The Curse of Lord Stanstead

by Mia Marlowe

  The guest list seemed to be made up of mostly young bucks from the city. Cassandra recognized several dandies by their affected use of snuff and sashaying gait, despite their elaborate disguises. One lady—and Cassie used the term very loosely indeed—strutted by them with her bosom bared completely, her nipples pert as ripe strawberries. She smiled invitingly at Garret.

  Cassandra smacked his shoulder when he failed to look away as quickly as she’d have liked. “Kindly attend to business.”

  “Right now our business is to blend in,” he whispered back, a false smile firmly in place. “Besides, if a man doesn’t stare at a pair of pips like that, he’s up to something for sure. We don’t want to arouse suspicion, do we?”

  “We don’t want to arouse anything else either.” That tight, uncomfortable feeling in her belly was jealousy, and she knew she had no right. But knowing she wasn’t entitled to the emotion didn’t lessen its hold one jot.

  Garret steered her into the parlor where another gentleman was pouring champagne down his lady’s bodice and inviting other guests, both male and female, to sip from her daring décolletage. The woman alternately shrieked or giggled, but she nonetheless arched her back to thrust her breasts toward each newcomer. Finally, she peeled her sodden gown down and held her breasts together with her hands to create a fleshy champagne flute between them.

  “Where did Roddy find these women?” Cassandra asked under her breath. She had expected a bit of wildness, but this was beyond the pale. Her belly roiled uneasily. “Courtesans, widows of loose reputation, and a few streetwalkers for those with coarser tastes, I’ll be bound.”

  “Don’t say that too loudly or you will be. This sort of conclave can feature all kinds of loveplay. Bondage is likely a favorite.” He surveyed the room. “Do you see anyone who might be Bellefonte?”

  Cassie shook her head. “Roderick is tall, nearly your height. All the gentlemen in this room are too short.”

  He took her by the elbow and led her to the next room where the air was filled with a spicy-smelling mist, like a low-hanging fog. It was a pleasant smell, so Cassie drew in a deep lungful. Several couples were draped over the settees in various positions, all joined in “making the beast with two backs” with as much abandon as if they were alone in the room. One particularly inventive pair was using the padded arm of a wing chair for leverage in a way its maker certainly never intended.

  “Any of them?” Garret asked.

  Cassandra eyed each of the couples, trying to decide if any of the men was Roddy. Once, this would have sickened her. Instead, to her surprise, she felt merely curious as she watched the lovemaking going on around them.

  “I doubt he’s here,” she finally said. “He’s never been given to public displays of affection.”

  “Affection has nothing to do with what’s happening here.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been to this sort of party before,” Cassie said softly.

  “I have.” He looked down at her, his eyes hungry. “Do you want me to lie, Cassie? Yes, you’re hearing the voice of debauched experience. After Alice died, I didn’t care about anyone or anything. It was just a way to stop feeling pain. But now all I can see, all I want to see, is you.”

  She leaned on his chest, snuggling closer. She wanted to fill him up, as thoroughly as he filled her.

  He bent down and murmured into her ear. “I want to do such lovely wicked things to you. I’ll have you singing my name, begging me to go on.”

  Then he claimed her mouth in a savage kiss. She rose on tiptoe to meet his fury. She wanted to be enough for him. For him not to need anyone else to ease his pain. She kissed him back with all the longing inside her until he pulled back.

  “Why?” she asked in a gasping whisper. “Why did you need so many women?”

  “It wasn’t only women. I buried myself in opium, in whiskey—anything I thought might work. Anything not to dream again.”

  His evil dreams. Her heart ached for him afresh. She couldn’t even feel jealous of his lovers in the past. He was her entire world in the present. His brokenness hurt her, too, and she longed to find a way to make him whole.

  Somehow, they had to discover a way for Garret to be rid of that nightmarish aspect of his psychic power. She lifted a hand to palm his cheek. Her arm felt strangely heavy, but she wanted to comfort him. She yearned to make it better. To lie down right there on Old Lady Bellefonte’s Turkish rug and give him ease of her body, never mind that anyone might look on. She wanted to—

  “Steady on, now,” Garret said, catching her when her knees gave way. “There must be something in this mist. A drug designed to lower inhibitions.”

