“Some love?” she suggested.
Neddy tilted his head forward, and peered up at her from beneath his furrowed brows as if considering. His expression loosened into a beaming smile. “No, Miss Allenthorpe. A snowman.” He darted around her and capered away across the uneven earth, scooping snow into a ball.
Fortuna clapped her hands in delight. He reminded her of an exuberant puppy dog; nothing like the sculpted, sexual being she had previously watched copulate before the drawing room fire. Neddy, like Giles was a curious dichotomy, two seemingly opposite things at the same time.
“I saw you with Lady Darleston,” she admitted, when he caught her staring at him.
Neddy peered up at her from beneath his long fringe, from where he was bent rolling a second snowball. “I know. I saw you too. So, which was holding you back from joining us, my brother, your morals, or the fact that I’m not Giles?”
She gasped, shocked by his lack of embarrassment, and the impertinence of the question. If he’d known she was there, had he heard her describing him? Had he thought about touching her, filling her with his cock, in the same way he’d driven into Lucy?
“I know you practice free love,” she blurted.
“Has Giles given you the indoctrination speech? Wonderfully idealistic, ain’t it?” He lifted the snowman’s head into place, then faced her, his eyes slightly narrowed behind his curtain of hair. After a moment, when she hadn’t replied, he shrugged his shoulders, and started hunting about in the snow. “Say, help me find some arms and eyes, won’t you? I have a carrot for a nose.” He dug in the pocket of his great coat and pulled out a brilliant orange specimen, which he jammed into the centre of the head.
“You carry carrots about?” she spluttered, startled into speech. Truly, he was incredible.
“Why yes, now that you mention it.” He thoughtfully squeezed his cleft chin. “I have had this one on me for a few days. Quite a few,” he flicked it dubiously, “given that it’s rather bendy. But, one never knows when the opportunity for these pleasures will arise, and it’s always the nose I struggle to find.”
Fortuna gave a rather un-lady-like snort of laughter, imagining him sneaking up on unsuspecting women in the park, brandishing his orange root and blithely suggesting they roll snow together. No wonder the society mamas warned their daughters to stay away from him, he was impossible not to like, easygoing, and totally charming.
“How are you doing finding those arms?” he asked.
Fortuna hunted among the beans and found him some twigs, which he pushed into the snowman’s sides.
“You’re not really alike, are you? You and your brother.”
“We’re identical.”
“Physically, maybe, but not inside.”
He rested his elbow upon the snowman’s head, and considered. “That’s a curious way of putting it. The thing you have to remember about us is that Robert carries all the burdens. I just bear a meagre allowance. And I know which of us I consider the most unfortunate.” He winked at her, then pressed two stones into the giant snowball for eyes. “Anything else you’d like to know or get off your chest, or shall we save them for a future tête-à-tête?”
“There is one thing.” She pursed her lips. “Why do they call you Neddy? Isn’t your name Alberic?”
Neddy snorted, and a tear ran down his cheek when he tried to stifle a further explosive laugh. “Miss Allenthorpe, you’ve seen me naked. Work it out for yourself. If you can’t, you’re too innocent to know, and I shall mercilessly rib Giles when he appears for comprehensively failing with your education.”
Perplexed, she crossed her arms. Nothing she’d observed of him while naked provided any clue to his nickname. Her petulant frown lasted but a moment though, as Neddy waved and called out at two grey clad figures strolling towards them across the lawn. Finally, Giles had come home, and he had with him Neddy’s brother.
“Look at them, thick as thieves,” Neddy observed. “They’re always like that you know. Watch out, Robert will get horribly jealous if you start squeezing between them.”
Fortuna glanced at the pair, who were hunched rather close, clearly deep in conversation.
“Let’s have some fun.” Neddy rolled a third, much smaller snowball, and lobbed it towards the other men.
Aim perfect, the snowball exploded across the front of Darleston’s chest.
His lordship looked down at the frosty smear and dusted it off. He raised his gloved hand in a kind of tensed warning, before launching a retaliatory volley that hit his brother square in the face.
