by Sara Ramsey
Perhaps the pensive look on her face was what convinced Josephine that it was safe to leave her alone with Ferguson when they arrived. The maid left her in the foyer, telling her to dress while she cleared the path into Salford House.
Madeleine did not feel confident loving anyone. But she didn’t feel like letting go either. So as soon as Josephine was out of sight, she took Ferguson’s hand and pulled him up the stairs.
His lips were on her before he even shut the door. He had been unreadable in the coach, but now his desire for her was unmistakable. Their mouths locked against each other, his hands skimming over her derriere, her fingers burying themselves in his hair. The heat, the hunger, all the swirling need and frustration and desire and fear — the strength of it all scared her, even as it added a fierce edge to their kiss.
He untied her cravat and pulled her shirt over her head, dumping it on the floor before claiming her lips again. She tried to do the same to him, but he caught her hands and pulled away.
“You must return to Salford House too soon, love,” he said. “We have to dress you, not undress me.”
He used the endearment like it was easy for him, like he had already come to terms with what was between them. She loved it and hated it, just as undecided about the word as she was about what he wanted from her. So she kissed him, not wanting to think about the question he would undoubtedly ask her again.
He stopped her after one last kiss and turned her bodily toward the mirror. “No more, Mad, if we’re going to get you ready again.”
He disappeared into her dressing room. She stared at herself in the mirror while he rummaged through her clothes. She still wore her powdered wig from the theatre, disheveled from Hamlet’s final madness, which heightened the pallor of her skin — and the blush spreading across her cheeks. Her breasts were bound, but she was bare from the waist up, and her belly narrowed under her ribs before her hips flared out to fill her breeches.
Ferguson returned, dumping a dress and underthings on the chair beside her. Then he stood behind her, placing a kiss on the nape of her neck as he started to pull hairpins out of her wig.
“Do you intend to be my lady’s maid, then?” she asked, her voice coming out in a breathy thread.
“If you are willing to submit to my ministrations,” he said. “Or I could ring for Lizzie, but I would have to leave...”
He removed her wig and set it on the dressing table. Instead of attacking the pins that held her own hair to her head, he dropped his fingers down to graze across her shoulders, pulling her closer against his chest as he kissed the side of her neck.
She tilted her head to improve his access. “I will require a demonstration of your talents before I agree to keep you as my dresser.”
He chuckled, and she felt his laughter rumble through her. “Just a short demonstration, my lady. I do not usually work without a guarantee of payment.”
Madeleine tried to turn around toward him, eager for another kiss, but he pinned her in place. “I want you to watch in the mirror as I dress you.”
His voice dropped, and she shivered in response. She glanced at him in the mirror. The controlled look was back in his eyes — he intended to do more than help her with her clothes.
Thank goodness, she thought. She should have been ashamed, should have denied wanting something so wanton — her morals were appalling. But there was no mockery in his gaze, no judgment to chide her for her bad behavior.
He wanted this just as much as she did.
So when his hands came around her sides to untie the knot holding her bindings in place, she stayed still, watching as he had asked her to. She leaned against him, her back against his muscled chest, the hard ridge of his erection pressing insistently above the curve of her derriere. He only released her to unwind the linen, not slow and sensual like the last time, but fast and impatient, eager to see his prize. He twisted it around his fist as he moved his arm around her body, leaving her standing in place as he pulled the cloth away. Then he dropped it to the floor, bringing his hands back up to cup her.
She watched as her breasts filled his palms, shuddered as he massaged his fingers into her flesh. The angry red marks of the bindings crisscrossed her skin, and he traced one with his thumb. “When we are married, you must not abuse yourself like this again.”
He said it lightly, the same offhanded tone that said he already accepted her as his fate — and believed she would accept him as well.
“So you would have me stop acting?” she asked, her voice frigid even in its breathlessness.
He flicked his thumb across her nipple, and she gasped at the sensation after so many hours bound up in linen. She saw him smile in the mirror as he repeated the motion with her other nipple, and she sensed that he wanted to distract her.
But he answered her question. “I think it’s dangerous, foolish, and risky. But even though I should order you away from the theatre,” and here he paused to place a long, aching kiss at the base of her neck, “I wouldn’t ask you to give it up.”
His answer shocked her. No one, not even her own family, would think that a duchess could sneak off to the theatre on a whim.
However, he wasn’t finished. “If I thought you were on the verge of ruin, I would have to stop you — for your sake, though, not mine.”
“This all supposes that I agree to marry you, of course. If I recall correctly, I refused you.”
His gaze in the mirror hardened; he now directed his control at his temper as well as his lust. He renewed his onslaught, his palms pressing against the sides of her breasts, kneading into her with a feeling that was half pleasure, half almost pain. With his fingers massaging from the other side, he quickly built her to the point where her nipples were hardened nubs, the small pink tips aching to be sucked.
He still didn’t let her turn — still kept her facing the mirror. “There isn’t time tonight to take what I want,” he whispered in her ear, his breath caressing her skin with its heat. “But I will certainly give you what you want.”
