The Scandal of the Season

by Aydra Richards

  Serena smiled. “I think I loved you for that first,” she said. “That even when I was so angry, so spiteful, you were kind to me. I took much of my anger out on you, but it occurred to me that I was angriest with myself that I had simply allowed myself to be so used. I could have run off, done something, anything—like Violet Townsend, the runaway heiress I had idolized as a girl. But instead I remained in your house, because it was comfortable and fine and filled with all of the conveniences to which I had become accustomed. When you called me useless—”

  “You weren’t. You aren’t,” Grey interjected. “Mouse, I apologize—”

  “Grey, stop. I admit it was hurtful, but worse than that, it was true. If I had left your household, I could not have returned home—and I had no skills with which I might find employment. It had, quite simply, never occurred to me that I would ever need them. But if I had had some sort of real skill, I might have been able to rescue myself.”

  “You shouldn’t have needed them,” he said, and she recalled how oddly upset he had been to find her hands blistered from laundering bed linens, and snickered.

  “But they gave me a sense of accomplishment,” she said. “Even if I am not particularly skilled at them, it was something that no one could take from me. And I did need that, Grey. For so long, I had felt so powerless, so small and pitiful—”

  Grey silenced her with a kiss, and his hand slid into her hair, holding her close. “You were magnificent, Mouse,” he whispered against her lips. Before Serena could reach for him in turn, he was drawing away once again, shame-faced. “I suppose Mouse is hardly a complimentary thing to call a lady.”

  Serena swallowed a laugh. “No, it’s not,” she said, “but I’m rather fond of it.” She surrendered her hold on his hand, letting her fingers fall instead upon the buttons of his coat, and he stilled as she plucked at the top one, easing it free of its hole.

  “Are you?” His voice had gone hoarse, his fingers tightening almost imperceptibly in her hair—but he did nothing except watch as she flicked buttons free one at a time, as if unable to decide whether he ought to help or hinder her progress. At war with himself, torn between his desire to have her and his desire to save her from the consequences of an association with him.

  Serena loved him for both sides of himself, the selfish and the selfless. He had always been both things—even when he had wanted to loathe her for nothing more than the status of her birth and the name she had carried, still he had provided for her every comfort and convenience, taken her own petty taunts in stride, and treated her with a respect she had never experienced—had never even expected to experience.

  “I was…annoyed,” she allowed, “when first you called me Mouse. I knew it was meant to be insulting.” The last button was loosed, and then she disentangled his hand from her hair to smooth the sides of his coat away from his chest and off of his shoulders, peeling it free of his arms, and if he did not precisely assist her, neither did he resist her efforts. “I had always been Lady Serena, and—this likely will not shock you, but Lady Serena has not been an easy person to be.”

  “I can’t imagine so.”

  “It’s a very rigid sort of life, you know, being a lady. I can’t say it ever satisfied me, but it was simply the way my life had always been and was always going to be. It didn’t matter whether or not I enjoyed it. It simply was, you understand.” She drew his arms between them to work the buttons of his cuffs, which he allowed, though he swallowed audibly. “Still, it was a shock to so suddenly no longer be a lady. It was, after all, all that I had known.”

  A sound very like a growl rumbled in his throat as she pulled free his dangling cravat. “You were never less than a lady,” he said fiercely.

  “Oh, yes, I was,” she said, and a silvery laugh trickled from her throat. “Don’t you dare discount my efforts. I worked at it quite diligently, and I had a glorious time doing so.” She tackled the buttons of his waistcoat next, and felt the jump of muscles beneath her fingers. “Very quickly I realized that Lady Serena was not who I wanted to be. But Mouse—she could be anyone. Anyone at all. Whatever I wished. She could run about in bare feet, or wear her hair down, or—”

  “Swill half a bottle of French brandy, track footprints in ink across my Aubusson rug, and play the pianoforte like a demon at an ungodly hour of the morning?” Grey suggested, a corner of his mouth tipped up in wry amusement.

  “Yes,” she said, delighted. “Exactly. So I became quite fond of being Mouse. Because she was more myself than I had ever been. I was more than I had ever been permitted to be—more than I had ever thought I could be. It was...liberating. So long as I was Mouse, I was free.” Grey’s waistcoat went the way of his coat, and Serena began to tug the tails of his shirt free of his trousers, easing the material up over his head.

  “I admit it did not start that way,” Grey said, his voice muffled briefly by the fabric of his shirt. “But it became an endearment.”

  “I know,” she said as she tossed his shirt aside. “I’m not certain when I realized it. But there came a point when I could hear the warmth in your voice when you said it.” She drew her fingers along the placket of his trousers, heard his breath seize in his lungs. “There is something else you could call me, however,” she said.

  “Oh?” His voice was guttural; his hand pressed over hers, flattening her palm over the rigid thrust of his arousal.

  “Wife,” she said. “You could call me wife.”

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  It was impossible to maintain a single coherent thought for more than a fraction of a moment while Mouse’s soft little fingers were cupped around his cock, but God help him, Grey tried.

