Lady of Desire

by Gaelen Foley

  Her heart hammered as he tilted his head back and gazed hotly into her eyes. She caressed his hard, aquiline face; then he lowered his lashes and bent his head, drawing nearer. What he did then—ah, what he did. She had never known such shocked delight as the sensations that exploded within her as he kissed her virginal mound, paying homage to her very femininity. She had seen this love-act in the wicked little blue-book with its wanton sketches, but she could never have imagined such pleasure. She could do naught but give in to her arousal, lustily enjoying his selfless loving as his tongue caressed her exquisitely sensitized pleasure center. His fingers were inside her, stroking her with assiduous care.

  Oh, how deliciously wicked he was, she thought, panting, clinging to the doorknob to keep from falling down.

  She did not know how much time passed, but it was not long before he brought her to a powerful, soul-deep climax. She let out a series of soft, wild groans “Billy, Billy—oh, God, Billy.” She clung to him in surrender, fevered, ravished, and raw. All worry, all fear, and all control spiraled away in the whirlwind of joyous sensation.

  He stood, taking her gently into his arms. They leaned against the door, holding each other until she finally recovered her wits. He kissed her hair, then lightly grasped her shoulders and turned her around, putting her diamond necklace on her. She stood trembling at his nearness as his fingertips danced at her nape, fastening the clasp. She had never felt so close to anyone, so electrified by another’s presence.

  With a yearning deeper than her air of playful mischief revealed, she let her hand graze the hard, throbbing pike of his manhood that nudged her backside as he stood behind her, fretting over the clasp of her necklace. He gasped sharply at her light touch. She glanced up at him over her shoulder in fascination.

  Not taking her hand off him, she turned around, exploring him through his trousers.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked huskily, staring at her like he would devour her.

  She didn’t answer, absorbed in discovering more. She could feel his body changing with her every caress, swelling to even larger proportions, but he stopped her, capturing her hands. She marveled at how large and strong his hands were compared to her small, dainty ones as he laced his fingers through hers, lowered his head, and kissed her for another long, lingering moment.

  When he spoke again, his lips brushing hers, his voice was a velvet whisper. “Do you know I would do anything for you?”

  “Billy,” she breathed, wrapping her arms around his lean waist. She laid her head on his chest, entranced by the tingling joy of his embrace, but she did not know how to answer.

  He held her close and kissed her hair, pausing for a moment. “I’ve never felt this way before about anyone, Jacinda.” His voice was very soft, cautious. “I just—wanted you to know that.”

  She pulled back a small space and tilted her head back in trembling wonder to gaze into his eyes. His stare was earnest yet guarded as he awaited her reaction. Slowly, she lifted her hand and caressed his clean-shaved cheek. He closed his eyes, leaning into her gentle touch. She studied him as though discovering him for the first time, unbidden amazement unfurling within her as she realized he was the first, the only man who had ever treated her as an equal. Indeed, next to Lizzie, she considered him her closest friend. But if she was honest with herself, he was more than just a friend.

  Much more.

  He suddenly turned his head and kissed her hand with a sardonic smile. “Enough torture,” he murmured. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  At a loss for words, she merely nodded and followed him as he opened the door, glanced to the right and left, then beckoned her out into the hallway. Together they went hurrying back through the silent corridors.

  Somewhat belatedly, she began to worry about whether or not anyone had noticed their absence. Surely Lord Drummond must be wondering where she and Rackford had stolen off to.

  They split up a few moments later, Jacinda returning the way she had come, Rackford once more taking the service corridors. He stole a quick, parting kiss before he opened the servants’ door through which he had come.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he called softly as she paused to glance at her reflection in one of the mirrors hung above the console tables in the hallway.

  With a blushing smile, she turned around as he poked his head out of the servants’ door one more time.

  “Yes?”

  “Sweeter than candy,” he murmured wickedly, blowing her a kiss.

