His Wicked Seduction (The League of Rogues Book 2)

by Lauren Smith

  Was her own life soon to be forfeit? Perhaps it was only a matter of days before hands would reach out of the shadows and snap her neck, leaving her lifeless body for Lucien or Cedric to find.

  She struggled to breathe, but her gasping didn’t help. There was only suffocating terror and pain.

  “Horatia!” A soft cry, distant as the stars themselves.

  Something yanked her up. She fought, screamed, bit, but she was so weak and cold that after a minute she had to yield. Noises intruded upon her numbed ears—the crash of wood, the scuffling of boots, the huff of breath. She felt cold softness beneath her. Horatia shifted uncomfortably while forcing her eyes open.

  She was in a dark room, one she didn’t recognize. The décor did not at all match that of Rochester Hall. A man huddled before the fireplace as he added few logs to the fresh burning kindling, stoking them with a poker. When he turned to face her, she saw it was Lucien.

  Without a word, he came over to the bed where he’d set her down, and eased her onto her stomach. He dug his fingers underneath the neck of her gown and began plucking buttons out of their slips. His hands were hot, piercing against her cold flesh and Horatia winced.

  “Does it hurt?”

  Horatia shook her head as she tried to speak. “You’re so warm,” she managed at last.

  “Good. That is the idea.” He reached the last button of her gown and he peeled it away, easing her cold limp arms from her sleeves before he dragged the garment off her completely. Lucien did not stop there. He removed her stays, chemise, stockings, and slippers.

  Ordinarily Horatia would have been clutching at a blanket to hide some of her nakedness but her inner pain and weariness had numbed her to such inconsequential concerns. Lying on her stomach, she gazed straight ahead listening to the sounds of Lucien stripping himself of his own clothes behind her.

  There was nothing sensual in his movements. In fact, he nearly tripped getting his shoes off. The second he was down to his bare skin, he reached for a thick woolen blanket draped over the foot of the bed and he wrapped it around him like a cloak. Only then did he turn his attention back to Horatia as he scooped her up and carried her to the soft thick rug near the fire.

  He sat down and braced her body back against his, securing the blanket around their bodies. Between the fire before her and the fire of his skin behind her, the chill in her bones melted away, followed by sharp prickling as her nerves came alive again. She shifted against Lucien and his hot breath quickened against her cheek.

  “Easy, love,” he whispered in her ear. “You have no idea how long you were out there, do you?” The tenderness of his voice, the soft endearment so pure on his lips had her quaking with bottled up emotions. “Let it out darling, let it all out. I’m here.”

  It was this promise, undiluted by the outside world and its concerns that crippled Horatia’s protective barrier. She broke down, burrowing into him as though she could forge an unbreakable connection between their bodies and she never wanted to be without him or his comforting touch again. Her dry eyes pooled with hot, heavy tears and Lucien rubbed each drop of moisture away with his fingertips.

  “It hurts,” Horatia gasped as the weight of everything descended upon her. Like knife shards embedded in her lungs, each breath she sucked in was ragged and icy.

  “That’s a good thing, my love. It means your heart is still alive. Just let it all out.” Lucien brushed his lips along her tear-stained cheek and absorbed her shaking with his body.

  The two times in her life when she needed someone most, when she’d been her weakest, he’d been there. She’d often wondered why she loved Lucien and no one else, even when he’d been determined to be cold to her. This moment, this embrace, was everything that mattered. A man who would do this for her was the only man she could ever have, ever want.

  As her shaking subsided, Horatia turned about in Lucien’s arms. He gazed down at her in tender worry.

  “Make love to me,” she pleaded.

  “No, darling, not like this.” He feathered his lips against her temple and stroked her hair back from her face. “You’ve been through too much. I’ll not add to that pain.”

  “I want you, Lucien. Each second you aren’t kissing me is killing me inside.” Horatia cupped his face. An auburn tinged night beard had started to graze his cheeks, and the roughness of it was an enticing contrast to the smooth skin of his chest.

