Submitting to the Marquess

by Brown, Em Browint writing as Georgette

  “Darcy…” he moaned into her throat as he devoured her, trailing his mouth to the tops of her breasts.

  He cupped a breast and pushed it up to his mouth. He pulled the bodice down.

  “You have the most marvelous nipples, Miss Sherwood,” he told her before his mouth descended upon her.

  His attentions upon her breast had the effect of teasing the sex between her legs.

  “And you, Lord Broadmoor,” she began to say as his erection pressed against her thigh, flaring her carnal hunger.

  “Radcliff,” he supplied. “I think you and I qualify as being on intimate terms.”

  “Radcliff, then.”

  Grinning, she reached for his buttons. She liked the sound and feel of his name upon her mouth. She slid her hand into his pants to grasp his arousal. He grunted his approval and was content for her to play with him a while. When she glanced into his eyes, there seemed more than lust shining there. She herself felt something more intense than desire, a feeling that made her patient, that made her want to savor the moment, to bring him pleasure.

  “Too pleasing,” he said gruffly, grabbing her hand away from him and pinning it above her head.

  “I could take you in many ways,” she said. “With my hands—or in my mouth.”

  He closed his eyes and groaned. “Not tonight, but soon. You cannot proffer such suggestions and not see them through.”

  Sliding down he lifted her skirts and settled his head between her thighs. She shivered when he licked her there.

  “I would enjoy the chance, Lord Broad—Radcliff.”

  He stroked her with his tongue, fondling her in the most sensitive ways, sending waves of bliss through her belly, and taking her breath away. She cried out as tremors erupted through her. Replacing his tongue with his finger, he pushed the last of her spasms through her. But already a fresh desire had begun to build within her. She reached over and pulled out his shaft, felt the weight of its rigidity.

  “Take me, Radcliff,” she directed.

  He obliged and speared himself into her wetness. Wantonly, she wrapped her legs around him and ground her pelvis at him. He held himself above her, rolling his hips, as he fitted his mouth about her. She kissed him hungrily, carelessly, as she bucked him against him. The insides of her body began to contract tighter and tighter before, like a spring being sprung, it exploded in a euphoric paroxysm. Grunting low in his throat, Radcliff thrust himself deep and spent with her.

  Despite the heat of their clothes, they lay in each other’s arms. And this, too, was bliss.

  “I should return to the card room,” Darcy murmured after she had waited as long as she could, wishing they could lay together forever.

  “No.”

  The roughness of his tone startled her. “But they are awaiting my presence.”

  A cloud seemed to pass over his eyes, and he pressed his lips together firmly, tightening his hold upon her.

  “Leave them be. You need not tend to them.”

  “But I am expected.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “Don’t have to be expected?”

  He fixed an intense gaze upon her. “Be my mistress.”

  Darcy blinked a few times. “How many mistresses do you need?”

  “Only one. You.”

  “Do you not have one already?”

  “Lady Robbins and I have severed our relationship.”

  “Ah.”

  “I would treat you well,” he pledged. “You would want for nothing. I can set up an apartment for you, provide you with clothing and servants.”

  The image of a life of luxury danced before her. One that could surpass the comforts of her life when her father had fared well. But her thoughts quickly turned to Priscilla and Nathan.

  “I am comfortable enough residing with Mrs. T,” Darcy said, her voice shaking slightly.

  “I could secure accommodations for your sister and nephew as well,” he disclosed.

  Surprised at how well he knew her thoughts, she hesitated.

  “You would be an outcast,” she demurred while a voice inside her scolded her for being a fool. What idiot would not take his offer?

  “Other men have had far more controversial love affairs and survived.”

  Her heart was pounding in her head. A home for Priscilla and Nathan. Her own living conditions secured. She would no longer have to work at the gaming hall. She could be with him.

  And yet, she had never been anyone’s mistress before. What did a mistress do? What was the appropriate etiquette for a mistress? Her responsibilities? Her freedoms?