Neddy spluttered ice. He coughed so hard that Fortuna was obliged to pat his back. She scurried away as further missiles flew back and forth, yelping as they landed around her feet, until her borrowed footwear snagged against a freshly uncovered plant pot. Neddy put an arm out to save her, and she ploughed into him, driving him backwards onto the snowman, which collapsed beneath their combined weight.
Shock stole her breath. Disorientated, she flapped her arms and wriggled. Neddy lay warm beneath her, his body a series of sharply defined ridges and sturdy prominences that moulded perfectly to her own contours. Further panicked by how close they lay, her hands fluttered over parts of his anatomy ladies weren’t meant to touch.
Neddy just lay back and laughed. “You know, it’ll be much easier to get up if you stop wriggling.”
Gloved hands closed around her upper arms and lifted her upright. Giles pulled her close and cradled her against his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she sniffed.
The grey wool coat carried his scent. She snuggled against it, and let his warmth seep into her cold limbs. They were being watched, but she no longer cared, just pleased to see him again. She lifted her chin up to meet his gaze and he brushed his lips against hers. His mouth tasted of fire, the mobile press unbearably sweet. She clung to him, and swept her tongue against his in a lusty waltz.
“Dash it! This arrangement needs some levelling. I get crushed and you get kissed. That’s hardly fair.” Neddy struggled onto his feet, and dusted himself off.
Giles momentarily turned his head away from Fortuna, his dark brows slightly raised. “What are you suggesting?” He resumed his hold on Fortuna, now pressing delicate kisses to her eyelids and the tip of her nose before returning to her lips.
“That he gets a kiss as well,” Darleston interjected. His languid burr rode the crisp air like a snowflake. “That would seem only fair, Giles.”
Giles’s fingers tightened around her waist, whilst Neddy slapped his brother on the back.
“Sometimes, Robert, I genuinely appreciate having you as a brother. That is only sometimes, mind you.” His fair face full of wickedness, Neddy paced towards her and Giles. He stopped just an inch from them, and smiling at Giles asked, “Mind if I cut in?”
Giles clasped her possessively tight. “Actually, I do. You’d best address your request to Miss Allenthorpe.”
Neddy clasped the hand she had pressed to Giles’s shoulder, and raised it to his lips. He grazed their surface across the back of her hand. “Don’t mind him. He’s all about freedom. What do you say to us making this grand show of affection a triumvirate?” To her surprise, Neddy snuggled up against her back, neatly sandwiching her between himself and Giles. It was a curious sensation being pressed upon from both sides, and feeling two warm bodies contour themselves to her shape. Though she was hardly small, both men towered over her, making her feel distinctly fragile. Giles’s breath blew hot against her cheek. Neddy rested his head upon her shoulder.
“Oh, expertly done. A rose between two thorns.” Darleston applauded.
It was on the tip of her tongue to protest, but then Neddy’s loins rubbed against her bottom, and desire rocketed through her body, lifting her breasts, and peaking her nipples. Giles nudged his hips forward against her too, and she revelled in the dual embrace, and how comfortable and aroused it made her.
When, on the balcony at Darleston House, Giles had commented that friends
shared, she had never for a moment envisaged a scenario such as this. Yet she had heard tell of such things. Rumours passed around the assembly rooms about the vices in which men engaged. Tales of trips to bordellos and cunny warrens and of bawds prepared to satisfy two men at once. Things her chaperone had tried to stopper her ears against.
Free love—it wasn’t just about the abhorrence of marriage it was about the exploration of other possibilities too. Acceptance. Seeing things in a different way.
Was it possible to love two men at once?
“Fortuna.” Giles’s voice was soft against her ear. He sought her gaze. “Does this please you? I can have him unhand you, if you prefer.”
“No, it’s interesting,” she mouthed, despite the butterflies of uncertainty in her stomach. “I’m just a little shocked.”
He sought her lips again. “Relax. I’ll keep him in check. We won’t do anything you don’t want.”
“Will you promise to do everything I do want?” she asked.
Neddy gave a long craving groan. “I could go off just from hearing you say that. Tell her yes, Giles. If you’re not up for it, I am.”
