“I think that’s quite enough.” Robbie plucked the champagne glass out of Sarah’s fingers.
“You should talk.” Sarah had to concentrate to get each word past her uncooperative lips. She knew she wasn’t completely tethered to reality. She liked the feeling. She watched James dance by with a tall, buxom brunette.
“Exactly. An excess of spirits led to your current predicament.”
“Your excess, not mine.” Sarah would have argued further, but she couldn’t focus on the issue long enough to marshal her fuzzy thoughts. She watched the brunette smile up at James. Had he been in her bed yet?
“Does James know you’ve been sampling his champagne so freely?”
Sarah shrugged. “He doesn’t care.”
“Oh, I think he cares very much. Come on, this is the last dance. I’ll haul you around the floor in the hopes that you’ll sober up.”
“I’m not drunk.”
Robbie smiled. “Not quite, perhaps. I’ll bet you have a headache in the morning, though.”
“Are you going to dance or lecture me?”
“Dance, I think. Come on.”
Sarah stepped on Robbie’s toes twice. She lost her balance through one of the turns, but Robbie kept her upright. As the music ended, he led her over to James. The brunette had already been deposited with her chaperone.
“You want me to lean Sarah in the corner somewhere?”
James examined her. She glowered back at him.
“A little too much champagne?”
“No,” she said.
“Yes,” Robbie said.
“Come along.” James took her arm. “It’s time to say good night to our guests. If you stand still and don’t talk too much, you’ll be fine.”
Robbie was the last to leave. After the door closed behind him, Lizzie skipped over and hugged James.
“That was wonderful!” She spun across the entry hall, her dress whirling out in a frothy billow. “I danced every dance! I’m so excited, I’ll never be able to sleep.”
“Then I guess we’ll just have to turn away all the young bucks who come visiting in the morning,” Lady Amanda said as she started up the stairs. “We’ll say you’re indisposed.”
Lizzie stopped in mid-spin. “Oh, no! Don’t do that!”
Lady Gladys chuckled. “Off to bed with you then, if you don’t want to look hagged for all your admirers.” She took Lizzie’s arm, but paused on the first step to glance over her shoulder. “Coming, Sarah?”
James took Sarah’s hand. “I’m afraid I’m going to detain Sarah just a few more minutes. We have some things to discuss.”
Lady Gladys rolled her eyes. “You don’t fool me, boy. I was young once, you know, hard as that may be to believe. Just don’t get too lost in your ‘discussion.’ I’m all for your early wedding, but I don’t want the guests counting the months till your heir is born.”
James chuckled. “Aunt! Please be a little more discreet. Poor Sarah and Lizzie are as red as pomegranates.”
“Balderdash. Come along, Lizzie. We’ll leave these two lovebirds alone.”
Lizzie winked at Sarah and helped Lady Gladys up the steps. Sarah watched them until she felt James tug on her hand. She went with him into his study. She knew it was not a good idea, but her brain was no longer in charge of her actions. Something else was guiding her now, some need she didn’t understand. Her good sense was just a spectator.
James closed the door quietly behind them. Sarah’s awareness of him, of his body with its planes and angles, muscles and strength, hit her in the throat. Her eyes traced the line of his jaw against the soft whiteness of his cravat, stopping at the defined curve of his lips. She wanted to touch those lips, to feel them on her skin. She was breathless, expectant.
He led her over to his big chair. The room was shadowy, lit only by the banked fire. He sat down and tugged her gently onto his lap. She sank into the strength of his thighs, the wall of his chest, the warmth of his arms.
“Mmm, you taste good.” James’s words rumbled past her ear as his lips, soft as worn velvet, grazed over her earlobe, down her jaw, to the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat. “I thought I would go mad whenever I saw you dancing with another man tonight. When I found you in the refreshment room with Charles, I felt battle rage, and Charles is one of my closest friends.”
His tongue flicked over the seam of her lips. She inhaled in surprise, and he came into her, filling her. She was overwhelmed by the intimacy of the action, transfixed by the rough sweetness of his tongue, the tangy smell of his skin, the latent power of his body. Her head fell back against his shoulder. She pulsed with a dark, wet heat that pooled between her legs. His hand cupped her breast and she moaned. She ached there, too. She shifted in his lap, trying to get closer. His thumb rubbed lightly over her nipple.
It was the faintest touch, but the shock of it flashed through her body, clearing the champagne fog from her mind. She stiffened and struggled, pushing against his chest. His arms loosened immediately and she sat up, gasping and shivering.