  She let out a virginal gasp, but before she could reply, he vanished into the shadows. She heard only the faint rhythm of his footfalls fading down the concealed servant staircase. With a slight, blushing smile, she turned back to the candlelit mirror and gazed in private, secretive pleasure at her diamond necklace resting against her glowing, pink skin. She shook her head at her reflection, sighing to see that that rookery scoundrel had left her looking as rumpled and pink-cheeked and as thoroughly well-kissed as she felt.

  Quickly smoothing her hair and righting her gown, she flitted back to the ballroom, her slippered feet scarcely touching the ground.

  She’s mine. Oh, yes. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, his errant, feisty, curly-headed darling was finally starting to feel the same attachment he had suffered now for weeks. He was sure of it. Smiling to himself in the darkness, he cheerfully sprang up the front stairs of his father’s house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

  By now, the hour was late. He had just arrived home from the Taylor ball. As usual, Gerald the night butler answered the door before he could knock. Rackford flicked the ashes off his cheroot before going in the house. His mother called his smoking “a disgusting habit,” but a man had to have his vices.

  God, how he wished he could remove to some fashionable bachelor lodgings, preferably on the other side of the city, he thought, but Sir Anthony and the Bow Street officers who were handling his case wanted him here where it was easier for them to keep an eye on him—not just for their convenience, but for his protection, now that he had sent so many villains to Newgate. Those luxurious bachelor hotels, they said, had too many people always coming and going.

  As he crossed the entrance hall and strode up the staircase to the main floor, his thoughts raced back, as they often did, to the exasperating, irresistible Lady Jacinda.

  Tonight had been a bold risk, but one he was vastly glad he had taken. That was the problem with all these Society rules, he thought. It was practically a labor of Hercules stealing a moment alone with a girl. In the rookery, the lasses were largely free to spend their time with whomever they chose, and if they liked a chap, they were not stingy with their favors. He was not used to all these obstacles that a man had to scale like the battlements of a citadel: chaperons, her governess, her formidable brothers, the eagle-eyed Society matrons. But he trusted that tonight he had given Jacinda a proper dose of persuading. She must see now how good it would be between them.

  Aye, and not a moment too soon. God knew he needed relief. He had stopped her from touching him because he knew he couldn’t be satisfied with anything less than her maidenhead, and no future wife of his was going to be deflowered in another man’s bed. Still, he had to have her soon, or he was going to lose his mind with sheer frustration. Lately he spent far too much time fantasizing about undressing her, untying each dainty ribbon, slowly removing her light, delicate clothing, piece by piece—

  “William!” a harsh voice broke rudely into his pleasant thoughts.

  He turned around, jarred out of his wayward imaginings to find his father walking toward him down the corridor, his neckcloth hanging untied around his shoulders, his face red with drink. He nearly smiled in irreverent humor at the sight of the man, remembering how Jacinda had scowled at Truro the Terrible over dinner.

  Noticing the aggressive light that shone in his father’s glassy emerald eyes, however, Rackford’s smile faded and his whole mood darkened at once. He knew that look, though he had not seen it in years.

 
Instantly on his guard, he watched his father coming toward him, staggering slightly.

  “Put that thing out, you insolent bastard,” the marquess slurred. “You know full well your mother said no smoking in the house. When you’re under my roof, by God, you’ll follow my rules!”

  Rackford stared at him for a moment. Apparently his father did not realize that he now had a few inches of height and two stone of weight on him in pure muscle, not to mention fifteen years of fighting for his life.

  Perhaps Jacinda’s attempts to civilize him were working, he thought, for although every muscle in his body tensed, he managed to respond like a gentleman. There was a small potted lemon tree in the hallway. Rackford quietly walked over to it and crushed out his cheroot in the loose soil. He straightened up again slowly.

  “Forgive me. I didn’t think it would bother anyone.”

  “Well, it dashed well bothers me!”

  What a churl you are, he thought, gazing at the man.

