The Love of a Rake

by Linda Rae Sande

  The earl blinked. Well, this is a first, Wakefield thought as he reached out to the row of jet buttons that held her gown closed. “You’ll have to remember to wear a gown that doesn’t have buttons the next time you’re here. I’ve no lady’s maid in this household,” he scolded lightly, quickly finishing the task of unbuttoning her gown as if he did it every night. Then he reached down to grab a handful of muslin to pull the gown, and while he was at it, her petticoat, over her head.

  A puzzle piece was still hanging out there, he remembered, wondering what it was about this chit that had him behaving, well, a bit more civilly than he might normally. He ignored her gasp as the gown and petticoat were freed from her body. He tossed it rather unceremoniously toward the chair and then moved to undo the ties of her corset. Within a few seconds, he had that garment as well as her chemise removed.

  Eleanor’s arms instinctively wrapped around the front of her body, covering her bared breasts. Wearing only black slippers, stockings and garters, she held herself very still.

  From Wakefield’s perspective, she was suddenly the most erotic sight he had ever laid eyes upon. And he was merely looking at her backside—a long neck and longer back, slim waist, perfect bottom and shapely legs. He sighed in appreciation, and Eleanor dared to look at him from over her shoulder. “I’ll remember, my lord,” she murmured, her eyes turning down again.

  Another puzzle piece clicked into place.

  “Call me Henry,” he replied, surprising himself as he reached out to place a hand on her shoulder. He found he felt a bit of relief when she didn’t flinch at his touch. With a gentle shove, he turned her body slowly until she faced him. He reached out to lift one hand from a breast and raised it to his lips.

  Eleanor’s eyes followed the motion, and she watched while he kissed the back of her fingers. His eyes took in the front of her. She gave him her other hand when he raised an eyebrow. He held both hands in his much larger hands while he continued to gaze at her. “You’re very pretty,” he murmured, feeling suddenly very sober.

  And very aroused.

  Her pale breasts were pert and round, tipped with nipples that were especially dark and already tightened into hard buds. And her mound of brown curlies, so small between the creamy white thighs, caught his eye. He licked his lips in anticipation.

  The puzzle was nearly complete.

  “Thank you. Hen ... Henry,” she stammered. “I am to tell you, ‘happy birthday’ ... I am ...” She paused a moment to take a breath and to swallow hard. “I am your birthday gift.”

  The words were nearly strangled coming out, but Wakefield heard them clearly enough. “Indeed?” he replied in delight, a smile making his face suddenly appear friendly. He hadn’t thought much about his twenty-seventh birthday. Next week sometime, he remembered absently.

  So if Lucy had sent Eleanor for his birthday, he thought he should figure out why the chit had been chosen as his gift.

  Another puzzle piece!

  What special talent did she possess that he might find enjoyable or more pleasurable than the regular whores Mrs. Gibbons sent to him twice a week? He felt Eleanor relax a bit and realized he had probably been scowling at her all night. “Well, since I have unwrapped my present, I shall have to decide what to do with you,” he said lightly, placing her hand on his arm and leading her to the bed. Perhaps she is an accomplished kisser, he thought happily. One didn’t usually kiss whores, but with those red, full lips, she seemed imminently kissable.

  Or perhaps she would straddle him and ride him like a racehorse, bending low over him so that he might capture her dark nipples with his teeth and tongue. “Climb up,” he said happily, removing his dressing gown in a flourish and tossing it toward the chair by the fire.

  The young woman let out a squeak and stepped back, trying hard as she did so to avert her gaze from his sudden nakedness.

  Wakefield grinned. “No need to be shy,” he said, leaning over to grasp Eleanor by the sides of her waist and lifting her onto the bed. Her hands had instinctively reached for his shoulders, her warms fingers pressing into his flesh so that the ends of her fingernails left little half moon brands in his skin. The thought of the way she clung to him for that moment had his cock hardening even more than the sight of her breasts.

