The Scandal of the Season

by Aydra Richards

  Mouse dozed against his chest, having slipped into an exhausted slumber shortly after Grey had coaxed her to let him cleanse between her thighs. It had embarrassed her, that intimate attention, likely more so than what had come before. But he had wanted to assure himself that he hadn’t done any real damage.

  Because she had been so small, so tight—for all that he’d prepared her, he knew he had hurt her. But there had been no blood, which had relieved the worst of his fears, and Mouse had seemed well pleased with the both of them at the end, though she had demanded the return of her nightgown before she could be enticed back into bed.

  She looked delightfully tumbled in sleep, her fair hair a dreadful tangle spilling down her back, her pale skin glowing rose from the abrasion of his stubble. Though he would have staked every pound he possessed on the fact that she’d never shared her bed with another, she had taken to it easily enough, tucking her head beneath his chin and curling up against him.

  And he—he had stayed. It hadn’t even seemed like a conscious decision—just the correct, natural thing to do. He’d had mistresses before, but he had never been tempted to stay the night with one, to subject himself to one’s company for longer than it took to satisfy the both of them.

  But Mouse was different—a lady, a virgin. He’d promised her that he had no designs on her virtue, and when she’d offered it anyway, he’d leapt at the opportunity. Because he’d been trying to work out how to seduce her, and instead she’d taken the initiative.

  So he’d made love to her, because one didn’t simply bed a woman like Mouse. And it had been incredible. Transformative, even. Though he had never counted himself a particularly selfish lover—to his knowledge, all of his partners had been satisfied during their encounters—nothing that had come before had even remotely approached the visceral satisfaction he’d experienced when Mouse had fallen to pieces in his arms, nothing that rivaled the ecstasy of her fingernails raking his skin, the sweet grip of her body spasming around him.

  His back still bore the marks of her brazen clawing. The salt of his sweat stung the minor wounds, like a penance for the aches he’d likely given her. Not that she’d minded there at the end—because Mouse was more than a bit wild in the throes of passion.

  She shifted in his arms, likely jarred to the edge of wakefulness by the stirring of his erection against her belly, because that thin nightgown was no barrier against it, and he battered down the urge to roll her to her back once more and take shameless advantage of her drowsy daze and have her again.

  It would be unforgivable, when she was likely still sore. When he hadn’t even been able to make himself withdraw from her in time earlier. He could not compound his irresponsibility yet further—because though he’d known that the right thing to do would have been to avoid an unintended pregnancy, at the time he ought to have pulled away, instead he’d found himself shoving as deep as he could get and spilling himself inside her. And given half an opportunity, he’d likely do it again.

  Which meant that Mouse would have to go. He needed to start separating their lives before she wove herself too deeply into the fabric of his own. Before their relationship became too complicated. Before he was tempted into something unforgivably foolish, like keeping her.

  That would be a sin for which there was no absolution. He had wrought enough damage in her life. If the Duke of Davenport—or the duke’s mother, as it were—truly could restore her to the bosom of society, then there was nothing for it but to let her go. He simply did not have it in him to ruin her twice over.

  Mouse made a little purring sound of approval, nestling her head against his chest, and he realized that he’d wrapped his arm around her, cupping her shoulder in his hand to hold her against him. Like a lovesick fool, he was cradling her in his arms, luxuriating in the feel of her sprawled there.

  Disgusted with himself, he resolved to ease himself away from her to leave her to her sleep. But before he could move, she slid one hand up his chest and curled it around his neck, her fingers slipping into the hair at his nape—and the only move he made was to draw her closer.

  Don’t get attached? Too late for that. He was a damned fool.

  ∞∞∞

  Serena awoke abruptly, disoriented by the darkness, by the heat of someone’s chest at her back—by a hand cupping her breast and another leisurely stroking between her legs. She shifted, restless and confused and hopelessly aroused.

