"You, on the other hand, have been a thorn in my side since you came here. Things have changed. I’m sorry you fell and were injured, but Hugo acted like a bastard and got himself sacked. You’ve both been allowed to come back on the understanding that it’s at my sufferance. You’ll get a share of the huge receipts Miranda has been raking in, and even at a diminished cut it will be more than you had as the lead. But you will apologise to these three women right now."
Maggie fumed, but did not dare argue.
"You will also not try to tiddle Bart in front of Liz when you know full well that they have an understanding now. And the next time you try to drag me into your little games and tantrums I shall show you the door. You’ve already shown me yours. It appears it’s always open for business. But I’ll pass on the wares, thanks. They’re a bit too shop-worn and soiled for my liking."
He took Miranda’s hand and left without a backward glance, leaving Maggie sputtering with fury and Milly and Liz smiling behind their hands at the complete set down George had given her.
George returned Miranda to her dressing room. "Are you all right?" he asked with a worried frown. "You’ve gone pale."
"No, fine, really. I had a lovely day yesterday. And I know we’ll do well tonight. It’s just, well, Maggie and Hugo make the place so grim and unpleasant."
"Do you want me to make them leave? I will."
"No, it’s all right. It’s just, well, you didn’t have to say those—" She blushed.
He stroked her shoulder tenderly. "I never say what I don’t mean. Surely you know I want you. I just need to be sure."
She nodded. "I understand."
"So let me understand," he said gently.
"What?"
"What did she mean by the whore’s trick?"
Miranda blushed. "Oh, it’s just something my sister taught me for making a man, well... Feel lots of pleasure. But I’ve never—"
"And would you show me? Or are you afraid to, er, touch me."
She sighed and looked away. "A bit afraid. I mean, I wouldn’t want to hurt you, and you’re still not certain about us."
"No, no, you’re right. But if you ever feel like doing it I should very much like to see..."
She coloured. "You’d need to open your trousers. All the way down, not just, and oh, I don’t think—"
"It’s all right. Just give me a kiss. That’s more than enough delight for me now."
He held himself still as she kissed him, allowing her to become more and more bold as she slanted her lips across his to deepen the contact, and ran her fingers along his broad chest, insinuating them into openings between the fastenings of his shirt.
"Oh, darling, are you sure you didn’t just do the trick?" George gasped as he leaned against her heavily a short time later. "For surely being with you, the way you touch me, is the most exquisite pleasure."
She gazed at him in wonder. "For me too. But no, I’m sure I didn’t."
He laughed shakily and refastened his shirt. "Just as well. I might just blow the roof off the theatre if you do."
With one last kiss he returned to his own office, where he finished wrapping his most recent gift to Miranda, a fine black silk reticule. Picking up his pen he wrote, "To my fancy’s queen. G."
Twelfth Night was received well by a packed audience. There were a few little niggling details which still had to be worked out between Liz and Bart, but Miranda and George were perfect, and the applause was rapturous. Philip and Jasmine, Lawrence and Juliet were in George’s box to share in the triumph, as were Alistair and Sebastian.
"I am so sorry my wife couldn’t make it. A touch of megrim," Alistair apologised.
More like a touch of envy, Miranda thought to herself, but smiled graciously at the tall silver-haired barrister and his brother-in-law.
George’s brows knit. "Is she all right? Are you sure she should have been left alone?"
Sebastian nodded. "She’s fine. Insisted we should come. She’ll get over it."
With a warm look at Miranda, he went to congratulate the rest of the cast on a job well done.
"I say, George, you’re going to need to do a matinee every day of the week to accommodate everyone who wants to see this run," Philip said with a laugh.
"Can’t. Other duties, you know," George said quietly.
Philip and Alistair both nodded.
Miranda looked at the three men and wondered what she had missed. She was distracted from asking what he meant by Juliet. She was so delighted to see her sister and Lawrence that she invited them back to her dressing room.
Oxnard was sitting waiting for her, and looked most livid at having been supplanted by so many others. He bowed over her hand effusively, said he would see her for dueling practice on the morrow, and left.
Only when he had gone did she see the wrapped box and the note, and as a result naturally assumed it was from the Earl.
George had left it with Daniel to slip into her room when they were on stage. He frowned as she looked at the note, set the box to one side without even opening it, and resumed her conversation with Lawrence as if the matter were not of the least importance.
Not that he was trying to bribe her, but he might have hoped for a kind word, if not a kiss on the cheek. Unless of course she really was completely unaffected when it came to gifts… Or he really had bad taste, he thought with a sinking heart.
Before he could ask her to open it to see if it suited her, she was already getting up to leave. Lawrence and Juliet declared they were staying the night at Philip’s, so George had no excuse to take Miranda home as usual. He seethed as she vanished in the Marshall coach, and sighed.