  He felt her body shiver and realized she was trembling.

  Her entire body was quaking. Such anticipation, he thought, arranging the puzzle piece so it fit into the picture he was slowly creating of her. He lowered his mouth to one of her breasts, breathed in the soft scent of her skin. She wore no perfume but smelled faintly of lemon soap. She bathed for me, he thought in wonderment, his body responding more quickly than usual to the feel of her body against his.

  Another puzzle piece clicked into place.

  Laving his tongue across the ruched bud, he felt delight when her entire back arched up and an audible gasp escaped her lips. He drew his tongue across to the other breast, repeating his quick seduction of that nipple while a thumb and forefinger pinched her other nipple. The double hitch in her breath told him she was feeling something from his ministrations.

  I usually don’t do this to a whore, he considered. He was usually the one being pleasured, the one being stroked and suckled. This night was different, though. This woman was soft and silken and responsive, clean and fresh, her innocent act from a few moments ago a powerful aphrodisiac that made him want to pleasure her until she fractured. He wanted to take her right then, though. Bury himself deep inside her and allow his release. The mere thought of spilling his seed inside her nearly had him climaxing right then.

  Hold on, he thought suddenly. He wanted this harlot back in his bed. The puzzle of her was nearly complete, but what was the hurry in completing it in one night? This was no time to turn selfish and take his pleasure before he had seen to hers.

  From the corner of one eye, he watched as her fingers clutched the bed’s counterpane. It was if she had to anchor herself to the bed or risk floating above it from the shear pleasure of his touch, he thought with some amusement. If he continued to pleasure her, he was sure she would return to his bed, perhaps even beg to be sent back to him. Yes, this was one puzzle he would gladly welcome to his bed again and again.

  He slid one knee over hers, forcing her legs to spread apart just a bit as he slid the fingers of one hand down her sides and across her belly, barely touching her skin as he did so. She continued to gasp, continued to hold onto handfuls of the counterpane as her body arched up, her dark nipples erect atop the beautiful mounds of her breasts. Nipples of Venus, he thought, wondering briefly where he had sampled the chocolate confection. But these were so much better, he considered, offered to him on a plate of silken skin that tasted slightly of salt and smelled of pure womanhood.

  Another puzzle piece clicked into place.

  Lifting his body over hers, he watched as her brown eyes widened, watched as her mouth shaped into an ‘o’, and smiled when she nearly screamed as his thumb caressed the swollen folds between her thighs. God, she’s beautiful, he thought, lowering his head to her belly. He slid the palms of his hands beneath her, lifting her bottom until her thighs fell apart. Once she was opened to him, he reached out with his tongue and laved it across her womanhood. Once, twice, and then, after a pause, his lips suckled the swollen mass.

  When the sound of her sudden cry and subsequent mewling reached his ears, he allowed a smile. Success!

  Straightening his body so he stood on his knees, he rested his hands on her bent legs as he regarded his nearly completed puzzle. Her entire body was flushed in a becoming pink glow. Her hair, which had been barely held up with a few pins, was now splayed across the dark counterpane in a golden brown halo. She looks like an angel, he thought happily, deciding it was his efforts that had brought about the glow.

  He gave her a nod, and then glanced down when he saw the object of her suddenly shocked gaze. He shrugged. “I’m sure you’ve seen many like mine,” he teased, indicating his hardened cock as it bobbed from i
ts nest of dark curls.

  A last puzzle piece was almost ready to be put into place.

  “Or perhaps not,” he commented with amusement as he regarded his member. “I am told it is larger than most,” he announced proudly, just as he lowered the object of her attention into her wet, warm sheath, thrusting himself a bit harder than he intended when he felt a hint of resistance. Before he could register the shock and subsequent wince he noticed on her face, or hear the sudden hiss of air she sucked in through her teeth, he let out a growl at the tightness that surrounded his manhood. He let out another growl when he felt her body arch against his, and still another when her knees raised up and pressed against his hips, allowing him deeper inside her warm cocoon. He hadn’t even had a chance to begin the rhythmic motions of intercourse when his body betrayed him, the contractions of a climax so intense he nearly passed out from the sudden pleasure.

