“Yes, I do, sweetheart. I want it too, but we’re doing this properly. I will ask your mother for permission to court you and when d’Argento finds your brother, I will ask him for your hand. Never fear, we will prevail.” Briefly, he touched her hand, squeezed it, then moved away. “This is just the first campaign.”
“Lyndhurst is still chasing me.” Not precisely. He paid her court, as many other eligible men did, and some of the ineligible, but he was remaining her friend. She liked him much better as a friend than a would-be lover. But telling Blaize this might hurry him along a little.
“So is half the male population of London,” he said, “or hadn’t you noticed?” He drew her to a table groaning with its burden of refreshments for the guests. Knowing her tastes, he picked up a plate, selected a few morsels and presented it to her. With a practiced society smile, she took it, and after he’d made his own selection they moved aside. People still watched them. People always watched them. Men, with predatory smiles, waiting for the chance to approach her. Women watched with sly jealousy or approbation.
“Where would you like me to take you for a honeymoon?” he asked.
He didn’t trap her that way. She enjoyed their games, that he would assume their betrothal and she would counter it. “Aren’t a married couple supposed to retire to the estate to receive the congratulations of their friends and neighbours?”
“Damn that,” he said shortly. “I want you to myself for at least a month. I want to gorge myself on you, and give you access to every part of my body. I want to cover you in kisses and play with that sweet little nook between your legs, tease it, lick it and let your honey flow over my face.”
Heat rose to her cheeks, and she stared down at her plate before dumping it, its contents untasted, on a nearby table. “They’ll hear you.”
“No, they won’t. I’m speaking so quietly you’re almost reading my lips. Perhaps in the hope that you’ll come closer and I can kiss you.”
The notion of kissing him in public both appalled and aroused her. Did he know? Of course he did, wicked man that he was. But she enjoyed his wickedness, and the knowledge that they’d already shared far more than they should have already. Her dew anointed the top of her thighs, made the flesh between her legs sensitive enough for her to want to rub them together, to bring herself some ease. But she dared not. People were watching.
Turning to grab something, anything, from her plate, she flushed, wishing for what she couldn’t have. “Poor darling,” he murmured, giving her no respite.
She growled at him, but he smiled beatifically. “Should you like to dance again?” He picked up a glass of wine as a waiter passed with a tray full of glasses.
“No. Anyway, you’ll be too drunk.”
He smiled at her over the rim of his glass, the emerald on his finger glinting in the light of a hundred candles. “Have you ever seen me drunk?”
“Some men are very good at hiding their state of intoxication.” It was the first time she’d mentioned his drinking, but over the last week or two it had increasingly concerned her. With her brother out of the country, she had nobody to confide in. Her closest female friends were back in Scotland and if she wrote to them, who knew who might read the missive before it reached its destination? But he drank a lot. In an age when people drank wine as a matter of course, his consumption still stood out.
He took a swallow of the red liquid in his glass. “Don’t worry. Please. I’ll explain.”
“It’s part of this big secret you’re going to tell me?” She was beginning to think that his secret was something completely trivial, that he just wanted her to keep wondering and regard him as a mysterious man.
“Yes, it is.”
No humour lurked in his eyes. But how could that explain his consumption of alcohol, which was prodigious by anyone’s standards? Come to think of it, she rarely saw him drink anything but wine. Brandy occasionally, but since that was made from grapes, that wasn’t making too much of a change. And to her knowledge she’d never seen him drunk. When she kissed him, she never tasted wine on his breath. Passing strange. He always tasted delicious and she always wanted more, but it was a heady mixture of spice and masculinity.
She would keep her faith in him, but she needed one promise. “You will tell me this secret before you—before I commit myself to you?”
He gazed at her, his eyes grave. “Yes, I swear it. I will tell you.”
No caveats. She nodded in acceptance. She couldn’t stop herself falling deeper for him every day, but she could draw back at the brink, if she needed to. “I’d like to talk to my brother, but I have no idea when he’s returning.”
“Have you written to him?”
“Yes, but letters so often go astray when they’re travelling any distance.”
“D’Argento will find him.”
“That’s very generous of him,” she said, wondering why the man would perform such a kindness. Maybe it was as Blaize said, and d’Argento was merely passing by that part of France, but she wondered at the coincidence. In her opinion, coincidences too often had a different explanation.
Smiling, he put down his empty glass and picked up her plate. “The oyster patties are very good. I don’t want you wasting away.”
Glancing down at herself, she laughed. “I have a little way to go until that happens.” But to please him, she took one, and yes, he was right, they were very good. When licking a crumb of pastry off her lips, she caught sight of him watching her and her knees went weak. The heat in his eyes seared into her, forcing her to acknowledge, as always, the tremendous physical connection they shared. Or the hold he had over her. In her weaker moments she still thought that way, although when they were together it was less pressing.
Sometimes she felt as if she were a favourite toy being pulled between two people—her mother and Blaize. Her mother accepted Blaize’s suit, but she favoured Lyndhurst. In fact, her mother wished Aurelia to dangle as many men off her strings as she could amass, and that seemed to be most of the eligible—and for that matter, ineligible—men in London.