  “I drew the bed curtains.” Grey’s voice burned beside her ear as his fingers slipped smoothly inside her, aided by the moisture he’d coaxed from her body.

  A low moan slid from her throat, and she muffled it with her palm. “S-Sarah,” she managed. “She’ll—”

  “Come and gone already. Called you a lazybones straight through the bed curtains and said she’d return in an hour and that you had better be up by then.” His teeth grazed her shoulder, a sweet sting. “Are you sore?”

  “A little.” Just a stray bit of tenderness, which was swiftly fading into insignificance, but she was glad of the darkness that would not reveal her embarrassment to him.

  “Too sore?” He asked the question like it mattered, like her hips hadn’t hitched to his hand the moment she had awakened. Like her fingernails weren’t clawing at the sheets.

  She did not pretend to misunderstand him. “No,” she said, “Oh, Grey, please.” Desperately she tried to turn toward him in an effort to pull him over her, but he resisted her feeble efforts to shake off his hands long enough to do so. Instead he shifted behind her, withdrew his fingers long enough to pull her leg over his, and tucked his hips.

  The blunt pressure of him spread her, speared her, and she made a mortifying sound in her throat as he entered her on a slow, deep glide. She released her death grip on the sheets and slid her arms behind her, groping for any part of him she could reach, looping her arms around his neck, nails scraping through his hair.

  His low sound of satisfaction skittered across her shoulder. “All right?”

  “Yes,” she gasped. “Grey. You have to move.” Because she couldn’t. Not with her leg tucked over his. She had had no idea this act could be performed in this manner, and she did not know how she was meant to go about it. And when she tried to move, he only clenched his hand over her hip and held her in place.

  “Patience,” he commanded, and he draped his arm over her hip, holding her with the pressure of it while he stroked her with his fingers. But still he did not move.

  “Grey,” she keened, fisting her hands in his hair. She assumed he’d liked that; he made a rough sound in his throat, and gave her a measured thrust which made her arch her back.

  But he steadied himself, steeled himself as if for war. “No,” he said, and his voice sounded almost drunken. “I don’t want to hurt you.” His tongue traced the shell of her ear, provoking a shudder that wrecked the both of them. His voice seared her ear on the tail end of a feral growl. “You can come just like this. Just let it happen.”

  She didn’t have much of a choice, not with the way his fingers sent sparks careening through her until her hands clenched and her toes curled. She could not hold him with her arms and legs—she could only make restless little movements with her hips until at last the storm broke and she sobbed, trembling with the force of it. And then he gave her only a taste of what she had asked for—he gasped her name against her ear and jerked once, twice, and stilled at last, his big body tense and rigid for a long moment as he throbbed inside of her.

  The pulses of bliss that inundated her were slow to fade, stealing through her limbs until they were limp and heavy with exhaustion. Cradled in the darkness, in Grey’s arms, it seemed perfectly natural to let her body go lax against his, turn her face into the pillow, and sink back into sleep to the rough melody of his voice whispering praise in her ear, the comforting pass of his hands over her sweat-slickened skin.

  When she woke again, as Sarah poked her head through the curtains and chided her for sleeping so late, Grey was gone.

 
; Chapter Twenty One

  For nearly a week, Grey had successfully avoided Mouse. There was a part of him that desperately wished to see her, to banter with her across the expanse of the dinner table, to let her pepper him with all of her questions regarding his business interests, to listen to her playing the pianoforte—but he did not trust her.

  He did not trust her not to cast him an irresistible coy glance that would tempt him to slide his fingers into her hair and bring her mouth to his. He did not trust her not to engineer some petty prank that would coax him to kiss her and more. He did not trust her not to invite him once again to her bed.

  Or rather, he did not trust himself.

  He was no longer certain he could endure her petty little pranks without throwing her down over the nearest available flat surface and burying himself inside her. And he was even less certain that she wouldn’t let him. He’d thought—hoped—that taking her to bed would cure him of his desire for her, but it seemed it had only whetted it, intensified it. He dreamed of her, of her untutored responses, her breathless passion.