  “It seems to be working.” Cassandra wrapped her arms around him. “It’s so hot in here, isn’t it?”

  The fireplace had been cold, but between one blink and the next the single log on the grate burst into flames.

  Garret’s eyes went wide. “Cassie, are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right.” She pressed feverish kisses to his exposed neck. “Oh, you taste wonderful—salty and male. I want to… Oh, Garret, I want to taste you all over. Why don’t you let me? You always give and give and never take.”

  “If I took now, it would be like stealing.” Garret picked her up as if she weighed no more than a child. “We need to get you out of here. Where do we go?”

  She pointed over his shoulder. “The dining room is through there.”

  He carried her into the next room. The sideboard groaned under a glutton’s hoard of food, most of them known aphrodisiacs like figs and chocolate, oysters, and asparagus dishes. Several couples were taking turns feeding each other tidbits while one of them was blindfolded to heighten their sense of taste. The fog was thinner there, but still hanging in the air.

  “Where does that lead?” Garret jerked his head toward a door in the far corner.

  “The butler’s pantry, I think.”

  He made for it. Even though Garret moved swiftly through the room, Cassie managed to reach out and snag a chocolate truffle.

  “Open wide,” she said, teasing his lower lip with the sweet.

  As they pushed through the door, he took the chocolate between his teeth. She wiggled out of his arms and then covered his mouth with hers so she could share the candy. The creamy decadent flavor filled her senses.

  Then the chocolate was gone, but Garret’s kiss was still sweet, still lush and beckoning.

  “Yes, oh, yes,” she said into his mouth as she ran her hands over the front of his trousers. If she was prepared to do it to distract Roddy, shouldn’t she practice? Besides, she wanted to touch Garret. She ached to hold him, to know his secret parts as intimately as he knew hers.

  But he caught both her wrists and held her fast. “What are you doing?”

  “Can’t you tell? I’m trying to love you.”

  “That’s the drug talking.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s me. I want you, Garret. I need you.”

  He kissed her again. His hands found her breasts this time, stroking and kneading. Her nipples throbbed, and she arched herself into his touch. Then he tore his mouth from hers.

  “You’re under…the influence of…of something,” he said panting. “We both are.”

  “Don’t you want me?” She rocked against him. His groin was hard, as if he had a lead pipe tucked in his trousers. A thrill shot through her. No matter what he might say, she knew he wanted her.

  “The drugs are a cheat.” He held her roughly by the shoulders, keeping her at arm’s length. “I don’t want to have you because I cheated.”

  “But I need… I’m losing control. I’m afraid I may start a fire before we even find Roderick. Please, Garret.”

  He lifted her and set her bum down on the smooth wooden counter in the butler’s pantry. “Never let it be said I failed to rescue a damsel in distress.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  O! She was perfect past all parallel—

  Of any modern female saint’s comparison;r />
  So far above the cunning powers of hell,

  Her guardian angel had given up his garrison;

  —George Gordon, Lord Byron, from “Don Juan”

  There was a small window high on the wall in the butler’s pantry and only the faintest starlight came through it to illuminate the small space. No matter. Cassie could feel Garret and that was all she needed.

  She had the sense of being in a charcoal drawing as she pulled him to her, dark reality lapping around them like a midnight sea. Garret slid her gown up past her spread knees and stepped between them.

  “Please,” she whimpered as she fumbled with the drop front of his trousers. “I need to touch you.”

  He stood still as a statue, but no marble was ever so hot under her hands. When she undid both buttons over his hip bones, she discovered to her delight that he was bare beneath his trousers.

  “You’re not wearing any smallclothes.”

  “Spoils the line of the trousers,” he murmured as he nuzzled her neck. “Brummell started the trend.”

  “Huzzah for Mr. Brummell. Long live that charming man.” She plunged her hands down the front of his trousers, reveling in the feel of hot maleness. There was his long, hard rod and beneath that, dusted with wiry hairs, was the incongruously soft bag that held his seed. She marveled at the way he was made.

