‘My God!’ Vaughan felt his jaw drop, and the exclamation rolled off his tongue before he could stop it. ‘How?’ He drew closer to the bed and tilted his head to get a better view. It was incredible, like something from a travelling sideshow. Entranced, he dropped to his knees and rested his elbows upon the bedspread.
He guessed this explained a goodly part of de Maresi’s narcissism and his pretty incredible cock-sucking technique. Plenty of individual practice.
Did it feel the same, he wondered? Why wouldn’t it?
Crimson circles blossomed around the impressions of de Maresi’s fingertips upon his back. His balls stood out, ruddy and proud. Vaughan watched de Maresi’s bottom lip rise and fall as he sucked, while his hips rocked, dictating the rhythm of the motion. Credit where it was due, he couldn’t deny that he was now interested, if in a somewhat detached way.
He watched de Maresi’s lips play along the hardened stem, and felt each glorious suck as if it were played upon his own flute. Still, the flutter of excitement was not quite enough to goad him into action. He wanted de Maresi only in a purely physical sense, while what he really wanted, who he really wanted, was Lucerne.
Vaughan skimmed a finger over the boyish perfection of de Maresi’s arse, whose pace immediately quickened. His head rocked from side to side, and his cheeks hollowed with each raspy breath. Slowly, his expression transformed from concentrated panic to serene contentment. Breathless, de Maresi ran his tongue up the length of his shaft to the root. ‘Tempted yet?’ he asked, while his cock batted merrily at his parted lips. He looked up at Vaughan, his cheeks aglow and his eyes hungry. ‘Donnes-moi ton foutre.’
Vaughan shook his head; he knew more than enough French to understand just how exceedingly crude the request was. ‘Why, when the show is so pleasing?’
‘Did you want to see me come in my mouth?’
Vaughan climbed onto the bed and ran a finger up de Maresi’s curled spine to the tip of his tailbone. ‘That would be a sight to see.’
‘Bugger me first.’ His bottom landed firmly in Vaughan’s lap.
‘Always so crude, François.’
‘Do I have to beg?’
Vaughan raised an eyebrow. ‘You’d beg mercy of an Englishman?’ He ran his palms down the ‘v’ of de Maresi’s inner thighs, forcing them apart. He reached his cock and drew a single finger up the tumescent length to where the tip, shiny with saliva, was leaving sticky dots upon de Maresi’s stomach.
‘Better to ask it of you than the fiends in my own land.’
‘True. Very true.’ Vaughan circled the shiny helm, stoking the fire but not yet delivering enough.
‘Don’t tease,’ pleaded de Maresi.
‘Am I teasing?’ Vaughan rubbed his covered prick against the man’s bared arse, and was rewarded with a satisfying groan. It was all too easy. He needed challenge, something to react against, not this pitiful acquiescence. De Maresi had no fight in him, and it never seemed to occur to him to simply take what he so desperately wanted. Curious, since the rest of his countrymen seemed rather adept at laying siege to whatever they wanted.
‘Finish your show, François.’ He patted him on the arse and Vaughan held his gaze until de Maresi curled up and began to suck tenderly upon his prick again.
His initial intention had simply been to sit back and enjoy the display, but there was something compelling about the way his motion splayed his beautiful white bottom. Maybe he’d give a little of himself after all.
Vaughan pulled out the vial of oil he kept in his inner coat pocket and lathed François’ winking hole, before slipping him his thumb and destroying his steady rhythm.
De Maresi’s motion almost stopped at the intrusion. ‘Oui,’ he gasped as his anus swallowed the digit. ‘Oui … Vaughan … merci.’
The man was wound like a tightly coiled spring on the verge of release. ‘We have a problem, you and I.’ Vaughan exchanged his thumb for two fingers, which he curled so they rubbed against the sensitive inner wall. ‘You see, there’s an edge that’s missing between us, that renders this whole thing masturbatory.’ He grinned at his own joke, before adding. ‘It’s not enough.’
De Maresi groaned but his intense fixation never wavered. His brow creased, saliva glistened around his mouth and on his cock, precome wetted his chin, but his sucking remained intent.
