Wild, Wicked and Wanton: A Hot Historical Romance Bundle

by Natasha Blackthorne

  Beth automatically straightened and donned a pleasant expression. Inwardly, she bristled and balled her hands, annoyed with herself over her quick compliance. I don’t care. I don’t!

  Mrs. Hazelwood’s eyes warmed with approval. Warmth spread over Beth and she relaxed.

  Oh bother. I do care.

  The old woman never changed. Her gently faded beauty, her petite, birdlike build and white hair without a trace of yellow, peeking from beneath a bouffant, stiff-starched, white-lace-trimmed cap. A serene half smile curling her lips. All these things were engraved on Beth’s heart as a vision of home—the only home she’d known as a child.

  A lump formed in her throat—a lump made of pure gratitude and something she didn’t have a right to. She didn’t even want to give it a name. If she’d ever had the right to these feelings, she’d long since proven herself unworthy. Mrs. Hazelwood had raised her with better morals than to bed men without the benefit of marriage.

  Well, at least she could stand up straight and be a lady for a few moments. For her benefactress’ sake.

  “My darling girl,” Mrs. Hazelwood said in her slightly graveled tones. The familiar scent of lavender and ginger tea wafted over Beth as the woman came closer and took her hands. “How good it is to see you again. You’ve been hiding from me.”

  “I have been so busy… The shop and the children…” Beth’s voice trailed off. Anything she ever said seemed so inadequate. She didn’t know why she avoided the kindly lady who had saved her from the foundling house. She just did.

  The snapping, ice-blue eyes darted to Grey, where he had been drawn away into conversation with two older gentlemen. “I suspect you have allowed Mr. Sexton to monopolize your time.”

  The faint chiding tones pricked Beth’s ears. Mrs. Hazelwood had privately made plain that she disapproved of Beth’s engagement. If there was one thing Mrs. Hazelwood had endeavored to imprint upon her youthful mind, it had been an admonition that she should never use her unusual beauty to try to aspire beyond the station of her birth. Wealthy gentlemen could only bring a girl of her origins disgrace and disappointment.

  At the tender age of eighteen, Beth had disregarded this well-meaning advice and reaped unbearable heartache. Would Mrs. Hazelwood be proved correct this time as well?

  Mrs. Hazelwood sighed, bringing Beth back into the moment. “Joshua says he cannot come tonight. Says the quinsy that is going around is keeping him too busy. I told him a good neighbor would find the time.”

  Relief washed over Beth. Thank God. He wouldn’t be here.

  “You’ve gone a little pale, dear,” Mrs. Hazelwood said, concerned.

  Beth placed her hand at her throat and laughed weakly. “Oh, I just hate to think about catching a quinsy.”

  It was a perfectly plausible explanation. She’d always had a tendency to tonsillitis.

  Mrs. Hazelwood’s thin, white brows drew together. “You haven’t been exhausting yourself, have you? You must preserve your health for your wedding day. I shall have Joshua come and have a look at you.”

  Her heart began beating like a trapped bird. “Oh, that’s not necessary.”

  “Nonsense, we can’t be too careful with the wedding so close now. He can bring you some of those preventative elixirs he prepares. They kept me in fine form all last winter.”

  “Everything looks so lovely,” Beth said, to change the subject.

  Mrs. Hazelwood beamed with pleasure. “Do you think so? I always work extra hard on my June ball—it’s a special occasion.” Sadness flickered in her eyes. “Today would have been my Peter’s fiftieth birthday.”

  Peter had been Mrs. Hazelwood’s brother, younger by twenty years. He had died when Beth was six, and he was no more than a shadow of a memory—a kind gentleman who had always had sweets for her. He must have been a saint, for he’d been canonized in the memory of Mrs. Hazelwood in the way that only a childless woman could dote on a much younger sibling. The venerable old woman had lost her only daughter to the yellow fever years before.

  Beth’s eyes burnt—she couldn’t help it. She’d always been envious of Mrs. Hazelwood’s regard for her family, her deep love for both Peter and even Joshua. At the age of twenty, the full shock of how little Beth fitted into this world had finally struck her in the most painful way possible. It had sent her running to her half-brother’s house. But she didn’t fit in any better there than she had here.

