He wouldn’t be seducing her in any carriage now, not with Emilie to think of.
And he couldn’t stay with Emilie in Paris, not like this. She would need her own room. Clothes—an entire bloody wardrobe, and not the washwoman’s rags she wore now. She was his sister, for God’s sake. She deserved...
Everything.
Tutors. Dancing masters. Drawing instructors. Libraries full of books. Dolls, toys...all the things she so obviously had never been given.
Emilie needed Taggart, perhaps more than he did.
And there was only one way to give that to her.
* * *
“IT’S TIME,” NICK SAID, finding Vernier at home and still readying for the evening.
Outside, Nick’s trunk sat atop a rented carriage in which Emilie waited, bundled inside one of Nick’s jackets, with the rest of the bread, meat and cheese wrapped inside a cloth in case for later. Once they got to Taggart, he would hire a cook and give instructions that Emilie was to be fed whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, even if it was three o’clock in the bloody morning.
“Tonight?” Vernier asked, while his valet fastidiously brushed his coat. “Are you certain?”
“It’s imperative,” Nick said. “I can’t wait any longer.”
“Mais, oui. Bien sûr.” He dismissed his valet, then turned to Nick. “Tell me what I am to do.”
“Lady India is at d’Anterry’s ball as we speak,” Nick said, and told Vernier about the conversation with Winston earlier.
“Madame Gravelle’s—Dieu. I hardly know what to say to that,” Vernier exclaimed with a laugh.
“I had no plans to see it through,” Nick said.
“Mais, non. But her expectation will work in our favor.”
Precisely. In the next minutes, they worked out their plan: Nick would go to the ball as planned, while Emilie waited safely outside. Vernier himself would make an appearance at the ball, too—just long enough to surreptitiously notify Winston, if he was there—and would leave quickly to alert Père Valentine.
Nick would secret India away from the ball as planned—and drive her to the church, where weeks of game-playing and obstruction would finally end.
* * *
WINSTON WAS NOT at the ball...and neither was India.
Nick stood in the shadows at the edge of the ballroom, having checked every corner of d’Anterry’s lower floors and torchlit grounds, and looked at his pocket watch.
He’d been more than two hours late to the ball. Vernier had left twenty minutes ago to finalize arrangements for the wedding. Nick sank farther into the shadows to avoid being noticed by Lady Pennington, and told himself the thing he suspected could not possibly be true.
India wasn’t stupid.
She would not go to Madame Gravelle’s alone.
But she was determined to show him she could not be controlled, and his gut told him that was exactly where she’d gone.
He pushed his way through the crowd, heading for the door.
“Lord Taggart!”
God. God. He stopped abruptly. “Lady Pennington.”
“Have you seen my niece?” A tiny furrow creased gracefully between her brows. “I can’t seem to find her anywhere.”
“I was just looking for her myself,” he said. He had to go. Now. “I shall let you—”
“Do let me know when you find her—”
“Of course.”
“She was dancing with the marquis again earlier, but surely he knows the wrath he would face if I discovered he had spirited her away.” She smiled knowingly. “As I’m sure he would face yours, as well.”
“Most certainly.” He bowed. “If you’ll please excuse me...”
“Are you quite all right? You seem out of sorts.”
He tried to smile. “Not at all.” Except that in the time it was taking to exchange these bloody pleasantries, anything could be happening to India at Madame Gravelle’s. “If you’ll excuse me—”
This time he didn’t wait. He raced out to the carriage, thanked God the driver was already familiar with the famed house of pleasure’s location, and hoped that Winston—whom Nick could be certain had not actually taken India there—was at least not too preoccupied to notice that she had arrived on her own.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
INDIA LURKED IN the shadows at Madame Gravelle’s with her pulse thrumming and her fingers folding pleats in her sleeve.
There were so many people here. In an adjoining room, an orchestra played a lively and lilting tune. There were bodies everywhere—people drinking, laughing, fondling.
