Improper Gentlemen

by Diane Whiteside

  “Aye, of course I do, you silly wench. Why would I ask you to marry me?”

  “Even though I’m an infamous courtesan. Even though I’m old.”

  She sounded unnaturally happy. Perhaps she was the one losing her wits.

  He nodded solemnly. “Aye, Luce. Even with your tawdry past, I want your future.”

  Then she laughed like a loon, fair startling Simon out of what was beginning to be a drug-induced stupor. There was something wrong with his eyes, too. Thank heavens the drink hadn’t acted so quickly he’d been deprived of learning Lucy’s luscious body again.

  To his delight, she returned to the bed, placing herself precisely where she’d been before, every sweet inch of flesh covering his. As if they were a smooth-edged puzzle, pieces nesting together. A perfect fit, just as it should be. Her lips tickled his chest, and he brought up his good arm to hold her fast. He was more comfortable than he’d been in over a decade, even with his wrist throbbing like a piston steam engine.

  “Ah av somting to tell oo.”

  “What’s that, love? I canna hear you.”

  She lifted her head, and Simon’s vision cleared. Lucy’s eyes were bright with her own tears, and her lips quivered. “I have something to tell you, Simon.”

  He kissed her quiet. “You needn’t tell me anything, Luce. I don’t care about anything but tonight and all the tomorrows we’ll have. Go to sleep. I’ll get a special license. You’ll be Lady Keith before you know it.”

  Lucy settled into him. “Mrs. Grant.” That was all she said until the morning came.

  Victorina Castellano stretched like a silky black cat beneath her bedcovers. The sun seemed particularly bright this afternoon once she removed her red velvet sleeping mask.

  This afternoon! She observed the clock next to her bed, which she sometimes looked at while Lord Brighton was doing whatever it was that he was doing. Each time the minute-hand moved she felt obligated to say something encouraging, or at least he thought she was. The man knew no Spanish, so Vicky was able to play her small joke.

  It was just past noon. She was supposed to unlock the garden door for that thief Lucy Dellamar. Vicky slipped out of bed, threw on a quilted robe and opened the little French door to her balcony. From this vantage point she could see into her neighbor’s yard, and there was no shivering, penitent Lucy to be found next door. She would wait until Lucy made her exit, then go downstairs after a suitable interval.

  Vicky waited. She was good at waiting. But after a quarter of an hour during which she brushed her hair and teeth, there was still no Lucy. Maldita sea! Lucy was more trouble than she was worth. But that bonito Lord Ferguson said she was being kept a prisoner by Sir Simon Keith. Vicky had met Sir Simon at a little party on Jane Street, and she did not think being his prisoner was such a bad thing at all. Those ojos azules, just the color of the sky this afternoon. He was muy alto, oscuro y hermoso. Rich as sin, too. Lord Brighton did not hold a candle to him.

  Perhaps Lucy had changed her mind. If she had a brain in her red head, which Vicky had to admit she did, for the woman was very clever at stealing from all the Janes these past months. But perhaps now that she was being kept by Sir Simon, her light fingers would find something else to do.

  Vicky called for her breakfast and enjoyed it in her usual leisurely way until her conscience pricked her. Inconvenient things, consciences. Vicky thought she had left it behind in Madrid, but no such luck. What if Lucy was lying at the bottom of her stairs, her neck broken? What if Sir Simon had locked her in a cupboard? There were so many possible ‘what-ifs.’

  She didn’t go next door herself, of course—she had not yet put on her face. But her maid returned with the shocking news that Lucy and Sir Simon Keith had eloped to Scotland this very morning.

  Madre de Dios! Some girls had all the luck, undeserved as it was. But Vicky’s pique was somewhat assuaged by the very large bank draft Sir Simon had left for her, with a similar checque for each of the Janes that Lucy had stolen from. Una conclusión feliz for all, she supposed, if money could buy happiness.

  Well, British bank notes were better than nothing. Vicky would go shopping—perhaps to find a pretty new hat. A new hat made one feel new again. She had always been jealous of Lucy’s, most especially because Lucy would never share where she purchased them. The thief had told a silly story that she made them all herself.

