Beauty and the Rake

by Erica Monroe

  Slowly, she ran her black-gloved hand across the full skirt of her violet day dress. While the rest of the dresses in the wardrobe had been of fine muslin, this one was of the softest, shiniest silk. Woven on a jacquard, she guessed.

  She headed past the reading alcoves with plush chairs scattered throughout, the grouping of tables for research. Even beyond the circular cutout in the shelving for the staircase that led to the second level of the library.

  She walked until her knees began to throb, and then she walked some more, welcoming the ache. Pain was a language she understood. Pain spoke in stops and starts, in the sudden unexpected stab, in the unnatural twist of a joint. Pain did not make false promises, nor give false hope. In its unpredictable, selfish nature, pain became a friend she could trust. There was no use making plans. Pain would creep in at the slightest provocation, without warning or due course.

  To win against pain, she simply must exist. Every waking moment was a victory.

  She’d reached the farthest corner of the library. One lamp shone over the unkempt section. Such disarray must sting Smithers dreadfully. She was surprised he hadn’t insisted on giving the area a thorough cleaning. Unless Michael had specifically forbidden the butler from tidying up…what did Michael keep back here that he didn’t want Smithers to see? The servants had seemed aware of their master’s roguish reputation.

  Surely, these books must be exceedingly salacious if he needed to hide them.

  Abigail ran her finger along the closest shelf, dust covering the tip of her black glove in a white sheen. Cobwebs clung to the tallest shelves. She’d start with the shelves at eye level and move on from there.

  Heavy leather-bound volumes in a rainbow of colors lined the wood shelves. Leaning forward, she squinted at the titles. The light was so faint. She saw a few names in a vernacular she didn’t recognize. She hoped the rest weren’t in a foreign language—if so, this investigation would be an exercise in futility.

  As she blew out a giant puff of air, the dust scattered, coating her hair, her dress, permeating her mouth and throat. Coughing, she swatted at the dust on her dress, willing it not to stick to the expensive fabric.

  “No, no, no,” she groaned. Another swipe to her bodice. The dust shook off from the dress and onto the floor. She breathed a sigh of relief. The dress wasn’t ruined. Assuming Michael didn’t demand it back, she’d still have it for her plans.

  Once her eyes cleared, she settled in to examine the two cleared-off shelves, which had several titles in English. She studied the spine of one in particular: Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery, attributed to John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.

  The Earl of Rochester awaits, my dear, Michael had said.

  This must be the very book he’d intended to have her read aloud. She shouldn’t look at it—it wasn’t proper, and Michael seemed to have forgotten about the bet.

  Still…he might remember it later. Better to be prepared, so that she could read the whole passage without blushing or stammering. How shocked he’d be, and it’d bloody serve him right, the rogue. In addition, the ability to recite bawdy poetry would probably be useful in the bordello.

  Pulling the book down from the shelf, Abigail flipped it open. Her eyes widened as she stared down at the page. One dirty couplet after another told the story of a king who’d decided to legalize sodomy for his subjects. She read a few more pages, ultimately putting the book back on the shelf. The play was outrageous, yes, but it lost something in the translation. Perhaps if she were to see it on stage, she’d feel less indifferent.

  Abigail searched the next shelf for a book she might be able to read. Amongst the texts were sketchbooks, bound together by cords of leather. Grabbing several of the pads, she set them on the ground. She carefully cleared off the dust from the opposite bookcase and sat down on the ground. Snug in this long-forgotten corner, she huddled against the bookcase, rearranging her skirts so that her ankles didn’t peek out from beneath her capacious petticoats.

  She flipped the first volume open.

  Her brows arched as she examined the pages. The drawings started out somewhat tame. A portrait of a nude woman sprawled out on a chaise lounge, a silk sheet suggestively wrapped around her body and trailing along the floor. Another woman, soap bubbles over her most intimate parts, her hand raised to her mouth in coquettish surprise. The rest of the top two books were largely the same: singular woman with less and less clothing.

