So the scene was set for the short period in which they had shared a house, their daytime discourse as awkward as their brief nightly couplings. Cynthia had blamed herself when Windermere left. Only later did she learn that it didn’t have to be like that. In the liberal circle surrounding Caro Townsend, she’d heard that both men and women took great delight in the business.
The dusky-skinned ladies in her husband’s wicked pictures—they must surely have come into the house with him as a souvenir of Persia—accepted the attentions of their men with wide-eyed serenity. Some of them even appeared to be taking the more active role in couplings. Was that woman really about to put that thing in her mouth? The very idea seemed utterly outlandish. All the activities varied considerably from the one she and Windermere had shared under the blankets in bed at Beaulieu. Perhaps they didn’t have beds in Persia, or if they did they were only for sleeping. These startling acts were performed in gardens, on verandas, on cushions, or just on the floor.
The shocking pictures stirred a longing that must be lust. She pressed a hand against the mound between her legs and rotated her hips to set up a friction, feeling both relief and a heightened ache. Beneath her gown and petticoats she was growing wet.
A noise outside the room broke into her trance. Horrified, she snatched away her hand. How dreadful to be discovered touching herself so indecently! Ellis might appear at any moment with a letter, or to light the lamps. She slammed shut the portfolio and tied the laces with trembling fingers. As she retreated to her parlor the passage was empty except for Pudge, chasing a little ball of woolen yarn Cynthia had given her.
Amid the delicate paneling and gilt furnishings of her favorite room she felt alien, savage, no longer the perfect domestic lady with her cat. She wanted to burst out of her skin, or at least out of her clothes, and rub herself against something in the most indecorous fashion. She was a wild thing with a yawning appetite, but not for food or drink. Hard as it was for her to admit, she wanted a man.
Well, she thought. She had one. She had a husband. While he hadn’t been much good in the past, his kiss the other night promised improvement. Perhaps he had acquired these pictures for educational purposes. If he wanted to learn how to please a woman, better that she should be the beneficiary of his studies than another woman. Lady Belinda Radcliffe came to mind.
With a forefinger she traced the rim of her lips, reliving that all too brief union of breath and heat. She’d enjoyed Julian’s kisses but she could no longer remember them. Yet every moment of Damian’s was imprinted on her skin.
She hadn’t forgiven him for the past, but he was her husband, the only one she was ever likely to have. While she might not trust him with her heart, there was no reason she couldn’t enjoy his body. It was time to let him back into her bed in the full meaning of the word.
Cynthia dined alone, her husband having an engagement at his club. Now she was alone in bed, listening to unidentifiable sounds filtered through the connecting door, muffled thuds whose cause she couldn’t guess. Wearing her prettiest, thinnest nightgown made her feel a fool. Since it seemed she would not have the company of a large, warm body for the night, she might as well wear flannel. Having been ejected from her room three nights ago, Damian apparently needed to be told the exile wasn’t permanent. To the indignation of Pudge, whose small, warm body was curled up in the crook of her neck, she pushed aside the covers just as the door, finally, opened.
Her husband stood in the doorway dressed in his Persian banyan and slippers, looking softer and less sure of himself than usual. Or perhaps the sleek mask appeared to have slipped because his dark hair was slightly damp and all awry. Illusion or not, the slight air of disorder suited him. Her heart danced a jig.
“Good evening, my lord,” she said breathily. “Is there anything I can do for you?” She essayed an alluring smile and felt even more foolish.
Whatever the result of her own effort, his smile allured her all right. “I came to extend an invitation. I thought you might like to try my new mattress.”
Now her heart raced in earnest. “Mine is very comfortable,” she managed to murmur.
“I have no complaint about the quality of bedding in either room, only the company.”
“Is it me or Pudge you object to?” She sent him an arch look and her confidence grew. Flirtatious nonsense she could manage.
“The question barely merits a response. I should have said the lack of company is what irks me.” His voice dropped. “I have missed you.”
“Oh?”