  She’d never touched Roderick intimately during their brief tryst. Everything had happened so fast. She was glad. In this at least, Garret would be her first. There were plenty of delights ahead to share that wouldn’t be tainted by her experience with Roddy.

  Even though it was dark, her eyes adjusted to the low light and she saw Garret’s features clearly, his jaw strained as he let her explore. She slid her palm over him from tip to base. He shuddered, but tried not to move otherwise. When she fondled his ballocks, they drew up into a snug mound. She raked the tip of her fingernail along the middle, dividing the two soft ovals.

  Garret’s breath hissed over his teeth and a drop of liquid formed at his tip, a milk-blue pearl.

  “What’s this?” she asked in disappointment. “Done so soon?”

  “We’re not near done. It’s my body’s way of getting ready for you. Just as yours gets ready for me,” he said, his voice ragged with wanting. He ran his hands up her thighs to the place where her pantalets ended in an open-crotch design. He teased her damp curling hairs. “You see, you’re wet too.”

  He kept easing her gown up until her naked bum rested on the cool counter. Then he massaged that most sensitive spot between her folds with his thumb.

  Cassandra broke out in a cold sweat, biting her lip to keep from coming too quickly. A butler’s pantry was only one step up from the broom closet in which she’d lost her virtue to Roddy, but this time she was with Garret. He was her partner and guide in all things sensual. He’d led her aright so far. She no longer felt furtive or ashamed. The body of a fire mage needed this as much as it needed food and rest and the next breath. Even if they didn’t have the privacy of a bedchamber, she wanted this joining to last.

  She tore off both their masks, leaned forward, and kissed him hard. Could he feel how much she wanted him? Yes, judging from the way his fingers slipped in and out of her little folds, he knew perfectly well she was ready, throbbing with heat.

  So was he. She reasoned that men must have a sensitive spot just like women did, so she did a more thorough exploration of him. Garret’s gasp told her when she discovered it, a small patch of rough skin beneath the head of his shaft.

  “You like that?” she whispered and then suckled his earlobe.

  “Yes…no…I don’t…I can’t let…you’re not…if I…”

  He was incoherent with need.

  It was a highly attractive quality in a man. Desperation ran a close second. Cassie hitched herself forward, rocking herself over the length of him, luxuriating in her own arousal.

  His hips rose to meet her as he covered her with kisses, her lips, her cheeks, her closed eyelids.

  “I wish I could see you more clearly,” he murmured, in more control of himself since she’d stopped tormenting that spot of his.

  “See me with your hands. Imagine the sight of what you feel.” She guided his palms to her breasts again so she could concentrate on the meeting of their intimate parts below. She wiggled to ease him into her, but he seemed determined not to give himself completely to her. Cassandra wasn’t going to take no for an answer this time. She meant to have all of him. “What do my breasts look like to you?”

  Since she still couldn’t hear any thought he directed to her, he’d developed the habit of talking about what he was seeing and feeling during their sessions together.

  “Your breasts are high and full and soft.” His jaw went slack with desire. “I want to torment them till you scream for release.”

  She raised her arms in surrender and due to the low-cut bodice, her nipples peeped above the lace. She didn’t have to look down and see them to know they’d been exposed. She felt Garret’s warm breath feathering over the taut peaks. He took one between his lips and squeezed the other between his thumb and forefinger. Then he reached down his other hand to spread her intimate folds. He circled her sensitive spot while she arched her back in pleasure.

  Garret groaned. He started to move down her body, to bury his face between her legs, but she caught his head in her hands. Fire sizzled through her veins. She had to have something more if she hoped to put it out without starting a conflagration.

  “No. Not like that. Not this time.” She kissed him, trying to be gentle and failing miserably. She could eat him alive. “I need you…inside me. Now.”

  “Cassandra, I want to be in you more than anything but if we do that, I’ll dream of you again. I know it.”

  “I should hope to shout you will. I’m worth dreaming about.” Where had that confidence come from? Maybe it was part of her fire magic. Maybe it was just knowing how badly Garret wanted her.

