Someone Wanton His Way Comes

by Caldwell, Christi

  “I . . . see.”

  Sylvia tensed, hearing more within those two words, deciphering a deeper meaning. The woman who’d fallen in love with and married Lord Norfolk had been too naive and innocent to detect subtleties in speech. Not anymore. Still, she didn’t give in to the overwhelming urge to demand an answer as to exactly what he was saying.

  With a deliberate slowness to his movements, he stretched forward a hand and collected the child’s soldier he had been holding upon her arrival.

  Do not let him see how he’s affecting you. Do not let him see you care in any way.

  Lord Prendergast studied his palm, that crimson figurine a splash of garish red upon the sickly white pallor of his hand. “It hasn’t been easy, finding a time to see you, Sylvia. Between all the letters that went without a reply from you, one can only gather that you’ve been inordinately busy. Of course”—as if distracted, he turned the soldier upside down, and she could connect with how the inanimate figure felt—“reading the papers, I’m learning the news. I’ve seen that with your little club”—little club—“you don’t have the time for things ladies generally have time for.”

  Her son.

  No, he would expect her to be above reproach, when all the while, his wife had been responsible for the greatest of atrocities. Sylvia slanted a look his way. “If you have something to say to me, I suggest you say it. Let’s dispense with games.”

  Using the gilded arms of the rococo piece, the marquess levered himself to standing, his efforts more lazy than struggling. “Oh, I’m not playing games. I find the matter of being kept from my grandson deadly serious business.”

  Sylvia resisted the urge to shiver. She refused to give in and allow him the satisfaction of seeing that he’d caused her either unease or fear.

  “I want to see my grandson. And I intend to. I’ve come today, respectable and nice, and that will not always be the case, Sylvia.” He set Vallen’s toy back on the table. “I’ll give you some time to come ’round to the idea of me being in his life.”

  Or else.

  Lord Prendergast took his leave, the unspoken words of warning hanging there in his parting. Real. A palpable threat that sent another frisson of fear through her. Because she knew this family, had learned the depth of their ruthlessness. Considering the marchioness had given the command for her son to be killed, and her husband had been willing to turn his cheek and forgive that evil, Sylvia did not doubt they’d think nothing of destroying her and those she loved.

  There came a tentative knock at the door.

  Mrs. Flyaway entered. “Company, my lady,” she announced, and there could be no doubting by her beleaguered tones that she or her husband had been listening at the doorway through the marquess’s visit.

  Prendergast had returned. “Send him away,” she clipped out. “I don’t want the door opened to my father-in-law again.”

  “But it’s not the marquess, my lady,” Mrs. Flyaway whispered to Sylvia.

  She frowned. Not the marquess? Who . . . ?

  Clayton stepped forward, a smile on his face. “Hullo again, Sylvia.”

  Chapter 14

  He’d not really expected a cheerful welcome, given the ending of their last meeting.

  But neither had he anticipated the absolute blank set to her features. In her eyes.

  It was gone in a moment.

  “Claytonnn?”

  The slight emphasis there on his name, along with the extra syllable she’d managed to squeeze into it, indicated the lady’s surprise.

  But not displeasure.

  He’d take it.

  “What are you doing here?” she blurted.

  It was a fair question. And also one he’d expected. He’d spent the whole journey from White’s to Waverton Street trying to think how to play this very exchange. In the end, what he’d come up with were the next words he spoke. “Well, given your earlier invitation, I thought it should not be such a surprise, my being here.”

  That was what he’d decided on. Pretending the outcome of their earlier meeting had been altogether different. After all, she’d been clear that, with his having rejected that membership, he would not be afforded the gift of joining, and as such, the only way to make that go away was to act as if it had never happened.

  Endearing little creases of confusion puckered the place between her eyebrows. “But . . . you declined my offer.”

  “Ohhhh, did I?”

  “Yes,” she said with a slow nod.