  While some of the pieces were cruder in nature, several of the tomes contained paintings that she would have deemed as museum-worthy, were it not for the graphic nature of their subjects. In those pictures, she'd started to believe that the human body was the most beautiful thing alive.

  She pulled out the middle book from the pile.

  Suddenly she understood why Michael had kept this area of the library off limits from his servants. This last book was far, far more scandalous.

  “Well, devil take me,” she murmured, running her finger over the inked page.

  Abigail paused at an illustration of a man and woman in the throes of passion. The woman lay upside down on the bed with her feet propped up on the man’s shoulders. He held firmly onto her hips, keeping her centered upon him as he drove into her. How did the woman bend that way?

  For God's sakes, Abigail wasn’t an acrobat! But maybe Michael knew enough that she'd be fine.

  Pulling off her right glove, she ran her bare finger down the page, tracing the solid contours of the male physique so attractively inked. A prickling started in the base of her spine, dragging throughout her body. Her breasts felt fuller, heavier, straining against the confines of her corset. She flipped the pages again, and the sensations…the sensations got stronger, more untamed, sweeping through her body at an entirely inappropriate pace. Her cheeks burned; her skin must be flushed bright red.

  No one knew she was in this area of library. No one would come to find her here. What was the harm in looking? In feeling? Soon, she’d be in a world where there was no romanticized view of sex: the slam of a man’s rod into her quim, whether or not she was bodily ready for him.

  She deserved this moment of pleasure.

  So, she turned another page. Squeezed her legs together tightly. Quickly, she pulled off her boots, sitting with her stocking-clad feet gathered up underneath her. She allowed herself to imagine what it’d be like to be the woman in the painting. What it’d be like to have a man on top of her, the weight of him comforting instead of frightening. What it’d be like to have sex with Michael.

  Slowly, she moved the heel of her foot against her core. Nudged it against her warm, tender flesh. This desire—this burgeoning need within her—blossomed into an untenable force, on the cusp of something greater. She continued to stroke, her body pulsing. She was so close. A readjustment here, a slower touch…but then the feeling was gone, leaving frustration in its wake.

  She shouldn’t feel unfulfilled. What she’d been doing was positively sinful.

  She ought to throw the book far from her. Or she should faint. That was what virginal maidens did, after all.

  But she didn’t. She finished that edition and reached for another. She looked at the provocative pages until her eyes were itchy and scratchy from the dry heat of the library. And when she finished the sketchbooks, she went back for more, only to find that was the end of them. A novel rested on the shelf, tucked in amongst a few dull books on cartography.

  Memoirs of Fanny Hill, by John Cleland.

  Abigail recognized it instantly. Heat stung her cheeks. A few years ago, two of the factory boys had stolen a pornographic illustration from the book out of a secondhand shop. They’d proceeded to spend the next four days evaluating the girls by how they’d look with their “ruby mouths around a fat cock.” Though they’d cornered Abigail during lunch, she kneed one in the genitals and ran off.

  So, had been the end of the perusal of Fanny Hill.

  She’d always wondered what else could possibly be in a text that warranted such a graphic
plate. Her curiosity was purely scientific, of course. She was an avid reader.

  In the interest of becoming further educated, Abigail situated herself back down on the floor. She opened the book to a random page, reading a bit of the text: her sturdy stallion had now unbuttoned, and produced naked, stiff and erect, that wonderful machine…

  She gulped.

  Those blissful flickers of heat licked at her insides again. She kept reading, shifting her weight so that her delicate core might rub against her pantalettes. It was good—but not enough. She couldn’t get close enough.

  She wanted Michael to be with her. Wanted him to be the one touching her.

  Why were men so confoundedly idiotic? Why couldn’t he see that she made him happy? He could be here right now, giving her pleasure. If he’d just talk to her—touch her—they’d both find relief.

