Alexander was dark: dark hair, dark eyes, dark complexion. It matched his dark air, but Teresa had a suspicion that in happier times, before this shadow had fallen over his social standing, he had radiated warmth to all those close to him.
She wanted to be close to him. She wanted to feel those strong hands on her arms, the softness of that dark hair, the rough stubble of his cheek against her neck as he –
Teresa blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
He had been speaking – speaking to her, and she had completely lost track of what he had been saying.
“I said,” Alexander nodded towards the fire. “I think that the kettle is boiling.”
Brought back to earth with a bump, she turned and saw that it was almost ready to boil over. A swift movement brought it off the fire using a roll of fabric scraps to save her fingers, and she carefully poured the scalding water into the teapot.
“That is the second time this evening that you have saved me from hot water,” she tried to laugh, “though this time, it is more of my own doing!”
Her laughter rang hollow as he stared at her. Eventually, he spoke.
“Was that the first time that a . . . a client has tipped you into the Thames?”
Teresa snuggled up into the armchair, and met his gaze. There was something fiery in that look, and she arched her back slightly in pure animal response.
His eyes flared with longing as her breasts rose and fell, and a spark of power tingled at the base of Teresa’s neck – but this felt different. She had always had this power, always been able to charm the man before her, but this felt different. The desire in his eyes was matched by the longing in herself.
She coughed, and looked away. “The first time, yes. Although I have once been abandoned at rooms in the Grenier’s Hotel with the bill to pay. I was forced to have a rather interesting conversation with the manager there.”
“How did you manage to pay it?”
Teresa glanced over to him and arched an eyebrow.
The shock showed in his face, and there it was: that flicker of repulsion and confusion as his craving for her met the disgust of her trade.
She could not help but laugh. “Oh, your assumptions are diverting, Alexander!”
She saw it again: that shiver of pleasure as her lips pursed over his name. It was a shame that she liked him so much; if he had not revealed the truth of his familial sacrifice, she was almost certain that she could take him into that room and make him beg for mercy, and take all the coin on his person.
“Then you – you did not – ”
Teresa shook her head, and picking up the teapot, poured out two cups. “No, he was a very understanding man. His mother had been a lady of the night too, and his sympathy ran deep. I am not permitted to go back, of course, but that is of no matter.”
Alexander was staring at her now, staring at her as though he could see right into her very soul. “Do you ever – I mean, it must be difficult. Being so vulnerable with . . . with so many men.”
Teresa nodded slowly. “It certainly gets tiresome, after a while. What you must remember,” and she pinked slightly, even she, “is that very few men that I have as clients have any comprehension of my own pleasure. It is a selfish act for them, and so I have to . . . well, go through the motions with many of them.”
She saw the heat in his face, and felt a little sorry for him. After all, this was her world, not his.
“You – you pretend?”
Her face broke out into a grin. “They do not.”
Alexander laughed awkwardly, but he did not take his eyes from her. There was a kind of earnestness in his eyes, and she could not look away. “But do you not hate it?”
“Hate it?”
He nodded, and Teresa tried not to smile. “You speak as though I have much of a choice, my lord. I – ”
“Alexander, please.”
His voice was so soft; soft and caring, and Teresa tried not to let a thrill of intimacy overwhelm her. He was not hers, she reminded herself. One day he will go out into the world and marry a real lady.
“Alexander, then,” she conceded. “I have to earn money, and this is one way that I am, though I say so myself, very good at it. At times I feel the filth of what I do, but then why should I feel all the guilt? Should not the scandal be shared by the men who purchase my body?”
He really was a handsome man, thought Teresa as they stared at each other in silence. That darkness, and then the light of his eyes, that hope that seems to emanate from every word. Alexander was a man that you could fall in love with.
“And what will you do,” said Alexander, swallowing, “when you meet a man that you would like to marry?”
Teresa shook her head sadly. “That is not a future that I see for myself – like you, I suppose, although for very different reasons.”
She was so aware of his masculinity that it was difficult to think. How did men do it, she wondered. They just seemed to have a presence that filled every inch of the world around them.
He was shrugging now. “You never know, you may – ”
“How many men are lining up to wed Miss Wrottesley?” Her words cut across him. “And she lost her innocence to one man, and no others. No; it will take an extraordinary man to take a chance on wedding me. My only hope would be to go away, somewhere my reputation has not reached; though that,” and she was not able to take the strange sadness out of her voice, “will be difficult. Most of my clients own the majority of this country.”
“How did you start, if you do not mind me asking?”
There was a tension in him as he reached for the teacup, and Teresa hesitated. Did she really want to open up this dark part of herself? Did she want someone that she had just met to know her story?
And yet, Alexander and she could have been acquainted for years, the way that he had revealed his truth to her.
“I do not come from a family with traditions like yours,” she said quietly, leaning back into the comfort and safety of the armchair with her teacup in her lap. “In fact, I do not think it is possible for us to have been raised in more different circumstances.”
