‘She was dancing the last I saw of her.’ Robert said softly and frowned. ‘Why, Your Grace?’
‘I last saw her with Buxton.’ Markham whispered. ‘Not somebody I’d leave my sister with.’
‘Neither are you!’ the Duke of Dovedale said firmly from behind making Markham jerk upright. ‘I believe my son is in the refreshment room with Nairn.’ He looked coldly at Markham, who nodded affably and strolled away. ‘Don’t believe a word that rattlesnake says.’ Dovedale muttered as he turned away.
Robert didn’t give it much thought as Markham was in the card room and taking a seat at another table. But Dovedale sauntered out and found Wilfred in the refreshment room, chatting amiably with Baron Nairn.
‘Markham is asking for Miss Hastings?’ he said calmly and indicated a whiskey to the footman. Wilfred almost choked on his brandy and Nairn shuffled his feet. ‘I would suggest you locate her, before Markham does.’ He sighed quite dramatically. ‘I’ve got my eye on Caroline and your mother is watching Eleanor.’ The Duke nodded at his son and walked calmly away.
‘We’d better split up and find her.’ Wilfred said as he and Howard drained their glasses and sallied forth. Wilfred checked in the ballroom, the dining room, where the buffet had been laid out on the table and the drawing room, where a number of ladies were in earnest conversation. Howard checked the card room and even managed to talk Lady Imogen into checking the Ladies Retiring Room without raising her suspicions that anything was wrong. He even managed to track down Lucy’s maid and Betsy checked her room, but it was empty.
‘I can’t find her anywhere.’ Wilfred said, panic just under the surface. Appalling visions of Harriet Saunders assaulted his mind’s eye as he tried to think where she could be hiding.
‘She’s not in her room either.’ Howard said firmly. ‘I sent her maid to check.’
‘How am I going to find her?’ Wilfred asked plaintively.
‘Start at the last location.’ Howard said helpfully as he looked at the French doors. ‘She went out through that one.’ He said pointing, ‘and didn’t come back!’
‘Do you think her footsteps will still be visible in the snow?’ Wilfred asked excitedly as he headed for the hall to collect a cloak.
‘I would think so, but not for much longer.’ Howard ventured as he opened the front door and looked out at the blizzard. ‘Will you be all right?’ He asked as he lit the candle in the lantern standing on the hall table.
‘Yes. If I don’t come back, keep your nose clean and you don’t know anything!’ Wilfred said as he flicked the cloak around his shoulders and grabbed the handle of the lantern. ‘Allow me to be hoisted by my own petard!’ The two friends laughed at the coarse joke. Howard patted him on the back as he went out of the front door, but he still worried about him. He closed the door softly and heading back into the ballroom, made a beeline straight for Eleanor and immediately offered his arm for a dance.
Chapter Eight
The snow was blinding. Wilfred was astonished at the speed it had become a blizzard. He knew Lucy was out here and he could see her footprints in the snow by the dim light of the lantern he held. A coachman had joined in the search when he couldn’t find her in the stables.
‘She’ll be lucky to survive in this!’ he moaned, but Wilfred still heard him even though the wind howled.
‘I agree!’ Wilfred shouted. ‘She didn’t even have a cloak on. Her thin silk dress will be saturated by now.’
‘What on earth possessed her to run out in this weather?’ The coachman bellowed.
‘That was entirely my fault.’ Wilfred finally admitted his attitude and language could have been more polite. He’d deliberately harangued her about the Duke of Markham and it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t know what a profligate rake he was, or how untrustworthy. It was well known among the male members of the ton that Ernest Deptford could not be trusted either with a wife or a daughter and Wilfred knew that Basset would be grateful for his interference. He shook his head as he realised he shouldn’t have accused her of being one of Markham’s paramours, but he needed to get her away from him before the Duke could escort her out onto the terrace or worse, to her bedroom.
A particularly harsh blast of snow filled arctic wind blew straight in his face, but on the wind he caught the sound of a woman sobbing. The footprints still led in the same direction and suddenly in the weak pool of light cast by the lantern he saw what looked like a puddle of teal coloured silk.