  A Knack for Trouble

  MIA MARLOWE

  They say it takes a village to raise a child. Sometimes that’s true of stories as well. I’d like to thank the ones who helped raise up “A Knack for Trouble.”

  First, my incredible editor, Alicia Condon, who invited me to join the Improper Gentlemen anthology. Her encouragement means everything.

  I’d be lost without the support of my tireless agent, Natasha Kern. She frees me from worrying about business so that I can wallow in the joy of making things up!

  Big thank-you hugs to my critique partner, Ashlyn Chase; my friend and trusted beta reader, Marcy Weinbeck; all the readers of my blog, www.miamarlowe.com/blog, who offered suggestions for naming my hero, and especially Alfke de Haas, the Dutch reader who came up with Danaher for Aidan’s last name.

  And lastly, dear reader, I’d like to thank you. When you read my story, you bring your imagination along for the ride to give my characters life. Without you, it’s just ink on a page.

  Happy Reading.

  Chapter 1

  We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

  —SHAKESPEARE, The Tempest

  1827, Royal Navy Docks, Bermuda

  The soles of half a dozen Hessians slapped on the stone seawall overhead. Aidan Danaher peered up from the man-sized drain he’d scuttled through and extended the fingers of his right hand toward the nearest guard. As soon as he loosed a suggestion the guard raised a spyglass to scan the waves for the moonlit sail Aidan planted in his mind. In another moment the rest of the guards at Royal Dock followed suit. Unheeded, Aidan loped across the open exercise grounds and up the hill to the Commissioner’s house.

  The return trip would be dicier, since the Knack worked best when used sparingly. He’d worry about that when the time came.

  Scaling the masonry and iron of the commissioner’s house was simple. He knew where every finger- and toehold was. He’d helped build the damned thing, after all, and cursed every stone of it.

  But not this night.

  Aidan ducked from the wide second-floor veranda into the tall open window, leaving the balmy Bermudan night behind. The commissioner’s thick-walled house was kissed by a soft breeze, a far cry from the airless convict ship tied up at the wharf that had been Aidan’s home for the past two years.

  Rosalinde waited in the shadows, as she had promised. Now she stepped into the shaft of moonlight pooling on the hardwood floor of her bedroom. Her chestnut hair flowed over her virginal nightshift like a wanton mantle. Her bare toes peeped from beneath her lacy hem, curling with nervousness.

  “We must be quiet,” she whispered, her eyes flaring wide in the silver light.

  Fear, to be sure. But he also read so much trust in them it made his chest ache. “Aye, lass. Quiet as ever we can.”

  Aidan caught both her fidgety hands and brought them to his lips. Her skin smelled faintly of lavender, rose and jasmine blossoms he’d seen her tending earlier that day.

  He wasn’t keen on the idea of being strung up by His Majesty’s Royal Navy for this night’s work. But when he looked down at her wide eyes and trembling mouth, he decided she’d be worth it. She was everything fine in his world, standing before him on her little bare feet.

  Aidan bent to kiss her, tasting her lips with gentleness, careful not to spook her. For months, they’d danced around this moment. As elected leader of the Irish convicts who were building the public works at Royal Dock, he’d been ushered in weekly to see the commissioner, Rosalinde’s father, to air grievances or suggest improvements that would speed the work.

  Commissioner Burke had warmed to him, thanks
to the Knack. When Rosalinde needed a groom for her new Thoroughbred gelding, Aidan was taken off the grueling chain gang hauling limestone and put to work in the stables.

  He had as easy a way with horseflesh as he did with people, so it was a simple matter to convince Rosalinde he could help her refine her dressage technique. She never realized the wicked beast’s princely manners were due more to Aidan’s Knack than her improved riding skills.

  They’d talked of ordinary things, as if she were not his jailer’s daughter. She’d made him feel human again. Once she realized the Irish had poets’ hearts, she even read to him from her precious book of Shakespeare sonnets while he filed her gelding’s hooves.