  He tapped his hand against the side of his leg. “I’m sure you might have misinterpreted what I said.” Sylvia’s eyes formed dangerous little slits, and Clayton quickly coughed into his fist. “That is to say, I was likely unclear and no doubt the cause of any misinterpretation.”

  She smiled wryly. “‘Please, let me begin by saying I am both grateful and deeply honored by your invitation . . . But I must decline.’ I should say that seems fairly clear.”

  Mrs. Flyaway snorted back a laugh, and Clayton felt his face go warm.

  Sylvia showed him more mercy than he deserved. “Mrs. Flyaway, would you see a tray of refreshments readied?”

  The housekeeper started to go.

  “Refreshments really aren’t necessary.”

  The old woman stopped in her tracks.

  “Refreshments, please,” Sylvia repeated.

  “Yes, my lady.” The housekeeper dropped a curtsy and bustled off.

  “Do you know how long it takes to prepare tea and a tray of biscuits, Clayton?” Sylvia asked the moment they had the room to themselves.

  “Uh . . .”

  “Between the time it takes to make a walk to the kitchens and provide the instructions, it’s no less than twenty-two minutes in this household. Do you know what that allows? Hmm?” She pushed the panel shut and leaned a shoulder against the lacquered door.

  Clayton scratched at his hair. “I . . . do not.” He wasn’t really sure about much anymore.

  “Twenty-two minutes where we might speak alone.”

  “Ah, of course. I did not think . . .” A rogue would’ve known. A gentleman adept at seduction and clandestine meetings would know how to steal those private interludes. All his friends would’ve known as much.

  Pushing away from the door, Sylvia drifted closer, stopping before him. Her fingers found purchase along the sleeve of his forearm, and he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. Or think. He very well may have ceased to exist, beyond the tunneling of sensation where she touched him. “What is this really about, Clayton?” she murmured.

  He tried to open his mouth and tell her but found himself frozen. Not, this time, because words eluded him, but because her touch bewitched him. His muscles clenched and unclenched under her innocent caress. His body, however, cared not for the casualness of it. He was incapable of feeling and knowing anything other than the slight sensation, the magic, that came with her delicate touch.

  He glanced down at the top of her bent head. Her loose curls, a hundred different shades of browns and blonde, glistened in the sun’s rays. And the way she remained speechless with her stare fixed on his jacket sleeve, the both of them silent, he might almost believe she was as captivated by him. Which was preposterous.

  She’d never been aware of him. Certainly not the way . . . a way he had no place noticing her.

  That sobered him and gave him back his voice. “I’m accepting your offer of membership to the Mismatch Society.” He paused. “That is, if it still stands?”

  Sylvia slid her palm along his sleeve, and he swallowed rhythmically, that butterfly caress muted only by the light fabric of his wool coat. She twined her fingers with his. “That’s not what I’m asking, Clayton,” she said gently. “I’m asking why.” Sylvia lightly squeezed his hands, and he glanced down, once again briefly distracted by the feel of their palms kissing.

  “Because I want to.” His baritone was grave and low to his own ears. A hoarse intonation he didn’t recognize as his own. But his words were true. He did want to be here. “I
want to be here,” he repeated. After all, he’d fought his friends for the right to that responsibility. But being here with her, in this moment, didn’t feel so very much like obligation. And his mind backed off and shied away, terrified.

  She drew back her hands, and he curled his fingers to keep from reaching for her. “What changed between your rejection and your leaving?”

  What, indeed.

  Clayton clasped his hands behind him and wandered several steps away from her.

  Their friendship, if that was what one might’ve called those earlier days they’d shared, had taught him Sylvia was a proud woman. As such, she would never accept his being here if she believed he was motivated by pity. At last, he let himself face her. “I thought I had no place being here.” And as he spoke, he uttered only truths—just ones, however, that were borrowed from the demons that had gripped him these past years. “I didn’t see how I could help or contribute, Sylvia. Or think that you could truly want me here. What could I offer, really?”

