Connie Mason & Mia Marlowe - [Royal Rakes 02]

by One NightWith a Rake

  She’d always wondered about the obscure wording in the marriage rite, the part about “with my body, I thee worship.”

  This didn’t feel like worship. It was more like delicious torment.

  A clambering riot of sensations raced through her, seething, demanding…what? If he touched her there, what then? Would she spontaneously combust this time?

  She didn’t care. If he didn’t touch her nethers soon, she’d have to force his hand between her legs or die.

  “Nathaniel.” She chanted his name over and over in a dazed whisper.

  “Hmm?” His mouth left her breast long enough to make this vague inquiry before he transferred his attentions to the other stiff peak.

  “I want—”

  A shuddering moan slipped from her lips when he finally cupped her sex. She couldn’t have finished that sentence if her hope of heaven depended upon it. It was all she could do to force herself to keep breathing as he explored her slick wetness. He tenderly eased the swollen lips apart to slide three fingers down the length of her moist cleft.

  She cried out when his fingertip grazed that sensitive spot again. When his fingers returned to stroke it, a coil seemed to tighten within, like a watch spring being wound beyond the breaking point.

  She arched herself into his hand. She was standing too close to a precipice, drawn inexorably to the edge, unable, unwilling to pull back from the headlong fall. Her hips rose and fell to meet his hand, urging him to stroke her.

  Harder. Faster. Dear God…

  Against her expectations, she didn’t erupt into flames. Instead she unraveled. The coil snapped and her entire body bucked with the strength of her release.

  Pleasure radiated outward. It spread the length of her from fingertips to toes, flooding her with an ethereal sense of lightness and well-being. If Nathaniel hadn’t anchored her to the banquette with a leg hooked over hers, she might have floated right up to the library’s high ceiling.

  When her breathing returned to normal, Nate eased himself on top of her, resting the bulk of his weight on his elbows. A flash of lightning brightened the alcove, and Georgette looked up into his face.

  A lazy, self-congratulatory half smile tugged at his lips. Then he met her gaze with an intense look.

  A knowing look, Georgette realized. Suddenly, the oblique biblical reference to the marital act rose in her mind. “And Adam knew his wife, Eve.” She’d always assumed the King James translators were being coy. Now the wording took on fresh depth. Nate definitely knew her now.

  I’m going to have to start paying better attention in church.

  There was no doubt Nate knew her body better than she did herself. All the secret places, her earlobes, her neck, all the shivery spots on her skin. He knew how to drive her beyond rational thought, beyond her wildest imaginings, beyond caring whether it was right or wrong.

  He caressed her mouth with his, lightly nibbling her lower lip. His banyan, which had only been closed with a sash at his waist, was open now. Skin on skin, she felt him. His chest on hers, their breathing in rhythm. His belly on hers all warm. Him, hard and smooth, between her legs.

  Surprisingly, the ache that had so recently been banished returned with a vengeance, sharper edged and still hungry. The empty void inside her whimpered to be filled. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down to feel the full weight of his body on hers.

  “Easy, now,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He edged forward slightly, filling her opening snugly. Even though he was goodly sized and she ought to have felt a bit of maidenly dismay, she was so wet, there was no pain as just the tip of him entered. Instead relief washed over her. Relief to have him.

  To hold him.

  He took a deep breath and stopped his forward progress before more than an inch of his considerable length was inside her. A muscle ticked in his cheek and his eyes were squeezed shut.

  Frustration raked her. Georgette rocked her pelvis in an effort to draw him further in. The throbbing had returned in earnest. She was sure he must feel the drumbeat, the heat, the infernal ache.

  Why was he waiting?

  Oh. Something wilted inside her. Anne.

  She worked both her arms between them and pushed against his chest.

  He rose up on his elbows and looked down at her, but still didn’t push himself all the way into her.

  “Nate, I have to know. Did you and Anne ever…” She couldn’t finish the question, but she didn’t need to.

  His mouth gaped and he blinked hard.