From behind the shelter of a faux column, she watched a woman push her breasts into the waiting hands of two men.
Perhaps coming here had been a mistake. She’d been so certain Nicholas would be here—so aggravated, awaiting him at the ball, knowing that he was playing some new kind of game wherein he imagined he could stop her from coming here simply by not showing up at the ball. But she didn’t see him anywhere.
She edged a little farther behind the column. Even the Duke of Winston was nowhere to be seen, but with so many bodies, there was no knowing for sure.
She should leave. That had been her plan—come to Madame Gravelle’s as she’d told Nicholas she would, knowing at least the duke would be here, and if it was a disaster, she would leave quickly and nobody would ever be the wiser.
But now the entrance was three rooms away, with dozens of shocking activities taking place between her and the door, and—
“Bonsoir, mademoiselle.” A man had approached from her other side, partly blocking her escape from behind the column.
She tried to smile. “Bonsoir, monsieur.”
His cheek dimpled. “You are enjoying the party?” He was blond and handsome, laughing and open with a wicked light in his blue eyes.
No, I was just about to leave.... She glanced at the crowd again. After everything that was said at the gardens, surely Nicholas would be here.
“Mais, oui.” She swallowed, buying herself a moment, keeping her eye on the crowd, but not too closely, because— Good God. Did that woman just— “I always enjoy this kind of party.” She shifted her attention fully to the man.
He laughed. “I have been watching you, mademoiselle, and I am convinced you have never attended this kind of party before.” He reached out and fingered a lock of her hair. “Tell me...what drove you here tonight? Curiosity, perhaps?”
Stupidity. Even if Nicholas had been here, what had she really thought to accomplish? Don’t be a ninny, she scolded herself. He could yet arrive.
Proving to him that she would be a terrible wife, that’s what.
“Yes...yes, curiosity.”
The man edged closer, even though there was barely a foot of space between them to begin with. Now there was barely an inch. He caught her hand and kissed her fingertips. “Then perhaps I may satisfy it for you.”
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary, monsieur—”
“Pardon me,” a man interrupted, joining them in a very cozy threesome. India looked up into—oh, thank heaven—the near-black devil-eyes of the Duke of Winston. “I’m afraid you’ve chosen the wrong entertainment for the evening, Giroux.”
“Bah!” the blond Frenchman said good-naturedly. “I should have known you would have a claim to such a one as this.”
“The daughter of a friend,” the duke told him, “who has somehow found her way here and must now find her way back.”
“Ah, I see.”
India’s relief edged into irritation.
“I couldn’t possibly leave when I have just met such a charming acquaintance,” India told the duke, tucking her hand into Monsieur Giroux’s arm now that the duke was here with Nicholas surely nearby.
The duke ignored her and ordered Monsieur Giroux to leave with a quick jerk of his head. When the man had gone, the duke looked down at her. “Where is your fiancé, Lady India?”
“I have no fiancé, and in fact I was only just beginning to enjoy m
yself with Monsieur Giroux when you interfered—”
“Do not play games with me,” the duke said in a low voice, curling his hand around her arm. “This is no place for an innocent. Where is Taggart?”
“You do not know? I assumed you were together.”
Those devil-dark eyes narrowed. “No.”
Beyond him a woman in a sheer toga began to dance. He glanced over his shoulder and moved to block India’s view. And then, “Oh, heaven be praised,” he said, and she saw Nicholas shouldering through the crowd.
The sight of him nearly made her light-headed.
“I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life,” the duke said as Nicholas joined them.
Nicholas turned his head and murmured something to the duke—something India could not quite make out. The duke nodded once, said “Certainly,” and disappeared into the crowd.
“I did not see you at the ball,” India said now, raising her chin at Nicholas. “I feared you had decided to entertain yourself without me.”
“You should not have come here alone,” he said flatly. He was angry—she saw it in his eyes.