James had had his tongue in her mouth and his hands on parts of her body even she barely touched. And the throbbing down there…Sarah shook her head, but the thought and the feeling didn’t leave. God in heaven. James was definitely turning her into a wanton. Was this how he started with all his women? Made them so mindless they would do whatever he wanted? Or was this just how the ton behaved—all those beautiful, sophisticated worldly women. Well, Sarah wasn’t worldly. She was just a provincial, naive American.
“Sarah?”
“Richard said the ton calls you ‘Monk.’”
“Did he?” There was no inflection in James’s voice, but his body told the truth of it. His hands dropped away from her. She was still sitting in his lap, but she might as well have been sitting in the straightest, most formal chair.
She didn’t need to ask, but she did anyway. “Is it true?” The words were shrill, defensive. Just like the foolish little virgin she was.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s true.”
Chapter 8
James heard the door close behind Sarah. He should have risen when she had, but his manners had abandoned him. Truthfully, he couldn’t move. The pain of Sarah’s rejection was paralyzing.
He stared into the fire. What had he done wrong? He could have sworn Sarah had responded to him. He had felt her sweet bottom squirm against his heat, had heard her little moans of pleasure. Had he misunderstood? Had he been so caught up in his own passion that he had misinterpreted her reactions?
When she had first pulled away, he’d thought he had frightened her, that he had gone too fast. But then she had thrown that bloody nickname in his teeth.
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. God, desire still pounded through his body, making it hard to think. He took a deep, shuddering breath.
What the hell had he done wrong? In an instant she had gone from hot and pliant to cold and stiff. Her beautiful lips, swollen from his kisses, had twisted in disgust. He had felt like a clumsy boy again.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The bloody nickname went back to Cambridge and Richard, of course. Richard had spread it throughout the school once he’d gotten wind of James’s disastrous trip to the Dancing Piper.
It was an ugly memory. On James’s sixteenth birthday his father had paid him a rare visit.
“Sixteen! Time you learned to be a man, son.”
“I thought I was learning to be a man, Father.” James had actually been happy to see the duke. He missed Alvord; he missed Aunt Gladys and Lizzie, who was then only five years old. “How are things at Alvord?”
“Well I’m sure. They’d send word if anything was amiss. Haven’t been at Alvord for a while, you know. Came out from London. More to do there.”
James had stared at his father. At sixteen, he couldn’t imagine anything better than being at Alvord.
“Now, James, I’ve got quite a treat planned for you.” His father had looked everywhere but a
t him. “You aren’t still a virgin, are you? Haven’t tumbled one of the maids at Alvord? That yaller-haired girl—Meg’s her name. Or is it Mary? She’s quite accommodating, as I remember. Had a piece of her, lad?”
James had felt his ears burn. He’d swallowed, his mouth as dry as dust.
“No, heh? Well, that’s why I came, James. Hell, by the time I was sixteen, I must have laid at least a half-dozen girls. I’m giving you a birthday present, lad. We’re off to the Dancing Piper.”
James had heard Richard and the other boys talk about the Dancing Piper. Nerves twisted his gut. “I don’t think I can go, Father. I have to finish my Cicero.”
“Put those damn books down. There’s more to life than books, boy. It’s past time you learned that.”
James had to admit, as he matched his steps to the duke’s, that excitement twisted alongside the dread in his stomach. He was sixteen. He noticed women. He’d been dreaming of them for a while, but his fantasies always turned vague at the most interesting parts. Perhaps now he would be able to fill in some details.
He had walked past the Dancing Piper many times, detouring to view the building that held such mysteries. The outside was not impressive. It looked like any other tavern or small inn. The sign needed a fresh coat of paint and one of the windows was cracked, but James was willing to reserve judgment.
“Place’s grown a bit shabby,” his father muttered. He pushed open the front door.
The first thing that struck James was the smell—the stink of stale ale and stale bodies. The common room was dark; the ceiling, low. Smoke from the candles and the fireplace made the air thick. James felt the walls close in on him and his stomach twisted again. He took a deep breath. A mistake. He started coughing. His father whacked him on the back.
“Yer grace, what a surprise!”
James found himself staring down at the largest breasts he had ever seen. He straightened quickly. The breasts belonged to an otherwise small woman. In the murky light, her hair looked blond. Squinting, James saw the lines she had tried to cover with paint around her mouth and eyes. He was appalled to see her link her arm through his father’s and lean those large breasts against his father’s side.
“To what do we owe the honor of yer presence?”
James watched his father preen under this female’s attention.
“I’ve brought my son for a little polishing, Dolly. Well, more than a little. He’s got no damn experience at all.”
Dolly turned her small, calculating eyes to James. “A fine, strapping lad like this and never been with a woman?” Dolly did not bother to keep her voice down. James saw a pair of older boys he knew sniggering.