  “I just…I just want you to remember that I’m not Anne.”

  Sixteen

  Anne. She hadn’t entered his mind in days. He mentally flayed himself. You worthless shite.

  Nothing else so aptly described a man who was supposed to love Anne forever, only to have her fade from his consciousness completely.

  And even more importantly, he’d allowed her to be replaced by her sister in his imaginings, a sister he was within inches of deflowering.

  He pulled out and sat up, not bothering to close his gaping banyan. His cock’s head was wet with Georgette’s sweetness, and the musky scent of her arousal made his groin throb. His body roared at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to ruin her now, despite his deal with Mr. Alcock.

  He’d been conflicted enough before, wracked with an unaccustomed attack of conscience. That was why he’d closed his eyes, not because he was imagining Anne. She never entered his mind. All he could think of was Georgette and what he was about to do to her. He couldn’t even look at her, though he ached to watch Georgette melt under him.

  He couldn’t bear to watch himself take her when she trusted him so.

  Now he really couldn’t. Not like this. Not with Anne’s shadowy specter hovering over them as well.

  “I thought since your eyes were closed, you might be imagining you were with her instead,” Georgette said softly as she pulled her night shift down to cover her slender legs.

  The suppressed pain in her tone squeezed his heart, but he forced himself to hurt her more.

  “There’s nothing to imagine,” he spat out. “Anne died a virgin. And if you want to remain one, you will leave me immediately.”

  She did up her shift, pushing each little mother-of-pearl button through the hole with shaking fingers. From the corner of his eye, he could see that she had missed one and was doing up the string of buttons in crooked fashion.

  Twisted and out of balance. Rather like his soul.

  “I didn’t mean—” she began.

  “I didn’t mean it either,” he said roughly. “Not any of it. But if ever I take your maidenhead, I’ll damn well know who it is I’m rutting. Now get out of here.”

  She gasped as if he’d slapped her. The sound rent his heart, but if she stayed much longer, he’d be on her again. And this time he wouldn’t stop.

  “Be gone,” he growled.

  He was relieved out of all knowing when she did. Georgette flew out of the library, not even stopping to scoop up her discarded wrapper.

  After the last of her footfalls faded into silence, Nate picked up the bit of silk. He buried his nose in it, hoping to clear his head with her clean scent.

  It didn’t help.

  He was afraid nothing would. There was no way out of this tangle that didn’t involve deceit and unfair advantage and more than a little risk to all hearts involved.

  His own included.

  Nathaniel was a master of the sword. He’d never expected to lower his guard enough to allow a wicked thrust like love to slip into the situation.

  When he fell in love with Anne, their whirlwind courtship was all sonnets and nosegays. She was the perfect match for him. Everyone said so.

  With Georgette, it had been a whirlwind too, but of the more destructive sort—invading whorehouses and incessant argument. No wonder he hadn’t recognized love when it came in that jumbled-up guise.

  It was so different with Georgette. Earthier. More honest and more convolute
d at the same time.

  He breathed in Georgette’s wrapper again and his ribs ached as if a blade had slipped past to pierce his heart.

  Damn.

  If that wasn’t love, what the hell was it?

  ***

  Lady Caroline Colton’s slim fingers danced over the Broadwood grand’s ivories. Most of those in attendance were in raptures over the brilliant, sensitive performance, but Georgette wasn’t at all happy to be sitting in Sir Martin Daventry’s packed music room. Her parents had insisted she allow Nathaniel to escort her to this exclusive pre-Season event, but she didn’t have to like it.

  “Royalty always champions the arts, you know,” her mother had argued when she protested that she had a tin ear. “You must be seen to enjoy the finer things.”

  Even though Georgette had little ear for music, Lady Caroline’s playing certainly constituted a fine thing. But Lady Caroline’s brother, also known as the handsome lout in the chair next to Georgette, did not.

  At least, thank heaven, she thought with a sniff, my eyes are no longer puffy.