Well, that was her world now, and it was a jolly good chance for her. It was wonderful for her to have made so many friends amongst the Rakehells, as they called themselves. They were all so lofty—a duke, an earl...
Then there was another earl, Oxnard, paying court to her. It was wonderful that Miranda was so well received. The only thing was, where on earth did it leave him? Alone again, he thought with an inward sigh, as he set about blowing out the candles and shutting down the theatre for the night.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Another three days passed, with George and Miranda spending more and more time with each other, almost inseparable apart from in the mornings at Fulham House with her co-residents, and evenings before and after the performances when the Earl lurked.
Several of the more lewd women who patronised the theatre also took to making eyes at the tall theatre manager as though about to devour him, and for a time he thought about trying to make Miranda jealous, but then decided it was beneath him. He wanted to win her fairly and squarely, and playing games with any of them was not to his taste after the rapture he had know with so sweet a young woman as his lead actress.
However, her sweetness set many a man buzzing around her like bees at a honeycomb. George was growing increasingly impatient with Oxnard’s presence, but he knew Miranda felt sorry for him. His obsession seemed to grow with every passing hour, however, and was making him uneasy. Why, he had caught him trying to push his way in the door one evening when the others had left and she had been changing clothes. Only George’s presence in his office, where he had heard a commotion, had prevented him from molesting her further.
"I’ve told you. No one is to be alone with her, and that is final. She is perfectly free to go to supper with you, but you will not use this theatre as a knocking shop. Now out!"
"Supper!" the Earl had called, as Sebastian had dragged him away.
Miranda would have said no regardless, but it did gall her a little that George seemed so high-handed, not to mention hypocritical. For as soon as the Earl was gone, he stepped into her room and insisted on helping her off with her costume.
"Someone might come in. It’s not seemly," she protested quietly.
"Please, just one smell, of your neck," he hastened to add when he saw the flood of colour suffuse her cheeks. She recalled only too well what he had done to
her that first night she had been on stage.
George put his arms around Miranda, and forcing his hands to remain still, he rubbed his cheek against hers slowly, breathing in all the while. Her breasts crested against his hard chest, and her head lolled back against the door. Soon she was shivering with desire.
He kissed down her chest and throat, baring her breasts to his ardent gaze, his questing lips, as he parted the men’s doublet she had worn for her part of Viola/Cesario.
"My fancy's queen," he murmured, quoting from the play.
"Mmm, George," she panted as the whirlwind began to waft her ever upwards.
Her unbridled response urged him on, but he held back with all his might. To love someone was to get to know them intimately, he had discovered over the years of empty physical release.
He forced himself to go slowly, give her pleasure instead of grabbing, learn about what she wanted. He knew his body only too well, his limits, his needs. But they could wait. He wanted Miranda to discover the wonder of her own passion.
With slow, teasing licks and nibbles he feasted on her creamy flesh, massaging her buttocks in the silk hose and trunk hose all the while. He licked around her tiny aureoles, then blew lightly on the crested flesh, until her nipples were almost begging for the velvet rasp of his tongue. He took his time, licking the sensitive underside in long, languid laps, before tasting the side swell, and even nuzzling up into her underarms.
"So sweet. To taste. To smell."
To her surprise, he began to lick her there as well. Her hips canted upward to press again his chest, and he held her bottom even more firmly, and rubbed his chest against her. The large fabric buttons of his waistcoat massaged her tender flesh, sending a violent paroxysm through her.
She hauled down the puffed trunk hose, and the impatience of her gesture took the long stockings with it. One hand now slid under her silk knickers to cup her bare flesh. She could feel her outpouring of desire as her flesh shivered under his sensual onslaught. The other hand now moved under as well. His masterfully orchestrated massaging and rubbing against her combined with his taking one nipple into his mouth to swell into a symphony of sensation.
She gasped his name. Quivering with need, she held his head against her, while her other scrabbled frantically for bare flesh. She invaded his ear, the collar of his shirt, stroked his lashes, and ran her fingers through his hair, while he alternated between breasts with his clever mouth.
At last, all her fears and hopes materialised as he began to kiss down her abdomen, and the knickers pooled around her ankles. She opened herself to him, felt the light stroking of one testing finger parting her tiny curls before he splayed his hand over both of her ivory orbs to meet his mouth.
She felt her knees buckle as his tongue, then teeth touched the engorged bud at the top of her thighs. She heard him whisper in delight. He praised her taste, fragrance, and beauty, and was murmuring an increasingly urgent command against her body that she didn’t quite comprehend.
"Come with me."
"Where do you want to go?" she asked in desperate confusion.
He laughed softly against her silken flesh. "It’s where I’m going to take you. It’s where I am every minute I’m with you. Paradise."