‘Holy God!’ burst from his lips when he recognised Lucy’s shivering body curled up under the huge oak tree. He rushed to her side, placing the lantern near her head and could see that all the exposed surfaces of her skin were mottled blue with the cold. ‘Lucy! Can you hear me?’ he asked as he slipped his cloak off and handed it to the coachman. He leaned down and clamped his hand around her upper arm and pulled her into a sitting position. She was shaking like a man with the Ague. Wilfred clamped his hands under her arms and heaved her to her feet. The coachman stepped up behind her and wrapped the cloak over her shoulders.
‘The Dower House is just over the hill there.’ The coachman said pointing. ‘It has a small staff and is nearer than going back to the main house.’
Wilfred nodded as he lifted Lucy’s shivering body into his arms. ‘Lead the way.’ He said simply, not wasting any more breath. He was well aware that even though Lucy was quite light, she would become a heavier burden as the minutes passed and the cold sucked the strength from his muscles. He concentrated on merely putting one foot in front of the other until they were standing in front of a brightly lit doorway and a horrified butler was looking out at them.
‘My goodness!’ he spluttered as he opened the door wide. ‘Miss Lucy!’
‘I need a warm bedroom, a hot bath and dry clothes for both of us.’ Wilfred snapped out his orders. The butler sent footmen running and led the way to the stairs.
‘We always keep a fire in every room in the winter, My Lord.’ He said steadily. ‘The Earl doesn’t like a house to smell musty and unused, even when it is.’ He smiled as he turned at the top of the stairs for the master suite at the front of the house. He threw open the door on a very comfortable suite. The sitting room walls were covered in a pale gold silk paper above the rich dark oak wainscoting. All the furnishings were in royal blue with gold accents and the drapes were the same. There was a goodly blaze in the large hearth. The butler led the way to the bedroom and waited for more instructions.
‘Have you sent for a maid?’ Wilfred asked as he set Lucy down on the floor in front of the fire.
‘I have, My Lord.’ The butler said softly.
‘When the storm abates, you will have to send word to the main house. The Earl of Basset will need to know his sister is alive and well.’
‘Yes, My Lord.’
‘Send up some tea and I could do with some towels or maybe a blanket.’ Wilfred muttered as he looked at the pale icy face of Lucy Hastings. The butler left with these orders and Wilfred looked down at her. She seemed so small and shrivelled. He stepped over her supine body, lifted Lucy into his arms and perched on the stool beside the fire. He rocked her as he stared absently into that beautiful face and berated himself.
‘At this rate, you are going to freeze to death before anybody comes to help me.’ He murmured. ‘So I’m going to have to get you out of those wet things.’
He slowly peeled the cloak open and pulled her up into a sitting position on his lap. He carefully laid her face against his left shoulder, keeping his left arm across her body, to stop her from tippling off and slowly he started with peeling her gloves off, before undoing the fastenings of her gown. The silk lacings were sopping wet, stiff with snow and were difficult to open, even if his hands hadn’t been shaking uncontrollably. He heaved and yanked at them before he had the gown open wide enough to try and peel it down her shoulders.
He had never undressed an unconscious woman before, a drunk one yes, but not catatonic. It was far more difficult than he had ever imagine
d. With some tugging and pulling he managed to get the bodice of her dress down to her waist, revealing a petticoat of fine silk. Lucy’s head flopped back over his arm as he changed his hold on her and pulled open the ribbons at the front of the petticoat, revelling at the thrill he felt of actually seeing Lucy Hastings in her underwear. He swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on saving her life.
Once the petticoat was off her shoulders a very pretty corset was revealed for his appraisal. It was made of lisle, stiffened with whalebone and decorated with delicate silk roses and satin ribbon. He looked in wonder as her full breasts almost bulged out of the top of it. He was very tempted to stroke his fingertips over that swelling flesh, but a rash of gooseflesh shivered over her exposed chest and he quickly pulled her forwards again, so that he could tackle the laces. These were slightly easier to loosen as they weren’t quite so frozen.
He had just pulled the pretty stays away from Lucy’s body when a maid scurried in the door followed by two footmen manhandling a large copper bath. Wilfred deftly flicked the cloak up and held it about Lucy’s shoulders while the men filled the bath with steaming water. The maid was pulling back the bed clothes and placing hot bricks, wrapped in towels on the mattress, before she flicked the covers back over.