  “Marriage is not a step to be taken lightly,” he managed, through sheer dint of will. “You don’t fully understand the consequences you would face. It merits discussion, consideration.” He closed his hand around hers with the intention of prying her fingers free, with the intention of facilitating an honest conversation—but the demands of his body subverted his better intentions.

  Mouse purred, “I certainly don’t take marriage lightly.” Her free hand settled on his shoulder and slid around his neck to anchor herself as she leaned closer and brushed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Her unbound hair drifted down, silky cool strands teasing his chest.

  He should never have let her undress him. It had been a mistake that he could only see in retrospect, and attempting to resist her seduction was an exercise in futility.

  Whatever dubious claim he might have laid to honor compelled him to try again. “Mouse, you must see reason—at least give yourself time to consider.” Her delicate fingers began unbuttoning his trousers. “A betrothal,” he managed in desperation. “Informal, of course. Nothing legally binding. No contract.” Nothing that would sully her already precarious reputation should she reconsider.

  Something like amusement flickered in her eyes. “A betrothal,” she repeated, even as her hand trespassed beneath the fabric of his trousers. “For what purpose?”

  Grey forced the words out between clenched teeth, hissing as her soft fingers wrapped around him. “There will likely be…social reprisal,” he said. “Mouse, you deserve to know what you will face. What people will say of me—and of you in turn.”

  A satisfied smile had crept across her face. “People have said cruel things before. I suspect I shall always be scandalous.” The delight in her voice was unmistakable, but only served to confirm to him that she could not understand the consequences.

  “Marriage is permanent,” he said. “You’d be tied to me for the rest of your life.” Even if she reconsidered, if she ever had cause to regret her choice, it would not matter. Divorce—even if one could be obtained—would be a scandal all its own.

  “Hmm,” she murmured into his ear, “And here I had thought that was the point of marriage.” Her teeth nipped his earlobe, and her warm breath shivered over his skin as she soothed away the small sting with the tip of her tongue.

  Grey choked ba
ck a groan. “Dear God,” he said. “I’ve created a monster.” His hands clenched against the compulsion to reach for her—it would be a kind of coercion, he thought, to let his own desire run roughshod over his better intentions. To say one thing and do another, as if his words were without value, without merit—mere lip service to the truth. She had been manipulated too often already, and she deserved to make her own choice without his influence, without manipulation.

  His breath shuddered in his chest as her fingers released him at last, at the end of a long, lingering stroke. She looked so bloody proud of herself, so confident in her ability to wrest away his tenuous hold on rationality.

  The lamplight flickered over her face, dancing over the soft arch of her brows and the satisfied curve of her lips, shining in her eyes that had gone more silver than grey. She glowed, and she had never looked more the siren. If he so allowed, she would drag him straight to heaven—even as she tumbled to her doom.

  In a desperate bid to save himself—to save her—Grey slammed his eyes closed and struggled to sort through the disjointed thoughts tangling in his head. “I want you to have no regrets,” he managed to grit out. “You must make an informed choice.”

  There was a subtle movement beside him, the shift of the mattress as she rose from the bed. “Do you wish to marry me?” she asked.

  Grey swallowed heavily. “I would not be here now if I did not,” he said, “but my wishes should not be a consideration.” Hers had not been of particular interest to anyone prior to now—it was long since time for someone to put her first, for her to put herself first.

  “And if I wish to marry you?” Her voice had drifted further away, the soft swish of fabric following it. Was he foolish to hope she’d gone for a dressing gown?

  Grey rubbed at his eyes, unwilling to risk venturing a peek. His grip on self-control was weak enough as it was; a single misstep could obliterate his every good intention. “Then we will discuss it. A long, informal engagement. Time enough for you to”—come to your senses—“consider what it is you truly want.”

  “I don’t want a long engagement.” Her palms landed on his thighs, sliding toward his groin.

  “Mouse—” Every word of protest died in his throat as Grey’s eyes snapped open at last. He wasn’t certain precisely what he had expected of her, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of her on her knees before him, entirely naked. Her fingers reached their destination, peeling the fabric of his trousers away from his aching cock—betrayed by his own flesh, which belied with its eager jut every cautionary word he had spoken.

  His throat dry as a bone, Grey tried again. “We must have this conversation, must come to some agreement.” One that gave her the options she had always deserved but had so rarely been afforded.

  “By all means,” she cooed as her fingers curled around him once more, soft and warm and teasing. “Talk if you must.” The lamp crowned her hair with a halo of light, but the devil was in her smile as she bent her head and stroked her tongue along the length of his cock.

  Somehow his hands had slid into her hair, cupping her head, and his breath sawed in and out of his lungs as if he’d taken a punch to the gut. “Where did you learn that?”

  A rush of pink bloomed in her cheeks. “You’ve done this to me; I assumed that you would also find it pleasurable.” Her lips pursed as her expression shifted from mild embarrassment to wariness. “Should I not have done it?”

  “No! No—it’s simply not an act that most ladies would engage in.” He stroked her cheek, her shoulder, any place he could reach in an effort to reassure her.

  Her brows drew together in confusion. “Whyever not?”

  Grey choked on a laugh. “For the same reason that you once requested to keep your nightgown on, I suppose. Most ladies would not deem it proper or dignified.”