  “An’ I’ll tell you something else that bothers me, if you’re askin’,” the drunken marquess went on, his feverish eyes burning ever more brightly. “That little Hawkscliffe harlot you’re always sniffin’ after.”

  Wrath flashed in Rackford’s eyes as his stare locked on his father’s face. “My lord,” he warned, “I will not hear that lady abused in my presence.”

  “Lady?” he scoffed. “Forget about ’er. You gave me your word you’d marry at once, and it’s been nearly two months. Now, you’ve had your time to sow your oats, boy. I’ve spoken with Lord Erhard about his daughter, the redhead with the big tits, and we’ve decided you and she should be wed—”

  “Daphne Taylor?” he exclaimed in contempt.

  “Yes, that’s the one. Daphne,” he said with a goatish leer.

  “Father, that girl is a harpy. I’ll be marrying Lady Jacinda.” If she ever comes to her senses.

  “The hell you will.”

  Every authority-flouting bone in his body bristled at the order. “Why not? Lady Jacinda comes from an excellent family.” Just like buying a milch cow, he reminded himself cynically. “She’s beautiful, healthy, and she’s got a dowry of a hundred thousand pounds.” That ought to please the man.

  “I don’t care how many damned thousands she comes with,” Truro slurred. “She’s a haughty little bitch an’ I don’t like her.”

  She doesn’t like you much, either. Rackford struggled to hold his growing fury in check. “Well, I do.”

  “Don’t you know what kind of little whore she is, you stupid sod? Just like her mother! No son of mine is going to end up wedded to a little round-heeled slut—”

  “Enough!” he roared in his father’s face, losing his temper.

  With a grunt, Truro took a swing at him; Rackford caught the man’s fist squarely in his right hand. His defensive reaction was smooth and automatic, flipping him over his shoulder, a move honed in countless street fights. His father sailed through the air and landed flat on his back in the marble corridor, the wind knocked out of him.

  Rackford loomed over him with murder in his eyes and planted his foot on his father’s throat. A thousand memories of his suffering rushed through his mind and coursed like poison through his bloodstream.

  “Do you know how easily I could kill you?” he whispered through gritted teeth as his heart hammered.

  His father stared up at him with stark fear in his eyes. It filled Rackford with savage but fleeting satisfaction.

  “Why—” Rackford started, but his voice turned to ashes in his throat. His pride refused to let him ask the aching questions that still bled in the core of his heart after all the years. Why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to deserve the treatment I received at your hands? How did I fail to live up?

  The moment of weakness veered past.

  “Say what you want about me, but if I ever hear you speak another disparaging word about my future wife, I swear I will give you a beating you will never forget.” He removed his foot from atop his sire’s windpipe, squared his shoulders, and forced himself to walk away.

  His father climbed to his feet and bellowed all manner of abuses after him down the corridor, reminding him, lest he forget, that he was a waste of life, bad, stupid, weak, worthless for every purpose but doing the work of the devil. “I should’ve let you rot in Newgate. Better the line should die than leave a sorry excuse like you to fill my shoes!”

  Rackford laughed at the sheer, mad cruelty of his father’s words, but by the time he reached his room, he was shaking, and the happiness he’d felt driving home from the ball had fled.

  He looked around hollowly at his dark, silent room and did not know what he was doing here. Closing the door behind him, he did not light a candle, but walked wearily to his bed; the sheer heaviness of the past seemed to press him down as he lay across it. For a long time, he stared up at the ceiling. He closed his eyes as the old, half-forgotten pain of his unworthiness rose up and enveloped him, and from it there was no escape; the failure, the flaw, was inside him. Isn’t anyone ever going to love me?

  In the darkness, his heart scrabbled toward the one light he had found, the light that was Jacinda, but at the thought of her the pain doubled, trebled. It was so very easy to fear that everything his father said was true—and how could she ever love someone like him? Who was he fooling?