  She’d cried her last secret tear over Nathaniel Colton. Of course, it helped that she avoided him as much as she could. She didn’t meet his gaze when they sat across from each other at her parents’ dining table. When he approached, she found a reason to drift to another part of the room. If she couldn’t move without delivering a direct cut and occasioning comment, she simply ignored him and imagined that she shifted away from him inside her clothes.

  She would not occupy the same space, breathe the same air as that insufferable man.

  On several occasions, she considered going to her father and asking the marquis to send Nathaniel packing, especially since his family had returned to London. The excuse that he’d be rattling around in an empty town house was now moot.

  But if her father asked her why she didn’t want Nathaniel around, she couldn’t very well admit he’d diddled her to within an inch of her life and she didn’t trust herself to be alone with him for more than two blinks.

  And she certainly couldn’t tell her father that Nate had broken her heart.

  Her heart was supposed to be spoken for. Negotiations with the duke’s factor were proceeding swimmingly. Her mother was all but certain the upcoming ball would turn into a celebration of a royal betrothal.

  She didn’t want to disappoint her parents. She was already too disappointed in herself to bear more.

  Still, she couldn’t help but notice bits and pieces of the man in the seat next to her. His long legs, which claimed her attention despite being at the edge of her peripheral vision, were crossed at the knee. She knew after seeing him in that open banyan that they were dusted with the same dark brown hair as his tousled head.

  He was the restless sort and rarely let sixteen bars of music go by without shifting on his seat or uncrossing and then recrossing his legs. His hands were folded on his lap, his long fingers laced together—to keep them still during the concert, she suspected.

  She was feeling a bit squirmish herself. Lady Caro’s slim fingers were exceedingly talented on the keys. But when she sneaked a glimpse at Nate’s long, square-nailed ones, it was hard not to relive how very talented they were as well.

  It was a relief when the final Bach étude was over and the company rose to its feet in thunderous applause. Almost as one, the first row of the audience surged forward to congratulate Lady Caroline on her performance.

  “I need to see to Caro for a bit.” Nathaniel leaned toward Georgette. “She becomes overwhelmed by this sort of thing. Will you be all right on your own for a little while?”

  “Take your time.” She rolled her eyes at him. “I was perfectly all right before you barged back into my life, Nathaniel Colton. Rest assured, my heart will continue to beat if you leave me.”

  But it also wouldn’t stop hurting.

  He, however, did not need to know that. And he was probably right about his sister.

  Even as a child, Caro had been high-strung and easily upset when she received too much attention, even of the positive sort. Dainty, shy, and strikingly beautiful, Lady Caroline brought out the best protective instincts in the men around her. She was like a gossamer veil that might tear at the slightest puff of wind.

  Georgette was not cut from such fine cloth.

  Sturdy, that’s me. Like stiff bombazine.

  She turned on her heel and headed for the buffet table spread out in the adjoining room. Perhaps if her hands were occupied with holding a cup of punch, she’d feel less like using them to strangle Nate.

  “There you are, Lady Georgette,” a voice with a nasal twang called out.

  She turned to find Roger Fishwick tailing her.

  He’s Lord Fishwick now, she reminded herself, since his father had died last spring and Roger had come into the barony that abutted her family’s country estate.

  “My lord.” She dipped a slight curtsy and hoped he didn’t remember that rum punch-soaked kiss he’d plastered on her the Christmas before last.

  “I was hoping I’d have a chance to speak to you without your guard dog.”

  She raised a quizzical brow.

  “Colton,” he said with a curl of his lip. “The man hovers around you like a wolfhound. But I suppose he’s puttering about you on the Duke of Cambridge’s business. Are felicitations in order for you and His Royal Highness yet?”

  “The bride is always the last to know. You’d have to ask my father about that,” she said, looking around the room, hoping someone would join them so she could extricate herself from the conversation gracefully.

  She’d known Roger almost as long as she’d known Nathaniel, but she wasn’t nearly as comfortable around him, even allowing for how frustrated she was with Nate. Roger was the sort who would never quite grow into his looks, his face still puffed with baby fat. Even though he was attempting to cultivate a mustache, Roger managed to look boyishly out of place in an adult gathering.