“I don’t think I’ve the strength to refuse,” said Giles. He dipped his head and she kissed him. He let her take charge, opening his mouth and letting her tongue dart in, while Neddy clove to her back.
Despite the numerous layers of clothing between them, she felt him become hard. His erection pressed against her bottom.
“Oh!” she gasped, when he moved and nuzzled against the side of her neck.
Fortuna squirmed between the two men.
Neddy’s breath was loud and hot. When he teased her earlobe with his tongue, the resulting sensation swept erotic tingles throughout her insides. She freed one arm from around Giles’s back, and lifted it to Neddy, pushed it deep into his auburn hair.
Disguised by her clothing, her nipples pushed up hard against her stays, begging attention. She wanted to feel their mouths close around the puckered bud and have them suck hard. She wanted to lie between them naked, and know that their cocks stood rigid, aroused and eager to fill her. She moaned and pressed herself urgently against them. She’d wanted Giles from the start. Now she desired both of them.
“I think you’ve found yourselves a rose that’s already been plucked, gentlemen. Virgins just don’t writhe like that,” Darleston remarked.
Fortuna jerked her head away from Giles’s kiss and in Darleston’s direction. He was standing beneath the archway of the rhododendron bush, with the capes of his great coat fanned out behind him like a peacock’s tail feathers. He raised his eyebrows in challenge to her glare.
Fortuna gulped. The remark stung, but she knew it was deserved. She was behaving like a doxy. What was she thinking, rubbing up against two men?
Darleston lit a cigar and sent a wreath of smoke skywards. “Time to say your goodbyes, Neddy. You’ll have to save making a buttered bun of Miss Allenthorpe for another day. We’re due at the Morton’s for dinner in an hour.” He nodded at Giles, and then at her. “I trust Giles will satisfy your base urges for one night. Good evening.”
Fortuna gawped at him as Darleston turned his back on their little huddle and strolled back towards the house.
“Ignore him,” both Giles and Neddy whispered. “He enjoys being a sour puss.”
“He’s probably jealous that no one has given him a kiss.”
The twins departed. From the drawing room window, Fortuna watched their carriage rattle away, though she took care to keep herself hidden. She was safe, on a grand scale, her reputation for the moment at least, still intact. A sore throat. She wondered how long her family would maintain the deception, a day or two more, surely not much above a week. Not that it mattered; everything would spill out in the end. You couldn’t brush a good scandal under the carpet, and well, once her reputation was damaged there’d be no recovering it. She thought of Giles and Neddy pressed against her again, and grinned. She may as well embrace her damnation fully, and enjoy the freedom she had while it lasted.
Giles came indoors from seeing the carriage off. He shrugged his great coat into Leach’s waiting arms, then crossed to warm his hands by the fire. He was not the handsomest man she had ever met, but there were pleasing, appealing things about his make up. His eyes were certainly one of his best features. They always expressed such fervour. When he looked at you and spoke, you knew he meant what he said. They sparked too, when things roused him to anger.
She trusted him to keep her safe, something she’d trusted no other man but her father and brother to do. While she couldn’t agree with her father’s choice of husband for her, she knew he had her best interests at heart.
“We’ll eat early again, if that’s agreeable,” he said.
Fortuna nodded. Breakfast had been many hours ago, and Leach had failed to provide any sort of luncheon, although, perhaps she ought to have rung and asked for tea and some light repast.
“I’ll have Leach lay out something for you to wear.”
“Don’t you have a maid who could help me dress?” There were curiously few people in his house, a cook presumably, though she hadn’t seen one, and Leach, his man, but surely that wasn’t it, for such a large property.
“Kitty, a maid-of-all-work, but I’ve sent her home for the week. She’s a notorious tattletale. Keeping her here while you’re present would amount to advertising your whereabouts in the newspapers. Don’t worry, she’s not suspicious of her leave, she asked if she could be spared a few hours a few days ago, because her mother is ill. She thinks I’m being generous.”