He looked as though he wanted to interrupt her, but he did not, and she was glad of it. Once she started down this memory trail, she did not want to be knocked off course.
“My parents had five children,” she said, bringing the cup to lips and tasting to bittersweet cheap tea that she had managed to barter for the day before. “Two boys, three girls. Both boys died in childhood, and I never knew them. My elder sister, Lydia, had a vague memory of a little blond haired boy, but my younger sister Helena and I had no memories of them at all.”
Alexander looked at her, and said nothing, but he smiled gently, and she continued.
“My mother died giving birth to Helena, and our father was a fisherman. A simple, working life with his beloved Julia was all that he wanted, but,” and Teresa shut her eyes for a moment to try and ignore the memory of her father, sobbing as their mother was buried. “But he was left a widower of three daughters. Three daughters that he could not afford.”
“There must have been others,” Alexander said quietly. “Other family members, someone in the parish who could have helped.”
She shook her head. “He is a proud man, my father. There was a couple in the village over, a couple who had tried for many years to have a child, but God had not smiled on them. He went to them, and offered them . . . offered them one of us.”
Teresa definitely saw it then: his eyes widened as the revulsion of what she was telling him was suddenly understood.
“He – he gave you away?”
Teresa sipped at her tea. “‘Tis more common than you would think. It is usually within families: a sister gives her barren sibling a child, that sort of thing. And so, Lydia went off to become a Marchwood, and Helena and I were raised by our father.”
A log crackled in the grate, and it drew her gaze, a welcome relief from Alexander’s staring eyes. The disbelief was too strong to bear
.
“When I turned eighteen, it became clear to us – Helena and myself, I mean – that my father was slowing down. He was still fishing, still supporting us, but as he got older, the fish became fewer, and the money was dwindling. Something had to be done.” Teresa tightened her grip around her cup. “I had to do something.”
“It seems you know just as much about familial sacrifice than I do,” said Alexander quietly. “It is strange; you may not believe it, but I know a little about hunger. My grandfather lost the family fortune, and although my father was eventually able to recover it, I can easily remember the pain of hunger.”
Teresa stared at him. “You – you went hungry, too?”
He nodded, and her mouth fell open. “But you are a Duke!”
Alexander laughed. “I was not always one! In fact, I have only been a Duke for just over a twelvemonth. And you cannot eat a title; it cannot sustain you, it cannot bring bread to your table and meat to your plate.”
It was almost impossible to comprehend, that this man before her had gone without meals as a child. Teresa smiled wryly. “To think, we could have both almost starved at the same time, at different ends of the country.”
Alexander matched her smile, and put his teacup down on the mantlepiece. “So when you and your sister – Helena, was it – decided that you needed to work, why did you not find . . . well, a more respectable profession?”
Teresa smiled sadly, and placed her own cup on the floor beside her chair, her thirst quenched. “There are a very limited number of ways that a woman can earn her keep in this world. I was not lettered enough to be a governess, working as a servant in a great house would not give me enough money to send on to my sister – the postage alone would eat most of my earnings. And so, I went to the nearest town, waited for evening, and found – ”
“You do not have to tell me.” His interruption was brief, and Teresa looked up to see his hands clenched.
“A lady of the night,” she finished, with a comforting smile. “Helena and I had talked. We agreed that there was one way that we could think of that would enable us to earn a great deal of money, and that would help keep us. Father is not getting younger, and very soon he will not be able to work at all.”
She watched the tension dissipate out of him, and continued. “This woman – Madame Blythe – was sympathetic. Mine is not an unusual story, and it was one that she had heard before. She took me in. She taught me.”
Alexander stirred in his seat, and said in a rather strangled voice. “T-Taught you?”
Teresa nodded. “Madame Blythe had been working for a good many years, and she was still young. She knew what would tempt a man; what would draw him away from his friends, and into her bed. She knew how to tease,” and now she saw Alexander stiffen, and felt a stirring in herself that had nothing to do with her memories and everything to do with the man before her, “and how to pleasure, and how to drive a man so wild that he could not help but come back to her again, and again.”
What was she doing? She wanted him, that was now certain – there was no way to ignore that rising warmth between her legs, even if she had not felt it for many years – but riling Alexander up with these taunting and delicious words?
“And – and you know those things now?” Alexander managed.
Teresa felt a spark of pleasure flow through her veins at the tightness of his throat. She nodded. “Most of my tricks I never use. I never have to. I like the idea of saving them for a man who is able to raise my own yearning, who makes me plea for release.”
And he was definitely sweating now, and his fists were clenched, and Teresa found herself wondering what it would be like to have those strong hands hold her, and touch her, and caress her.
“It has been so long,” she whispered, leaning forward and wetting her lips as she moved, her breasts swaying slightly and she saw Alexander swallow as he tried to fight down the lust, “so long since any man has given me any amount of pleasurable agony.”
She knew exactly what she was doing now, and part of her cried out for him, and that part was growing and she did not want to ignore it any longer.
