Watching her hurry off, Davenport had to pause to admire the self-possession that saw her sobering up an inebriated chaperone before confronting her rather daunting hostess. He only hoped her ladyship was as favorably impressed with his protégée as he was. Lady Arden’s support could mean the difference between social success and failure.
Mrs. Walker leaned heavily against him and muttered something into his lapel. He blew a waving ostrich plume from her coiffure out of his face and grimaced as he steadied her and maneuvered her to the door. He’d been an idiot to believe dressing Mrs. Walker would solve Hilary’s problem. Fine feathers did not necessarily make fine birds. Not when the bird in question drank like a fish, at any rate.
Having deposited the lady in the ducal carriage and sent her home, he girded his loins and went to hear the verdict. The Duke of Montford and Lady Arden were powerful players in the Beau Monde. Their support was critical to Honey’s success.
Ruefully he admitted Honey had been right to spurn his suggestion of a quick tumble upstairs. The mere suggestion showed a lack of respect he hadn’t felt or intended.
She’d managed to work her way under his skin in the most baffling manner. So much for being the logical scientist. His reactions to her seemed to bypass his brain.
Seeing that Honey was engaged with his cousins at present, he moved to where Lady Arden and Montford stood together.
Lady Arden, commanding in bronze satin, greeted him with, “A very pretty-behaved girl. You are to be congratulated, Davenport.”
“I confess myself wholly taken by surprise,” Montford said. “That is not to say a Westruther couldn’t look a great deal higher for a wife, but…”
The duke spread his hands in an eloquent gesture. The unspoken sentiment that Honey was better than an actress or a tavern wench or, even worse, Davenport’s cousin Bertram stepping into his shoes hovered in the air.
It helped when people had only the lowest expectations. One could rarely disappoint them.
“We positively must secure Almack’s vouchers for Miss deVere,” said Lady Arden.
Montford raised his eyebrows. “You aim high, my dear.”
The lady smiled serenely. “It will be a welcome challenge. Oh, I’m not saying it won’t be difficult, but I shall endeavor. Bring Miss deVere to call on me tomorrow, Jonathon, and we’ll plan our strategy.”
* * *
Davenport handed Honey into his carriage, which he’d managed to have brought around before Lydgate could again commandeer it. “I sent Mrs. Walker home by herself,” he explained as the door shut behind them with a decided snap. “I want to talk to you.”
“Then you did wrong, sir.” Her breathing came faster. His gaze dropped to the tops of her breasts, so enticingly displayed by her new gown. “What do you have to say to me that cannot be said in front of Mrs. Walker?”
“Only this,” he said huskily. He pulled her to him and kissed her.
He’d expected protests and recriminations, but her hand settled on his coat lapel, then gripped it, drawing him closer.
A renewed passion surged within him at this encouragement. He sank into her, pushing her back against the velvet cushions in the corner of the banquette seat.
Her mouth was like warm, wet silk, clinging to his, sliding against his, giving back everything he wanted and more than he’d expected.
She was such an innocent and he was a bad, bad man to do this to her in a moving carriage with her house a short distance away. Yet he couldn’t stop himself any more than he could have stopped a comet hurtling through the sky.
The carriage halted far too soon. He lifted his head to listen. They weren’t at Half Moon Street yet, surely.
Honey’s labored breathing beneath him made him look down at her. She was all wild-eyed and soft lipped from his kisses. A rosy flush stained her delicious skin from those pretty breasts to the roots of her badly arranged hair.
“I adore you,” he breathed.
Her eyes glowed like stars; then her lashes lowered with unconscious coquettishness.
The carriage still wasn’t moving, so he reached over to lift the blind and look out of the window. A snarl of traffic had halted them. Apparently many of Lady Arden’s guests had left at the same time and now there was nowhere to move until the bottleneck at the end of the street dispersed.
He let the shade fall shut.
“It appears our carriage ride will take longer than I’d thought.”