  He could give her pleasure, but at core, he was still not worth a damn and certainly not deserving of her love. Anguish convulsed inside of him so sharply that hot, angry tears stung the backs of his eyes. He swiftly sat up, scowling them into oblivion. Rising sharply to his feet, he raked his hand through his hair and drove the demons back with a vengeance, willing himself to remember her many kindnesses to him, her caring questions—and the way she looked at him. She never looked at anyone else like that.

  And then, of course, there was the matter of her diamonds. She had left them for him all those weeks ago, a gift freely given, aye, because she had seen something good in him.

  She was mistaken, said the insidious voice in his mind. You’re worthless. You’re nothing.

  He didn’t know which side of himself to believe. With a low, angry growl, he got up, tugging restlessly at his cravat. He paced across his room in the darkness and went to the window. Moving the draperies aside, he glanced down to where his guards were stationed in the street. His eyes flickered with brooding violence.

  He let the curtain fall and went to change his clothes.

  A few minutes later, a vengeful hiss of metal sounded faintly in the darkness as he took out his favorite knife from the hidden compartment in the drawer. He looked toward the black city skyline beyond the window.

  It was time to go hunting Jackals.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Before long, Rackford was stealing through the shadows of the rookery. He left his churning anger over his father’s scorn behind as he prowled through a narrow passage between buildings, making his way toward the entrance of the abandoned carriage factory that he had been using as his portal into his former gang headquarters.

  The moon shone down like a watchful eye. The rookery was quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Maybe more of O’Dell’s men had deserted, he thought, for he knew he had them on the run.

  It had started with Bloody Fred, spreading hysteria with all his ranting about having seen the ghost of Billy Blade. Rackford had heard that O’Dell had finally taken Fred back to Bedlam, where he was now kept safely in a cage, but the damage had already been done.

  Chaos reigned in the rookery. Just as Rackford had planned, the Jackals gang was imploding, O’Dell’s control over his men slowly slipping away.

  Baumer and Flash had killed each other in an argument over the pocket watch. With the scourge of his nocturnal visits, three other members of the Jackals had been found dead either in their rooms or in the surrounding dark alleys. All were those who had participated in the rape of Murphy’s daughter. Numerous others had deserted, for now all of St. Giles knew that the J
ackals were being stalked, picked off one by one, by the ghost of Billy Blade. Wild rumors flew, fueled by the gothic imaginations of the illiterate Cockney ruffians and dirt-poor superstitious Irish stuffed into the surrounding tenement houses.

  They had whipped themselves into a frenzy. Half the denizens of the rookery claimed to have seen his shade in numerous different places at the same time. Blade had come back from the grave, they said, to carry out his vow to avenge the honor of the innocent young girl. He was said to be a ruthless phantom, capable of cutting a man’s throat—but only the wicked need fear him. He could appear in different quarters of the neighborhood within seconds, they claimed, and would vanish without a sound. The only solid trace he left behind when he killed was the scattered petals of a red carnation.

  Aye, he thought darkly, even if O’Dell did not believe in ghosts, his men were spooked, and that made it all the easier to defeat them.

  Creeping up alongside the abandoned factory, Rackford glanced around to make sure no one saw him, then laid hold of the barnlike door.

  Without a sound, he pulled it open just wide enough for him to slip through. The second he stepped over the threshold into the pitch darkness, pain exploded in Rackford’s skull as someone dealt him a crushing blow to the back of his head.

  He let out a bellow and staggered down on one knee, stunned and half blinded with pain. Three men jumped on him, wrestling him to the ground. He fought to keep his balance, his head throbbing. He couldn’t see straight in the darkness. A fist socked him in the stomach, doubling him over. He fought blindly as they went for his weapons.

  Someone tripped him, and the next thing he knew, his face was in the moldy sawdust. He could feel a man’s boot on the back of his head. Rackford spewed curses, but the boot heel only pressed his bleeding head down harder, mashing his cheek against the filthy floor. They jerked his arms up tight behind him.