‘Look at that! A tremendous specimen, what?’ He beamed at Henrietta and Richard, who attempted to match his enthusiasm with all the energy they could muster. ‘I doubt even Susan Colborne could find fault with it.’ His eyes narrowed, peering at the bloom. ‘I’ll send it to her directly. She will be most covetous of our Rowhaven soil. Correspondence—yes. That could work. That could work most splendidly. Now follow me—there is a folly at the edge of the wood which has been only recently constructed.’
Henrietta nodded, obediently following behind Oliver as Richard bowed. His footsteps sounded behind her; his shadow fell across her as his pace matched hers, for all the world as if he were tracking her movements… as if he were ready to pounce.
Good. Folly, cottage, woodland circus; Henrietta didn’t much care what she would be seeing in the wood. She cared very much, very much indeed, about what she would see that evening.
I have had more than enough of wanting you. What did that mean, in the end?
Soon enough, she would know. Thank goodness.
Enough. Richard was glad he had managed to say what needed saying to Henrietta with any kind of civility; it had been hard, terribly hard, not to pull her down into that delicious carpet of flowers and take her as she deserved to be taken. Oliver Whitstable would have been somewhat nonplussed, no doubt—but then, given the man’s single-minded devotion to the study of animal behaviour, he might have considered the act a matter of academic interest.
‘We could have ended up in a Royal Society folio.’ He murmured the words softly to himself as he picked up the billiard cue. Tapping it gently on the ceiling to cover the leather-tipped end with chalk, he rolled up his sleeves and took aim at the neatly set-up balls.
Billiards wasn’t normally his game. You couldn’t lose enormous amounts of money doing it, and the atmosphere of the average billiards room was far too sedate for any kind of real fun. Richard, knocking the ivory balls into the pockets with the ruthless efficiency of a soldier, had chosen a lonely evening game in an attempt to calm himself.
It wasn’t working. Richard looked out of the window, watching the last rays of the sun sink over Rowhaven as an ostrich wandered placidly over the front lawn. Stars were slowly becoming visible, the estate sinking into comfortable silence; the household, including its servants, were preparing themselves for slumber—apart from himself. And, he hoped to God, Henrietta.
Why was he so nervous? This had never happened to him before; this astonishing tension that racked his body, making it hard to hold to cue steady. Seduction had always been a game, a pleasant challenge; only a little more taxing than a game of billiards. It had taken seven days in Rowhaven, seven days in Henrietta’s company, to make the idea of seduction into something momentous. Something that had the potential to alter the course of his entire life, if he simply sat down and thought about it…
‘God, you fool. You absolute fool.’ Richard leant against the billiard table, wearily rubbing his eyes. ‘Just go up there, now, and…’
But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stride upstairs with his usual arrogance, ruin Henrietta Hereford, and and walk off into the rising sun with a whistle on his lips and a song in his heart. He had said what he had said in the bluebell wood as if slaking his lust would be some sort of ending… but the idea of ending anything with Henrietta felt like a fate worse than death.
They were friends, now. Richard had always been able to separate cheerful companionship and erotic exploration. But as he sent ball after ball flying into the pockets, his brow beaded with sweat, Richard realised that he was incapable of separating Henrietta into anything less than her full, magnificent self. He wouldn’t be ruining Henrietta, the enchanting seductress; it would be Henrietta the intelligent scholar, Henrietta the quick wit, Henrietta, the woman who secretly cradled blooms in the palm of her hand when she thought no-one was looking…
He had told her that he was tired of the game. But what would happen when the game was over?
There was a swift, soft knock at the door. Richard stopped mid-hit, bewildered, before hurriedly straightening up as Henrietta walked into the room.
Typical. Of course she would treat waiting to be called as something that happened to other people. Richard felt his heart buckle under an enormous wave of sentiment; something much, much greater than mere lust.
‘Good evening, my lord.’ Henrietta was still wearing the dress Richard had seen her in at dinner; a gown of palest butter-coloured silk that made her hair seem even darker. As she moved towards him, Richard saw a new softness in her shape—a full, ripe ease to her hips and thighs, a strength to her waist, that meant she was no longer corseted. The thought made his mouth water. ‘I see you have chosen to offend your hosts, by remaining awake long after that have lost the strength to entertain you.’