* * *
Dazed, Hilary had no time to reflect or puzzle out what he meant by the comment. He shifted to sit beside her, scooped her up, and plopped her down on his lap.
The bulge in his trousers made itself evident then, nudging her leg in the most insistent way. The memory of having him inside her the previous night made her shiver.
“What if someone opens the door?” she whispered, already trailing soft kisses down his upturned face. Over his temple, down the hard line of his cheekbones, along the uncompromising jaw.
“They won’t.” His hand slid down her leg to her knee. Hooking underneath, he lifted her leg, maneuvering it until she sat astride him as a man might sit a horse.
She kissed his earlobe, accepting his certainty because it suited her. And because she suspected his servants were trained not to interrupt him when he had a lady alone in his carriage.
Boldly she slid her tongue along the outer shell of his ear. He shuddered, moving his hips beneath her.
“You like that,” she whispered.
“If any part of you touches any part of me, I like it, Honey.”
She drew back to regard him. Every time she looked, he grew more handsome. How could that be?
She moved her hands from his shoulders to frame his face, holding it steady while she kissed him deeply, possessively, as he’d kissed her.
The carriage lurched forward, rocking them together so that he nudged against her sex.
His hardness made her gasp. His hands at her waist urged her against him, again and again, rough fabric against smooth wet, sensitive flesh. The dampness between her legs must be soaking into his trousers, but he didn’t seem to care.
He thrust his fingers between them, beneath the layers of her gown. He touched her so expertly she was nearly maddened by it. Her control—what was left of it—slipped from her grasp. On another shuddering gasp, she kissed him passionately, wildly, grinding her mouth against his.
“Inside me,” she panted. “I need you.”
“Yes.” His dark eyes held none of the merry wickedness she’d seen there before. They seared her with fiery intensity.
With quick, jerky movements, he freed his member, found her entrance, and thrust, pulling her down over him at the same time.
The shock of that powerful invasion made her give a choked cry. His hands gripped her waist as he thrust and thrust, over and over with powerful, uncompromising strokes. She might have held the higher position, but he dominated her completely, possessed her with a strength and raw sensuality she had only guessed at before.
Her hair tumbled down around her ears as she strained to keep up with him, all her senses focused on the feel of him inside her, stroking inside her in exquisite torture.
Her eyes popped open in surprise as she felt that tightness upon her again, increasing bit by bit, but not quite … there. She whimpered in greedy longing and a hint of frustration, tightening her hold on his shoulders, her springy locks falling forward over her face.
Davenport gripped a hank of her hair and pulled her head down to him so his lips slid across her cheek. In a raw, husky tone, he uttered the most obscene phrase she’d ever heard, hot breath in her ear as he pumped harder into her and she shattered, convulsing around him, gripping and milking him, taking him with her over the brink.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After that, Davenport cajoled Honey into letting him sneak up to her bedchamber for a more leisurely session of lovemaking. In Mrs. Walker’s state of inebriation she wouldn’t have noticed an orgy going on in her house,
but Hilary still made him climb up to her, for fear of the servants.
When they were spent at last, Honey raised herself on one elbow and looked down at him.
“You never told me why you disappeared from London,” she said, investigating his chest with one curious, trailing fingertip. “How did that come about?”
He grimaced. “You really want to know?”
At her nod, he tried to decide how much to tell her and where to begin. He hadn’t confided in anyone save Ashburn. Cecily knew, but only because Davenport had given her husband permission to tell her. The story seemed to belong to another lifetime.
At last, he said, “I disappeared to escape various government agencies and … others who were hounding me.”
“Why? What had you done?” Apprehension showed in her face. No doubt she feared he’d done something unforgivable. She was right to be wary of his past, but not for that reason.
“Oh, nothing illegal or even immoral, on the face of it,” he assured her. “Ashburn told you I was a scientist, didn’t he?”
She nodded.