‘I feel nothing.’ Vaughan found the firm swell of his prostate and petted it with expert strokes. ‘This gains me nothing and I find no joy in swiving your pert little arse.’ But de Maresi was no longer listening, if indeed he ever had been. He stopped rocking and released his cock. Eyes closed, bliss contorted his features as he caught his ejaculate on his very pink tongue and swallowed it down.
‘Vaughan,’ he sighed. He pushed himself into a sitting position on Vaughan’s lap. His hands threaded into Vaughan’s hair, pulling him forwards for a kiss.
‘No.’ Vaughan shoved him off. ‘I told you not to touch me.’ He cleaned his fingers on de Maresi’s discarded cravat. ‘You may not comprehend this, François, but Bella is no threat to you, because there is nothing between us. There never has been.’
De Maresi propped himself up and gaped. ‘Then what is this?’ he demanded.
‘Torture,’ Vaughan remarked, and left the room.
On the balcony, he strove for calm. Had it always been this difficult to walk away, he wondered. He didn’t think so. Something had changed. In the past he’d have had his fun with de Maresi and laughed off any awkwardness, but he’d been more easily content then too. Now, he needed more than just a pretty face and the promise of fleeting ecstasy to rouse him. He longed for something greater than that, some kind of stability.
‘God’s blood!’ He sounded as if he was headed for the marriage market. Except it wasn’t a woman he wanted.
‘Lucerne.’ Lauwine seemed such a long time ago, and it hadn’t been easy then. How many hours had he spent cajoling Lucerne into his bed? How many days? Bella had just been the final battle in a long campaign, and he’d enjoyed sparring with her. Still did. He loved the uncertainty between them, the fact that he never knew if they would fuck or fight, the frisson that burned between them. She excited him, but it was different, very different – his hand closed over the warm metal oval that lay against his chest – to the way he felt about Lucerne.
He was still starring blankly across the hall when the door swung inwards below. Vaughan’s gaze dropped to the entryway to find Bella staring up at him, an expression of grim determination upon her face. And he felt it again, that vital spark between them. Memories burned him. The colour was different, but the effect of the heavy riding coat was the same. Three years fell away and he saw her, curious and defiant on the threshold of Lucerne’s library.
She was beautiful.
The wind had whipped the colour back into her cheeks, and while it was clear a maid had spent time arranging her hair, several strands had now escaped the pins and hung in knotted wisps about her face.
‘Vaughan,’ she breathed, and it seemed to break the spell.
She hurried up the stairs to meet him. ‘I came back to talk. We need to …’ She froze just inches from him and her eyes widened in alarm.
‘Miss Rushdale, my lord,’ de Maresi drawled in a seedy purr as he tucked in his shirt tails. He nudged past them and pattered away down the stairs.
‘You’ve been with him.’ The terse accusation echoed across the hall. ‘How dare you? I mean, I knew … But in my room!’ She shook with barely contained rage. ‘You’re worse than Lucerne.’ She lifted her hand as if she meant to strike him, but simply barged past him instead. Vaughan caught her arm and swung her back round to face him, only for her to spit in his face.
He wiped it away slowly, then pushed her against the wall and forced his mouth down upon her.
Bella clawed at him, her throat choked with emotion. She had known about de Maresi but she hadn’t really acknowledged it to herself, hadn’t let it touch her as it did now, as a betrayal.
She sa
w them clearly, entwined upon her bed, as they must have been just moments ago, and the knowledge of it burned until she felt sick in her stomach.
‘Let go!’ She fought against Vaughan’s hold, but remained trapped between the flexing steel of his warm body and the wall. Vaughan quashed her cries, forcing his tongue into her mouth and kissing her hard.
She melted.
Nobody else ever kissed her with the same knee-buckling intensity, with a taste that washed straight to her quaint. She’d never been able to resist his kiss. Never.
‘Get off me,’ she snarled, when he finally pulled back for air.
‘Not yet.’ He locked an arm across his chest, while his body still pressed against her as unyielding as pig iron, and with his free hand he lifted her hem.
Her arousal exposed, Bella turned her head away from his scalding breath. ‘I’m not your plaything. Not even your mistress.’
