someone named Marie had given it to Bentley’s father. With a shrug, Frederica flipped it open somewhere near the middle, and her eyes almost fell out of her head.
Good Lord! It was a picture book, all right. A collection of colored sketches which must have cost a fortune to produce. And they were nothing but blatant obscenity, brazen depictions of ladies and gentlemen performing sexual acts which were wicked beyond anything Frederica could possibly have imagined. A few more pages, and her heart began to pound with horror and guilt and pure old human titillation. Dear heaven, she thought, turning one page sideways to b
etter study it. Could the human body really do that?
Her face felt afire. She wanted to toss the thing out the window lest her fascination be discovered. And she was fascinated. Frederica had not been raised a prude, but only after her marriage had she begun to realize the many ways lovers pleasured one another. Indeed, she had imagined her husband knew every trick in the book and had already taught her most of them. But as she slid back another page to see a drawing of a plump Parisian lady pleasuring two men at once—and using some orifices which were hard to conceive of—Frederica began to doubt that even Bentley had seen all the tricks in this book.
The next sketch was even more fascinating, in a way. A woman sat astraddle her lover, who lay flat on the bed beneath her, his arms folded beneath his head. She was touching herself on her breasts and between her legs as he watched. The reclining gentleman looked deeply appreciative. On the adjacent page, a man sat drinking champagne while his lover knelt between his knees with his erect penis in her mouth.
With each drawing, Frederica’s eyebrows flew another notch higher, and she was ashamed to admit that it left her almost eager for her husband’s return. But would Bentley approve of his wife having seen such a book? Even as it shocked her, the book made her feel inadequate. Clearly, there was much about pleasing a man she needed to learn. Was one supposed to know how to do such things instinctively? Had she, perhaps, been a disappointment to her husband?
Slowly, Frederica closed the book. She had much to think about. Certainly, the dusty old journal no longer held her interest. Feeling both confused and enlightened, Frederica gathered up all the books and shoved them deep into the recesses of the dressing room. Then she changed into her finest nightdress and crawled back under the covers to await her husband’s return.
Chapter Eighteen
In which Our Hero is quite Taken Aback.
It was a known fact, so far as Bentley Rutledge was concerned, that a colder, more rigid man than his brother had never drawn the breath of life. The Earl of Treyhern had apparently been born a saint, and age had only made him worse. He was also industrious, intelligent, chivalrous, and a whole host of other adjectives which were ordinarily thought good qualities but merely served to get on Bentley’s nerves. He’d never been able to measure up, so “Why bother to try?” had become his motto at an early age, an attitude encouraged by their father.
Other than an occasional reading of the riot act, Cam hadn’t seemed to care that Bentley didn’t bother. Perhaps there was nothing Cam could have done anyway. And yet some part of Bentley felt that his brother should have tried. But tried to do what? He did not know. Better than a dozen years separated them. To him, Cam had always seemed like a man grown, and, to use Joan’s apt term, omnipotent. Sometimes he wondered if Cam had ever really given him a moment’s thought after their mother had died. Instead, it seemed Cam had worried more about marrying a rich wife and keeping the whip hand on their father.
The sad truth was, though, that both had been necessary to save the family from ruin. Still, it sometimes felt as if Cam had been so bloody busy restoring the family’s façade he’d ignored the deep fissures in its structure. Bentley was not jealous of his brother. No, he was…angry. Just angry. And left with this niggling sense of having been cast off by someone who should have been, well, paying attention.
There, he’d said it—at least in his head, thought Bentley, as he trod slowly up the stairs. And it sounded so lame, so pathetically little-boy-lost, that he’d sooner choke on it than say it aloud. He had never asked for Cam’s help or love or attention, and he damned sure wasn’t about to start now. Still, impending fatherhood began to stir up strange things in a fellow’s head.
Their dinner tonight had been a damned misery. Cam had been cold and distant, and, as if to compensate, Helene had been annoyingly exuberant. Then Ariane had prattled on for half an hour about her friend Henriette’s letter, and, for once, his niece’s banter had made Bentley want to throttle someone. Even Mrs. Naffles’s menu had been abysmal: a joint which tasted tough as saddle leather, accompanied by an array of overstewed vegetables.
Bentley’s only hope of salvaging the evening was to go upstairs and make love to his wife. He only prayed Freddie felt up to it. Good God, he’d really come to depend on the chit. With Freddie, he could blind out the bad and think only of the future.
Was it wrong, he wondered, to spend his emotions inside his wife’s body? No matter. So long as she’d have him, he didn’t mean to stop. Until now, he had rarely stopped doing anything which brought him relief, pleasure, or satisfaction, choosing instead to live with whatever guilt resulted. He was fortunate that Freddie was always willing. No, eager. She was a wonderfully sensual creature, with her flashing eyes and warm skin. From the very first, her passion had delighted him, and her innocence had charmed him.