She should have denied his body just as she denied his proposal — but the temptation was too high and her blood was too hot to make him stop. So she watched as his tanned, deliciously rough hand skimmed down over her belly, lingered briefly to run a thumb across her navel, and then slowly, slowly began to unbutton the placket of her breeches.
She squirmed against him and he pulled her closer, wrapping his left arm around her chest and letting the hand rest lazily on her right breast. His other hand continued its work, button after button, until her breeches were open and ready for him.
She closed her eyes as his hand slid underneath her clothing, whimpered as he found the nub of pleasure he had driven her wild with on their first night together. She was already wet for him, and he ran a finger deeper into her folds, using her own moisture to enhance the torment.
With every stroke, she writhed against him, and the building pleasure only increased her sensitivity. She felt the brocade of his waistcoat abrading her back, the buttons like cold little stars in the heat that had become her world. His arm, still encased in his jacket, rubbed against her breasts as he held her against him, and she realized that her own movements against him were causing her pleasure to spiral upward.
She couldn’t get purchase on anything, balanced precariously on her high heels. She tried to reach the table, but Ferguson was unyielding. He kept her flush against him, increasing the pace, his fingers teasing her with a pleasure that was just out of reach. Finally, she reached over her head, digging her nails into his shoulder — wanting him even closer, using his body for leverage to reach the pinnacle he drove her toward.
That last little movement, thrusting herself up into his hand, was her undoing. She would have screamed his name as she fell over the edge, but he clamped a hand over her mouth. His fingers kept their pace, though, stringing the pleasure out in a series of intense waves, each peak devastating in its power.
As the onslaught slowly subsided, Madeleine was glad Ferguso
n had kept her so close; her legs quivered under her, and she thought she might collapse if she was not still pressed against him. He removed his hand from her mouth, brushing a knuckle across her chin to tilt it up.
She opened her eyes. By all conventional mores, the tableau in the mirror should have shamed her. Instead, she looked... sensual, more erotic than any drawing or painting she had ever seen. The look in his eyes said he desired her; his member still jutting into her back confirmed it. She had never thought of herself as desirable, with her very un-English complexion and curves. But with his arm wrapped around her shoulders and his other hand slowly withdrawing from her breeches, she looked like the most desired woman in the world.
She also looked like she belonged in that role. It was the same kick of pleasure she got at the theatre — this was a man who adored her, who might worship the ground she walked on where so many others had failed to even notice her, even if he worshipped nothing and no one else.
But if she knew anything from the theatre, it was that adoration was a fickle thing. The same audience that wanted her tonight might throw shoes at her the next. And worship was not the same as love — and not the type of behavior a rake like Ferguson would sustain forever.
Even as she had the thought, Ferguson’s arm tightened around her. “You may miss the theatre, but I can assure you that you’ll miss this if you don’t say yes. None of your other options are more appealing.”
He was right. No woman would ever willingly trade an aristocratic life for the hand-to-mouth — or stage-to-bed — existence of the theatre. And spending the rest of her life in Ferguson’s arms would be preferable to an endlessly dull round of at-homes with Aunt Augusta.
Still, her entire rebellion was based on the desire to choose what to do with her life. Ferguson’s arms, draped possessively around her, said he thought the choice — his choice — was already made. How many more choices would he make for her if they were married?
So Madeleine lifted her chin and said in her coolest tones, “Your demonstration was quite sufficient. If you will help me to finish dressing, I should return to Salford House.”
She saw his jaw clench, but he didn’t say anything else. He ruthlessly stripped her out of her breeches, hose, and heels, still gentle, but without a single lingering caress. She raised her arms and he dropped the chemise over her head, fastened her stays around her, and quickly smoothed the evening gown down on top of it all.
He had all the efficiency of a lady’s maid, treating her like a chore instead of a prize. She couldn’t fault him. She had pushed him to the limit of his patience, and he was probably eager to see her leave.
She tried to make a joke, hoping humor would ease the tension. “I never thought to be thankful for all the other mistresses you’ve had, but you are much more skilled at this than I assumed.”
He didn’t laugh. “Don’t test me. You shall not put yourself in the same category as my former mistresses.”
He turned her toward him as he spoke, and he glared down at her until she shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “Do you know what truly surprises me about you, Mad? It’s not the theatre, or your talent, or all the passion you’ve kept hidden away. It’s that you can be so brave when it comes to the stage...”
He broke off, sweeping his gaze over her face again like he was searching for the last clue to a puzzle. Then he kissed her, slowly, with the caressing tenderness that was missing from their earlier inferno.
He finally pulled away, leaving her dazed — and all the more vulnerable to his next words. “So brave — and yet with love, you are such a coward.”
She gasped. His face was hard again, his temper high. “I won’t force you to acknowledge how you feel, even though I want to — even though I think you want me to. It would be easier for you to accept me if you didn’t have to choose, if you didn’t have to believe in me the way I believe in you.”
“Ferguson,” she started, but he cut her off.