“I’d invented a kind of explosive that … Well, it doesn’t matter what kind of damage it could cause or how it was made. I was stupid enough to make my breakthrough known to the wrong people. The military and arms manufacturers alike wanted to exploit the invention. Not to mention the French.”
He gave a sour smile. “Well, of course they did. I was so bloody naïve, flush with the excitement of discovery, the military value of an explosive didn’t occur to me. ‘Think of all the people we could maim and kill in one fell swoop,’ they said. ‘Think of the profits.’ When I realized the frenzy my Promethean hubris had caused, it was too late. The gods were already punishing me.”
“So that is why you disappeared.” Her palm smoothed over his rib cage in the most distracting way. “Did they imprison you? Were you incarcerated all that time?”
He clasped her hand, held it against him, threading his fingers through hers. “No, no, nothing like that. But I don’t doubt they would have locked me up, and worse, if I hadn’t acted first. I feigned my own death, burned down my laboratory. The story was that I’d died in the fire. Ashburn aided me. I would not have survived without him.”
“Ashburn?” She stared at him. “I had the impression your brother-in-law is no great supporter of yours.”
“Did he call me a charlatan? A disgrace to the Royal Institution?” He gave a snort of laughter that contained no mirth. “It’s due to Ashburn that I was able to return to my old life at all. He used his influence to discredit my work, you see. He branded me a braggart and a poseur, made me a laughingstock.”
He’d resented Ashburn’s actions, though he’d agreed there was no other way. A part of him still resented them. Intellectual arrogance died a hard death, it seemed.
She thought about that. “So no one believes you were capable of inventing anything,” she said slowly, her fingers returning the clasp of his. “You cannot go back to your work for fear they’ll realize the truth.”
He didn’t like the pity he saw in her eyes. “One person wasn’t convinced,” he said. “Someone has been following me, presumably trying to discover if it was all a hoax and I’m secretly trotting off to my laboratory every night instead of amusing myself in the stews. Months of leading a hedonistic, pointless existence hasn’t convinced him otherwise.”
“Following you?” Her gaze darted to the window, the hand that held his tightening. “Might they have seen you climb up here?”
“I’ve been extremely careful,” he said. He’d taken pains to be seen leaving her house in his carriage tonight before doubling back. The night before, he’d lost his shadow before approaching the house.
But it was too late to hide their association altogether. The man who followed him would know they’d traveled together to London.
“You may be sure that he and his masters aren’t concerned about my amorous interests, in any case,” said Davenport. He hoped to God that was true.
She thought that over for a moment and seemed to accept it. He tried not to feel nettled at the relief that made her shoulders drop a little and the air expel from her lungs with a soft whoosh.
“What do you plan to do about all of this?” she said finally.
A good question. The business had gone on for far too long. He’d told himself he’d let it go on because sooner or later the powers that be would lose interest in him. The truth was rather less flattering, he thought now. He’d been too sunk in apathy to care.
“You needn’t worry. I’ll deal with it.” And to his surprise, he meant it. “But now…” Lazily, he drew her to him and kissed her slowly and thoroughly. “I want very much to deal with you.”
Her breathing hitched as he rolled with her, his long legs tangling with her slim, dainty ones. Her hair spilled over the pillow around her head like whirls of syrupy sunlight. He stroked it back from her brow, picked up a curling tendril and ran it through his fingers, kissed the silken skeins of it, and let it fall. Her scent filled his head, dizzying him as he stared down into her eyes.
She smoothed her palms over his shoulders, regarding him gravely. There was an open, trusting expression on her face that he’d never seen there before. He caught her hands and pinned them down on either side of her head.
Her breathing quickened as he bent his head to hers. When he fastened his mouth over her crushed-strawberry lips, she sighed and surrendered.
He angled his head, kissed her slowly, deeply, using his tongue to coax hers into play. A tentative touch rewarded his efforts. At his murmur of encouragement, she licked into his mouth a little more boldly, her body twisting restlessly beneath his.
