by Lauren Smith
“Audrey.” The roughness of his usually silky voice made her tremble. She raised her chin defiantly.
“Take me home. I don’t care.” But she did. He might have already ruined her plans to meet with Evangeline.
“You do care,” Jonathan said, his tone softening. “You have hungers and desires like a man, and it must be very frustrating to have no one to learn from.” His green eyes were piercing, seeing right through her bravado. How could he know that was exactly how she felt? Trapped by her own desires, with no way to learn how to enjoy herself because of the restrictions society put on women when it came to passion? Her future husband would’ve shown her, but she couldn’t marry just anyone. She wanted a love match and had hoped that this man would want her. But he didn’t.
“No other man will teach you.” The fierce determination in his eyes made her want to scream in frustration.
“Just because you do not want me, that doesn’t mean you can simply lock me away in a tower to die a spinster!” She started to turn around, fully intending to smack him, but he suddenly moved. He slid one arm around her waist, holding her captive and pressing her back to his chest. His other hand gripped her throat, not hard, but the possessive hold sent a riotous shiver of dark longing through her. His palm rubbed gently along her neck as he pressed his lips to the shell of her ear.
“I never once said I didn’t want you. I want you too much…that’s exactly the problem. That servant was right. You are sweet as a peach, and I’ve dreamt of a thousand ways I would take you.” The devilish whisper in her ear made her blood pound so hard it felt like a dull roar.
“You…want me?” Surely, he was teasing her, toying with her to some cruel end. If he wanted her, he wouldn’t have abandoned her or resisted her when she tried to show him her desire.
“So badly that it makes my body ache. Do you know what it feels like?” Jonathan growled. His hand at her waist slid down her skirts along her thigh. He began to drag her gown up. Audrey gasped as his palm touched her stocking-clad knee.
“What does it feel like?” Her question escaped her lips in a ragged whisper.
Jonathan nibbled the lobe of her ear. Tiny sparks shot down to her abdomen. A heavy heat filled her deep inside, and a pulsing started between her thighs.
“It feels like I’ll die if I don’t taste you, if I don’t pin you down on the bed and ravish you. Every muscle in my body is rigid with need.” He rocked his hips against hers, and she felt the bulge of his arousal dig into her lower back. The pulsing inside her grew harder, and she panted softly. His hand underneath her skirts had reached the middle of her thighs, and he now drew teasing patterns on the bare skin of her leg. Audrey couldn’t speak—she was captivated by his words and how he made her feel.
“I’ve often wondered if you were some kind of witch, the way you cast a spell over me. I can’t get to sleep at night without picturing myself claiming you over and over.” His dark-gold lashes fell halfway as he flicked his tongue inside her ear. Audrey whimpered at the burst of arousing new sensations elicited by the naughty little lick of his tongue. Unable to stop, she pressed her hips back, rubbing herself against him. It was a completely wanton thing to do, but she didn’t care. She needed him to deliver the passion his hands and mouth were promising.
“Please, Jonathan, stop torturing me!” she begged.
His raspy chuckle gave her delicious chills. “Torturing you? Oh, my darling. I haven’t even begun.” His hand between her legs moved higher, slowly, deliberately teasing until he reached her aching sex. When he cupped her mound, she arched her back as a flood of sensations exploded through her. She felt dizzy, and her legs shook as he played with her. There was no other word but play to describe the featherlight touches on her bundle of nerves and the little strokes along her inner folds, which were slick with her arousal.
“Already wet for me.” He purred the words in a low rumble that she felt vibrate from his chest to her back.
She couldn’t think past the fact that Jonathan had his fingers inside her, was caressing her in the most secret part of her body, and then…
The climax hit her hard, so hard she cried out, but he held on to her, like a hound with a kitten in its paws. She stared at their reflection, seeing his wolfish smile as he pressed a kiss to her cheek and murmured soft words of nonsense in her ear. Her heart was racing, and her body shook violently. She felt as though she’d almost died in that instant before she’d seemed to explode from the inside out.
“I…don’t think I can walk,” she whispered. Her legs were locked in place, and her body quivered as he slowly withdrew his hand from between her legs and let her dress fall back into place.
“Hold on, my darling.” He lifted her up in his arms and cradled her to his chest as he carried her to the bed. He set her down and then joined her, leaning back against the pillows as he cuddled her to him.
Audrey felt raw…exposed in a way that made no sense. She rarely felt shy or vulnerable, but she did now.
I’ve never really thought this through. Kissing a rogue is one thing, but making love…
It was too much, the sensations too frightening. And she hadn’t even done the deed completely.
“What’s the matter?” Jonathan’s green eyes darkened with worry.
“I should go,” she gasped, scrambling from the bed. Her reticule lay abandoned on the floor. She snatched it up.
“Audrey, stop and rest. After an experience like that, you need to have a few minutes to recover.”
Recover? She almost laughed. She would never recover from what they’d just done.
“No, I must leave. I’m missing tea…” she murmured, hating how foolish the words sounded. She tried to pull the door open, but couldn’t.