“Don’t say a word,” he said, somehow gentle despite his anger. “I won’t ask again until the play is over. But I must warn you that ‘yes’ won’t be enough for me anymore — I want your heart, in exchange for the one you’ve already captured from me. And if you are too afraid to say it” — and here he broke off for one last, all-consuming kiss — “you aren’t the woman I thought you were.”
He left then, not waiting for her to speak, merely saying he would send Lizzie to fix her hair. As she waited, she stared in the mirror, shocked by what had just transpired. Their whole conversation — both the delightful interlude and the devastating aftermath — had taken only fifteen minutes, and yet it felt like fifteen years.
Was she really a coward? She had felt so daring, standing up on stage, sleeping with Ferguson. But all those risks felt like they were a dream, and what she ran from now was the reality of the rest of her life.
She touched her lips, still sensitive after his onslaught. What would she say when he asked his question again? And what was worse — giving in to her love despite her fears and misgivings, or denying it because she was just as much of a coward as Ferguson accused her of being?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Two weeks later, Madeleine sprawled on the worn floorboards of the stage, remaining motionless as the final scene played out around her. She always loved the moment when she died. This audience wept — she had brought them to their knees again.
Tonight, waiting for the play to end felt even more intense. If Madame Legrand kept her promise, this was her last public performance. Not just her last performance — the last time she would use a sword, the last time she would raise her voice and let it soar over the room, the last time she could wear breeches — the last time anyone noticed her talent rather than her title.
And the last time Ferguson escorted her as his mistress.
She heard the chorus rise behind her, the final bits of dialogue beginning as Fortinbras proclaimed the tragedy he had stumbled upon in the Danish court. The floorboards pulsed as her fellow actors moved around her body, and she realized she was trembling. Unless he had changed his mind, Ferguson would expect an answer to his proposal tonight.
He wouldn’t change his mind. He made his desire clear in every moment he could steal with her, as though seducing her was the answer to winning her heart. It wasn’t his sexual prowess that she needed assured of — although she was happy to let him try to win her that way. The issue was her heart — and the knowledge that she was just as cowardly as Ferguson had accused her of being.
Tonight, he would want words, not kisses. But was she ready to answer him?
The music stopped and the curtain dropped. She heard the audience screaming Marguerite’s name, felt their clapping and stomping in her bones. The man who played Fortinbras helped her up and she dusted off her jacket, trying to calm herself so that she could greet their applause with nonchalant grace. But when the curtain rose again and she prepared to take her bow, there was only one man she could see.
Ferguson sat in the front row, directly in her line of vision, his gaze roving over her just as she knew his hands would when he had her alone. He had sat there through the whole play, and on this final night, he was the only person she wanted to see. She did not know if he could sense her thoughts, but when she had walked onto the stage at the beginning of this final play, she realized her last performance was for him.
The sound of the crowd was an indistinct roar. She bowed, then bowed again, but the general adoration of the audience, which had thrilled her for weeks, was no longer enough. It was Ferguson’s attention that filled her, his applause that warmed her and made her feel like she had done something worth commending.
Madame Legrand bustled out, ready to address her patrons. Madeleine froze, still watching Ferguson. He seemed poised to tackle Madame at the first hint of betrayal. Madeleine thought the woman’s word was good — but greed often overcame good intentions.
“Ladies and gentleman...” Madame Legrand began. While her French accent was still
laughable compared to Madeleine’s, her words were appropriate, thanking them for their attendance and asking them to return for the staging of Richard III that would begin the following week.
After acknowledging the polite smattering of applause, she turned to Madeleine. “And now, if you would all be so kind, please join me in wishing Madame Guerrier much joy on her retirement from the stage.”
Madeleine exhaled a breath she hadn’t intended to hold. The two women smiled briefly at each other, and Madeleine realized she had survived her act unscathed. She looked down at Ferguson, who still watched her, and he grinned at her triumph.
But then she curtseyed to the audience and noticed their reaction. People streamed out in droves as soon as the play ended, but those near the doors turned back as though they couldn’t believe their ears, blocking the exits. Those prone to tears wept again in earnest; others stared at her in shock. Actresses who achieved Madeleine’s early success simply did not retire after their first engagement. The news would take everyone by surprise.
She finally looked more closely at the people surrounding Ferguson. The aristocrats had claimed the best seats, and the people she recognized from the ton — an even mix of rakish men and daring matrons — stared at Ferguson, their gloved hands covering their mouths as they whispered into their companions’ ears.
She curtseyed again, taking care not to look at Ferguson as she came up from her bow. The audience would think what it wished to think. With Marguerite Guerrier absent from London, the gossips would soon move on to other topics. She would not let their reaction stop her from taking joy in the sweetness of this moment. After all, it was a compliment that no one wanted her to quit.
She had done the impossible — put aside her proper life, conquered the stage, and survived to take up whatever life she wished to choose next. No one had discovered her. Both Augusta and Alex had assured her that they would neither send her to Bermuda nor force her to marry Ferguson if she came home unscathed tonight. She still wasn’t speaking to Amelia, but she and the others had formed the rocky beginning of a truce.