  It was not to be borne. So he’d thrown himself into making the arrangements for her inevitable departure. He’d bought her a house, set up an account in her name and poured a fortune into it—more than even a pampered lady could run through in a lifetime. Mouse would never have to economize, never again be dependent upon anyone or anything. She would have a kind of security that no one would ever be able to take from her.

  And then, with no small amount of brandy churning in his gut, he’d set about the unpleasant task of finding Mouse a husband. He had approached the task clinically, but his detachment hadn’t held well. He’d even made a list of suitable gentlemen, all titled—but one name had kept rising above the rest in nearly every way.

  Only the best for Mouse.

  And so he’d done his best to come to terms with it and set off as soon as he’d received word that his target had been run to ground, at his gentleman’s club during the quiet hours.

  Though Grey held no membership of his own at this particular club, he was notorious enough to gain admittance without one. No one—especially not business rivals—wished to risk drawing his ire.

  His quarry sat in a wingback chair at a secluded table in the far corner, presumably in an effort to escape the notice of the few other members about. With him was another man, whom Grey recognized as Mr. John Darling, an industrialist whose fortune likely rivaled Grey’s own. He had some loose ties to the nobility—the grandson of an earl, if Grey recalled correctly—but he had chosen to shuck off the chains of high society and make something of himself in business instead. It had made him a bit of a pariah amongst the social set he rightly could have claimed by virtue of his birth, but Grey admired a self-made man more than one whose only talent lay in spending the money his ancestors had passed down to him.

  Still, hardly a fitting companion for a duke.

  Grey paused before their table, and received a cool greeting from Mr. Darling, one self-made man to another.

  The Duke of Davenport surveyed him over his glass of liquor, one eye noticeably blacked still, and his nose purpled across the bridge. “Granbury,” he said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Grey did not mince his words. “What will it take,” he asked, “to get you to marry Mouse?”

  Surprise flickered in the duke’s eyes. He cleared his throat and asked at last, “So eager to be rid of her already?” He brushed his gloved fingertips over the ruined bridge of his nose.

  Something resembling a growl rose in Grey’s throat, and he slapped his palm onto the table. “I told Mouse that I would see her settled. My research indicates that you are the best to be had this Season. Therefore, I am inquiring what it will take to secure your compliance.”

  “Secure my compliance,” the duke repeated blandly. His gaze turned to Mr. Darling. “Ought I be flattered, do you think?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t think so.” Mr. Darling flipped a page of his newspaper idly. “I don’t think he’s at all happy about it. Suppose he’s the one who broke your nose?”

  Davenport laughed, and then winced as the motion aggravated his sore nose. “Yes, but I’ve heard a broken nose adds character to a face—and I did not acquit myself particularly well that evening, so don’t hold it against him.” He waved a careless hand. “Sit down, Granbury, and have a drink. It makes my nose ache to have to look up at you.”

  Damnation, Grey didn’t want to turn this into a drawn-out conversation—he wanted the matter settled and done with. “If you will not tell me what you want, then I will have to resort to less savory methods of inducement,” he said.

  That piqued Darling’s interest. He discarded his newspaper, folding it up and casting it on the surface of the table. “Do you know, Alex, I think I like him. It’s not every day a man threatens to blackmail you.”

  Davenport smothered an inconvenient chuckle in his hand, wincing again. “You’d like it less, I think, if you were on the receiving end.” But he turned to Grey once again and said, “Sit, Granbury. I regret to inform you I have lived a phenomenally boring life. I have no skeletons lurking in closets, no bastard children, no scandals of even the most minor depravity in my background. You’re welcome to try to turn something up, but it would be a waste of your time.”

  In the wake of such plain speech, Grey sat—because the duke’s tone had been so light, so nonchalant, that he could only believe he had spoken the truth.