That only irritated her more. “I thought I had an escort for the evening,” she said. “But no matter...as it turned out, I wasn’t completely alone. Before you arrived, I was having a very pleasant tête-à-tête with a Monsieur Giroux.”
“Indeed.”
They were both wedged behind the column now, and there was no place to put her hands except on his arm and chest, and the heady feeling of being this close to him combined with the security of his presence emboldened her.
Every heartbeat seemed crazed with his nearness. “A very fitting introduction to married life, I should say, although married may not be precisely the correct—”
Nicholas took her by the arm and pulled her out from behind the column.
“Wait—stop.”
“We’re leaving.”
“We are not leaving.” She dug in her heels next to a love seat where two men and two women were— Oh.
She looked away and lowered her voice, hissing in Nicholas’s ear. “I’ll not allow you to drag me hither and yon as you see fit. You have no right. What about the education you seemed so eager for me to pursue?”
“You’ve had all the education you require.” Now he had his hand on the small of her back and was pulling her away from the love seat, away from the crowds and toward the edge of the room, still veering toward the doorway that would lead into the adjoining room and the exit.
“Indeed—at the hands of Monsieur Giroux, whom I shall never forget as long as I live—never, Mr. Warre—” her pulse raced as they skirted the edge of the room past couples in various states of dishabille, engaged in every variety of intimacy “—not even when you and I—”
She cut off when he stopped suddenly and turned.
“You want an education?” he said, inches from her face, and oh—she recognized that look. The wild light in those eyes. “Do you, India?”
“Yes,” she managed thickly.
He moved a few feet, pulled her into a darkened corridor. Murmurs, laughter and a throaty cry drifted from deeper in its recesses. He pressed against her to allow someone by, pushing her against the wall.
“Then perhaps you could help me understand exactly how Giroux compromised you,” he said against her ear. He was pressed flush against her, chest to knee, with her skirts crushed between them. His face was so close, and his lips—oh, she wanted to kiss them so desperately. “Like this?” he asked, and bent down to brush his lips across the curve of her left breast.
Her knees threatened to buckle beneath her. She couldn’t speak.
“And perhaps like this.” He moved his lips to the swell of her right breast.
“Yes.” She could barely breathe the word. Her pulse was chaos. Her breasts longed for his touch. He straightened, and she looked up into his eyes. “Yes—precisely like that.”
Nicholas moved closer—so close that his lips brushed hers when he spoke. “Then I suppose he did this.” He grazed her breasts with his fingers and slipped his fingertips inside her stays, pushing her nipples up and into view—right here. In the corridor. “And this.” He bent down and suckled, and she gasped.
His breath came hot against her skin as he nipped, pulled, flicked with his tongue. Pure, sinful pleasure shot straight to that bud of pleasure between her thighs. People passed by the corridor’s entrance but she closed her eyes and clung to him, straining into pure sensation and the sweet pull of his lips on her flesh.
She heard herself moan.
Heard him mutter, “Bloody hell.”
And then his mouth came down on hers and he was kissing her, with her exposed breasts pressing against his jacket and her fingers digging into his sleeves. He kissed her hard, uncontrollably, and suddenly her eyes flew open and she realized he was pushing her farther down the corridor. They bumped into a couple coming the other direction, and Nicholas gripped her to keep their balance. Out in the main room, she glimpsed a woman shaking loose a voluptuous mass of auburn hair that rippled over creamy décolletage.
Nicholas pulled her impatiently though a doorway and stumbled with her into a draperied alcove with a small, upholstered stool and a gold-framed looking glass. There was just enough light to see her pale pink-tipped breasts reflected in the glass, and his hands cover them as he dipped his head to her neck.
She thought of the auburn-haired woman, and recklessly she reached for her pins while Nicholas pressed hot kisses to her throat and piqued her to pure need with his circling thumbs.
He looked up, met her eyes in the glass the moment her hair came tumbling free.