  “I am quite sure I would not know,” Eleanor said quietly, her lips nearly touching his ear as she spoke the words. Her short breaths seemed to caress his hair, ruffling a few of the strands near his ear so they tickled.

  The earl stirred and lifted his head from where it had fallen above her shoulder. “What did you say?” he wondered. He had expected her to at least agree or counter his claim with a playful guffaw as any other harlot would have done.

  And then he considered what had just happened.

  “I’ve never done this before,” she whispered, her head shaking back and forth against the counterpane.

  Click!

  Chapter 3

  A Rake Pays Witness to a Visit

  A bit after midnight of September 15

  Randall Roderick watched from his bedchamber window as what appeared to be a hackney pulled up in front of the townhouse across the street and to the west of his own. His butler, Giles, had informed him that an earl occupied that particular property. “He is in residence almost year ’round, my lord,” the butler had said in a manner suggesting he was the aristocrat and not the marquess he served. “Young, unmarried, and he has the reputation of a libertine.”

  This last comment had Randall arching an eyebrow. He was quite sure Giles knew the name of said earl and was probably holding it back in the hopes he could impress his master with it when asked as to the identity of the earl.

  Randall didn’t ask.

  He would meet the man soon enough—if not on one of his morning walks, then in the chambers at Parliament.

  And so what if the man was a libertine? Randall had just spent the evening at White’s in the company of just such a gentleman, although to be fair to the Earl of Wakefield, he was better known as a rake rather than a libertine. And Randall was quite sure his butler was aware of his own reputation as the Rake of Reading.

  He had earned the moniker at an early age, delighting in seducing young widows and bedding lonely matrons whose husbands were busy at men’s clubs and brothels. Handsome and possessing an ease with conversation and an education commensurate with his position as a marquess, Randall was soon a father four times over. He never married the mothers of his bastard sons, although he would have been unable to do so in the case of two of them, considering they were already married. He kept in touch with all the boys, though, and saw to the placement of the two born to unmarried women in homes of well-to-do cits.

  He also saw to their education. The oldest was already seventeen, the age at which Randall had impregnated his daughter-of-a-viscount mother. She was long gone from London, married to a baron who claimed to love her despite her having been ruined. The two were now raising a brood somewhere in Northumberland.

  Randolph Roderick—Randall had made sure the boy had his surname—was now at Oxford. Randall could only hope his son had taken his advice regarding the use of French letters whilst at university. “There is nothing more frightening to a man of your age than to discover you’re about to become a father,” he warned Randolph. “Nor more expensive. Illegal or not, use them,” he had commanded. He rather wished his own father had suggested he employ condoms. Had he done so, he was quite sure he wouldn’t have fathered three more sons in the next seven years.

  Four sons and not a single heir. Well, it was past time he do something about his status as an unmarried aristocrat. He needed a wife and a legitimate son.

  The marquess returned this attention to the hackney across the street. The driver had stepped down and opened the door, appearing a bit impatient as he waited for his passenger to take her leave.

  The figure that emerged was definitely a woman, although the gas lights lining Curzon Street proved too dim to illuminate her. Having seen the same situation occur just a few days ago at exactly midnight, and a few days before that at midnight, the marquess realized his neighbor must have arranged a regular liaison with a courtesan or two. Having still been awake a few nights ago, he had been aware of a hackney returning to the townhouse at two o’clock in the morning, its passenger the very woman who had been left there two hours earlier.

  Randall couldn’t help the bit of envy he felt at knowing a neighbor didn’t have to seek female companionship but rather had it delivered to him. The earl was probably just like Randall had been ten or fifteen years ago. Young, handsome, too confident—and randy.

  Hell, I’m still handsome and confident, Randall thought, noting his reflection in the window glass. If he held his head up just a bit, his second chin wasn’t the least bit evident.