A soft moan escaped him as his cock brushed the wet curls between her thighs. The urge to drive into her grew insistent, but he’d only just begun. He released her hands and moved down her body.
Davenport paid her breasts their due, worshiping them, first with his touch and then with his lips and tongue. Honey’s hand stroked his head in a tentative benediction, and a wave of possessiveness broke over him, unsettling in its strength.
There was no stopping himself then. He gripped her hips and entered her with one smooth, deep stroke. Even as she gasped at the sudden invasion, he ran a hand down her thigh and hitched it higher, driving ever deeper, until he lost all concept of the two of them as separate beings.
At the height of his passion, he was only dimly aware of her stifled cry, of her body shaking violently beneath him, of the hot, wet flesh that surrounded him, contracting in a pulsing rhythm. He was too far gone, mindless, wrapped in the intensity of his own pleasure.
He barely had the presence of mind to wrench away from her when his crisis came.
* * *
After what seemed like hours of intimate exploration, they fell into a daze of sated exhaustion. Davenport’s hand settled, heavy and warm on her breast. Hilary all but purred at how good it felt.
He moved over her once more, giving her nipple the odd, desultory lick that sent a dart of bliss arrowing down her body.
“Why can’t I resist you?” She sighed, spearing her fingers through his hair.
She was cursed with a fatal weakness for this man. Every time she thought he’d loved her until she couldn’t take any more, he proved her wrong, reawakening her desire.
Silently he laughed, hot breath flowing over her wet nipple, setting her whole body tingling. “Honey, you can’t resist me because I know your secret.”
That sentence was punctuated by another slow, firm lick that made her stomach tighten and her sex clench.
What secret? “I’m almost afraid to ask.”
His tongue traced around her aureole, tantalizing her in between his words. “That whatever prim exterior you might show to the world, you’re a naughty, wicked girl inside.”
A bolt of excitement speared through her. “I’m nothing of the sort,” she managed. “I can’t imagine why you should think it.”
His mouth closed over her pink, di
stended flesh and sucked, making her melt into the mattress.
“You know why I think it?” He kissed his way up her décolletage, pausing to nip her chin on the way, and finally reached her mouth.
She took the bait, too curious to feign disinterest. “Why?”
Those dark eyes laughed down at her. Then he kissed her on the nose. “You love it when I say dirty words.”
The mere idea revolted her. “Are you mad? I do not.”
“So you have that, too.” He rolled away from her and put his hands behind his head in a pose of purely masculine satisfaction.
“I wish you would stop speaking in riddles.” She gave a huff and drew the sheet up over her breasts. Her loins ached in frustration.
“Oh, it’s quite common among straitlaced females—or so I’m told.” She heard the smirk underlying his matter-of-fact tone. “Coupled with the desire to hear me whisper filthy suggestions in your ear, you choose not to believe or accept that this is the case.”
“It is not the case, I’ll have you know.” She was almost certain it wasn’t. Surely only courtesans and other wantons would enjoy such treatment.
“You may say what you like, Honey. I know differently. You have no idea the satisfaction it gives me to be the only man who knows it.”
He was so smug. She narrowed her eyes at him. “You are talking nonsense to be provoking. I won’t listen to you.”
He rolled toward her again and propped his head on one elbow and plucked the sheet from her breasts, feasting his gaze on her. “Shall I prove it, here and now?”
Heat flooded her belly. “No, because I don’t like it and you must stop this right this minute. It’s insulting and—and in any case, you’re wrong.”
He regarded her with a glint of challenge in his eye.
“We’ll see, shall we?” was all that he said before he took possession of her mouth once more.
* * *
Despite having enjoyed Honey’s sweetly rounded body several times the night before, Davenport begrudged every minute Beckenham spent in her company today. Why had he been so stubborn as to refuse to take her to see the sights of London himself? He was only giving Beckenham more opportunity to show what a superior fellow he was in every respect.
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