“I have something to show you in my chamber,” he said, crossing the room and extending a hand. “Will you honor me with your presence?”
The intensity of his gaze robbed her of her voice again. It dropped from her face to rake the length of her semi-recumbent body. Considering this attention was exactly what she wanted from the evening, her shyness was absurd. Instead of the unruffled confidence of those well-pleasured Persian ladies, she felt stiff and gauche, as though she were the old Cynthia waiting in terror for a disagreeable marital duty. With a jerk she withdrew her exposed knees into the shelter of her nightgown, alarming Pudge, who jumped off the bed and scampered into the adjoining chamber.
“If you want your cat back you’ll have to come and get her.” His grin turned gleeful, almost boyish. She’d never seen Damian so little the polished diplomat.
“Since you put it that way,” she said with dignity, “I accept your invitation, my lord.” She slid off the bed, straightened her skirt, and placed her hand on his arm with mock formality.
“I must remember, my lady, that extortion and kidnapping work with you where a polite request fails.”
The earl’s dour bedchamber was transformed. The dark red velvet counterpane had been torn from the bed and laid on the floor, covering the rather ugly Wilton carpet. Cushions, taken from all parts of the house, were arranged in careless heaps in a semi-circle, creating a sort of nest. Soft lamplight flickered over the scene, and an exotic and totally unfamiliar scent pervaded the room.
“I thought I’d offer you a little taste of Persia,” he said.
Her body thrummed with nerves and excitement. Damian had brought those wicked pictures home with him. Did he intend to imitate them with her? Some of them? All? Her cheeks heated violently as she remembered certain activities. He didn’t know she had seen them. Of course it was possible he intended merely to entertain her with traveler’s tales of the East, but she didn’t think so. She might still be relatively innocent, but she recognized a setting for seduction when she saw it.
“Take a cushion,” he said.
She sat primly, tucking her legs beside her, her back scarcely touching the wall of pillows. Through the fine cambric of her nightgown she could feel velvet under her bottom and thigh. In those pictures the couples had been naked. She lowered her eyelids and imagined the caress of velvet on bare skin, the heat of his eyes on her utterly exposed body. Her wanton thoughts shamed and thrilled her as a wet heat flooded her privates. She took a deep, calming breath and felt a strange herbal smoke fill her nostrils.
Pudge’s little head butted her knee. As she lowered her hand to respond to the demand for attention, Damian swooped in and removed the kitten. He carried her gently but firmly out of the room, placed her on Cynthia’s bed, and returned, shutting the door behind him. “What we are about to do is not suitable for the sight of children,” he said.
“And what would that be?” she asked with delicious anticipation.
“Eating and drinking and talking, and so forth.”
“That sounds innocent enough.”
“ ‘So forth’ covers a multitude of sins.”
Damian would have liked to use the erotic miniatures as an aid in the seduction of his wife, but he feared such explicit portrayals of amorous behavior would drive her into a fit of the vapors. She might have entered into an adulterous affair with Julian Fortescue, but he was certain that she was neither brazen nor highly experienced, nothing like Lady Belinda Ra
dcliffe.
He made himself remember what he’d tried to forget: the joyless nature of their previous couplings. As the man of experience he should have done better, made greater efforts to soothe the frigidity of her frightened virgin body. Now he would spare no trouble to dispel their own past, as well as any desire to return to her lover. But to make her entirely his, she would need to be softened up, gentled into his bed like a shy mare. Luckily, indecent pictures were not all he’d brought back from Persia.
Among the hideous things that Cynthia had inexplicably brought into Windermere House was a pair of censers, the sort of overelaborate French object Damian most disliked. Intended for incense, there was nothing holy about them. On the contrary, they were perfect for the burning of hemp resin. The popular Eastern intoxicant was most powerful smoked in a hookah, but Damian didn’t want to render his wife stupefied, merely relaxed.
He found her enchanting: prim and shy one minute, then a siren would peep out from the proper interior, sending blood rushing to his groin and his desire shooting into the heavens.