‘I am becoming an atrocious guest.’ Richard leaned the cue against the wall, rolling the last remaining ball into the pocket with an idle flick of his wrist. ‘But then, so are you.’
‘Olive and Mr. Whitstable know that you are here, in the billiard room. At least, they did, before retiring for the evening.’ Henrietta brought her hands out from behind her back; Richard swallowed, his mind suddenly blank, as she revealed a ball of twine. ‘They do not know that I am here.’
She gently placed the twine on the billiard table. Richard stared, his arms folded, swallowing as Henrietta began to speak again.
‘I am sure you are tired of sleeping in the gamekeeper’s cottage. I am tired of… oh, I do not know what I am tired of. I am thirsting, terribly, for something that I have never tasted, and am not supposed to ask for, and do not know how to ask for.’ She tucked her hair behind one ear; Richard realised with a jolt that she was as nervous as he was. ‘There is normally a sort of preparation, with the courtship, the banns, but I have never been able to imagine anything duller.’ She laughed, an edge of bitterness to the words. ‘But then, perhaps the dullness prevented awkwardness.’
Richard didn’t feel awkward. There was no shame in the throbbing, pulsating readiness for something—anything—coursing through his veins, not to mention the near-painful hardness of his cock. If anything he felt a kind of awe; a sentiment that he considered much, much more dangerous than embarrassment.
‘I do this freely, of course. With more than enough knowledge of what I am about to do.’ Henrietta paused, with a small sigh. ‘Well. Theoretical knowledge. I… I have read certain books.’
Richard’s heart swelled still further. She had read books? She had teased him, tormented him, found ways to the very core of him that no woman ever had… and now they were at the crucial moment, she was shyly informing him that she had read books concerning it?
She was irresistible. Utterly, maddeningly, irresistible. With a fierce stride that was close to a run, Richard went to her as quickly as he possibly could.
He had kissed her before; soon it would lose its fire, surely, the feel of her lips on his. But as Richard’s mouth covered hers—as he felt her yield to him, a small sigh of purely sensuous greed coming from deep in her throat—he realised with a mounting sense of discomfort that every kiss felt better than the first. Every time their lips met, he felt more and more overcome by the force of his desire.
Nothing could be done about it. There was nothing he wanted to do about it, and that was the most frightening thing of all. Richard, burying his face in Henrietta’s neck as he kissed his way along her throat, felt his own body trembling with unimaginable lust.
There wasn’t enough room; he needed acres of bed, leagues of soft cotton sheets, and an ocean of time to swim in. Fortunately he had a billiard table; that would be enough, for now. With a feral growl, his shirt practically ripping at the seams as he lifted Henrietta upwards, Richard pushed them both onto the green baize as his lust demanded satisfaction.
She wanted pleasure? He would give her that, a thousand times over. Richard’s hands moved to her hair, gripping it just enough to make Henrietta whimper as he renewed his attack on her neck, hi
s tongue skilled and patient as he moved down to the hollow of her throat. This was where her voice was kept; this was where her delicious sighs came from, that teasing laughter, and he would lavish attention on it until she begged him to stop… please, God, let her not tell him to stop. Let her keep whimpering as she was, moaning as she was, as he moved his tongue ever further downward. Let her hands keep gripping his shirt, as if he were the only stable thing in the world—let her thighs keep slowly, shyly spreading beneath him, allowing him ever-closer to her sex.
His hands crept to the demure bodice of her dress, tugging it downward with a force that tore at the fabric; Henrietta gasped, her mouth seeking his as her breasts spilled free. Richard kissed her with ruthless passion, fists tearing through her linen shift as easily as if it had been paper, before moving down to her flushed, swollen peaks with a barely-restrained sound of pure want.
