She obeyed.
“Holy mother of . . . sweet . . . oh God, Delilah . . . I can’t . . . I want . . .”
Making this man utter hoarse, begging fragments of sentences would forever rank among the most thrilling things she’d done in her life.
She did it again.
And his pleasure was hers, and she wanted to do more to him.
Quick as an acrobat he lowered himself again to face her. His cock was hard, thrilling, enormous against her thigh and for the first time in her life she wanted what she knew he intended to do with it.
And as her thighs were so wantonly open they might as well have sported a Welcome! sign, it was easy for him to take up that stroking again. This time it was rhythmic, insistent, swift. He knew where she was going; she didn’t. She was hurtling toward something, or something was hurtling toward her. She was terrified but desperate: never before had she so badly wanted something she couldn’t even name. She was mostly afraid that it wouldn’t live up to this fanfare.
“Tristan . . . please tell me . . . please . . . don’t stop . . .”
They were gasps, raw pleas, and she heard them as if she were already somewhere outside of her own body. It was extraordinary.
“Trust me.”
His voice came from beneath the low roar of her breath, a sound somehow everywhere and nowhere and far from her. His relentless, brilliant fingers sent bolt after bolt of breath-shredding pleasure raying through her until all at once what felt like a coat of feather-soft cinders rushed over her skin.
And just like that, an unimaginable bliss broke over her. It whipped her body upward and she screamed, soundlessly. Shattered her into fragments of pleasure, like the winking crystals in the chandelier. She was stardust.
Wave after wave of bliss shook her.
“Dear God . . . oh, my dear God . . . what was . . .” Her imagination was limber enough but never would she ever have imagined such a thing.
He flashed a piratical grin. “Not God. That was all me. And all you.”
He was already deftly arranging her body for more sensual plunder. He’d risen up over her and tucked her legs on either side of his torso.
“Hold on to me, Delilah,” he whispered.
She wouldn’t think of disobeying, given how she’d essentially just been launched from her body into the stratosphere by unforeseen pleasure. Perhaps more of that was in store now.
And then he thrust into her. She locked him in with her legs round his back and her arms around his shoulders, took him as deeply as she could.
He moved slowly, at first. Sank into her slowly, withdrew, sighing, swearing softly his own pleasure and wonder. His face was shadowy. She kept her eyes fixed on it anyway.
His hips moved, postponing the pleasure for himself.
“I fear I must . . . this will be quick . . . I need you, Delilah . . .”
She laid her hands against the scoops made by muscle in his buttocks and arched up against him, absolving him of the need for control. “I want what you want.”
Which was all the permission their bodies needed to collide and part amid a conversation composed of hoarse, ragged breathing: the odd “oh God, so good” and soft whimpering moans. The velvet settee rocked and thumped like a goat in a stall. And as his hips drummed ever more swiftly, driving himself into her again and again, the beginnings of that glorious thing once more began to build in her, as if inside her was a normally placid sea that could be boiled and churned by this storm and rush its banks. Until she was nearly sobbing with pleasure, clawing his shoulders, bowing to meet him. She buried her exultant cry in his shoulder.
And then he went still, with a stifled roar, and swiftly rolled away from her. She knew why when his release felt sticky on her thigh. And she clung to him as his body shook hard, at the mercy of his release.
And they shifted so that they lay facing the ceiling, sweatily entwined. Her head rested on his chest.
“Was I wrong?” he whispered finally.
“No. Of course not. When are you ever wrong?”
He gave a short breathless laugh. He was breathing as if he’d swum across the Thames to get to the settee and exuding satisfaction.
“It was indeed very good. But was it wicked? I felt wicked.”
There was a little silence. “You felt sublime.” He said it softly. The word landed like poetry and made her feel shy.
“Something tells me you don’t use that word very often, Captain.”
He didn’t reply. His chest rose and fell beneath her head.
Sometimes she thought that was entirely his strategy: every word acquired profundity when he issued fewer of them. Like a shot of whiskey, they were more potent for being distilled.
Instead he drew his thumb along her lower lip. Softly, back and forth. Like a mapmaker planning territory to conquer.
“I should have liked you to be more naked,” she murmured.
She could feel his mouth curve against her shoulder. “Next time I shall be the nakedest man that ever was born.”
“There cannot be a next time.”
She hadn’t realized she’d said that aloud until his chest stopped moving.
She realized she’d stopped breathing, as well, waiting to hear what he’d say.
“Very well.”
His tone was indecipherable.
She didn’t want to explain now, when her body was still humming like the final notes ringing in a symphony. She didn’t want to explain at all, in fact. The idea of another time meant there would be still more times, as it was inconceivable at the moment not to want that again and again. And now that she knew precisely the kind of wizardry involved, how the race toward release dissolved one into the purest, most vulnerable self, she could imagine losing just a little of herself every time. Until she was all his.
And therein, alas, lay the potential for destruction.
It was easier to end it now.
“Thank you for . . . this time.”
“No trouble at all.” He sounded amused.
The sweat was cooling on her body and the official start of their morning was hours away. The cook’s heart would give out if she walked into the parlor and found this.