  She pulled him close. He strained against her, the tip of him not quite in the right position to enter her. Then his words broke into her chaotic mind, clear as a clarion.

  “Again, you say? You’ve dreamed of me already?”

  He nodded grimly. “I’ll try to head more dreams off, but we can’t take more chances. I can’t let you into my mind any more than you already are.”

  “It’s my chance to take. I want to fill you so completely, you can’t help but dream of me.” She reached down and grasped his balls, squeezing them gently. “I choose you. I choose us. Now. Devil take tomorrow.”

  His cock was rock hard against her slick cleft. She wiggled a bit. If only she could maneuver the tip of him into her, he wouldn’t be able to say no.

  As if he sensed her intent, he dropped to his knees and spread her thighs. She couldn’t stop him this time. When he suckled and stroked, her eyes rolled back in her head. She grudgingly admitted Garret knew what to do with his tongue. Cassandra growled with pleasure when he pressed his teeth against her.

  He seemed determined to make her come this way whether she wanted to or not.

  She had only one more card to play but it was a desperate one. “Well, if you won’t oblige me, I suppose I shall have to wait until I find Roderick.”

  That brought him upright.

  “No,” he said fiercely, his thumbs digging into her shoulders so hard she was sure he’d leave bruises. “He can’t have you.”

  Then without waiting for her to take him in hand and guide him in, Garret found her entry and pushed into her. He was thick and hard and so hot, he was almost feverish. Cassandra expanded to receive him, reveling in the power of engulfing him, consuming him. She hooked her ankles at the small of his back and moved with him, both of them straining toward the pinnacle.

  Her first spasm began. As she contracted around him, Garret went off like a Roman candle inside her. He hadn’t separated from her, hadn’t left her alone as he climaxed over their joining. He stayed to feel her pulsing around him and let her feel his
hot pulses. He shared her joy. They rode the concentric circles of bliss together until they were both spent.

  Cassandra hugged him close, laying her head on his shoulder as they gasped for air, which in the butler’s pantry didn’t seem to be tainted by the passion-inducing fog. Along with the fresh jolt of oxygen came perfect clarity.

  She loved Garret Sterling.

  Her feelings for Roddy had been no more than calf-love, as superficial as a society matron’s smile. She’d confused him with the boy he’d been, with the hero persona he’d assumed when they had played at knights and ladies. Roderick wasn’t any of the things she’d thought he was. She really hadn’t known him at all.

  But she knew Garret. She could tick off every one of his weaknesses on her fingers. He was stubborn and secretive. He was fond of wreaking mischief in the lives of those around him. He was possessive and overprotective. She loved him in spite of these faults.

  Or maybe because of them.

  All she knew was that the hollows in her soul fit snuggly with the bumps in his.

  His breathing was returning to normal and he slipped from her body, breaking their intimate connection. She’d have felt the loss more keenly if she hadn’t been certain Garret Sterling would be tangled up with her more often and more completely in the future.

  “Cassie, I’m sorry,” he said as he lifted her off the counter and set her on her slippered feet. Her hem cascaded to the floor swirling around her ankles. “I didn’t intend for that to happen.”

  “But I did. And don’t you dare be sorry.” She hitched up his trousers and refastened the buttons on the drop front for him. It was a tender, almost wifely thing to do. It felt right. “I needed you. And I think you needed me a bit, too.”

  He gathered her into his arms and she melted into him. “More than a bit.”

  His hair tousled, his square-jawed face relaxed, he’d never looked more handsome. This would be the perfect time for him to make a declaration.

  Cassandra smiled up at him in expectation. Yes, now he’d offer marriage to her in a beautifully worded proposal she’d remember all her days and they’d spend the rest of their lives putting out her fires and learning to direct his unruly dreams. Vesta had warned her that marriage and family wasn’t in her future. The unwieldy life of a Sensory Extraordinaire simply wouldn’t fit into such a conventional mold. But just because it hadn’t happened for Vesta, that didn’t mean it couldn’t work for Cassie and Garret.