  Her words to him from what seemed ages ago echoed in her mind: I am no man’s mistress. She would be bound to him. Dependent upon him. Her independence gone.

  How long before she went the way of Penelope Robbins? Until he found a wife? That she could not handle.

  “No,” Darcy said, and though she avoided his gaze, she could tell he was surprised.

  “That is hardly a rational answer,” he responded.

  She looked him in the eyes, hoping he did not detect the uncertainty within her. “I am no man’s mistress.”

  “And why is that?” he asked angrily. “Because you wish to entertain the attentions of more than one lover?”

  “Because I do not wish to be at any man’s beck and command.” Sensing his anger growing, she added quickly. “If you please, my lord, Mrs. T is waiting for me.”

  “It pleases me not at all,” he retorted.

  But Darcy pretended she did not hear and went to wrap a shawl about herself. He strode over and caught her by the arm.

  “Have you nothing else to say?” he asked.

  “I have said all that I have to say on the matter.”

  “But what of…us?”

  She was trembling so hard on the inside, she thought she would shatter into pieces, but she mustered a reply. “What about us?”

  He paled, but he was not the only one to feel a dagger through the heart.

  “I have patrons to attend,” she said before fleeing down the stairs.

  She almost knocked one of the maidservants over in her haste. She dared not look back.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “ARE YOU NOT having breakfast, Darcy? You look pale. Are you feeling ill?” inquired Mathilda as she sipped her favorite morning beverage of hot chocolate.

  Her lack of appetite could be attributed to the nausea she felt upon waking, but Darcy felt the culprit could equally lie in the restless night she had had. Despite her best attempts to clear her mind, he permeated her thoughts like water through a sponge.

  Her body felt empty without his touch. When she had thought of how forcefully he had taken her or how tender had been his kiss, her hand had crept to her mons. But even after bringing herself to spend, sleep persisted in eluding her.

  “He asked me to be his mistress,” Darcy revealed as she stared into her coffee and stirred it for no reason.

  “What? His money must make him daft. He suffers delusions if he thinks you would even entertain the notion for the slightest second. Even I would not lay with him, and I am nearer his age than you. Only yesterday he had the effrontery to complain to me of his gout…”

  “Not James Newcastle. The Baron Broadmoor.”

  “Oh,” Mathilda frowned. “And how did you answer?”

  “That I am no man’s mistress.”

  “A sensible answer.”

  “Then why do I feel as if I have been in error?” Darcy responded, poking at the holes in her crumpet. “No doubt many other women would be delighted to be his mistress.”

  “Yes, and no doubt they will have their turn,” Mathilda stated as she spread more jam on her toast. “You know how men are. It is even worse when they take a wife.”

  “But Radcliff is no Cavin Richards.”

  Mathilda raised her eyebrows. “It’s ‘Radcliff’ now, is it? Well, I would agree he differs from a lot of the men here, but why should you give up your freedom and the attentions of many to b
e devoted to just one?”

  Of course Mathilda was biased: she had no interest in losing Darcy. Fear of losing freedom was only partly the answer. Darcy was more concerned with dignity. It was true she was a nobody in his world, and yet she could not help but long for more.

  “I must say that the amount of time you have spent with him has not been good for business,” Mathilda added. “Word has spread that you and Broadmoor are lovers. You know servants can never keep their mouths shut if their lives depended upon it. Only fools like Newcastle remain oblivious. Nonetheless, I should hate to have to find a replacement.”

  Her words shocked Darcy. Mathilda had never suggested she needed anyone but Darcy. In fact, Mathilda had often remarked that Darcy aged so well that she could work in the gaming hall till she were fifty and still be able to attract men young and old.

  There was an edge in Mathilda’s tone that Darcy had never heard before. She had noticed that attendance at the gaming hall had dipped somewhat but had not realized it was dramatic enough to concern Mathilda.