“If I’m to be wanted for only one thing,” she mused, “I am glad there’s such pleasure to be had in it.”
Once again, every muscle in his body went so rigid she nearly bounced from him as though he were a carriage seat.
Then he drew in a long, long breath. Released it at length.
It was wrong, but she loved the feel of his chest rising and falling beneath her when he did. His control was formidable. Unleashed, he was.
“And they say I’m a brute,” he muttered.
“Who says you’re a brute?”
He didn’t answer the question. Which almost made her smile dryly. Exasperating man. The arrogance of him! He chose what to answer and when, as if he were the sole arbiter of what was important in the world.
“Your husband, he . . .” he began carefully. She waited. “Delilah, he ought to have been more considerate.”
And even though they’d been groaning and begging and bouncing away on each other like wild animals a moment ago, her face went hot. It wasn’t shame. Not precisely. It was for having a vulnerability exposed. It was for the care with which he chose those words. It bordered on tenderness.
But surely not. Surely it was mere accuracy from him.
She suspected whatever it was he felt was considerably stronger, and her own ferocious protectiveness unnerved her.
For a moment she couldn’t speak.
“I thought it was me,” she whispered. “That maybe I should have known, or—”
“No. He ought to have . . . you are . . . you are marvelous at this.”
Funny. In another time, another place, when she was another person, that might be one of the most appalling things she’d ever heard about herself: that she was marvelous at boisterous sex on a velvet settee in a boardinghouse by the docks. With someone who patently
wasn’t a gentleman.
She certainly wouldn’t feel exultant. Yet she was. Whatever brutal forces had shaped this man into this taciturn, unyielding person, she was glad to take and give comfort and surcease.
I need you, Delilah.
She wondered if he’d realized he’d said that.
Then again, the things she’d said shocked her.
She stirred to rise.
He shifted to allow her.
But first he laced his hands through the mussed wreckage of her braid and kissed her, so slowly, so softly, that delicious, wicked pooling of heat started up between her legs and she was amazed to realize that, given the slightest encouragement, she’d do it all over again on this settee, which likely wouldn’t be able to stand the strain.
Perhaps it had something to do with being naked.
She found her night dress on the floor, and hurriedly clutched it to her.
“Delilah . . .” he said softly, suddenly. And her name almost sounded like a song.
She turned to him. It sounded portentous, and it alarmed her how her heart leaped with anticipation. Of what, she didn’t know.
“The things you said . . . well, I reckon you need to put at least a pound in the jar.”
Chapter Nineteen
The next morning, sitting at the work table in the kitchen just as Helga was beginning the day by beating eggs and shouting orders to the scullery maids, Delilah succinctly and in a low voice told Angelique about Mr. Brinker, touching upon just the salient points—well dressed, wealthy, supercilious toad, squeezed her breast, was hell-bent on rape until Captain Hardy pulled a pistol on him and put a dent in the little table with his head.
She didn’t embellish with emotion. She didn’t really need to.
Angelique was pale and silent.
“But at least we still have his three sovereigns,” Delilah concluded.
They both smiled blackly.
Similar senses of humor certainly helped get them through their days.
“Are you all right, Delilah?” Angelique touched her knee. “It’s a terribly shocking thing, and I’m just . . . I’m so very sorry that happened to you.”
“I’m surprisingly very good. Not a nick on me.”
Angelique tipped her head and studied her. Then narrowed her eyes. “You do look unusually radiant.”
“Mmm,” Delilah said.
She felt radiant, and a little sore in a marvelous way, but she wasn’t about to say that. It was as though life had acquired an entirely new dimension. One where all the colors and feelings were kept.
Angelique continued her perusal of her, seemed to be considering saying something, thought better of it. “Did you tell Dot?”
“We can’t tell Dot. It will destroy her.”
“She likes opening the door, however. She finds it fun to discover who’s out there. I think you need to tell her a very little, enough to genuinely scare her into not opening the door after a certain hour, but not enough to inspire her to don a hair shirt over it.”
“Very well.” Delilah sighed. “We need to hire footmen, perhaps. Or carry little knives in our bodices.”
“I believe you are right. I think we need at least one footman,” Angelique said, fretfully. “Blast it. Men eat so much and they’ll want to be paid.”
They both smiled at this.
Though with the new sovereigns Mr. Brinker had left behind, hiring a footman was now a possibility. Quite the irony.
Would any footman want to work in a household brimful of females?
Helga was now singing a little song in German.
“Delilah . . . what on earth was Captain Hardy doing in the drawing room at midnight?” Angelique said suddenly.
Delilah went still. She hadn’t considered this. It was, in fact, a good question.
“Perhaps he couldn’t sleep and heard voices? Went in search of a late-night libation?”
“He heard voices over the sound of Delacorte snoring?”
It was, in fact, a very good question.
“Do you know what Brinker said when he was flat on his back, blood oozing from his nose? ‘Oh, you’re that Captain Hardy.’ What do you suppose he meant?”
Angelique looked thoughtful.
Then shook her head. “I couldn’t begin to guess. Maybe Brinker was simply dazed from the blow to the head.”