‘Would you like some help, My Lord?’ she asked softly and Wilfred nodded. The maid knelt down in front of Lucy and jerked her slippers off of her very cold feet. ‘I don’t think you should put her in the bath, My Lord.’ The maid continued as she reached under Lucy’s dress and removed her stockings and garters. ‘If you just drop her into hot water, the shock could bring on a heart seizure. That’s why I brought the hot bricks.’ She said and smiled coyly at him. ‘She needs to be warmed slowly.’ She reached for the gown bunched around Lucy’s waist and Wilfred stood to give her a better chance of pushing it down over Lucy’s hips and quite suddenly, Lucy was almost naked in his arms, except for the thin chemise, which was almost transparent in its sodden state. Again he deftly flicked the cloak about her as he sat again. Wilfred felt his heart thump against his chest as he caught a glimpse of her perfect body through the wispy material. He sat and waited for the footmen to finish with the bath and was surprised to see the maid lay out a night shirt for him as well as a nightgown for Lucy. The maid hurried the footmen out of the door.
‘Bring her over to the bed and let’s get her a little warmer.’ She practically ordered Wilfred and dutifully he rose and stalked to the bed. As he manhandled Lucy onto the mattress, the maid finished stripping her body and his mouth went dry as he feasted on that gloriously exposed flesh. But suddenly his heavenly view was distorted by a towel as the maid vigorously rubbed Lucy’s body to help return circulation. ‘You should get into the bath, My Lord.’ She said softly. ‘I shall be busy for a while.’
It wouldn’t be the first time Wilfred had been seen naked by a maid, so he quickly stripped his soaking clothes off and plunged his body into the hot water. He revelled in the heat and he felt the ache in his bones as it chased the cold away. He watched the maid release Lucy’s hair and rub it with the towel before combing and plaiting it and then she gently manoeuvred her into the nightgown, before moving the bricks around her body and covering her over with the blankets and a thick eiderdown.
‘When she wakes, just ring and I’ll bring some tea.’ She curtsied. ‘Is there anything else, My Lord?’ Wilfred shook his head and she bobbed another curtsey before she gathered up all the sodden clothing and left, closing the door quietly behind her.
Wilfred rose from the cooling bath and flicked a towel around his waist. He rubbed himself with another towel until he was dry, standing in front of the fire. He slipped the nightshirt on, went to the door and turned the key, so nobody could surprise him and then went and stood beside the bed.
Over and over he told himself this was inappropriate and he was deliberately ruining a fine woman, but he had every intention of offering marriage and if she chose to reject it; that was her problem.
He pulled the bedclothes back, moved the hot bricks over the other side and climbed in beside Miss Lucille Hastings, the virginal sister of an Earl. He carefully pulled her into his arms and was quite surprised when she sighed, wrapped her arm over his chest and threw her leg over his. He replaced the bedding and gently kissed her forehead as she sighed again. Under the cover of the blankets, he gently chafed her arms and back, feeling the chill on her bare skin as she stroked the instep of her icy foot up the length of his shin. Unfortunately, her thigh kept drifting over his groin and he had to exert extreme self-control as he tried to ignore the throbbing in his manhood.
Within five minutes she had stopped shivering and Wilfred lay there thinking of how glorious her naked body looked from his one glimpse of it, before the maid had covered it with a towel. Her long shapely legs and the mouth-watering dark thatch at the apex that made him want to bury his face there and never stop kissing her. Her hips were well rounded and widely spaced, indicating she would be quite capable of surviving the child bed. She had a narrow waist which showed off her ribs that were quite obvious, before those wonderful breasts. He had only imagined what they might look like and hadn’t even got close. Whereas most women had some shortcomings, Lucy Hastings’s body was almost perfect.
Thinking about her round, sumptuous breasts, made his heart hammer again. They were ivory skinned and blemish free, with her nipples looking like a couple of cherries. He moaned with his need to suck them, but kept his hands on her back. In the heat, it didn’t take long for him to nod off to sleep.