  Perhaps, once she was wed to Grey, with her own home and children, she’d feel less envious of others.

  * * * *

  Just beyond the dividing wall, where the double folding doors had been pulled back to make the two parlors into one large ballroom, Grey stood talking with a Mr. Phillips, a local wine merchant.

  But the gentleman’s words fell on his ears unheard as Grey watched Beth.

  She stood next to Mrs. Hazelwood, in front of the open doors to the garden. The night breezes were gently ruffling the silver-gilt ringlets trailing down from the knot of hair pinned atop her head. A diadem of laurel leaves and pale pink roses adorned the crown. They gave her an innocent air. He adored her hair. She kept it longer than fashion dictated and, when undone, those silken tresses fell over his naked body like a shimmering veil of moonlight.

  He wasn’t the only one admiring her beauty.

  Though the ladies spared her no more than the barest polite attention, she drew glances from gentlemen of varying ages and marital status. Watching their eyes trail over her feminine curves, watching them fall prey to the same beguilement he had the first time he’d set eyes on her, he clenched his teeth. He wanted to go straight over and pull her away and out of the sight of the greedy vultures. Claim her for his eyes only.

  He took a deep breath and forced the urge down. The last thing he needed was to start acting like a possessive jackass every time another man turned an appreciative gaze upon her. Good God, he’d be in a state of outrage all the time. Unless he hid her away somewhere…

  The idea was tempting, damned tempting. But unfortunately it didn’t seem feasible. His mistress he might keep squirreled away, but never his wife. He tightened his fists. He’d kill any man stupid enough to try to trifle with her.

  The vehemence of his thoughts startled him. Such a charged reaction was the very thing he hated about this whole business of being besotted.

  Yet he couldn’t fault her behavior. She balanced the right amount of charm and feminine modesty. A perfect lady. Still, he’d begun to understand the idea behind Eastern harem walls.

  Get control over yourself.

  He forced his attention back to Mr. Phillips but couldn’t help taking glances at Beth out of the corner of his eye. Country dancing tunes echoed, deafening and discordant, in the stifling ballroom and settled on Grey’s nerves with all the stridence of a cat in season on a hot summer’s night. An hour crawled by. One by one, Beth’s admirers drifted away, either to join the dancing or to wander away to the card room. Mrs. Hazelwood soon joined a clutch of turbaned tabbies but Beth remained staring out of the garden doors.

  He crossed the distance between them, nodding and smiling a greeting as he passed several wallflowers sitting in the chairs along the walls. Then his gaze focused on the line of Beth’s back and moved down to her arse. Her softly rounded, gorgeous arse.

  She turned. Her eyes, large and blue as the sky, were full of wistfulness. Melancholy. Any time they came to this house, she looked the same. A lump lodged in his throat. He wanted to eradicate that sadness. He wanted to give her everything her heart desired. He took the last two steps towards her and stopped.

  “Are we still speaking to each other, Beth?”

  “We must be; you are talking to me now.” Her chilly tone matched the lingering hurt in her eyes. She smoothed the deep blue satin sash tied beneath her breasts, a fidgeting move that bespoke her ill ease with the fancy gown. The gesture drew his attention to her lithesome curves. Her flat stomach fascinated him—he adored touching it, kissing it, pressing his cock against it and letting his s
eed jet all over it. And he ached to take her into his arms, but here, he couldn’t. He couldn’t even dance with her, for she had never been taught to dance.

  He forced himself to focus on her face, his eyes falling softly over her angelic features. “We shall have to engage a dance master for you, once we are in New York.”

  Her eyes turned glassy as she put a hand to her lips and nodded slowly. Her shoulders slumped a little. Well, damn. Was the prospect of learning to dance that daunting? What had happened to his fire-spitting little vixen? She was so unlike herself right now. Subdued, timid. She seemed almost a stranger.

  His gut tightened. It was already killing her spirit. He knew better than this—they were too different and he was thirteen years older and far too set in his ways. He’d never had a relationship with a woman her age. Not even when he was her age.