  Unless one caught the occasional odd glint in his pale eyes.

  His smooth-chinned face disguised a disturbing personality. As a boy, Roger used to skin frogs alive on the banks of the stream that formed the boundary between her family’s land and his. Once he’d tied a lit firebrand to a cat’s tail, but was stopped by his father before he could release the poor animal into a dry field. Georgette hoped he’d outgrown that cruel streak, but she couldn’t look at Roger Fishwick without a shiver of repugnance.

  “Still, Colton is an odd choice as an escort for a lady who hopes to land a crown,” Roger said. “Lord knows, the man’s usually sniffing around a woman’s skirt rather than protecting it.”

  “And yet Lord Nathaniel has only nice things to say about you.”

  He’d done no such thing. Georgette had no idea if Nate even knew who Roger was, but it seemed the best way to forestall any more inappropriate comments.

  “Well, I must say Lord Nathaniel seems to be trying to turn over a new leaf, what with his ‘good works’ among the downtrodden lightskirts of Covent Garden,” Roger said with a snicker.

  Nathaniel had come up behind Roger in time to hear the last remark. “If anything good is coming of that,” he said, “it’s due to the determination of the women at the House of Sirens themselves, not because of me.”

  Georgette was so relieved to see Nate, she could have kissed him right on the mouth. But since no good could come of that, she settled for introducing Roger to Nate, taking care to make it seem she was merely reminding him of Lord Fishwick since he supposedly had said nice things about him.

  Nathaniel narrowed his eyes at Lord Fishwick while the two men shook hands. “You do look familiar, sir.”

  “I should,” Roger said frostily. “I have no recollection of the matter myself, but it appears you rendered me assistance at White’s once when I was…indisposed.”

  “Oh, yes.” Nate chuckled. “Now I remember.”

  Roger fished in his pockets and came out with a fistful of coins. “I believe I owe you for my care, and rest as
sured, I’m a man who always settles his debts.”

  “Nonsense. Without you, I wouldn’t be the proud owner of the former House of Sirens.”

  Now it was Roger’s turn to look puzzled.

  “Lord Gobberd and I wagered on you and the deed was part of the pot,” Nate explained. “He thought you had expired on the threshold, but luckily for me, you had to the goodness to still be alive.”

  “You see.” Georgette smiled weakly at Lord Fishwick. “Only nice things.”

  Seventeen

  She turned to Nathaniel and latched onto his arm. “I fear I’ve developed a bit of a headache. I wonder if you might see me home early, if your sister is all right, of course.”

  “My parents have her well in hand now, so Caro’s fine.” Nate nodded correctly to Lord Fishwick. “I wish you continued good health, my lord. You’re something of a luck piece for me now.”

  Roger’s cheeks flushed a florid red. He was obviously not at all pleased about being relegated to the status of a rabbit’s foot.

  “Don’t antagonize him,” Georgette murmured under her breath as Nathaniel led her away. “You don’t know what he’s like.”

  Nate chuckled. “Sure I do. Spoiled. Sulky. Always expecting others to pick up after his mess. I believe I have Lord Fishwick’s measure.”

  Georgette bade the Daventrys a good evening and thanked them for inviting her. Then she smiled across the room at Lord Winthrop, who’d been not-so-covertly watching her all evening, no doubt hoping to catch her in some unroyalty-like faux pas.

  “Speaking of taking someone’s measure,” Nathaniel murmured as Lord Winthrop lowered his lorgnette and nodded at her gravely.

  “He’s doing his job, I suppose, but it does grate on one to be under constant scrutiny.”

  “I believe that about sums up the life of a royal. But cheer up, Georgie. Looks as if you passed muster,” Nate said as he draped her short cape over her shoulders. “You were serene, elegant, and as remote as the moon. Clearly regal material. His Highness’s lapdog seems satisfied with your performance.”