  “I have been distracted from my occupation,” Darcy acknowledged.

  “Well, never you mind what has passed. It may be prudent, however, to sever your ties with the Baron.”

  The mere thought pained her, though she had considered that route herself as she had tossed in her bed last night.

  “Afterall,” said Mathilda with a mouthful of toast and jam, “it isn’t as if you were in love with the fellow.”

  No, it wasn’t, Darcy thought to herself, or was it?

  *****

  The realization struck her with all the force of a battleship in full sail. She was in love with Radcliff.

  It was absurd. Irrational. Foolish.

  And true. Darcy concluded with a heavy heart that Mathilda was correct. Unless she intended to be his mistress, there was no reason to continue their affair. It was a path that could only end in pain and misery. She knew already that she could not bear the thought of Radcliff with another woman.

  Best to move on with their own lives.

  Even Henry, more a romantic than she or Mathilda, conceded that was the wise decision and offered his carriage when Darcy opted not to wait another day.

  “You can’t just walk up to his home willy-nilly,” Henry explained. “If you mean to hand a man a rejection, do it bang-up with style.”

  Radcliff Barrington’s residence in Grosvenor Square was a simple but stately Georgian townhouse. When Harry’s carriage pulled up before it, Darcy had to quell her desire to ask the coachman to turn around and bring her back to Mrs. T’s. Instead, she told the man to wait and mounted the front steps of the house with legs that felt as unsteady as those of a centurian.

  A chary eyed butler greeted her at the door. When she gave her name and asked for the Baron, the man gave no indication of surprise or disapproval. Darcy wondered if he would require her to wait outside the door, but he invited her in and asked that she wait in the anteroom. He indicated a settee, but Darcy was too nervous to sit. She distracted herself by examining the pastoral paintings on the walls.

  Perhaps Radcliff would not be in, she thought almost hopefully. The butler dispelled any reprieve when he returned to announce that his lordship would see her in the study.

  Taking in a deep breath, Darcy followed the butler. The deed to Brayten was tucked in her sleeve, reminding her that she had a mission to see through. It would not be easy, but they would all be better for it upon completion.

  Radcliff was standing behind his writing desk. In the comfort of his own home, dressed somewhat informally in a white shirt, satin vest, and beige pants, he seemed to Darcy particularly handsome. She had always liked his sense of fashion—in line with the pinks of the ton but never ostentatious to qualify as a fop.

  “Miss Sherwood, to what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked and gestured to a seat.

  Darcy shook her head, wishing she could read his emotions. Was he glad that she had come? Displeased? Surprised?

  “You plan a short visit, I take it,” he noted. “Would you care for a glass of port nonetheless?”

  “No, thank you,” she answered. “I came to offer the deed to Brayten in exchange for the promissory notes that you hold and a sum of fifty and five thousand pounds.”

  The words tumbled from her mouth for she feared if she did not speak quickly, the words would catch in her throat and never come out.

  “Is that all?”

  “It totals the amount that Edward had initially owed.”

  “Yes, I noticed the tidy sum.” He went to the sideboard and poured a glass of wine before turning back to face her. “What if I refuse?”

  “Then I will have to turn your family out of Brayten,” Darcy responded with difficulty and saw his face cloud over.

  “I see.”

  Watching him speak in such methodical even tones when she felt besieged by all manner of emotions, Darcy almost preferred that he were furious.

  “I can offer you much more as my mistress,” he said.

  “Yes, but I have no interest in being your mistress,” she uttered.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Miss Sherwood. What is it you want?”

  To be yours and yours alone, and for you to be mine and mine alone.

  “Would five thousand pounds a year for you and your family suffice?” he pressed.

  “And how long would that last, my lord? Until you lost interest in us?” asked Darcy. She shook her head when she saw he meant to protest. “Even if you promised an eternity, I cannot be bought. There is no amount you can name that would induce me to relinquish my freedom.”