“What do you think of the bhang?”
“What a funny word,” she said with a giggle. “What does it mean?”
He took up one of the censers and knelt on the velvet lawn, letting the fragrant smoke fill the space between them. “Breathe in,” he said. “This is resin of the hemp plant, known to the Turks as hashish. The traveler Samuel Purchas claimed that eating it causes mirth and dalliance and makes one appear to be drunk.”
She sniffed cautiously. “And what will smelling it do?”
“Not so much. Merely make us relaxed and happy. Careful,” he said when a fat, fair curl almost landed in the fragrant cinders. “We don’t want to set you on fire.” He tucked the errant lock behind her ear.
“Are you relaxed and happy?” She gazed at him gravely, while taking another deep breath. “It’s hard to tell with you.”
“Becoming more so every minute.”
“That’s a very peculiar object.”
“You bought it, my lady.”
“Did I? How very odd of me.” She blinked. “I never really looked at it before. Those black figures holding up the bowl are women with hooves.”
“What the French describe as faunesses.”
“You don’t think my French is very good, do you?”
“Never mind that now.” The last thing he wanted to remind her of was his behavior at Beaulieu. He set the ebony and gilt censer carefully on the floor, close enough to waft its magic in their direction but out of kicking range. He intended it get them recumbent and kicking as soon as possible.
“Say something to me in French and see if I understand it.”
Remembering her painful incomprehension of his honeymoon small talk, he spoke rapidly and said exactly what he meant. “Je veux te foutre.” As expected, she looked baffled by the vulgarism. Talking dirty was a form of stimulation Damian happened to enjoy and he could take advantage of her limited knowledge of French to indulge himself without shocking her. Blood roared to his cock, which pressed against the silk of his banyan. Apparently unaware of his arousal, Cynthia watched his face with a silly smile on her sweet pink mouth, which gave him ideas and made him even harder. She looked so innocent and pure in white linen, buttoned to the neck. “Je veux te foutre,” he repeated.
He wanted to fuck her, very badly, and much else besides.
“Je veux te baiser dans ta cave et te fair jouir pendant que tu suce ma queue. Je veux que nous jouissons, tous les deux.”
“That all sounds very, very lovely. It’s a beautiful language.”
“Very, very lovely. As are you.”
“The language of love. I know a French song,” she confided with a grave air.
“Sing it.” Against all reason he hoped it was a naughty one.
“Sur le pont d’Avignon
“L’on y danse, l’on y danse.”
No such luck.
She sang the French nursery rhyme in a light, tuneful soprano, like the world’s most desirable governess. He joined in through four verses and the chorus, their harmony spoiled by laughter on her part, and distraction on his. He couldn’t be expected to remember what beautiful ladies were doing on a French bridge when he had an even lovelier one in his English chamber.
“L’on y danse tous en rond,” she concluded with a gasp. Giggling like a schoolgirl, she collapsed against him, giving him the chance to sweep her backward into the nest of cushions.
“You see,” she said. “My French is excellent.”
“Im-pec-ca-ble.” He hovered over her, supported by his arms. “So good that you deserve a reward.”
“What?” She giggled again.
The bhang was doing its job. Mirth had been achieved, now on to dalliance. His mouth hovered, inches from the rosy lips.
“If you stop laughing, I’ll give you a sweetmeat.”
Her eyed grew huge. “And if I don’t?”
He knew what he wanted to do and he rather thought she wanted the same. “You’ll have to wait and find out,” he fenced, “but I don’t advise it.”
His reward was not another giggle but a rich laugh from deep in her belly that invited him to nameless delights. Having expected to direct the night’s encounter, he felt his control slipping away. His wife, deliberately or not, was exerting her own influence on the progress of events. With a groan he forgot about the dish of Persian delicacies that had been the planned next step in his seduction. Resting back on his side, he placed his hands on her hips and tugged her against his aching erection at the same time that she cast her arms about his neck.