He covered one rose-coloured nipple with his tongue without preamble; he wanted her shocked, wanted that cry of surprised bliss that fell over him like music. The evening-flower scent she’d been wearing the night of the ball washed over him again; had she applied it here, over the private curves of her body, thinking of him? The thought inflamed Richard further, hardening his cock to a state almost beyond pleasure; he paid her back in kind with his hungry mouth, tonguing her nipples with ferocious, needy focus as his hands moved down to her hips, holding her there. He wanted her shivering, begging for him, before he took her where they wanted them to go.
It took less time than he had thought. It seemed little more than a moment had been spent holding Henrietta, head bent to her breasts, her hips beginning to move of their own accord in a slow, sensuous rhythm that Richard ached to replicate. As he reached for the twine, snapping the thread with his teeth in his eagerness to bind her, he noticed with distracted surprise that the sky was completely dark—apart from the stars, shining.
‘Do it. Tie me.’ Henrietta gasped as Richard secured her wrists, her breasts tight against his chest as he tied her hands behind her back. ‘You are… surprising.’
‘Surprising?’ Richard kissed her, smiling. ‘Even after all of your reading?’
‘My books are most detailed.’ Henrietta stared at him, her gaze irresistibly bold. ‘I doubt you will continue surprising me.’
‘Oh yes?’ Richard bit his lip, staring at her bared, love-marked breasts. ‘We will see about that.’
With a gentle push, he laid Henrietta down on the green baize of the billiard table. She looked at him, confused, as he moved closer—and gasped as he raised her skirts higher and higher, revealing the meeting of her thighs.
She was beautiful. Every part of her was perfect; the creamy expanse of her thighs, the dark, damp gift that lay between them. Richard moved his hands under one of her legs; he knelt as he lifted her leg high, her foot moving over his shoulder as he brought his mouth to her calf.
‘Ah!’ Henrietta’s breathless gasp of surprise, of sensuous discovery, made him smile. He kissed his way along the pale line of her leg, moving up to her thigh, his hand drifting lazily over her dark patch of curls as he moved ever-closer to his goal. ‘I—what are you doing?’
‘Oh, sweet, did your books not prepare you for this?’ Richard kissed her inner thigh, his tongue lingering on her skin as Henrietta whimpered. ‘Did all your very careful reading come to nothing?’
Henrietta’s voice was flushed with helpless, frustrated lust. ‘I… I cannot see how they failed to mention this.’ Her hips strained forward; Richard eagerly put his mouth to the dark, fragrant patch of curls at her mound. ‘It—oh, Lord—it seemed very much worth mentioning.’
‘I am glad they did not mention this.’ Richard gently kissed her most intimate place; Henrietta’s surprised gasp was worth more than all the money in the world. ‘I am glad I can introduce you to it.’
With a happy heart, he began to taste her. No shy kisses here, no tentative laps of his tongue; he licked and kissed and loved her with full, rapturous enthusiasm, parting her soft lips, delving to the heart of her as her delighted sighs filled the room. Richard brought his hands to Henrietta’s hips, tilting her up to him; she opened like a flower, the swollen bud of her sex revealed to him, ready for his lips and tongue.
With a smile at the thought of the pleasure he was about to give her, Richard ran his tongue over her centre. Henrietta’s hoarse, broken cry of pleasure filled him with satisfaction; he licked again, and again, slow and hard and thorough. Yes, he could spend hours here, kissing the sweetest, most intimate part of her… make that days. Make that years.
For a long, dizzying stretch of lust-soaked twilight, he loved her with his mouth. Henrietta’s pleasure came in shivering waves; Richard learned how to measure them, await them, make them rise higher and higher as her peak began to build. He stroked her thighs, murmuring desire-filled compliments as Henrietta’s body began to tremble; her wrists strained ineffectually at the twine, her eyes full of a languorous, honeyed ecstasy that Richard knew promised even greater heights.
‘Oh…’ Henrietta’s cry was high, faint; Richard redoubled his efforts, his tongue deep in her flushed, quivering core. She was reaching her peak, he knew it; he licked again and again, the sound of his pleasure joining hers as Henrietta’s thighs closed around his head. With a deep, shuddering jolt, she cried out her bliss—Richard eagerly lapped at the flood of her desire, refusing to cease until the last of her cries died away.