  “You prefer to toil in that gaming hell?” he asked in disbelief.

  “I prefer not to have to answer to one man.”

  His gaze bore into her, and she saw his eyes flame. “Because you favor having more than one lover?”

  Darcy wanted to disappear into the earth, but she forced some words from her mouth. “That is a consideration…”

  He grabbed her suddenly by the arms with the same intensity he had done the day they met. “Do you mean to say that I am not man enough for you?”

  She had never heard such harshness—she would have expected him to want to tear off her head if it were not for the tortured undertones that she could hear beneath the surface of his anger. How she wanted to reassure him that no one made her feel the way he did. Even now all she wanted to do was yield into his embrace, wanted his lips on hers, wanted him inside of her.

  But she lowered her gaze away and murmured, “Did you not once call me a harlot, Baron? I did not then nor now dispute—”

  Abruptly he let her go and stepped away from her. There was pain in his eyes, and at that moment she would have preferred a dagger in her chest than to see that emotion in him.

  “I thought…” he said, his voice hoarse and hollow.

  “That you were different? That I was different?” Darcy finished for him. She shook her head and drove the last nail in the coffin. “No, my Baron Broadmoor. Ours was an amusing romp. But my interest now lies in our trade. I believe my offer is more than fair.”

  She wanted to melt into the center of the earth and disappear. A part of her wanted to assure him that she did not refuse him lightly, but her pride would not allow her to admit that or that she had been hurt by the fact that she could not be more than a mistress to him.

  “The fifty-five thousand pounds will have to be paid in installments,” he said, pulling the notes from his desk.

  She had never heard his voice ring so hollow. “I understand.”

  “I will work out the terms with my accountant and forward them to you for approval.”

  “Thank you.”

  She pulled out the deed to Brayten. Her stepmother had thought it such a blessing, but it had proved a bane. She held it out to Radcliff as she took the promissory notes. His eyes searched her face, but she wanted only to flee from him as soon as possible. They exchanged the parchments, but Darcy felt no gain, only loss.

  “Darc
y…”

  “I bid you good day, Baron,” Darcy said quickly over the lump that threatened to cave her throat in. She whirled on her heels and rushed out of Broadmoor House before he could hear the sound of her heart breaking.

  *****

  “Only fifty-five thousand pounds?” cried Mrs. Sherwood. “But Brayten is worth far more than that!”

  “Yes, but in our hands it cannot command any sum,” Darcy explained as she looked out the kitchen window at the setting sun. She would have to hurry to make it to Mrs. T’s before nightfall.

  “But I had settled on a new apartment for us—one in Berkeley Square.”

  “Mother!” Priscilla chided as she rinsed the dishes from supper. “Fifty-five thousand pounds is an amount I would never have dared to dream, but we cannot afford such luxuries as living in Berkeley Square. You must rescind the agreement.”

  “No,” said Darcy, siding with her stepmother for the first time. “It is time we sought a better neighborhood for Nathan—and ourselves. Perhaps a small apartment…”

  “But we still have other debts to discharge. I was able to hold off the collectors today—they were prepared to take our furniture—only I begged them on whatever kindness existed in them to spare us a few more days.”

  “And I promised the mantua maker that I would pay her in a timely manner,” added Mrs. Sherwood.

  “And I suppose there is the matter of the tutor as well,” said Darcy. “Nathan seems quite taken with him.”

  “Yes,” said Priscilla. “Mr. Davis told me that Nathan has a mind that seems starved for knowledge for he drinks in whatever his tutor instructs.”

  “Then we must keep this Mr. Davis. I know not what income you are able to bring in, Priscilla, but I cannot imagine it to be enough to cover the payment of the tutor.”

  Darcy sat down at the kitchen table as she tried to add up all the expenses. She felt weak and had not slept well since her visit to Broadmoor House.

  “Are you feeling ill?” Priscilla asked. “You look pale.”