  Instead, he’d locked himself in his office, leaving them both unsatisfied. So, she flipped the page to further back in the book, coming to an image of a man fully dressed. His breeches were unclasped. He stood at the foot of the bed, between the thighs of a woman. Her skirts pushed up around her; she wore no petticoats. Her legs and bottom were bare for all to see. She was angled to impale directly upon his member.

  Abigail shifted again. Squeezed her inner muscles tight, and with the illustrations still in her sights, she breathed in ragged gasps. What would it be like to lay like this, exposed for Michael? What would it be like to be entirely his? When she’d stood naked before him in the doorway of her room, she hadn’t wanted to be with him.

  Hadn’t loved him.

  Damnation.

  She loved him.

  She didn’t want to love him. Every reasonable bone in her body rebelled against the idea. In the beginning, he’d treated her as though she was just an instrument for copulating. She understood now that behavior had been an act, as much as her feigned philandering. But the more time she’d spent with him, the more he’d come to regard her as an equal. A partner. He’d arranged things in the library for her convenience.

  No one had ever done anything to make her life easier.

  She might be able to dismiss his efforts as mere kindness, if it hadn’t been for that kiss in the snow. That kiss had shattered everything she’d ever known. She couldn’t go on as she had in the past. She loved him, even if it’d tear her in two.

  Need for him seized her, tore her breath from her lungs and clasped her heart. She envisioned being with him like in the illustration, peering up into his eyes and seeing equal longing, so possessed with desire that they hadn’t managed to remove the rest of their clothes before coupling.

  If she closed her eyes, she felt his hands on her, sliding down her hips, to her thighs and then her calves, as he wrapped her legs around him. With quick, decisive movements, she undid the buttons that connected her skirt to her bodice, pretending it was Michael’s fingers sliding down the gap. Michael’s fingers finding the slit in her pantalettes.

  She grasped her bud between two fingers, toying with the nub. Pleasure flooded through her. Sinking into that feeling, she glided her fingers across the damp folds, pressing harder, desperate for that release which lingered on the corners of her horizon. Her index finger nudged into her long channel, and she worked that finger in time to stroking her center, moaning in delight.

  “Oh, Michael,” she breathed, as the waves of pleasure rocked her. She collapsed back against the bookcase, still pressing her aching nub. Just when she’d reached the breaking point and couldn’t take anymore, lips brushed against her own.

  For a second she believed him to be part of her fantasy, and she kissed him back, draining every bit of passion she felt into that kiss. She opened her mouth and his warm tongue thrust inside. Then it hit her.

  He was real.

  Her eyes sprang open. Her fingers stilled.

  Michael leaned over top of her. They sat nose-to-nose, so close she could smell the earthy scent of his cologne, see every bristle of his unshaven chin.

  Oh God. Oh God. He’d seen her. He’d heard her.

  He’d kissed her.

  Again.

  13

  This woman was going to be the death of him.

  He hadn’t meant to spy upon Abigail. He’d only wanted to talk to her. Smithers had informed him that she was in the library, but at first, he couldn’t find her. When he was about to leave, he heard paper rustling, followed by a long, husky moan. There could be no mistaking the noise of a well-pleasured woman. He paused at the doorway, wondering if he’d manifested his dreams—for every night since he’d kissed her in the snow, he’d replayed that sound.

  Until he heard her cry out, her voice breaking on the highest note, tapering off into an indiscernible whimper. Blast it all. That was Abigail, nestled back in amongst his father’s dirty book collection. Who was she with? He didn’t stop to think of the fact that his house was guarded, for his blood boiled so at the thought of someone else touching her. Of someone else pleasuring her.

  She was his.

  He’d rushed toward the back of the library. The bastard better be ready to name his second, because with God as his witness he’d draw pistols at dawn with her despoiler. If anyone was going to be deflowering her, it ought to be him.

  His ire changed to something else entirely when he found her. Alone. Her skirts flung about her, her hand most definitely down her petticoat. He gulped for air, blood pounding in his ears.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, she was going to kill him.