Aurelia didn’t consider herself a flirt, but as one of her suitors spied her across the width of the room and made a beeline for her, she couldn’t help a small stab of pride, that she could achieve such a thing.
“Widnes hasn’t a penny to play with,” Blaize said, taking her now-empty plate from her. “For that reason I feel safe leaving you with him. I know you won’t do anything foolish like, oh, I don’t know, going into a private bedchamber with him, or a summerhouse, and your mother will drive him off as soon as she sees you with him. Which will give me a chance to reclaim you. Enjoy your dance.”
With a small bow he left her, ignoring her muttered, “Damn you.”
As well as being a gazette fortune hunter, Harry Widnes had to be the most conceited man here tonight, convinced his birth was superior to anyone else’s and he had a right to whatever he could gain by marriage. He was unlikely to snag an heiress, even a desperate one, unless his quarry could bear his incessant preening.
Aurelia had to acknowledge Blaize had a point, and his tactics were sometimes as martially correct as Lyndhurst’s. In fact, wilier at times, since Lyndhurst tended to think in straight lines. He saw his objective and he went the shortest and most direct way to achieve it. Blaize didn’t mind smelling a few flowers on the way.
Now, stuck with Harry Widnes prosing on about his mother, his house, the repairs to his house and God knew what else, because she stopped listening after a time, Aurelia would have done a great deal to excuse herself from his company. Anything but let the more spiteful of the people here tonight accuse her of being too superior for anyone to please.
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens was on the raffish side of society, even though the King’s favourite composer, Handel, had an association with the owner of the Gardens. The place contained many small groves and darkened walkways where, since entry was open to anyone with the requisite fee, people who were most definitely not approved by society
congregated. It had a reputation for trysts.
Aurelia was usually strictly chaperoned when she came here, but tonight her mother eased her strictures. She even smiled graciously at Blaize once or twice. She might break her teeth if she held her jaw any more rigidly. But Aurelia appreciated the effort.
She’d brought the stickpin, rather daringly stuck down her bodice, but for the last time. She’d lost it at dinner, and the footman gave it to her mother rather than to her. Her mother had produced it at breakfast the following morning and, not surprisingly, ordered her to return it to Blaize. It was a costly gift, and she should never have accepted it, because it showed too much favour, but she would enjoy it one last time.
They had one of the charming but flimsy booths, where Blaize hosted a small party of gentlemen and ladies who disported themselves in a more decorous way than some of the people around them. However, they gained great enjoyment from watching the people around them.
“Did you see that man?” Vanessa Howton asked, her fan before her mouth so as not to allow her words to be seen. “I swear he had his hand down the front of that lady’s gown!”
Aurelia obligingly looked and saw. “That is no lady,” she offered. “It’s more of a femme du soir.”
“She’s very elegantly dressed.”
“Indeed she is, but no lady would behave in that manner.”
Vanessa sniggered. “You think so? But possibly not here, in the public area.”
This part of the Gardens consisted of booths set in a line, and a central area where people could parade and move around the front of the booths to chat with the inmates. Flowers, probably brought in from the market gardens that surrounded the city rather than grown on the premises, twined in a charming display around the front of the booths.
“And what,” said Blaize, proving he had ears as sharp as an owl’s, “would you two well-brought-up young ladies know of femmes du soir?”
Vanessa turned and grinned. “You have to ask two women who have been on the town for more than one Season? How do you think we travel around London? With our eyes closed?”
Blaize let out a bark of sharp laughter. “You have the right of it. I do appreciate an honest woman.”
“I can be franker,” Vanessa suggested, but since the plump, dark-haired beauty was one of the toasts of the Season, Aurelia wasn’t entirely keen to let her too close to the man she’d set her sights on.
“It’s hardly difficult to miss their presence,” she put in. “There seem to be more of those than respectable women.”
“Certainly in some areas of London,” Blaize agreed. “But perhaps it’s best for you to avoid those parts. Lady Aurelia, I had planned to tear you away from this fascinating discussion, but you might prefer to stay.”
Aurelia tried not to appear too eager. That would never do. “The enticement must be considerable.” She exchanged a laughing glance with Vanessa.
“There’s a friend I would like to introduce you to. Would you consent to accompany me?”
She should stay in sight of her mother, but Aurelia hoped he didn’t follow the strictures of propriety. She’d snatch any opportunity of a little privacy with him. He was becoming frighteningly essential to her. If he decided he didn’t want her after all, she’d suffer quite desperately.
How had he become so necessary to her? She’d had suitors before, even ones that had danced attendance on her every need for the course of a Season, until she’d refused them. Then there was Lyndhurst, who had paid her determined court. Handsome, rich, and until she met Blaize she had almost decided to accept him, should he offer. He’d have made her happy. She was sure Blaize would. All she knew was that she had to have him.
The obsession worried her, and for once she understood some of the more desperate men who declared their love to her on a regular basis. The ones her mother and brother, when he was home, kept away from her.
Blaize offered his arm and they left the booth together, after a discreet nod of permission from her mother. “I wonder, does it concern you that you’re a grown woman who still needs her mother’s say-so to talk to a man?”