  The delicate planes of her heart-shaped face softened. “You always underestimated yourself, Clayton,” she said softly, drifting over, floating, her step so graceful her skirts were silent as she moved. “You didn’t realize you were better and more honorable than any man I’ve ever known.”

  I am undeserving of this, of her praise. I’ve failed her, and in so many ways.

  “Yes,” she murmured, “you are.” Her fingers came up to stroke his cheek, staying his head, and he hadn’t realized he’d been shaking it. In denial. And in rejection of the praise she offered.

  “Does that mean you’ve reinstated my membership?” he asked hoarsely.

  A smile danced at the edges of her full mouth.

  She wore so many smiles. He’d never known there could be so many, and he wanted to find out just how many more there were.

  It was a dangerous thought that should’ve sent him running fast. And one he’d allow himself the proper fear of later.

  Because in this moment, as her smile dipped, some emotion flickered to life in Sylvia’s eyes, darkening their already fathomless depths. Those eyes that moved as if in tandem with his own, searching his face as he searched hers.

  He couldn’t say in the moment who moved first. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to say. Whose lips found the other’s. Whose hands roved the first path.

  Or perhaps it was just that they moved as one in perfect tandem.

  Sylvia slipped her fingers inside his jacket and curled them in his long shirt, her nails pressing little crescents upon his chest. Marks he wished would remain forever imprinted upon him so he could commit the memory of her, and this embrace, for all time.

  Moaning and panting as his mouth took hers in a primitive rawness he’d never believed himself capable of, she backed him up, and his knees collided with the edge of the sofa. He let himself collapse into it.

  Sylvia went with him. Climbing atop him, she straddled him so that her skirts lay in a decadent tangle about them. He worked those silk garments up higher, and groaned at the feel of her. She was temptation incarnate, the real-life Eve of flesh and blood and fire and passion. And he Adam, hopeless to resist her. Clayton stroked his hands over the smooth, satiny expanse of her thighs, kneading the flesh, massaging it until keening little moans spilled from Sylvia’s mouth and into his.

  And he devoured that sound, the thrum of vibration caused by it an aphrodisiac. At the edges of his brain, reason attempted to chip away the hedonistic joy of just feeling.

  I should stop. We should stop.

  “Nooo,” she moaned pleadingly, confirming he’d spoken aloud.

  And he was lost all the more.

  Upon her marriage, Sylvia had come to believe there was something wrong with her.

  Before her wedding night, there’d been an eager anticipation about all that was to come, lying in the arms of the man she’d believed she loved. That excitement had proven short-lived, to be replaced with a keen disappointment. For the moment she’d built in her mind to be something magical had instead proven awkward and uncomfortable and, upon her husband’s hasty departure, lonely.

  The sense of her inadequacy as a woman had been only strengthened with each hasty encounter that had felt—and she later realized had, in fact, been—obligatory.

  It had been her fault. She was incapable of grand passion. Of the manner of butterflies and delirious sentiments she’d read about in the romance novels she’d sneaked and read without her mother’s notice when she was a girl. That was why her husband hadn’t sought out her bed. Or kissed her mouth. It was why he couldn’t be bothered to remove her nightshift when he’d been trying to get his requisite heir.

  Only to learn, after Hyde Park, and again, in this same man’s arms, in Clayton’s arms, that there was nothing at all wrong with her. That she was capable of passion. And now that she’d tasted it twice, she wanted to feast on it forever.

  Curling her fingers against his nape, she angled his head so that she might better taste of him. Sliding her tongue against his, tasting that sleek flesh, tasting him.

  There was a hint of figs, and it was no wonder that savory fruit was the nectar of the ancient gods and goddesses. And she wanted to eat more of it.

  Sylvia suckled on the tip, and he returned the favor.

  An ache, so sharp, so powerful, throbbed between her legs, a hunger that didn’t know whether it wished to be pleasure or pain and had therefore spawned its own, more acute sensation. Sylvia pressed herself against Clayton and rubbed in the desperate desire to fill that empty void. It only deepened that yearning within.