  He hated being hard on her, forcing her to attend society functions when he knew she’d rather not. But no matter how young or untried, she was going to have to meet the challenge. Once she was his wife, her behavior would reflect directly upon him. It would affect his business relationships.

  A girl her age deserved more coddling during this transition. Yet he had to focus on his business and he wouldn’t be able to give a wife the attention she craved. He hadn’t been able to give it at nineteen, so what made him think he would do any better at thirty-six? But he couldn’t help himself—he wanted her for his own.

  Suddenly, he desperately needed a drink. A strong one.

  “Come, let us get you some punch,” he said, taking her hand.

  Chapter Two

  As the cool champagne punch drenched her parched throat, Beth closed her eyes, drinking deeper. God, maybe—just maybe—she’d survive this evening without making some hideous faux pas. After all, the night was half over and she’d kept herself in check so far. She lowered the drained cup.

  Two men approached. One was tall and thin with a beak-like nose, the other short and rotund with a too-ripe red mouth and dark eyes. Her heart jumped into her throat.

  Oh, mercy. Why did it have to be these two?

  Once, when she’d gone to a tryst with Grey at City Tavern, disguised in a widow’s veil, she’d seen them sitting with Grey in the dining hall. Their cold eyes had scanned her person with greedy lust, as if she were subhuman, there for the taking, like a harem girl on the block. She shivered at the memory and the gulped punch settled uneasily. She resisted placing a hand over her belly as the two men stared back at her with curiosity and a degree of warm but respectful masculine appreciation. How perversely amusing. They hadn’t connected her petite, slender form with the veiled woman of the same dimensions who had visited Grey. Of course not. They would never dream he would actually wed a woman he’d met under those circumstances. They thought the woman at City Tavern had been a bought and paid for whore.

  They exchanged greetings with Grey.

  Grey turned to her. “Elizabeth.”

  She startled. To hear her proper name on his lips always surprised her, as though he was speaking of someone he shouldn’t know—couldn’t possibly know. Only as Beth had she mingled with gentlemen like him, and never in a proper way. Elizabeth was the dutiful sister who worked long hours sewing shoes and wiping snotty noses and grimy hands. Elizabeth wore shabby clothes and had no prospects. Elizabeth was real and Beth was a fiction—a make-believe seductress, forbidden to see the light of day.

  Who was she, truly? Dutiful and devoted Elizabeth, or seductive and secretive Beth? Who should she pretend to be now? Was she always pretending?

  “Elizabeth?” The sharpness under Grey’s polite tone made her snap to attention

  “I want you to meet the Honorable Senator Theophilus Dorr.”

  Theophilus Dorr, a venerable hero of the revolution and now a state senator for Philadelphia. She swallowed. Hard.

  “Senator Dorr, this is Miss Elizabeth McConnell.”

  The short, dark little man nodded and smiled. “My pleasure, Miss McConnell.”

  Words deserted her. She offered him a dazzling smile. If there was one thing Beth knew how to do, it was smile at and dazzle men. These were the same men she’d be expected to play hostess to in New York. During their courtship, Grey had explained a little of what would be expected of his wife. Night after night of dinner parties, many of them all-male business gatherings where, as the sole female present, she would be expected to smile and sweeten the conversation. It had sounded so easy when he had spoken of it.

  But now, faced with the very gentlemen she’d have to entertain, her legs went weak and began to quake. She was just a lowborn bastard child, all dressed up in a grown woman’s clothes. How could she possibly make conversation with such a worldly man?

  Dorr’s lips were moving. She couldn’t hear his words over the beat of her heart. God, he was asking her something. They were all staring at her, their faces seemed closer, larger than their bodies. It was so hot in the ballroom now. Sweat soaked her shift under her fine, expensive ball gown. She replied with some inanity. A coil of fear twined through her belly. Had she provided the correct, polite answer? Or had she shamed herself and Grey?

  Dorr smiled, broadly. Relief made her weak. She must have done the right thing.

  She remained the center of attention. Several other older gentlemen drifted over to join them. Their names became a mixed-up jumble in her mind while she stood smiling and speaking, this time without Mrs. Hazelwood to ease the way.