A week, thought Fortuna. Had he already put a time limit on her stay? Perhaps he thought the deception wouldn’t survive any longer.
“I’ll have him choose something simple, that you’ll have no trouble with,” said Giles.
* * * * *
Twenty minutes until dinner, and Giles stood with his brow pressed to the cold glass of the cheval mirror in his dressing room. Damnit if things weren’t getting out of hand. He’d felt like a raging bull most of the day and had taken himself out of the house for that very reason. Now, after the encounter in the garden, he felt possessive as well as aroused. Sharing her affections with the twins hadn’t been on the agenda. Still— and he shook his head to think of it—how could he deny her, when excitement at the prospect had shone in her face, and the change it had made in the way she kissed... Well, that had damn near undone him.
He couldn’t let her awakening interests consume him entirely, though. There were other issues to think over. Sir Hector Macleane for example. According to Darleston and the gossip mill, Macleane had spent almost the entirety of the last two days at the Allenthorpes’s house. Surely, he wasn’t expecting Fortuna to turn up virago intacta and marry him. It didn’t make sense. Macleane’s views on women, virtue and marriage were well known. His previous two brides had both been girls fresh from the convent. Both French too. Neither had survived eighteen months of marriage with him, one succumbing to the ague, and the other to some wasting sickness. “What are you after, you overstuffed prick?” he wondered aloud. “Why are you so set upon her?”
“Were you asking me something, sir?” Leach bustled into the room carrying a pile of starched neck cloths. He handed the topmost one to Giles and placed the remainder on a nearby stool.
Giles eyed the crisp white linen a moment then began to wind it around his throat. Darleston had passed on Lucy’s threats to expose Fortuna whereabouts. He’d always known she was a bitter, jealous scold, but he’d never pegged her as being quite this vindictive before. Damn, the woman to some Catholic vision of hell.
What was going on? When he’d offered to look out for Fortuna on the snowy terrace it had all seemed astoundingly simple. They disappeared into the moonlight. She escaped an unwanted marriage and he had some fun with a lady instead of a trollop for a change.
Having botched the knot of his cravat, Giles thrust the crumpled fabric aside and reached for another.
“You seem a littl
e unsettled, sir,” Leach observed.
“Just get over here and fasten this damn thing will you?”
Leach obeyed, and then helped Giles into his evening coat. “I believe the lady is already waiting, sir. There wasn’t much to choose from that she could get into herself. Ladies need a maid.”
Giles batted him away. Excellent! They’d sit down to a nice civilized dinner together and he’d keep his damnable thoughts of stripping her naked under control until they’d finished the meal.
She was awaiting him at the top of the stairs.
Giles glimpsed her and darn near fainted. All the heat he’d felt moments ago drained from his body. How could he have made such a stupid mistake? He should have picked something out for her to wear, not left it to Leach.
The dress was a simple slender column of the palest turquoise. It sheathed her lithe body to perfection, just as it had sheathed another’s not so long ago. She was beautiful, radiant, but his desire for her was abruptly rerouted.
Stupid, so very stupid!
He should have burned that dress, rendered it into ashes. Emily had worn it the night he’d forced her compliance. The night he’d irredeemably disgraced himself. He’d been an abysmal brother, forcing her into that marriage, and it had all been for nothing in the end. At the time it had been so easy to blame his father, but really, he was the one who’d sold his sister to keep the roof over his head.
* * * * *
Fortuna felt like a water nymph in her slender high-waisted gown and delicate white lace shawl. They were two of the most beautiful things she’d ever worn. Giles’s family clearly had money, despite the lack of servants in his household, or at least more money than the Allenthorpes, who while they could trace their line back to the Norman Conquest, had to rely on their shipping interests to maintain their status.
Giles bowed to her, and held her chair so that she could sit. He had dressed in a dark blue coat with matching breeches, and a waistcoat of cream silk brocade. How she wanted to reach out and touch it. Stroke her fingers over the satiny fabric, and feel the heat of his body radiating through it. His cravat was slightly crooked, but when she reached out to correct it, he backed away.
Three Times the Scandal (Georgian Rakehells) Page 9