  And then he reached between them, finding that delicious pleasure pain, pressing a palm against her moist curls.

  A hiss exploded from her, a surprised exhalation that emerged in the form of his name and was swallowed within the heat of his mouth.

  Sylvia rubbed herself against him. Searching for more from that hand pleasuring her. Demanding more.

  Needing it.

  He slid a finger deep within her channel and stroked her. Teasing that nub.

  The rise and fall of her hips grew more frantic, and overwhelmed, she drew back from Clayton’s kiss. Burying her head in his neck, she ground herself harder against him and that relief he dangled before her.

  He sank his spare palm into her buttocks, bringing their bodies even closer and deepening the glide of those long digits stroking her.

  She moaned, and arching, she tossed her head back. She clenched her eyes tight, the brightness of the sun’s rays too acute with the pleasure coursing through her.

  “Sylvia.” He panted her name. Again and again. Over and over. And the sound of it, hoarse and graveled, his melodious baritone unrecognizable for the shades of darkness and deepness to it. Because of her.

  That threw her over, to a magical place she’d never thought to know, and she gave herself freely to it, exploding in a blinding flash of white. She screamed, and his mouth was immediately on hers, a beautiful absorption of the sound of her release that only drew the moment on. And she wanted it to. She wanted this bliss to go on forever. Desperate to prolong it, this, her first climax, she ground herself against the hand so expertly working her. Clenching her thighs about him.

  Until she was replete.

  Her entire body went weak.

  She sagged against Clayton. Their chests heaved in a like, frantic rhythm, their breaths a tangle of ragged rasps. Closing her eyes, she turned her cheek against his chest, the soft wall of his jacket tickling a smile from her lips.

  He pressed a trembling hand upon her back, and smoothed it over her. That tender touch soothing her, continuing to offer her body that which it needed in this new moment.

  She’d never felt anything like this. She’d never imagined it could be this way.

  She’d wanted it to. But she’d never believed this manner of dream would ever belong to her. And it had been . . . Clayton, her fellow wallflower, as she’d named them.

  And her mind was too muddled from the pleasure
ful aftereffects of his touch to make sense of this. If any sense ever could be made of it. For now, all she knew was that—

  Footfalls sounded in the hall.

  She and Clayton stiffened.

  Oh, hell.

  As reality reared its unpleasant head.

  “Was that twenty-two minutes?” he whispered, frantically tucking the damp curls that hung loose about her face back behind her ears.

  She scrambled off Clayton’s lap, hitting the floor hard and landing on her knees . . . just as Clayton came down on the opposite end of the rose-inlaid table.

  The door opened, and this time, Lydia and Ava, two young servants Mrs. Flyaway had brought with her from the Rookeries, returned.

  “Where is it?” Sylvia muttered to herself, scouring the floor for some imagined—

  “I’ve found it!” Clayton cried, holding the crimson soldier aloft.

  And she closed her eyes as he found that cover.

  “You found it!” she cried, rushing to her feet. “How can I ever thank you?” Sylvia raced over to him, as if she hadn’t just moments ago been coming undone in his arms and grinding herself against—

  “Too much,” he said, his lips barely moving as he issued that hushed warning.

  They both went silent as Lydia and Ava deposited their respective trays upon the table, carefully arranging plates.

  That mundane act brought Sylvia crashing back to the reality of social propriety. And what they’d done. She’d been shameful. A wanton in his arms. The wanton, in fact, that all society had recently taken to calling her.

  Perhaps she was. Because she couldn’t bring herself to care. Men took their pleasures and reveled in their passions, every day. Why should she allow herself to feel guilt for having shared what she had with Clayton?

  “Anything else you need, my lady?” Ava asked.

  “No. That will be all. Thank you.”

  “I have to leave,” he said the moment the pair had gone.