….Her breasts were like silk to the touch and he wanted to touch them. She lay in the centre of a bed, strewn with rose petals and beckoned him forwards. ‘You are wearing too many clothes, my love.’ She whispered huskily as she stroked her hand over her breast to entice him. He wrenched his clothes off and climbed onto the bed to crouch over her. He engulfed her nipple in his mouth and she surged beneath him. He sucked, tugged, nipped and laved them both until she was begging for completion and he felt his cock slip into her slick passage. It was sublime to feel her clench around him as her first orgasm came and he held still until it was over. She sighed and smiled, ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ she murmured and he shook his head as he pulled back and surged into her again, making her gasp. Slowly and surely he brought her to another orgasm and she was so alive beneath him that he had to grasp the head of the bed with one hand and her hip with the other to keep her still. He muttered imprecations as he got closer to climax, until he felt his testicles clench and he knew ecstasy was a hairsbreadth away. ‘Oh! God! I love you, Lucy!’ he whispered as he tripped over the precipice into nirvana and his seed exploded from him. He could feel every pulse of her sex as she screamed and writhed in ecstasy and her legs crushed his ribs as she tried to close her legs. As she relaxed, he could still feel her clamped around his manhood….
Suddenly he was awake. To his utter astonishment Lucy had her fingers clenched around his manhood and she was holding it like a comforter. It was a strange sensation, as his nightshirt was between her fingers and his flesh, but there was no mistaking the pulsing throb of his manhood as he ejaculated on the inside of his nightshirt. He lay rigid, waiting for it to subside and eventually he sighed in relief as his manhood shrank away. Gently he tried to pry her fingers away, but she moaned, snuggled against him and just clenched him harder, eliciting a groan and making him harden again. ‘Lucy, my love, you must let go.’ He murmured, hoping that she would heed him although she was asleep. He gently held her wrist and waited until she relaxed again, he was amazed that her hand opened and then he could pull it away. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead as he carefully rolled her on her other side and snuggled up behind her, spooning her back to his chest. She moaned again and nestled her buttocks in his groin and sighed. Wilfred nodded off again and awakened when the dawn was just lightening the sky visible through the window.
Lucy was restless and moaning. Wilfred lifted himself up on one elbow and stroked his other hand over her upp
er arm. ‘Lucy? How do you feel, my love?’ he asked softly and gently rolled her towards him. He felt a frisson of horror raise gooseflesh over his body as he looked into her feverish face. She was sweating profusely; panting for breath and her eyes looked at him, but did not see. ‘Oh! Dear God!’ he muttered as he threw himself out of bed and yanked on the bell pull before he threw himself across the room to unlock the door.
It didn’t take long for the maid to appear. ‘Send for a doctor, Miss Hastings has taken a fever.’
‘Yes, My Lord. Is there anything else?’
‘Yes, you can return my clothes and send up some tea.’
‘Yes, My Lord.’ The maid curtsied and left quickly as a footman arrived to build up the fire.
‘Make it a big one.’ Wilfred ordered and found a blanket draped over a settee in the lounge to wrap around himself. He wandered over to the window to see that the storm was finished and the sun was just peeking over the horizon.
‘Betsy!’ burst from Lucy’s lips and Wilfred rushed back to the bed. Lucy was writhing in her fever and throwing off the blankets. The Earl looked at the china bowl on the wash stand. He poured some of the cold water into the bowl and took it to the bedside table. He carefully dunked the flannel and wrung it out before mopping the sweat from Lucy’s face. He was just going to undo the ribbons at her throat when the maid arrived back along with the housekeeper.
‘I’m Mrs. Herbert the housekeeper, My Lord. Abigail here has your dry clothes, so I would go into the other room and dress.’ She said indignantly as she plucked the flannel disdainfully from his hand. ‘His Lordship has been notified and will be here soon.’ She continued, ‘and we’ll see to Miss Hastings for now.’ She looked at him very disapprovingly, as if she knew he’d ruined a good woman.
Wilfred nodded, took his clothes from the maid and left for the sitting room. It didn’t take him long to have his shirt and britches on, his stockings were stiff from the dowsing, but his best dancing slippers were ruined. He nevertheless forced them on his feet. A footman set a tray of tea and toast before him and he smiled his thanks. He carefully poured himself a cup of the restorative and sat back in the wing-backed chair beside the roaring fire.
Pride and Retribution Page 13