  He’d stolen a kiss from Rose within a few days. In a few weeks, she allowed him to caress her breasts through her stiff riding habit. They drove each other mad by inches, a little more daring each day. Always in danger of discovery, always with only moments to savor their sweet wickedness.

  This night was her idea. If Aidan was to teach her forbidden things, they needed more privacy than a stable provided. But a lady might change her mind at the last moment.

  Loudly.

  Her lips were sweet. Her tongue curled around his when he slipped it between them. When her tongue followed his back into his mouth, he suckled it for a moment, the heady victory shooting straight to his groin.

  Rosalinde might be inexperienced, but she was going to give as good as she got.

  He meant to see she received only good.

  “Ye’re like satin,” he whispered, stroking her skin from her jaw, down her throat and around the scooped neckline of her nightshift. “No, like silk.”

  “And how would a convict know what silk feels like?” she asked, her eyes teasing.

  “I wasna always as ye see me now, ye know.” The less said about how he’d come to be transported there, the better. So he followed his fingertips’ path with his mouth to distract her, skimming over her warm skin. Her nipples stood out like a pair of padded buttons beneath the thin muslin.

  He cupped a breast and her breath hissed in sharply over fine white teeth. It was one thing to brush her softness with the back of his hand through layers of boning, undergarments and her riding habit. Quite another to have only thin muslin separating them. Her eyelids fluttered closed as she caught her lower lip between her teeth.

  He wondered how much of this bedazzled night was due to the Knack and how much to the heated attraction they’d both felt the first time they’d clapped eyes on each other. He hadn’t meant to use his gift on her for this, but he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t without being aware of it. The Knack came as naturally as breathing to him.

  He had to wonder how many virgins would invite the likes of him into their bedchambers without that extra unseen nudge.

  When she tugged the bow at her neckline and parted the muslin to reveal as luscious a pair of breasts as ever a man could want, he decided he didn’t care if the Knack was to blame. He’d take what his gift brought him.

  He feasted on her. There was no missish stiffness from his Rose. Her little sounds of arousal, her hands twining his hair made his whole body throb as she arched into him. He kissed and suckled and nipped till she swayed on her feet.

  Aidan scooped her up and carried her to the waiting bed. As soon as he laid her down she was up again, her knees sinking into the thick feather tick. Her kisses burned with urgency. Her hands worked the buttons down the front of his threadbare shirt. One popped off and rolled across the Bermudan cedar floor.

  “Patience, lass,” he said. “We’ve time.” He’d have to remember to retrieve it later, but when she began pressing wet kisses to his chest, the button fled to a small corner of his mind.

  He helped her jerk off his shirt and began to work the hooks at his hips to drop the front of his trousers.

  “No, I’ll do it,” she said.

  He let his arms hang at his sides, content to let her explore. “Never let it be said I deny ye anything, lass.”

  She smiled shyly up at him, a devastating dimple kissing her cheek. He longed to climb inside that sweet imperfection and never come out. Then her fingertips traced the fine line of dark hair that started as a thin strip at his navel and spread once her hand disappeared into the waist of his trousers. All thought of dimples fled.

  He nuzzled her neck while she fondled his abdomen, careful to avoid the part of him that throbbed for her touch.

  “I love your belly,” she said, her knuckle finally grazing his aching cock.

  “That’s not me belly, love,” he said with a wicked grin.

  Her eyes flared, and then her usually mild brows pinched together. “I know we agreed ye’ll not . . . I mean . . . you said there are ways . . .”

  His grin faded. “Ye know ye can trust me, aye? Nothing we share this night will do ye lasting harm.”

  Much as he wanted to make the two-backed beast with Rosalinde, he wasn’t the sort to ruin a girl.

  “But this is your first time to lie with a man,” he said, lowering his mouth to her neck. He longed to bite down on that warm flesh and leave a love-mark on her white throat, but she didn’t need any physical evidence of their time together. She shivered, despite his warm breath feathering along her jaw and tickling her earlobe. “So I must warn ye. Ye’ll always remember me.”