  “That’s not possible,” he said, because in his experience, everyone had something they wished to hide. “You accosted Mouse in a gaming hell—that counts for something.” But it didn’t, not really. Gambling and whoring were not truly considered faults amongst the nobility. It would have been more suspect had he not engaged in them from time to time.

  “Alas, I occasionally gamble and drink to excess. Every man likes a little vice from time to time.” He canted his head to one side, stroking his temple with one hand as if casting his memory back. “I was once sent down from Eton when I set the headmaster’s desk afire,” he said on a shrug. “A boyhood prank gone awry—but I doubt that will suit your purposes.”

  Grey felt his hands curling into fists. “So you won’t wed her,” he said.

  “Granbury, you broke my nose when I wanted to bed her. I hesitate to consider what you’d do if I married the girl.” The duke’s gaze was blunt, focused. “Besides,” he said, “I’ve done my duty already—Mother dearest has been hard at work. She lives in a state of ruffled feathers lately, and she’s made it her mission to expose Andover’s perfidy to the whole of the Ton. I hear he has been refused admittance at three gatherings this week already.”

  “Oh,” Darling said over the rim of his glass. “We’re speaking of the Tyndall chit, then?”

  Grey bared his teeth in a feral snarl. “Lady Serena,” he snapped.

  Darling blinked. “Well, how was I to know?” Beneath his breath, he added, “You’re the man who called her Mouse.”

  That was true enough, but at some point the appellation had become something more than an insult, a judgment of her character. It had become rather like—

  A pet name. An endearment. And it was no one else’s right to call her that but his own.

  “Have you considered wedding the girl yourself, since you are so eager to find her a husband?” Davenport inquired, and it was like a cold glass of water had been splashed into Grey’s face.

  Because he hadn’t really. But he might. And that would simply never do. Because he could never give her what she truly deserved, and he had taken so much from her already.

  “She is the daughter of a man I loathe with everything in me,” he rasped, to distract from the disquiet he was certain had shown on his face. “Do you think I could ever forget that? Do you think I could ever forgive it?”

  For a moment the duke was silent, exchanging a glance with Darling. “May I speak plainly?” he inquired at last. “Without fear of you breaking my nose again? Because I assure you, once was qui
te enough.”

  “If you must,” Grey gritted out between clenched teeth.

  “I think,” Davenport said slowly, “that if that had mattered to you, you would not have broken my nose when I approached her. I think if you believed that she had done anything that would require your forgiveness, you would not be here now in an effort to acquire—your words, mind you—the best possible husband for her. And I think that if you are so ardently seeking—again, your words—the best possible husband for your mistress, then it would seem to me that the best possible husband for her is you.”

  Darling, the obnoxious bastard, had begun to laugh. “Alex,” he said. “Dear God—leave the poor man a bit of pride, would you?”

  And Grey shoved away from the table, half shamed, half furious. “I have your answer, then,” he snarled.

  Against all odds, Davenport grinned. “I do hope you find your own, Granbury. For all that you’re a surly fellow, I think we could be friends.”

  ∞∞∞

  It occurred to Grey only in retrospect how much his life had changed in just a few short weeks. Evening had settled in over London, and he lifted his pocket watch to the light of a street lamp and examined its face—a bit past seven o’clock. Most days he wouldn’t even have left his office until nine or perhaps even ten. Now it seemed some ethereal force pulled him from his work the moment the sun began sinking over the horizon, and his business office felt foreign and unfamiliar—as if it belonged to someone else. A man who no longer existed. Or at least, a man who had changed in some nebulous way. A man who was fundamentally different from who he once had been.

  Work had been his life for so many years—perhaps too many. There was always money to be made. There always would be money to be made. But only recently had he begun to understand how empty his life had been. The satisfaction he had felt in growing his assets had waned. What was more money to a man who had well beyond that which he could hope to spend in a lifetime? It was merely a few numbers added to his already well-padded accounts, meaningless in the grand scheme of things.