‘You’re my lover.’ His breath troubled the pulse point in her throat. ‘If not my mistress, what are you, some slattern that needed a bed for a night?’
She snapped her teeth at him, but he merely laughed and pushed his fingers into her heat. His thumb worked bitter circles around her clitoris, driving her onto her toes, gasping for breath. Arousal so thick it felt like bellyache knotted her lower half. Slickly, his fingers worked their magic, driving her to the brink of joy and transforming sharp words into sharper breaths.
She couldn’t speak. She felt his cock lying unbearably hard against her hip, so full of promise.
‘Sing for me, my nightingale. Come.’ He dragged his lips down the side of her neck and sucked. She couldn’t fight it. Shards of frosty hatred cracked into sparklers of delight. The swirl of his thumb, the twist of his fingers brought such sweet, swift pleasure, her limbs trembled.
Bella’s pulse raced with need and expectation. She managed to win one arm free, and immediately dug her fingers into his bottom. The muscles clenched and unclenched as he rocked against her thigh, taking his pleasure from the friction. The dance of their bodies slowed as her breaths became shallow and ragged. Everything was concentrated in her clit and the tingle of her nipples. The whole world seemed to contract into one point as she gasped into his chest and her orgasm rendered her soft and pliant.
Bella snuggled against his shoulder, her eyes wet with tears, content for a moment to simply exist in his embrace.
‘Now you’re even.’ Vaughan disentangled their bodies and stepped back. ‘Don’t ever presume to tell me whom I can bed in my own house.’
She felt the blood return to her face. Her eyes narrowed, but so did Vaughan’s. Was this battle of wills really what she wanted? She longed for Lucerne’s easy smile, the safety of his embrace.
Vaughan was the most exciting, sexually aggressive man she’d ever met. The most perverse, the most infuriating, and it hurt to love him.
God, how it hurt!
‘He won’t come,’ she snarled at his retreating back. ‘Lucerne – he won’t. He doesn’t miss you.’ Let him hurt too, she thought. He deserved the pain.
She knew he heard but he didn’t react, he simply kept walking through the glittering shards of light that pierced the shutters, and the swirling dust motes, until he was gone.
10
THE OTHER RIDERS didn’t return until well into the afternoon. Bella had been pacing for what felt like hours, turning over the scene with Vaughan and her own hypocrisy. When Lucerne had brought home his trull, she’d fled in a rage, but when Vaughan flaunted a lover before her, she allowed him to give her a shattering climax. Why had she permitted it?
The difference was Vaughan.
Henry came into the great hall and interrupted her reverie. ‘You made a good escape.’ He collapsed into a gilt chair and stuck out his booted feet. With an exasperated sigh, Bella grasped one muddy heel and tugged. ‘You should have shoved Devonshire into a ditch before you left. Damn fool nearly got us into a fight with the neighbours.’ One boot down, he presented Bella with the other foot. ‘Some fool rose out of nowhere and grabbed Niamh’s horse, so Devonshire took the whip to him. Not so much as a “who are you, and what’s your business?”’
‘Did he look uncouth?’
‘He crawled out of the brook. Though I have to say, Niamh wasn’t perturbed until Devonshire laid on with the crop. Then she squealed.’
Free of his boots, Henry stretched out his toes, then looked around. ‘Pass that decanter, will you?’ He poured them each a dram of rum. Bella turned hers in her hands. It tasted too raw and fiery for broad daylight, a problem Henry didn’t seem to have.
‘I’m told there’s a history to it, a right old hoo-ha.’ He continued, having swallowed the whole of his draught. ‘Devonshire’s intent on having her, and so is this other fellow.’
‘I suppose he’s just after the title too?’
Henry wound his hair around his finger and ticked the ends against his lips. ‘I can’t say as I had a chance to speak to him. Niamh’s horse bolted, what with all the commotion. I’ve been halfway to Clun and back chasing them.’
‘And is she all right?’
‘Oh, she’s in a fine fettle. Can’t you hear her?’ He cocked his brows towards the solar. ‘Up there, with Pennerley and Devonshire. Damn fool’s wrecked his chances. If he had any to start with.’