She was awake when he came into the room. Bentley gave her a cheerful, smacking kiss, sloshed out a dram of cognac, then fell into a chair by the hearth to kick off his shoes. Looking delightfully drowsy and disheveled, she slid from between the sheets and padded across the carpet toward him. To his surprise, she settled on her knees by his chair and began to help. “How was dinner?” she asked, her voice low.
“Bloody awful,” he admitted as the first shoe slid away.
“I’m sorry.” She tugged off the second, then looked up at him with a coy smile. “Can I do something to make you forget about it?”
Intrigued by the throaty tone of her voice, Bentley arched one brow and studied her. He had more than a little experience with the subtleties of feminine behavior, and Freddie was definitely sending some signals. Her hair was not braided. Instead, it formed a tumbling black waterfall about her shoulders, just the way he liked it. Her mouth looked full and tempting, and there was something in the back of her rich brown eyes which made his breath catch. And she had changed into her thinnest nightdress, one made of fine white lawn, so sheer it exposed her breasts, which had grown plump and round these past few weeks. Her nipples were dark, rosy circles, beautifully hard beneath the fabric.
“Freddie love,” he said softly. “With breasts like those, you could make a man forget his own name.”
Frederica smiled and flashed him a look which could only have been described as naughty. And then she shocked him by running her palms up the insides of his thighs and making a little sound of pleasure in the back of her throat.
“Mmm,” he said. “Mind those clever hands, Freddie.”
But she didn’t. Instead, she leaned into him, allowing the neckline of her nightdress to gape wide. Bentley’s mouth went dry. He watched her full breasts sway as her hands slid higher, her thumbs massaging deep into his thigh muscles, deep enough to make his cock twitch with pleasure.
Oh, Lord. He was already so hard it felt as if someone had shoved a double-barreled dueling pistol down his trousers. But when she slid her hands higher still, kneading him up and down though the fabric of his trousers, Bentley fleetingly feared he might explode still dressed. “Freddie love,” he said hoarsely, catching one of her hands. “Best wait for me in bed.”
She cut a sly glance up at him. “What if I can’t wait?” she purred.
Bentley closed his eyes. “Just let me undress,” he whispered thickly. “Then, I swear, sweetheart, I’ll ease what’s plaguing you, all right?”
Apparently, it wasn’t. Freddie rose onto her knees, twined one hand behind his neck, and kissed him deeply. She eased her tongue into his mouth with slow strokes, forcing his breath to come hard and fast. A long moment later, she sat back on her heels and smiled. “I don’t want to wait for you to undress,” she whispered, toying with the close of his trousers. “Perhaps tonight we should do something different?”
He let her fingers go then, curious as to just how far the minx meant to take this and wondering what the devil had got into her. In response, Freddie slid one hand down his crotch, cradling the heat of his balls in her palm, while the other hand cleverly freed the buttons. He tried to snare her hand aga
in. “Whoa there, Freddie.” He choked out the words. “Sure you know what you’re about?”
She answered him with a flirtatious smile, then pushed away the fabric of his shirt and trousers, crumpling his drawers in the process. His dueling pistol sprang free, hard, hot, primed, and cocked. To his shock, she slicked one warm, delicate hand down his length, drawing back his flesh and fully exposing his head. His entire body shivered. “Good God Almighty,” he heard himself groan.
It was exquisite. She caressed him gently at first, with long, languorous strokes, cleverly mimicking the way he liked to move inside her body. Oh, she was a fast learner, his pretty wife. Again and again, she touched him, growing increasingly skillful—and increasingly demanding. As her fingers moved over his heated flesh, one hand slid back down to massage the weight of his testicles. At every turn, he meant to stop her. Wanted to stop her. But somehow, in the heat of things, she got his trousers halfway down his thighs and then down around his ankles, until he’d slid onto the edge of his chair, fully exposed to her touch.
It felt so decadently wicked to sit thus by a warm fire, with the rest of his dinner dress perfectly intact, a glass of good brandy in his hand, and his wife on her knees, almost suppliant between his legs. Faintly, he knew he should push her away. Knew it was wrong to let Freddie—a gently bred girl—touch him in so vulgar a way. And wrong to want more. To want her mouth on his cock. There were women a fellow could pay if he needed that sort of thing. But it felt so good. Oh, sweet heaven, it felt good. Her next stroke tightened into a fist, drawing his skin so taut his whole body shuddered. “Aaah,” he moaned, letting his head tip back.
It was then, at the very instant he wasn’t watching, that his wife bent her head and took him deep into her mouth, plunging him into a smooth, sensual warmth which words could not describe. “Christ Jesus, Freddie!” he croaked, his whole body going rigid in his chair. His head jerked up, brandy sloshed onto the carpet, and his free hand clenched the chair arm, as though he were clinging to the last of his sanity. For a moment, he allowed himself the luxury of watching her lush lips slide along his swollen flesh. And then, reluctantly, he set aside his glass and took her face between his palms, gently forcing her head up.