  Then she said his name, and all bets were off.

  The kiss was inevitable. Whether it was fate or God’s work or some devil in control, she was in his bloodstream. He dropped down to his knees and leaned in to kiss her before he even realized he was doing so. He needed her so badly it replaced all other thoughts.

  His long list of past paramours faded into nothing. He sucked upon her bottom lip, licking at the seams, and when she opened to him, he slid into her wet, ready mouth. There was only Abigail. Her lips upon his brought a beautiful chaos to his life. Nothing he’d done before her mattered anymore. He’d been lost, and she’d found him.

  “Abigail,” he murmured, not daring to draw back from her. He couldn’t leave her.

  She blinked up at him, long lashes fluttering against flushed cheeks. “How long were you there?”

  “Long enough.” Roughness tinted his voice.

  The pink of her cheeks darkened. He fought for air, for he’d never seen her so beautiful. Her pleasure had left a glow, a staid contentment that her mortification could not shake. He loved to see her happy, and even more to know that he’d brought about her happiness. In that moment, he counted making Abigail Vautille sigh with satisfaction the biggest achievement in his life.

  She squirmed in his arms. He gathered her up, ignoring how her skirt bunched up at odd angles. Strands of golden hair cascaded from her chignon, framing her face in wayward curls.

  “You’re embarrassed.” He tucked a stray lock behind her ear, his fingers lingering on the edge of her cheek. The sharp angle of her chin enticed him. He wanted to place kisses across the line of her jaw, but that could wait. The strength of his desire must be splashed across his face, to say nothing of his unyielding erection.

  “Of course, I am.” Again, she didn’t meet his gaze. “Women are never supposed to do what you saw me doing—”

  He interrupted her with the touch of his thumb to her lips. “Those rules don’t apply in my house, you hear? You’ve as much right as any man to seek your pleasure. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.”

  “An entire society cannot be wrong,” she told him, looking away from him.

  “It most certainly can.” Earnestness possessed him, in the vigor to his claims and the hastiness in which he cupped her chin in his hands and tilted her face up toward his. “A real man would want you to enjoy sex. He’d spend the rest of his days trying to think of ways to make you come because you screaming out his name would be the ultimate satisfaction.”

  She pe
ered up at him, her wide eyes full of doubt. “I’ve heard men crow about hard they tupped a woman, not how loudly she screamed their name.”

  He readjusted her in his lap, one hand on her hip to hold him closer to her. He’d been that man before, considering the women he slept with as conquests. He’d only cared about his partner’s enjoyment if it added to his own.

  He’d been wrong, so very wrong. Abigail’s pleasure was important. It was everything.

  With his other hand, he pushed her hair back from the nape of her neck. He pressed light kisses upon her creamy skin. She shivered against him, and he traced the svelte line of her chin to her ear with his tongue. God, she smelled of lavender from the perfumed bathwater, but underneath that was something purely her own. Wonder and fire, hope and pride.

  Lowering his head, he brushed his lips against her earlobe and whispered. “Then you’ve been meeting the wrong sort of men.”

  “I suppose that’s possible.” Her voice was half-squeak, half-whimper and he knew he had her.

  “Oh, it’s very possible.” During their first meeting in this library, he’d promised her she’d want him to take her virtue, and he was right. He felt no sense of victory in his success.

  She’d changed the rules on him. Hell, she’d obliterated the whole damn game. Every step he would have taken in the past toward a swift and sinful conclusion no longer applied. He didn’t want just to tup her once, he wanted to hold her in his arms until the morning came and then he wanted to share breakfast with her in his bed.

  Christ, where did these thoughts keep coming from? He didn’t stay the night. Women appreciated that about him. He wouldn’t darken their doorstep with expectations of watching the fireworks at Vauxhall or taking carriage rides in Hyde Park. Those typical courtship rituals usually sent him running.

  He wasn’t fleeing now. Though sound rationality dictated he should set her dress to rights and ignore this fiery attraction, he didn’t.