“You’re not missing tea.” Jonathan was there behind her, one hand braced against the door, using his weight and strength to keep it shut.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please.” She wasn’t sure what she was asking. He settled a hand on her waist and gently pulled her back against him, holding her close. The tender embrace made her want to cry, but she didn’t know why.
“That was your first time, wasn’t it?” he asked, pressing a kiss to the crown of her hair. She nodded mutely.
“The French call it ‘the little death’ because it can be frightening at first, but then wonderful.”
He was right. It had been frightening and then wonderful, but that wasn’t what she feared. What she feared was the aftermath, the potent longing that seemed to cling to her heart when she thought of him holding her, kissing her, and making her feel such wondrous things. Here, in the Midnight Garden, he no doubt saw her presence as an open invitation, one without commitment or consequence. Audrey didn’t want a broken heart. She refused to let a man be in control of her feelings. Love had seemed to be such a grand adventure, but now she didn’t want to play the game and risk not being loved in return.
“Come back to bed with me.” Jonathan pressed his lips to her neck, and she shivered in his hold.
“Horatia will be missing me,” she tried to argue.
“Then let her.” Jonathan turned her around in his arms and lifted her chin so her eyes met his. The soft expression there threatened to kill her with its sweetness. He lowered his head to hers and kissed her. Such a gentle kiss, his mouth moving over hers in a way that filled her body with a slow wave of heat. She finally understood how a woman could swoon in a man’s arms. Kissing Jonathan made her feel light-headed, like she’d had too much sherry to drink. When their mouths parted, he rubbed the pads of his thumb over her cheeks.
“Feeling better?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Good, because I need to speak with you. About us.” His green eyes were like summer glens, dark emerald and full of secrets.
Speak about us? There is no us. He does want there to ever be an us. She pulled free of him. Anything he wanted to say would crush her.
“No. Whatever you want to say, don’t. I won’t agree, and I don�
�t want to hear it.” She pulled the door open and fled into the corridor.
“Audrey, wait!” Jonathan called her name, but she didn’t stop. She would never stop running away from the man who would break her heart.
Jonathan swallowed down the acidic taste of disappointment as he watched Audrey flee. The words “Will you marry me?” withered upon his lips and died. She didn’t even want to hear him out. He’d given up on resisting her and had decided he would take the risk and propose.
But now she didn’t want him. Had it all been some elaborate game she was playing? Seduce a former servant and risk the scandal? When faced with actually marrying him, she ran away as fast as she could.
Jonathan leaned back against the wall in the bedchamber, his chest tight with an almost unbearable pain. He didn’t want any other woman, could have no other but the very woman who didn’t want him.
He glanced at the mirror, replaying every exquisite and torturous moment of having Audrey come apart in his arms. He’d received no pleasure of his own other than watching her climax. She’d closed her eyes, those dark sooted lashes fanned across her cheeks and those kissable lips parted, her pink kittenish tongue licking them as she panted. Lord, she had tempted him like no other.
“Well, if it isn’t Monsieur St. Laurent.” A cool feminine chuckle came from the doorway. He turned to see Evangeline Mirabeau watching him. She was a lovely woman, all her curves displayed in a thin, dampened gown. Her honey-blonde hair hung in perfect ringlets. She was a true French courtesan.
“Miss Mirabeau,” he greeted.
She smiled, a knowing smile. “Once, long ago, you and I were more intimate than that.”
He didn’t want that reminder. She’d been a fine lover, and her beauty was unquestionable, but the passions she had once roused in him were a mere candle flame compared to the inferno that Audrey created inside him.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Once, but no longer.”
“You wound me with such certainty. Ah well, c’est la vie.” Evangeline glanced around the room. “Well, where’s your petite friend? The Sheridan girl? I assume you escorted her here for her lessons?”
“Lessons?” He raised a brow at the woman, completely confused. Audrey came here to learn how to be a courtesan?
The Frenchwoman tilted her head. The amusement in her eyes dimmed as she grew serious. “You do not know?”
“Know what?”
“That she is interested in…foreign etiquette?”
Jonathan shifted restlessly as he tried to understand what Evangeline was saying. “Etiquette…I don’t… What does that have to do with you?”
“Ah, I see. You care for her, n’est-ce pas? You came here was out of concern for her safety?” She sighed, as if she was about to do something she was not accustomed to doing. “I do not expose a client’s secrets, but if you do care for her so, then I suppose you should know. Her intention to learn the ways of the French court are not simply for fancy balls.”
“What do you mean?”
“I cannot say, but perhaps your friend Avery Russell would.”
“Avery?” Suddenly, Evangeline’s mysterious comments made sense. “She’s here to learn how to be a spy?” Jonathan sputtered out the word. “Audrey wasn’t here to learn the art of seduction?”
“Mais non, we covered that over tea a few months ago.”
What the devil did she need to learn how to spy for?
And then it hit him. She spent a lot of time with Charles, and Charles from time to time assisted Lucien Russell’s younger brother, Avery, with his espionage missions within London. Audrey had been practicing disguises, but he hadn’t realized that she would actually seek someone out to teach her how to be a spy.