  A feline smile chased away her hesitance. “I’m not most ladies,” she said, and bent her head once more, enveloping his shaft in the hot suction of her mouth with an artless enthusiasm that forced all thoughts of civil conversation from his head. What she might have lacked in practical knowledge she made up for in good instincts, learning as she went what made him groan, how to use her tongue to make him shudder.

  It was an embarrassingly short time later that he drew her away and pulled her to her feet and into his arms.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he said, and that much, at least, had been true. He had not arrived intent upon seduction or to be seduced—but a private conversation had been in order, and ladies were not afforded much privacy.

  “Stay,” she whispered. “Stay and make love to me, Grey. Please.”

  And he was lost. He surrendered her long enough to begin tugging off his boots, quickly divesting himself of the rest of his clothing. “Not through the night,” he said as he crawled up the bed toward her, where she had tucked herself beneath the bedclothes. “Your reputation would suffer for it were anyone to see me leaving.”

  She threaded her hands through his hair as he slid in beside her. Her legs entangled with his, her breasts flattened against his chest as she gave a low sigh of satisfaction. “I would choose you over everything,” she said. “I love you.”

  There had been a time he had despaired of ever hearing that from her again. “I love you,” he said, brushing a kiss to her lips. “So much, Serena.” Absent the Lady that he had once cast between them, her name on his lips conferred an intimacy that existed only between the two of them, and she beamed up at him. “But we will talk.”

  “Later.” Her leg slid along his, a leisurely, provocative journey that ended only when she had draped it about his hips. Grey’s skin sizzled at the press of her fingertips as she dragged them down his back, gently raking her nails along his spine.

  Her sighs drifted around them as he familiarized himself with her body anew, exploring the hollow of her throat, the curves of her breasts, the dip of her navel. He caressed her gently rounded hips and the sleek skin of her thighs, stroked the dewy flesh between them. Impossibly soft, wet, and warm around his fingers, her velvety inner muscles squeezed him.

  Her hips canted up into his hand; her hands clutched his shoulders. A little sob collected in her throat. “Grey. I need you.”

  “There’s no hurry.” But his guttural voice belied the words. Even the whisper of her hair over the pillowcase as her head thrashed was enticing. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his shoulders, with the effort to hold himself in check. Grey’s world narrowed to the bed, its rumpled covers, Mouse’s lovely face flushed with passion, and the enticing arch of her body beneath his own.

  A sound of frustrated desire burned between them as she seized his face in her hands and dragged him down to kiss him with an intoxicating sweetness. It was desire he tasted on her tongue, and need, and a love he had never thought to possess.

  For a breathtaking moment, the urgency that he had struggled to rein in slipped entirely to the back of his mind to be replaced by wonder. Awe. Gratitude. That despite his misdeeds, Mouse had had the generosity of spirit, the kindness, to forgive him his transgressions and find something in him worthy of her love.

  There was nothing he could give her that was equivalent in value to that—except, perhaps, to do his damnedest to love her back in equal measure.

  “Grey,” she whimpered against his lips, and the sound shredded his already frayed discipline. They moved as one, her hips lifting to receive him as he entered her, seating himself deeply within her, relishing the sigh of contentment she made, how perfectly she cradled him within her body, within her arms.

  “Yes,” she breathed at his ear, her fingers exploring the contours of his back, sliding smoothly over muscles that flexed and bunched at her touch. A seamless rhythm grew between them, an effortless dance comprised of kisses and tender touches to the music of sighs and moans and whispered love words. A music he felt in his soul and expressed with his body as fluently as she could coax chords from her pianoforte.

  Her hands slipped across his slick f
lesh, seeking purchase at his hips in an effort to hold him nearer, a trembling tension in her limbs—but he resisted her attempts to goad him into urgency, even with the luscious contraction of her inner muscles around him, as if she endeavored to hold him with every part of her body. Moans became whimpers of inarticulate need, kisses grew rough and desperate. An eternity passed, and culminated in a glorious moment of shared bliss.

  He buried his groan of ecstasy in the soft skin of her throat as he felt her shatter around him with a soft cry, and could only marvel at the incredible twist of fate that had given him, all wrapped up in one woman, everything he had never known that he had wanted.

  “I love you,” he murmured when he had regained his breath enough to speak, and felt her lips curve into a smile as she planted a kiss on his chin.

  “I won’t press you to stay until morning,” she whispered as she settled in the circle of his arms. “But…stay for a while at least.”

  “There is nowhere I would rather be.” His arm found its perfect resting spot over her waist as she tucked her head beneath his chin and curled up against his chest. Sleep tugged at the corners of his mind, the sort of heavy, rejuvenating rest he’d not gotten in days. Weeks, more likely. “How is it that your bed is so much more comfortable than mine?” he asked on a yawn, even though he already knew the answer—because she was in it with him.

  ∞∞∞

  “Grey?

  Mouse’s voice pierced the veil of sleep, and he came to awareness slowly to find her seated at the edge of the bed, fully dressed in a lavender gown, her hair neatly twisted and pinned into a simple style.