As Henrietta slumped back against the billiard table, Richard stood up. He pulled her to him, kissing her; Henrietta’s mouth moved eagerly against his, tasting, knowing. Richard’s hard cock ached savagely; he pushed her back down again, hands moving to his breeches.
‘Yes.’ Henrietta nodded eagerly. ‘Yes.’
She was spread wide beneath him, hot, wet, begging for him; begging for what he had promised her so long ago. Seduction, pleasure, ruin… parting.
They would part. Richard had never thought too hard about that piece of the story. They would part as friends, reduced to seeing one another at Longwater, snatching glances at one another in ballrooms… and if they ever met again like this, it would be under the greatest secrecy.
But he didn’t want secrecy. The realisation washed over Richard like a great, roaring flood. He wanted to seduce Henrietta—and then carry her to bed, fall asleep with his arms around her, wake up smiling at her, go downstairs with her to greet their assorted loved ones, and do it again, and again, and again… forever.
He wanted her forever. The very thing she said she never wished to do. And the though of seducing her, then leaving her… why, it was worse than hanging.
‘Richard?’ Henrietta’s husky whisper brought her back to herself. ‘Is something wrong?’
The sound of his name in her mouth only increased Richard’s resolve. He stepped away, realising his hands were shaking; his throat was dry. Taking her hands in his, finding little comfort in their soft warmth, he slowly drew her upward until she sat before him.
She was perfect. So perfect that she would never want him in the way he wanted her. The best thing he could do was withdraw his attentions.
‘I cannot.’ He murmured the words, broken, seeking her mouth as he kissed her. His hands slipped behind her back; with a brief burst of strength, he snapped the twine he had tied her with. As he withdrew Henrietta opened her mouth, clearly confused—and stopped, as he spoke again. ‘I cannot.’
He could not. He kept those words alive in his mind as he turned, seeking the door, stumbling blindly—leaving her there, dishevelled, waiting for him. He could not, he could not, he could not.
Henrietta stood perfectly still on the edge of the billiard table for several long minutes. All she could hear with any great clarity was the beating of her heart; she listened to it with blank, unceasing attention, waiting until it calmed to a reasonable rate. Then, for thirty slow minutes, she re-dressed herself with complete concentration.
It was only as she pulled her left sleeve over her bared shoulder that the tears c
ame; Henrietta allowed them to come, judging that no-one would overhear her. When the tears became harsh, ugly sobs, she covered her mouth with a viciously tight palm.
As the tears dried on the bodice of her gown, staining the yellow, she eyed the letter-opener left carelessly on the windowsill. It looked sharp enough to hurt; maybe sharp enough to kill, if she moved quietly. Moved quietly through the great hall, and up the stairs, and into the room of that—that wretch…
But that would be making it his fault, when it was clear that the fault lay with her.
It had to be her. Lord Westlake had abundant experience in these matters; she did not. For all her pretence at playing the game, and winning it… she was inadequate.
She was, quite simply, not enough.
She didn’t sleep. She wasn’t quite sure what she had done in the dark, hollow hours between dusk and dawn, but she certainly hadn’t slept—even though she had gone to her bedroom, changed into her nightgown and brushed her hair, in a strange, blank attempt to behave as if everything was normal. As if Richard hadn’t hurt her in such a tender, profound way; as if he hadn’t confused her utterly with his sweetness, his passion… his refusal.
She had no idea what to do when dawn came. She lay still in bed for several hours, watching the sun climb higher, hearing footsteps that she hesitated to assign to Richard or anyone else. Only when she heard the unmistakeable sound of a dog barking on the drive outside, signalling the return of Oliver Whitstable from his morning feeding of the elephants, did she summon enough courage to rise.
Wrapping herself in a thick cotton robe, avoiding the looking-glass entirely, she padded downstairs in exhausted silence. Hurrying by the turned figure of Oliver Whitstable as he patted the dog, nodding coldly to a curious housemaid, Henrietta made her way into the breakfast room with her head held high… and slumped abruptly when she saw no sign of Richard.
Dukes and Devilry Page 18