  Oh, Lord. It was one thing to relate to a gentleman in a seductive way. In his carriage, in his bedchamber. There, she possessed a certain power that leveled the game. But, here, having to stand and be a faux lady strained her nerves to the breaking point.

  She squinted against the candles’ bright glare as the air grew hot and so thick with the smell of jasmine that it suffocated her. What good was this farce? These gentlemen would see right through her—right down to the harlot’s heart that beat so rapidly against her ribcage. Her nausea increased—the punch really was not sitting well.

  She clamped a hand to her forehead and turned to Grey. “I don’t feel very well. The air is very tight in here tonight.”

  His expression turned to polite concern. “Of course, my darling.” He took her arm, then nodded at the other gentlemen. “Pardon us.”

  * * * *

  “I spent every day for six years in this chamber.” Beth’s voice echoed in the little upstairs schoolroom that smelt of dust and moldering paper.

  In the dim light from the window, Grey watched her walk past the semicircle of small desks, then past the larger desk to the hearth. She seemed recovered, but one could never tell with her—like a cat, she hid her weaknesses.

  “Mrs. Hazelwood employed a governess, just for me. A frightful old harridan. My palms stayed constantly sore. And, after she left, Mrs. Hazelwood sent me to a young ladies’ academy in Baltimore. To teach me to be a lady.” Her delicate shoulders rolled up and then down. “You see how well it took. The other girls knew my situation. They hated me. I wouldn’t tolerate their insults and I was expelled within six months.”

  Grey had been holding his breath, afraid if he made a sound she’d stop speaking. But now he couldn’t remain quiet. “Wait,” he said.

  The sound echoed, more sharply than he’d intended.

  She stared at him, all wide eyes and softly parted mouth. “What?”

  “You mean that you didn’t finish your studies at this school?”

  She shook her head, her expression sad. “They knew from the start that I did not belong there.”

  “But if you didn’t finish your education as a young lady, how have you coped with the past few weeks?” He frowned. “Your deportment and behavior has for the most part been flawless.”

  A smile flashed across her face. “Except for the odd lost pair of gloves.”

  “Yes, that. But Beth, seriously, you have done well. Far better than I had expected.”

  She shrugged.

  “Mrs. Hazelwood has helped you then?
”

  “Well, she has tried but she has many responsibilities of her own.”

  “Surely she can put them aside for a time, for your sake.”

  She shrugged her shoulders again, slightly. “I am not her daughter. Not her responsibility.”

  “Nonsense. She raised you.” But uneasiness rolled through his gut. He suspected she was playing down Hazelwood’s lack of interest, trying to shield herself against the pain of acknowledging the woman’s neglect. He studied her shuttered eyes. How much else regarding Hazelwood had Beth guessed at and yet had denied in order to avoid the pain of the truth?

  Twin urges warred within him. The desire to rip away her self-protective defenses and reveal to her that which he believed she ought to know pressed on him. Hard. Any adult should know and face the truth of their origins. It wasn’t his way to sidestep issues. He didn’t believe it was the best way for her either.

  However, his heart ached for her. He sensed how badly she must hurt inside over this issue. He sensed the depth of hurt her proud, self-protective nature would not allow her to show him, not fully. He was gratified that she was showing him this much of her true pain.

  He must not press her harder than she could bear.

  “You’re saying she has not helped you?” he asked, in a careful tone.

  “Not much,” Beth said softly, then she pressed her lips together, as if to say that she maybe ought to have remained quiet than to have betrayed Hazelwood’s neglect.

  “How have you coped then?”

  “I watch others. Very carefully and I do what they do. I improvise everything else.” Fierce pride burned into him. God, her innate intelligence, her ingenuity, her bravery…was there any woman like her, anywhere?

  Yet, sympathy softened him again. God, she really was untried.

  Yes, she had a little sexual experience. She certainly believed it to be a vast amount. Yet it was actually very limited compared to most of the women he’d known intimately in his mature years. If he told her this, it would wound her pride, so he didn’t. If there was one thing he could understand, it was the necessity of protecting one’s pride.