“What makes you say that?” she asked as he led her along a broad, brightly lit path.
“At your age I was running wild.” He guided her along a less well-lit pathway.
She grimaced. “I’m never allowed to do that.”
“Have you ever wanted to?”
“What difference would it make?”
He shot her a grin. “Sometimes women do slip away from their watchers, you know.”
“You would know that.” That knowledge didn’t surprise her.
He paused, smiled, a wicked, secretive smile that seemed to share secrets. “I would. By the way, did you know someone is following us?”
She sighed. “Yes. A footman.”
He glanced behind him, and instead of beckoning to the man, walked toward him. Gold glinted as it changed hands, then the footman smiled, touched his fingers to his forehead and settled down on a nearby bench. Blaize came back to Aurelia.
“I noticed your mother was rather more amenable than usual.” He turned another corner. Quieter, dimmer lit and on the outskirts of the gardens. Then into a grotto. Rather pleasing, with shell decoration, but she didn’t have much time to appreciate it. As soon as he’d ascertained the place was empty, he swung her into his arms and kissed her in a way her mother would definitely not have approved of.
When he opened his lips over hers, she obliged willingly, letting him taste her with lavish extravagance. Then she tasted him in turn. He moaned into her mouth and his hands, no longer safely settled at her waist, roamed over her back, her shoulders and the bare skin of her neck, where one settled, holding her close.
She could have lost herself in him, happily remained there all night, but he finished the kiss and gazed into her eyes. “Doubts?”
How could he know that? “I’ve never been here before.”
He glanced around. “It was the most obscure place I could think of. It was popular last year and there’s nothing as sad as a place that’s fallen out of fashion. Except I marked it.”
“But people could still come.”
“They won’t, I swear it.”
How could he be so sure? But heaven help her, she couldn’t stop herself from returning his caresses. She wanted to feel his skin against hers again, with nothing between them. That one taste had bloomed in her mind, grown until it obsessed her. “I want you so much, Blaize.”
“And I you, sweetheart. I fall asleep thinking of you, wishing you were with me. This obsession is beyond my understanding.” He shook his head. “I’ve had women before, you have to know that, but I’ve never been possessed with someone so much that they occupy my every waking moment. And some of my sleeping moments too.” He paused, and they lost themselves in another kiss. By the time they’d done, they were both breathing heavily and her lace was askew, pushed roughly aside by Blaize.
He drew away and watched her as he slowly dragged her breasts from their shield of stays and bodice. Lifting her chin, she saw him in the light cast by one flickering lantern. His eyes darkened with desire, his mouth was swollen from their kisses. “I dare not do more than this, otherwise I will take you here, but I need a taste. Something to keep me going. I thirst for you, Aurelia, I long for your kiss and your touch. When I hear something amusing, I want to share it with you, and when I come home, I want you there.”
Holding her head between his hands, he kissed her again, long and sweet, before touching his lips down her throat, nuzzling the pulse throbbing there and moving on to her breasts. By the time he sucked a nipple deep into his mouth, she was moaning with unfulfilled longing. The idea that someone might interrupt them had its shocking effect of heightening her excitement. How this could be she failed to understand, but she accepted it. And that nobody would. The footman would keep everyone away.
If he stood within sight of the grotto, he could see them. She gasped sharply when that eventuality occurred to her. Bl
aize lifted his head and must have seen her excitement. “You want to perform for an audience?”
“How do you know these things?” Her voice came out in a strangled gasp, but she had no idea how he could seemingly read her mind.
“Because we’re so well attuned, sweetheart. Think about it as us working on the same level. And while I’m enjoying you, think of that dour footman appreciating the view.” He pressed a kiss to her nipple. “Seeing these beauties. But never forget that they belong to me.” When he spoke, his voice vibrated next to the soft, yielding skin of her breast, and she shuddered.
“That feels wonderful.” He deserved to know that what he was doing pleased her, surely?
“Tell me when you like something. Tell me when you don’t like it as well. It’s the only way I’ll learn. And oh, I do want to learn.” With a moan, he went back to his feast.
Dropping to his knees, he smoothed his hands over her silk-clad calves, then up to her thighs. This was the first time he’d broken his self-imposed ban on touching her intimately. So far his courtship had been completely proper, and it had driven her mad. This was what she wanted, what she needed from this man.
His touch sent her wild, and she had to cover her mouth with her hand. Bunching it into a fist, she bit down on the fleshy part of the outside of her hand, suppressing the excited cries he was wringing from her.
Before she could plead for more, he touched her quim, slid his fingers along her crease. The cool evening air washed over her, emphasizing the sensitivity of her breasts. Shuddering, she opened her legs wider for him, but when he ducked under her skirts, he took her completely unprepared.
He attacked her like a marauder, licking thirstily at her hot, wet centre, a man in search of essential sustenance. He drank her, tasted every part of her and made her cry out sharply when he flicked his tongue into her aching, throbbing passage.
Imagine, he’d said, and she did. That footman could see what he was doing. In her mind her skirts were tucked up so he could see everything he wanted to. An elegantly dressed gentleman lapping at her, then sucking—oh, God—her clitoris.
Mad for Love: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 2 Page 8