  Her lips twitched in a smile. “Then you’d better make sure it’s a good memory.”

  He straightened and looked down at her, a smile slowly spreading over his face. “Aye, lassie. Ye have me word.”

  He bent and claimed her mouth as she stroked him, exploring his length with tentative glancing caresses. He bridled himself. It had been so long since he’d sheathed himself in a woman’s wetness.

  If she wasn’t a virgin . . .

  A vivid image seared across his mind. He imagined himself rucking up her nightshift. He plunged his hand in to cup her sex. In his mind’s eye, she was so wet, his finger slid along her cleft with ease, all slickery and slippery and hot and aching.

  Then in reality, she grasped his hand and pressed his palm over her privities. Her intimate moisture soaked through the thin fabric as she arched herself against his fingers. She made a noise of impatience in the back of her throat.

  Had he Sent her that image of a lover’s touch? Was she only responding to a suggestion accidentally delivered by means of his gift?

  Rosalinde made another noise of distress and broke off their kiss. Then she tugged her nightshift over her head, wrapped her arms around him and fastened her lips to his as if her life depended on it.

  Her soft breasts pressed against his work-hardened chest. He reached between them to finger her sex. Just as he’d imagined, she was wet and swollen. Her little spot had risen, begging for him to stroke it. His mouth found her breasts again. He nipped her and she cried out in aching joy.

  “Hush, lass,” he said. “Else ye’ll have my head in a noose.”

  Rosalinde blinked at him and clamped her lip shut. He was still holding her hot little mound. She throbbed into his hand.

  Lasses were kept in such ignorance of their own power. He’d show her now what her body could do. He stroked her slowly, drawing out the torment. When her eyes rolled back, he invaded her, slipping a finger into her tightness. She spread her legs to give him room. He circled her sensitive spot, teasing and petting her into a stiff little peak.

  He rolled a nipple between his thumb and forefinger while the other hand was still busy playing a lover’s game with her mound. He tongued her mouth, a rough parody of what he ached to do with his cock in her tight little channel. She groaned with need.

  He planted fevered kisses on her neck, her jaw, the corner of her mouth, her closed eyelids. “Make that noise again and I’ll spread your legs and rut ye blind.”

  “Do you promise?” she said with a gasp.

  They flopped onto the mattress in a tangle of arms and legs, kissing and stroking. His hips were between her thighs. He was poised at her entrance. The head eased in a finger width
before Aidan caught himself.

  “Oh, don’t stop,” she whimpered, wiggling down on him. “I’m so . . . empty.”

  Pressure rose in his shaft and his ballocks drew into a snug mound. He’d fill her all right.

  She rocked her hips, grinding against him.

  He panted with the effort of not plunging into her. The pleasure of wanting was a knife’s edge from pain. He’d never needed anyone so.

  “Rosalinde, lass, ’tis a thing once done, canna be undone.” But even as he whispered the words, his mind churned furiously. He saw himself riding her with long hard strokes. Then he’d prop her knees over his shoulders and plough into her over and over and if they broke down the bed, so be it. He’d go to the gallows with a smile on his face if only he could rut her senseless now.

  Her eyes glazed over and her mouth went passion-slack. “Yes. That. I want you to.”

  Does she somehow see what I want to do to her?

  “Do it,” she ordered as if she’d heard his thought. “Aidan, I need you so.”

  He drew a shuddering breath and lowered himself to kiss her.

  He’d had the best of intentions. He was only going to pleasure her, to show her how her body worked. Then she melted under him and he was powerless to deny her.

  She throbbed, a deep, low drumbeat between her legs and his balls clenched in tandem. Blood surged hotly, tramping out a rhythmic tattoo in his head, like a hundred shackled men marching in lockstep. In another moment, they’d break free and run riot through his brain.

  With teeth clenched to control himself, he eased in, stopping only at the barrier of her purity. He raised himself on his elbows to look down at her.

  Her face was taut with need.

  “You can stop the ache,” she said, tight-lipped. “Don’t make me beg.”