“That must be it,” Delilah said blithely. “Helga, do you think we can have extra sausage for breakfast? I am starving.”
A night of unforgettable lovemaking put Tristan in a downright sprightly mood. He was bounding out through the foyer to have a look at his ship and to meet Massey for breakfast when a dulcet female voice called from the drawing room.
“Good morning, Captain Hardy.”
He stopped.
Mrs. Breedlove was alone, sitting on the settee, fetching in a gray morning gown with the light behind her.
“Good day, Mrs. Breedlove. Tolerable weather we’re having.”
She was as different from Lady Derring as diamonds from daisies. They were both beautiful women in their ways, shaped, he suspected, by entirely different circumstances.
“I’ve a little tea left in the pot, Captain Hardy, if you’d like it before you leave. I thought I’d drink it quietly before we feed the family, as it were.”
All at once he was certain Mrs. Breedlove had something she wished to speak to him about. It was also an opportunity to ask a few pressing questions of his own.
“That’s a kind offer. Thank you.”
He sat in the chair opposite her. “You and Lady Derring have created such a comfortable, welcoming place here. How did the two of you come to meet?”
“I was her husband’s mistress.”
Whatever he’d been expecting—circumspection? A delicate use of euphemism?—it wasn’t that. He had the sense that she’d intended to shock him. Or to discover whether he was, in fact, shocked.
“You don’t say,” he said neutrally.
Which made her smile. “We discovered, awkwardly and quite accidentally, that Derring had left the two of us penniless. We found we had a good deal in common in addition to the feckless Earl of Derring. The only thing Delilah had left was this building, and she was kind enough to include me in her mad scheme. We rub along together quite well.”
“Lady Derring is kind. As are you,” he added, gallantly. Though he was less certain such a gentle word applied to Angelique.
She didn’t thank him. Angelique merely tipped her head. “You and I are very alike, I think, Captain Hardy.”
“Ah. Does your beard begin to darken at about five o’clock, too?”
She smiled politely. “Nothing makes a dent. Not anymore. But that’s all to the good, isn’t it?”
Tristan stared at her, instantly cautious.
“I find it so,” he said shortly.
“I’ve concluded people are more or less the same beneath the surface. Saints, sinners, the differences are a matter of semantics and rather superficial.”
“Then we are agreed. I can’t help but suspect, Mrs. Breedlove, that you are taking the long way round to make a point. And in this approach, we differ. Hence the following direct question: What are you getting at?”
“When you are done with her, whatever your reasons, she will be in smithereens. And you won’t even sport a nick.”
For a moment he didn’t breathe.
Tristan betrayed nothing of what he was thinking, which was, in fact, that she may be right.
And yet.
Mrs. Breedlove’s eyes were hazel, which seemed a much too-soft, nearly dreamy color for a woman like her to have. There wasn’t a thing soft or dreamy about Mrs. Breedlove, at least not anymore.
Yes, they were alike.
He wondered about the first man to compliment her eyes, for surely someone had been the first. He was sincerely sorry if life had been unkind to her; doubtless, to wind up as Derring’s mistress, things had not gone the way she would have preferred. He had the sense that one took refuge
from life in The Grand Palace on the Thames.
“Mrs. Breedlove, do you think I’m a man of whim?”
“No. Hence my concern. I suspect you are quite purposeful. But I’m not quite certain of your purpose here, at The Grand Palace on the Thames.”
“Why, for the accommodations, of course. And for the pleasure of being required to sit reading comfortably in your sitting room while the Gardner sisters stare at me.”
“Then I shall be clear. On the off chance a scrap of heart remains in the iron confines of your chest, perhaps you ought to leave her alone.”
He took a sip of his tea, now cold, and a little too strong.
Had he been obvious? This seemed inconceivable.
Or had Delilah—?
“No, she hasn’t said a word,” Mrs. Breedlove said, in answer to his unspoken question.
He wasn’t going to obfuscate. He would not admit a thing. Nor would he deny.
He merely studied her.
“I think the very fact of your advice suggests you’ve not only been dented, Mrs. Breedlove. I believe you actually care very much about her.”
For a fleeting instant her cool features registered surprise and vulnerability. She did not like being sassed out.
He thought perhaps she was reassessing him.
He almost smiled. Clearly she thought astute men were anomalies.
Perhaps they were.
“Or I’m looking out for the best interests of all of us, and I’ve grown weary of cleaning this drafty box and the nature of smithereens is that one must pick them out of the carpet or curtains forever.”
With an insouciant wave of her hand, she departed the room, leaving it somehow ten degrees colder than it had been.
“Lady Derring says that she and Mrs. Breedlove financed their boardinghouse with the proceeds of the sale of their jewelry to a pawnbroker called Reeves. We’ll need to verify this. It doesn’t yet definitively clear her of cigar smuggling. But my instincts say neither she nor her partner are involved. I had an opportunity to speak to Mrs. Breedlove this morning.”
Tristan was more and more certain that Delilah and Mrs. Breedlove were innocent of any wrongdoing. But more to the point, he hoped that they were.
Lady Derring Takes a Lover Page 20