His mouth pressed even harder upon her bare flesh, his tongue snaking out, and he said it again. "Come with me. Come, Miranda. Let it all go."
"This can’t be nice for you," she panted, trying to pull away. The inner turmoil of her loins was already at such a fever pitch she could feel that strange liquid sensation gushing forth even more.
"Nectar of the gods. Delicious. I’m dying, dying the little death the poets write of. Only it isn’t death. It’s rebirth. I’ve been born a new man in your arms. Let me do the same for you. Take you from the mundane to the heavenly. From girl to all woman. Awaken you with this magical kiss."
"Yes, oh yes, George, please."
He laughed with joy as she impatiently pulled his head to her fully. He lifted one knee over his shoulder and slid his tongue into her, lapping at her delicate flesh with the most worshipful touch. A sigh of pure pleasure was torn from her, and she could feel her body being pulled asunder with wrenching need.
Just when she thought the delight could not get any more intense, he moved his mouth to nip lightly with all of his front teeth, and tested her secret core with one finger. Dismay and desire roared through her.
Her nipples peaked painfully, her abdomen clenched with spasming waves. "George, George!"
"Come for me, sweetheart. You are so gorgeous. Look at you, glistening just for me," he murmured throatily.
She arched and shivered even more violently. She was still on her feet, but began to slump from the waist. He released her buttocks, propping her up against the door now with one hand on her heated breast, while she clung to his broad shoulders for support.
"Another one, love. That’s it. You can do it. One more and then you can rest."
Almost mindless with need she let him work his will with his skilled hands and mouth, for truly he was taking her to a place she had only half dared to hope might exist. But it was one she most certainly wanted to visit with him.
"It’s happening again," she said breathily, as she began to peak once more.
"I know. I can feel your muscles clenching. It’s magnificent. Go on, soar with me."
Her climax lifted her right off her feet, she was sure, for when she at last felt as though she could breathe, and was finally able to see, she was cradled in his arms sobbing raggedly, and he was gentling her with his huge hands as if soothing a small child.
Then he kissed her. She could taste herself on him, and the fragrance of roses and light musk aroused her all over again. Suddenly her hands were all over him, and like a tigress seeking her prey, she stalked his own pleasure zones until he begged for mercy and held her wrists away.
"I’m sorry. I’m sorry!" he said, shaking his head. "I should never have started this here. You deserve far better than a towse and mowse on the dressing room floor."
"But George--"
"Miranda, sweetheart, we need to stop. For now. There will be other times. But right now I’m too excited to last more than a second, and Sebastian will be here any moment."
He kissed her breasts, then lifted her onto the stool. He spread her legs wide, causing her to blush and try to close them.
"No, don’t. You’re so lovely. I’ve never met anyone like you. Perfection." He raised one foot and kissed it. He knelt down, gathered her around the waist gently, and put his head in her lap. She could see him giving her one long last look, then a final taste which had her squirming with delight all over again. The chair squeaked and groaned as she tried to evade his tongue.
"That’s going to be me in a minute if I don’t stop," he laughed at the noise.
He rose and went over to fetch her ordinary clothes, and with the utmost tenderness, dressed her. Then he stroked back the hair from her eyes and gave her one last kiss.
"I’ll take you back to Fulham House."
Her fingers clutched his arm convulsively. "George, please—"
He shook his head and sighed. "There’s nothing to talk about. You know how it is between us. It always has been. Just relax, and let it happen. I wanted to give you pleasure. I hope I succeeded. But there’s nothing to be afraid of. Not me, and above all not yourself. I’ve not hurt you, taken anything from you, given you anything which will harm you in any way. You’re still a virgin. It was just a bit of harmless delight."
She shook her head. "It was. So very wonderful. But it only makes me want you more."
George smiled, his joy and relief all too evident. "Oh, darling, you have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that."
"And now that I know such bliss exists in your arms, you would deny me the rest? And the chance to do the same for you?" she protested.
Now it was his turn to shake his head. "I don’t want to rush this. It’s too special. And I’ve been tormented with desire ever since I saw yo
u selling oranges in the pit. Surely a couple of more days and nights can’t make much difference, not to me anyway. I need you to be sure. Just one kiss and I’m lost. I don’t want to scare you away, but I need to be honest. I burn for you. Hotter than any pit of hell. One look from you and I melt."
He stroked her tousled hair back from her brow. "You’ve seen it happen. Seen me melt, seen me come. In the seats at the back, the night of the riot."
Her eyes widened with understanding. "So that's why—"
"I'm telling you the truth because I want there to be no secrets between us. And because I need you to know my feelings for you are genuine. I would rather die than hurt you. What I feel for you is so intense, it makes me forget who I am, my very name. You’ve become my whole reason for living, and I can’t— " He broke off and swallowed hard, caressing her thighs lightly with his hands.
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 6 Page 54