It was time for her to take back control. It was time for her to take back pleasure. It was time for her to take Alexander to her bed.
5
Alexander swallowed and felt the rasp of his throat as it dried, dried just as one droplet of water curled down her breast.
This was torture – and yet the sweetest torture that he had ever known. By God, no wonder the nobility of the country was lining up outside Miss Teresa Metcalfe’s door! If he did not control himself, he would himself be beating at it, desperate for entry, desperate to please her, desperate to reach out and –
No. No, he must control himself. Had he really waited all these years, suffered the loss of a reputation without any of its pleasure, to succumb now?
“You look warm, my lord,” she said softly, and she licked her lips.
Alexander’s heart was thundering and worse still, his loins had tightened to such a pitch that it would soon be completely insupportable to remain this way. He had to do something, and yet her words had caught his gaze and he could not help but stare into her blue eyes.
Bewitching – and yet, so honest. Vulnerable, even. The remains of some Thames weed were still clinging to her hair.
“Y-You…you have something – ”
His voice did not seem to work, and he raised a hand to indicate. A delicate finger rose to her temple.
“Is there something wrong, Caershire?” Teresa’s eyes flashed with delight, and Alexander almost groaned aloud. If he did not leave this place very soon, he was in danger of drowning completely in the intoxication of her presence.
He swallowed once more. “A-A little seaweed, that is all.”
With a trembling hand, wavering due to lust rather than fear or cold, Alexander outstretched his fingers and caught at the tendrils of riverweed.
His thumb brushed over her skin and he felt it at the same time she did: a rush of warmth through the contact of her soft skin with his fingertip. Her mouth dropped open and he saw the warm welcome of her lips.
Instinct took over. Mere inches of movement brought his face to hers and he was kissing her, her lips trapped in his warring embrace as he poured out all the tension that had built since the moment that he laid eyes upon her. His hand, riverweed forgotten, had entwined itself into her hair and his knees had fallen to the ground as he leaned forward to be closer to her.
“Oh, Teresa,” his voice broke as the kiss did. “I must apologise, I had no intention of – ”
“Of what?” She whispered. Her bright eyes were affixed on his own, and her lips, swollen from his passionate kiss, drew his gaze. “Of giving me pleasure? Of telling me how desirable I am?”
Alexander tried to calm his breathing, but he could not. “I have not told you – ”
Teresa laughed lightly. “Oh, I think you have.”
Her questing fingers found his loins, felt the growing bulge that was there, and Alexander moaned slightly, bearing his lips back onto hers. They opened, welcoming him in, and he glorified in the connection of tongues and lips and hands – hers had taken his, and placed them on her waist, and his mind could not comprehend how warm she was, and how wet, and he wanted to take her onto that bed and –
“No,” he said, panting, pulling away from her and standing now beside the fire as he struggled to push down that particular instinct. “No, I cannot.”
“Do not be so hard on yourself,” said Teresa with a faint smile.
Alexander laughed drily. “No, I do not mean that – I am perfectly capable, but I…I will not. I have not waited so long, maintained my reputation for so long, to lose it now.”
“What reputation?” Teresa was standing now, and Alexander tried not to pay attention to the way the firelight made her gown almost completely transparent. By God, he could see every curve and plane of her body, from the swell of her hips to the arch of her breasts.
But
she was still speaking, and he must pay attention.
“ – and it does not matter what happens here, your reputation will be just as it was.” Teresa stared at him, and for the first time, Alexander noticed that there was something in her gaze: a hunger. A hunger just like his own.
“You are – you are so beautiful,” he said shakily. “Teresa, you are the most fascinating creature I have ever met, and more than that, you are kind, and good, and so intoxicating that I do not know how I am still standing!”
“Then do not,” she whispered, taking his hand and placing it slowly on her buttocks. Alexander groaned. “Caershire, I am offering you myself. I want you, and I could tell as soon as we entered this room and you spotted that bed, that you wanted me too.”
How could this be happening? It was like a sweet nightmare, and Alexander looked around him for an escape. But then Teresa moved slightly, and he felt the shift of her flesh under his hand, and everything in him cried out for surrender.
“I like you,” Teresa was whispering, and now her own hands were on his chest, and his skin felt like fire wherever her fingertips danced – and they were dancing lower and lower. “It has been a long time since I met a man who treated me like a person. Now I am asking you to treat me like a woman.”
Alexander moaned slightly as she played with the buttons of his breeches.
“Let me show you pleasure,” she murmured in his ear as both of his hands now squeezed her buttocks gently. “Let me show you gratification. Let me make love to you, and you to me, and we can ride the wave of carnal delights together.”
Alexander swayed slightly. Hardly able to think with her lithe body in his arms, he was clear of two things.
Firstly, that she was right. No one would know what happened in this room, and yet it did not matter anyway; all the world thought him a rake, regardless.
Secondly, that he was so wound up that he would do anything to see her cry out with pleasure thanks to his body.
Ravishing Regencies- The Complete Series Page 13