Evangeline was still smiling. “I’ll have to reschedule with her since you scared her off.” The woman looked at him expectantly and didn’t seem to care that she actually had exposed her client’s secret.
With a low growl, he fished out a few pound notes and handed them to her.
“That’s for today, and this”—he added a few more banknotes—“is to refuse to help her next time. She’s too innocent for spy work. I don’t want her in danger.”
“Mon ami, unless you intend to lock la petite femme away, I think we both know she will do just as she pleases.”
Jonathan groaned at this. Evangeline was right.
“And,” she continued, “if that is the case, it is better to be prepared than not, oui? Which course of action truly puts her in more danger?”
“Fine. If she comes to you again for anything, and I mean anything, you write to me at once. I want to be involved.”
He waited for Evangeline to nod before he let go of the last note he’d been holding out to her. Then he stormed out of the chamber. Today had been an awful mess. Not only had the woman he cared about told him she would never consider his proposal, he’d learned she was risking her life to play out fantasies of spies and intrigue. Jonathan knew he would have to tell her siblings; they would have to make her see reason.
I cannot be her husband, but I will still do everything in my power to protect her.
By the time Audrey entered the Sheridan house, she was in a daze, her emotions running rampant. She knew she looked a fright, her hair unbound, her dress wrinkled, but she couldn’t help it. All she could do was get upstairs and collect herself.
“My lady!” Gillian gasped as she and Sean the footman hurried toward her from the servants’ stairs.
“Gillian?” Audrey stared at the maid. The other woman looked as poorly as she did.
“Yes, my lady.”
Sean stepped forward. “My lady, we must speak with you. I’m afraid it’s a matter of urgency.”
“Oh?” Audrey started for the stairs. She had her own private study, and it would be a good place to speak. Sean was the only person besides Gillian she trusted with her identity as Lady Society, and this would be far from their first secret meeting. It was a good thing her brother and the League were likely still having tea. She shut the door once Gillian and Sean were inside, and then she sat down at her desk.
“My lady, you received a warning from Mr. Worthing. You must not go through with tonight’s plan,” Gillian pleaded.
Worthing was warning her away from the hellfire club?
“But why not? You know those men are monsters. I cannot let them continue their awful meetings.” She did not say that part of her was so upset she felt reckless enough to not heed their warnings.
“My lady, there was a man. He attacked me to get that letter given to me by Mr. Worthing.”
“Attacked? Heavens, Gillian, are you all right?” Audrey leapt to her feet and went straight to her maid and firmly sat her down in the chair. “Please, sit. I had no idea.” Gillian attacked… Audrey swallowed down a wave of guilt. She had brought her maid to this danger, and it was all her fault.
“I’m all right. Lord Pembroke assisted me and escorted me home.”
James Fordyce had helped Gillian?
“He did? James is such a dear,” she murmured. She had always adored him. He was a handsome man and very caring. It seemed he was always on the verge of rescuing ladies, even though they didn’t usually need help.
“I should thank him,” she added.
“No!” Gillian said. “I…that is, the Earl of Pembroke mistook me for a lady, and I did…that is, I did not exactly correct him.”
This caught Audrey by surprise. Her quiet, no-rule-breaking maid had pretended to be a lady? Rather than be furious, Audrey was impressed.
“Am I to be dismissed?” It was hard to miss the sorrow in Gillian’s tone.
“Dismissed?” Audrey tilted her head. “Why would I dismiss you?”
“Because I deceived Lord Pembroke and acted above my station.”
“Perhaps someone else would dismiss you, but we aren’t simply lady and lady’s maid, Gillian. We are friends. I know you almost as well as you know yourself. I don’t believe you were acting poorly with Lord Pembroke. He made an a
ssumption, and you did not correct it. That is a matter we can worry about later. What is important is that you were unharmed. I wish for you to rest tonight. Sean will watch over you.”
“And you will stay here, my lady? Stay safe?” Gillian pressed.
The earnestness that the maid showed in asking this made the guilt rise all over again, because Audrey was going to lie to her, the one friend she trusted like a sister.
“I will stay safe,” she assured Gillian. “Now let’s get you into bed so you can rest.”
Sean escorted Gillian from Audrey’s study. When they were gone, she collapsed into a chair, tucking her knees up to her chin. She didn’t want to think about everything that had happened today. Her encounter with Jonathan left her feeling hollow and heartbroken. She had never been this weak before. She hated the very word. Her brother and sister, while protective of her, had never let her cultivate a weak personality.
I will not let a man break my heart and crush me. I will not.
She had to deceive Gillian tonight. She was going to expose Gerald Langley and his friends for the wretched men they were. It would undoubtedly be dangerous, but she’d already done the most dangerous thing she could, in her opinion, when she’d let herself go in Jonathan’s arms.
His wicked lessons had proved she had so much to learn, and yet she would never have the chance, not with this man who didn’t truly want her. Audrey brushed away her tears and went in search of another maid to help her prepare for tonight. She would go alone, broken heart be damned.
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