“Good God,” he said roughly, and moved behind her so that now they both faced the glass and there was no choice but to watch him hold her breasts and pull her nipples with his thumbs and forefingers while pleasure seared between her thighs.
Shrieks and wild laughter drifted from the main room. There were voices in the corridor.
And Nicholas, yanking up India’s skirts that seemed to take up the entire alcove. Hooking a hand under one of her legs, lifting, setting her foot on the little stool. And then—oh, yes—he was touching her there again like he had in the hayloft, only this time—oh, God—he was watching himself touch her—they both were—because he was holding up her skirts so the V of her thighs was fully exposed, and even in the near darkness the triangle of her woman’s hair contrasted starkly with the pale skin around it.
She felt more than saw his fingers splay her folds. Lost herself in the utter wantonness of his touch, of the sight of him touching her. And it felt delicious.
Naughty.
Shamelessly, wonderfully wicked. Words she never would have spoken anywhere else rolled off her tongue. “You want me, Mr. Warre. Only try to deny it now.”
“You’re damned bloody straight I want you,” he said against her ear, while below his fingers delivered pleasure that left her scarcely able to think. “I want you screaming my name when I fill you.” Those fingers plunged inside her deeply.
“Nicholas.”
His hand stilled, and he stared at her in the glass.
She stared back.
“Are you expecting me to hesitate, Mr. Warre?” Her voice felt thick. Seductive.
He made a feral sound, and his fingers left her. He reached for his placket. Seconds later he turned her from the glass and curled her hand around hot, solid flesh.
His cock. The feel of it in her hand startled her—hard yet soft, strong yet delicate, unlike anything she’d ever touched. And warm—almost hot, pulsing against her skin.
She closed her fingers around it, and he groaned.
She stroked, emboldened by the bawdy sounds around them, as if the primal knowledge she needed was carried on those murmurs and cries.
He pulled from her grasp and sat abruptly on the upholstered stool. Pushed her skirts up and gripped her thighs, urging her over him, suckling her breasts and—
Oh.
There wa
s her reflection behind him, shrouded by shadows but clearly visible, with her hands on his shoulders and her lips parted and her hair falling around them while he feasted on her. She caught a glimpse of pale thigh, of dark hand gripping fair skin, and it didn’t seem possible to want something as much as she wanted to give him her virtue right here, right now.
And then he was reaching for her, bringing her mouth down to his, and nothing existed but him. Heaven was his tongue invading her and his hands urging her wider, wider, pulling her over him until she felt something pushing against her opening.
Breaching.
Piercing—oh. It hurt.
Spearing up inside her—“Nicholas!”—thick and full into her yielding body while his hands moved to cup her breasts and he rolled their peaks between his fingers and pain turned slickly, exquisitely into pleasure.
Her hips moved against the buried pressure of him. His hands left her breasts and dug into her hips, guiding her up, and then down—hard—onto his shaft, and up again. And down.
Again.
Again.
Their mouths tangled in desperate madness. She gripped his shoulders while he plunged, thrust, drove into her blossoming channel. Her bud of pleasure pressed and rubbed against the juncture of his legs, and the sensations from the hayloft began to build again, only sharper this time.
Fuller.
Rising, spiraling, surging.
Her legs splayed wide across him, and she took him deep. Deeper. Stretched open around him as he stroked her to womanhood.
Felt herself slipping.
Heard him whispering. “Ah, devil—yes.”
Teetered on the edge of release.
And then it came, and she fell with it, gasping, clenching him with her whole body while her thighs gripped his and he pounded up into her and for a moment the world went blank except for the crippling pleasure between her legs. He gave a ragged cry against her skin. Bit his teeth into her shoulder. Strained hard inside her now, and she felt him pulsing, pulsing, pulsing.
Holding her so tight she couldn’t breathe.
And then he slackened, just a little, just enough so her lungs could work again. For a long, tilting moment the entire universe seemed centered where their bodies were joined.
A Wedding by Dawn Page 21