  Lucien smiled ever so slightly. “I know I’m a wonderful kisser but no one has ever perished from a lack of it as far as I can recall.”

  Horatia, her body filled with desire and a desperation for some sort of release, pulled free of his arms and stood up, entirely bare before him. She walked around him and approached the bed.

  “I don’t recognize this room,” she said softly as she eased onto the bed.

  Lucien followed her movement, his eyes focusing on the peaks of her breasts, the chill in the air tightening her nipples.

  “I found you too far away from the house. I brought you to the gardener’s summer cottage,” Lucien explained. He got to his feet, blanket still loosely cloaking his body.

  “The gardener’s cottage?”

  There was a hungry look in his eyes as he approached, but still it seemed he meant to resist her.

  “Yes, it’s always empty in the winter.” Lucien’s voice was even lower, huskier than before.

  “So we are alone, without fear of discovery.” Horatia started to reach for the blanket about his body.

  “Are you trying to seduce me?” A wicked smile played about his mouth.

  “That depends. Is it working?” Horatia ran her foot up against his calf and he tensed.

  “Your feet are cold, love. Shall I warm them up for you?”

  For an answer, Horatia tugged harder on the blanket. Lucien dropped it at his feet, baring his body before her. It seemed her entire life had been leading up to this moment. Bodies and souls finally bared to each other. She stared up at him, examining his finely formed body, at last able to see all the parts of him that had been hidden.

  The inner savage in her was unbearably close to taking over. She held out a hand and Lucien took it, kissing the inside of her palm before she tugged him to the bed’s edge. Horatia pushed back as he advanced, their bodies miming an ancient dance of conquest and submission as he crawled over her. Lucien dropped his head to hers, their mouths meeting in a slow kiss that lit fire to every nerve in her body. Horatia’s hands slid up to his flexing biceps, clenching his muscles as he released her mouth to trail kisses down her throat.

  “I didn’t know a collarbone could be so desirable,” Lucien murmured as he licked the grooves of her upper chest.

  Horatia laughed until his mouth settled on the tip of one breast. He savored her, suckled her, teeth nipping her with sparks of pleasurable pain before he circled her with his tongue, leaving her writhing beneath him.

  Horatia moaned as his lips danced to her other breast. She ran her fingers through his thick red hair, tugging as he feasted on her.

  “Never let it be said that I neglected you, darling,” he teased before taking her other breast into his mouth.

  Her nails dug into his arms, Horatia’s back arched, yearning for more of him. At the pressure of his hands on her inner knees, her thighs fell apart. A flash of déjà vu, a masked man, the devil of pleasure, an angel of sin between her legs.

  “Oh God, if you do that…that thing again, I’ll kill you,” she gasped as his mouth trespassed down her waist and towards the dark triangle between her legs.

  “You mean if I do this?” He assaulted her senses with a devastating lick, then fastened his mouth around that same tight bundle of nerves. Horatia bucked. Lucien pinned her deeper into the bed as he pushed her over the brink of sanity.

  “You devil…” She forgot entirely what she meant to say as his tongue traced erotic patterns and she careened ove
r the edge in a fall she thought would never end.

  In time she became aware of Lucien moving higher, his mouth back on hers again. She could taste herself on him, the thought sinfully erotic. She groaned as his weight eased down over her. The pressure of his body was a welcome one; he pinned her to the bed when she felt light enough to drift away in the winter breeze. His shaft was hard against her inner thigh and he rocked forward, the tip of him sliding over her with a rhythm her body’s instincts knew better than she ever expected.

  “Yes, Lucien, yes.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you, not ever again…and this might.”

  “If I never hurt again, I won’t know I’m alive,” she reminded him. She was desperate and needed to feel him. Her hands slid down the ridges of his hard abdomen until she wrapped her hand possessively about his length. He groaned against her lips with feral pleasure.

  “You play with fire, darling, and I don’t wish to burn you.” He tried to pull back. Horatia slid a hand down to the base of him and back up to his tip.