Bella moistened her lips, her eyes locked on the small shuttered square. Considering Raffe’s comments earlier, she wondered if he’d wrecked his chances deliberately.
‘He’s laid himself wide open as a target for grandes dames, matchmaking harridans all. Silly fool, thinks his reputation as a rakehell will keep them off, but they ain’t scared of him.’
‘And where do you fit into the noble order of rakehells, roués and reprobates?’
‘Middling.’ He chuckled. ‘They ain’t married me off yet, but they have tried.’ He lurched onto his feet again. ‘Now, let me get out of this ridiculous clobber.’
Bella handed him his boots and strolled with him to the door.
‘Let the storm upstairs blow over before you go rushing in,’ he advised. She watched him from the doorway as, barefoot, he nimbly darted between the mud patches that streaked the courtyard lawn. His riding suit was the most conservative thing she’d ever seen him in. Henry’s idea of decent left much to the imagination. It would probably entail a candy-striped box coat and shoes with pink-studded buckles and, of course, his ubiquitous stockings.
She glanced again at the solar windows. The shouting had now lapsed into painful silence.
Bella was halfway up the stairs when Niamh came rushing out of the solar, her face streaked with tears, but clearly defiant. She caught hold of Bella’s arm and turned her about. ‘Walk with me.’
‘What happened?’
‘I’ll tell you once we’re away from the castle.’
They crossed the muddy ground and turned left towards the church. ‘I don’t blame you for leaving. I know you’re enamoured of my brother and even a minute of his company must be preferable to hours of Raffe’s, but still, Bella, I do wish you’d stayed.’ She gave a loud tut. ‘I shouldn’t have forced him upon you, but I was cross at them inviting themselves, and I couldn’t face listening to any more of his hollow endearments. I swear he is the most arrogant man I have ever met, and he’s reported everything to Vaughan, who is now seethingly cross.’
‘Reported what?’ asked Bella.
‘About me meeting Edward, of course.’
‘Oh! It was deliberate. Yes, I see now why you didn’t want them to come.’
They reached the church boundary wall, where a private moss-grown gate led into the churchyard. Niamh wove a pathway through the gravestones to a weathered tomb. ‘My grandmother,’ she said. ‘She always knew how to make everything right. She knew how to handle Vaughan too.’
‘She must have been an impressive lady.’
Niamh nodded, her gaze lowered. ‘Bella, I realise we hardly know one another, but I hope I can trust your friendship. Lord knows, I need someone to help me
make sense of things.’
‘Go on. I’ll listen.’
They linked arms and began walking again. ‘It’s Vaughan’s fault. He’s being such a dreadful pig. I wish he’d never come home.’ They turned the corner of the church and followed the path towards the distant gate. ‘I tried to do everything properly. Edward called just as soon as Vaughan returned and asked leave to officially court me, but Vaughan wouldn’t have it. He accused Edward of being a fortune-hunter and said that if I wanted to sell myself, he’d invite some more suitable candidates along.’
‘Hence Raffe?’
‘Yes, and Henry, although he’s not so bad, and they’re bound to be a whole host of others invited to the party. It’ll be, here, Niamh, come and entertain the Baron Whatsit, and Lord Layabout, and don’t forget the Duke of Down There.’
Bella stifled a laugh. She wondered if the Duke of Down There was any good down there and if his skill would stand him in good stead. Alas, he was probably an arrogant autocrat like the rest of his peers, who liked to fiddle with himself at the dinner table, although hopefully one of them would catch Niamh’s eye.
Bella pushed aside her mirth and fixed on a serious expression. She did wish people wouldn’t confide in her. She was completely the wrong person to ask advice from, and her own actions proved it. Her best suggestion for Niamh was to elope, but Vaughan would never forgive her if she played a part in his sister running off, so she tactfully kept her mouth closed.
‘We’ve hardly seen each other these last few weeks,’ Niamh was saying. ‘I tried to warn him earlier, but Raffe was on him immediately. I think Vaughan had told him to keep a look-out.’ She stopped abruptly, and gave an astonished gasp. ‘Edward!’
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