  The sound of horse hooves had him returning his attention to the earl’s visitor. The hackney pulled away, leaving its passenger regarding the townhouse for a moment before she finally made the short walk to the stairs.

  When the young woman reached the top step of the townhouse, she paused and glanced around. Randall was quite sure she was barely out of the schoolroom, if she had ever been in one. Young, dark of hair and wide-eyed, she paused before she lifted a gloved fist to rap on the door.

  He wondered at her hesitance. The other ladybird he had seen approach the townhouse had done so with confident steps and her head held high, as if she were proud of her status as one of London’s ladies of the evening being sent on a house call.

  Perhaps this one had never been dispatched to a lord’s home before, plying her trade at the brothel from which she had been dispatched. Or perhaps she was new to the trade entirely.

  The thought had Randall suddenly reeling. What if the chit was a virgin?

  He frowned as he watched the door open and the young woman step into the brightly-lit vestibule. And then the door closed behind her and the night swallowed up the bit of light that had been there.

  Randall sighed and turned away from the window. He had come to his room intending to dress for a return visit to White’s, but the thought of spending the early morning hours in the company of other men suddenly held little appeal. Even the thought of a glass of port or brandy while reading that day’s The Times didn’t convince him it was worth his time or effort to dress for the short trip.

  Sighing, he turned to regard the bed, his gaze finally turning back to the window and the townhouse in which the supposed prostitute had disappeared. None of the windows held shadows of the people within; in fact, no lights were visible in any of the windows.

  Deciding the earl’s bedchamber—or whatever room he used when bedding a woman—must be on the back half of the townhouse, Randall pulled shut the heavy velvet drapes and climbed into bed.

  For the few moments before sleep took him, he considered his rather odd mood and how he might overcome it. He knew why he felt this way, at least. And he couldn’t exactly blame it entirely on the long letter he had received just before he left for White’s earlier that evening. But its message had left him feeling a bit lost. A bit lonely.

  And very alone.

  This kind of melancholy required a morning walk, he decided. An early morning walk in the park.

  After all, one never knew what—or who—they would find in Hyde Park in the early morning hours.

  Chapter 4

  Decis
ions, Decisions

  One-thirty in the morning of September 15

  Charles Henry Goodwin did something he normally didn’t do in the company of a female. He cursed. Then he cursed again as he lifted his head from where it had fallen above her shoulder. He stared at Eleanor Merriweather. “You’re a virgin?” he whispered hoarsely, his voice seeming to roar given how close it was to his bed companion’s ear. His breathing was still heavy, his chest heaving against the front of her soft body.

  Eleanor, terror evident in her eyes, reluctantly nodded. “Well, I was,” she replied, her lower lip trembling. Which didn’t help Wakefield’s situation one iota—part of him wanted desperately to capture that lower lip with his own and kiss the girl senseless. “Mrs. Gibbons said ... she said it was your birthday and that you should have a special present.”

  Wakefield’s eyes blinked twice and then rounded in shock. “That bitch!” he cursed, making sure he wasn’t looking at Eleanor when he said it. He tried to calm himself, not wanting to frighten the poor girl in whom his cock was still firmly planted. His erection had thankfully subsided somewhat, but what good did that do when the deed had already been done? He had experienced one of the most satisfying and pleasurable couplings of his entire life, only to discover too late that he had taken a girl’s virtue. And it wasn’t as if he had any experience with a virgin to know what to expect—or not—when it came to a tumble.

  Whatever was he to do now? This ten-piece puzzle had suddenly doubled, nay, quadrupled in size.

  “Why ... why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered, his anger abating somewhat, his attention focused on the top of her shoulder. He couldn’t bear to look at her just then. He certainly wouldn’t have bedded the young woman if he had known she was a virgin. He might engage in sexual romps that would shock even the most jaded trollops and some of his peers, but he would never knowingly deflower a maiden!