  “Burn me. Consume me, Lucien. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted.” Horatia kissed Lucien so deeply that her assault seemed to drive him wild. He snatched her hand away and confined her wrists above her head. Poised at her entrance, he began to work his way inside, gentle and slow, so unlike what she’d come to expect from him.

  Horatia lifted her hips, forcing him too deep too soon and he muttered a curse and tried to lift away. She locked her legs around his hips, keeping him close. His hips jerked forward in a shallow thrust. The sudden intrusion of his shaft inside her burned and a piece of her was forever lost in the wake of his penetration. But she was glad. She was changed. She was his.

  She ignored his apologies as passion sparked his movements into life inside her.

  Lucien now held her prisoner beneath him, a slow steady pace of thrusts testing her limits. He feathered kisses across her cheeks, nose, lips and chin, as though unable to stop himself from branding his essence on her in every way possible.

  The pain dulled in the wake of a tension that was steadily building. The sensation she’d once mistaken for nausea was back, stronger than before. Horatia reveled in it, understanding now what it meant and the throbbing between her legs eased with each of Lucien’s thrusts.

  Even though her wrists were trapped, she raised her hips, welcoming him deeper into her. Lucien released her wrists to glide his hands down her sides and underneath her, cupping her bottom, lifting it up. The angle changed things dramatically, and his shaft struck some new place deep within her. The cry that left her lips was one of startled surprise and Lucien hastened to repeat the move again and again, her cries a primal encouragement to continue. Sweat dewed on their bodies as Lucien’s pace picked up.

  “Lucien, I think I…” Horatia was silenced with a dominating and possessive kiss that ended in the most brilliant burst of pleasure in her life. She heard a scream and only later realized it was her own. Lucien shouted her name as he jerked against her. He continued to shake and rock, trembling above her. Horatia would never forget the look in his eyes—so bright with passion, fire, tenderness and confusion.

  “My God, Horatia. I’ve never—didn’t know—it could be this way.” He seemed afraid, like a young boy faced with fear for the first time. Horatia ran her fingers through his hair and raised her head up to kiss him.

  “Don’t be afraid, Lucien. I’ll hold you.”

  It was too soon to hope that he’d come to love her, but she knew that he cared. This was no casual affair. This was about making love, about forging a connection. Lucien settled in her arms, their bodies still linked as her hands brushed against him. He buried his face in her dark brown hair. A cool breeze tickled their bodies and Lucien disentangled himself from her.

  “Please don’t leave,” she begged in a ragged whisper.

  “Never, my heart. Never.” He pulled back the covers of the bed so he could slip inside and join her, cocooning her body with his own. The only sounds were their mingled breathing and the snap and crack of the fire in the hearth.

  Everything has changed. But what would Lucien do now? Not wanting to dwell on the possibilities, she burrowed into his arms and settled down to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ashton sat in his study on Half Moon Street. Letters of a financial nature were strewn over the surface of his oak wood desk. The numbers on the letters blurred as pain lanced up his left arm, which still hung limp and useless in a sling about his neck.

  What a bloody nuisance being shot was. He had lost so much of his strength that his footman had to do many routine things for him and his valet, once a minor irritation, had become indispensible. He couldn’t put a shirt on, let alone tie his neck cloth or button his trousers without assistance.

  It was most humiliating. Everyone treated him like a child in leading strings and he was tired of it. And he’d only been injured a few days. The doctor had given him instructions to rest for the next five weeks. The idea was intolerable. He, of all people, could not afford to rest. There was so much to be done aside from his business; namely tracking down Waverly and ending this battle before it could progress to a full-fledged war.

  With a heavy sigh, Ashton reached for the nearest letter, the movement sending a stab of pain through his bad shoulder. He pinned the letter down on his desk with his hand in the sling, ignoring the ache it caused and used his other hand to break the seal. He cursed under his breath until the seal gave way.

  The letter was from his banker at Drummond’s Bank, Mr. Jared Simms. Simms had given Ashton a detailed report of his funds currently tied up in the consols. It was a sound investment. Consolidated annuities were government bonds that paid three percent dividends twice a year.