He couldn’t have said who kissed whom first but declared it a tie because when it came down to it, who cared? All that mattered was she was intoxicating and finally he was going to put an end to far too long a celibacy. Somehow his exhilarated brain kept a grasp on his good intentions. His physical condition was approaching desperation and he doubted he’d last long enough to please anyone in his current state. He needed to slow down.
She lolled against the cushions, a golden angel in a den of iniquity, her eyes big and dreamy, her hair a honeyed cloud, her lips plump and dark from his kisses and asking for more. She represented an invitation to sin as sultry as any Persian houri, despite her nightgown, covering her from chin to toe like a nun. True, it was an improvement over the thick flannel shroud. It fell smoothly about her curves, giving him a better impression of her figure than he’d yet been afforded: high breasts, a small waist, and a lovely curve of the hips. Through the superfine cambric he caught a shadowy impression of nipples; dark pink, he fancied. His favorite kind. With thickened fingers he unlooped the button at her neck, and couldn’t resist the indentation of her collarbone, allowing himself a quick taste of the tender skin. She arched into his mouth and the nightgown fell open, revealing round, pert breasts that his palms itched to touch. “You are lovely,” he whispered. “I want to see all of you.”
He could have bit his tongue, thinking he was going too fast, but he needn’t have worried. The fragrant smoke or some other cause had shredded her inhibitions. With two shrugs and a wriggle she got out of her nightdress, tossing it aside, and arranged herself on the claret-colored velvet like a goddess in an Italian painting. She took his breath away. How could he have ever made the mistake of thinking her short and dumpy? She was a pocket Venus, perfectly proportioned, with ravishing curves to her arms and thighs, and narrow waist above a gently swelling belly.
“You are absolutely made to be naked,” he said with a voice full of awe. “It’s a crime that such beauty should be hidden.”
“A hanging offense or transportation?”
Her smile would entice a monastery of abbots to mass fornication. She stretched like a sensual cat, undulating her hips to draw attention to the blond thatch of her pubis. The anticipation of possession tortured him. It was impossible to believe that he’d had her before, unaware what a treasure he had captured. But now he had to make sure that she was so incredibly satisfied that
she would never again give Julian Fortescue as much as a passing thought.
And so, with the utmost concentration, he pleasured her with all the skill he could muster, using hands and mouth to adore the sweet breast, the soft belly, and finally the wet, spicy gateway to her sex.
“Oh Lord, Damian,” she moaned beneath the ministrations of his tongue, urging him to greater efforts.
“No you don’t,” he muttered as she twisted from side to side. Grasping her curvy little bottom, he held her still, gaining a little extra glee for himself in reining in her movements. He made her take her pleasure from him, despite her fluttering attempts at escape from the intensity of sensation.
“Stop!” she cried. “Don’t stop!” No way would he stop. Following the rhythm of her ascent to bliss, he increased his pace until she gave a shriek and shot into fulfillment. Her taste, her earthy woman’s scent, her cries of joy, flooded his senses. He felt the quivers of her climax in his mouth and gave her a few more strokes, sending her over the top again.
Letting her trembling subside, he scrambled up and caught her in his arms, relishing the astonished delight on her face. “I had no idea,” she said, shaking her head and rubbing her nose in his chest in a clumsy, endearing way.
Take that, Julian Fortescue, he thought smugly. Some of us know how to please a woman.
“Damian,” she whispered.
“Yes, my sweet?”
“That’s no way to make a child.”
“No,” he said between a laugh and a grunt. “That bit comes next.” Pray God she’d be ready soon. He was ready to explode.
“You do want a son, don’t you?”
“I can’t say it’s the topic uppermost in my mind now.”
“I am sorry there was no child,” she whispered, “but I suppose you really didn’t care.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. It was Chorley who was obsessed with an heir, not him. He had no interest in a squalling infant, only in a bout of fast, sweaty, mind-destroying copulation as soon as possible. He was so hard he thought he was going to die.
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