  Ashton had put fifty thousand pounds into them and the return had been a mighty fortune that he spent wisely and cautiously. Unlike his friends, he had not been born into money. His entire life he’d amassed a grand fortune so where his political clout could not win the day, his bank accounts could. Though he did not flaunt his wealth, he did not hesitate to use it when it could gain a clear advantage.

  He was currently caught up in a bidding war over a company called Southern Star Shipping. Ashton owned his own shipping company, Lennox Lines, but acquiring Southern Star would put his ships deep into the Caribbean trade markets and the routes closer to Africa, an area he had yet to penetrate.

  This was not his only interest in the line however.

  For months he’d heard rumors that Waverly was involved in questionable shipments, bringing lord knows what into England. Ashton suspected slaves might be involved but it could be a number of things. If he could gain control of the line, he could clean up the ships, put new captains and crews on them that he trusted, and begin to eliminate Waverly’s illicit sources of income, piece by piece. It was the one thing he knew he could do better than Waverly and if it was his best weapon, he needed to use it. A man couldn’t hire killers to take out the League if he didn’t possess any money.

  He would have possessed Southern Star by now, but a rival shipping company had been matching him bid for bid. The end result was his solicitor, Mr. Danforth, contacting the owner of Melbourne, Shelley and Company to meet with Ashton in less than an hour to discuss the matter and come to an arrangement.

  A knock on his study door made Ashton look up. His butler, Wimbley, a balding man of middle years, stepped inside.

  “What is it?” he asked, looking back down at the investment report.

  “There’s a visitor to see you my lord. A lady,” Wimbley clarified.

  “If it is Her Grace, tell her I shall be with her shortly.” He had no idea what Emily was doing here, except to berate him again for putting himself in danger.

  “It is not Her Grace, my lord. She says her name is Lady Melbourne and that you are expecting her.”

  “Lady Melbourne?” Melbourne’s wife had co
me? He’d asked to see her husband. “Show her into the Rose Parlor and have tea brought in. Tell her I will be with her directly.” Still, he supposed he could work this to his advantage.

  “Yes, my lord.” Wimbley disappeared.

  Ashton hastily organized his desk before checking his appearance in a nearby looking glass. His cravat was snug and his trousers unwrinkled. His silk navy blue vest was crisp and his shirt pressed. He looked decent enough for company.

  Perhaps his hair was a tad long for the conventional styles favored among society but he’d been too busy of late to have it cut. His eyes, which had been glassy with fatigue and pain of late, were bright again with his irritation at having to deal with this proxie.

  Ashton looked every inch the dapper rogue, save for the white cloth sling holding his left arm. Showing weakness in any way was not what he wished in a business setting, but his arm could not be helped.

  He left his study and walked up the stairs to Rose Parlor. It was perhaps a bit improper to have a parlor on the same floor as his bedroom, but he only used the Rose Parlor for two things—intimate meals with his mistress, when he had one, and when he did not, it was a place of seduction.

  He found that the dark hues of the room seemed to lull the ladies into a receptive mood. Rose-colored gauze curtains laced the windows, casting the room into tempting rosy dimness even in the morning. A fire was always lit in the hearth to keep up the impression of an evening rendezvous. The Rose Parlor had never failed to help him in his conquests.

  If he was to deal with his competitor’s wife, it seemed logical that a bit of seduction might help his cause. Ashton was no fool. Unlike other men, he learned long ago how powerful a woman could be in a man’s world of business and how men underestimated them. However, if he played the charming rake, Lord Melbourne would be but a pawn in Ashton’s game and Southern Star shipping would be his.

  Ashton opened the door, expecting to find a gray-haired matron. What he found instead halted him in his tracks. A woman, who must have been in her late twenties, perched on the edge of the red velvet settee close to the fireplace. Her raven-black hair and almond-shaped gray eyes were framed by sooty dark lashes. She stared back, seemingly just as confused by him. It was clear that neither of them had expected the other to appear as they had.