“He spends all his time with his nose buried in his books.” His father shook his head. “Hard to believe he’s my son.”
Dolly laughed. “True. If he didn’t look so much like ye at that age—and if his mother wasn’t that cold piece ye married—I’d have my doubts. Well, don’t worry, love, we’ll take care of him. Can’t guarantee that he’ll be the expert his papa is, but at least he’ll know his way around a bed when this night is over.”
“I’m not asking for miracles. Whom do you have in mind?”
Dolly scratched her ear. James was very much afraid that he saw some movement in her elaborate hairstyle. Not lice, too. He desperately wanted to be back in his room with his Cicero.
“Fanny. She’s had years of experience with young cubs. They can be very, um, frustrating, ye know.” Dolly checked the timepiece pinned inside her minimal bodice. “She should be finished with her customer soon. Roland never takes very long. Ah, here she is now.”
James looked up at the couple coming down the stairs. His eyes slid past the balding, paunchy man—and then swung back. He truly was afraid he would puke right there in front of everyone. The maligned Roland was Mr. Richardson, his Greek don.
“Fanny!” Dolly called out. James slumped down and tried to back into a darker shadow. Fortunately it appeared that Richardson was exceedingly drunk. “Fanny, come here.”
Fanny bestowed a farewell pat on Richardson’s rump and slouched over to them. Her eyes immediately fastened on the duke. She was a businesswoman, first and foremost, James surmised. She knew who had the deepest pockets. When Dolly indicated that James was her chosen customer, she shrugged and turned her attention to him. He felt her eyes assess his face, his shoulders, his hips and his groin. He felt naked. His palms began to sweat. His stomach twisted sharply, and he swallowed bile.
Fanny smiled. James’s eyes fastened on her painted lips and rotting teeth.
“Come on, then, dukeling. Fanny will teach ye what ye need to know.”
James looked at his father, sure his eyes rolled like a panicked horse’s, but his father was too busy staring down Dolly’s dress.
“Go along, son. Dolly will keep me entertained, won’t you, m’dear?”
Dolly took his father’s hand and put it on one of her breasts. “Very entertained,” she purred.
Fanny grabbed James’s arm and started pulling him up the stairs. “Don’t be bashful. Fanny gots just what ye need.”
James felt that what Fanny very much needed was a good scrubbing. She smelled of garlic and onions, sweat and Richardson.
Her room was small. The bed took up the main area—the sheets were still rumpled from her work with Richardson. James averted his eyes. A mistake. The walls were decorated with pornographic prints.
“Like the pictures, do ye?”
James turned his eyes back to Fanny. She had made short work of ridding herself of her dress.
She was the first woman James had seen naked. She was probably in her mid-to-late thirties, old enough to be his mother. Her sizable breasts drooped onto her ample stomach. She scratched the matted thatch at the apex of her legs. His face began to sweat and he looked for the chamber pot. Please, let it be empty, he thought. He had hopes. That was one scent he had not yet detected in the room. He sidled towards the bed. The chamber pot should be near it.
“Eager, are ye?” Fanny walked toward him. James increased his pace. She laughed. “Ye cubs are all the same. Eager to bed, eager to come. Fanny’ll teach ye how to slow down.”
James thought he saw the pot under the bed. He was almost within reach. He swallowed. If he breathed through his mouth, he wouldn’t smell anything. Maybe his stomach would settle.
“I’ll help ye with yer breeches.” Fanny stepped close in front of him. James watched a large louse navigate an oily brown strand of hair that had fallen over her forehead. She grabbed his crotch and leered up at him.
“How’s that?”
It was too much. The smells of unwashed hair, sweat, sex, and rotting teeth were strong enough for James to taste. He made a dive for the chamber pot. His last coherent thought was a prayer of thanksgiving that it was empty. Then he concentrated on emptying his stomach.
James sat up in his chair, shaking his head to dispel the memory. From the distance of all these years, the scene was almost funny. Fanny had been extremely put out to have a man puking in her room, apparently as a result of her charms. She stormed out to find Dolly and complain. Dolly was entertaining the duke and neither she nor James’s father had been pleased to be interrupted. His father had stalked into Fanny’s room, tucking his shirt in as he came. He had grabbed James by the collar and hauled him down the stairs, out into the blessedly fresh air.
He got up to pour himself some brandy. That evening had been a disaster. Wickam and Landers, the boys who’d seen him, had spread the tale. By the next morning—if not before—Richard had known every detail and had publicly christened him “Monk.”
He watched the brandy tumble into his glass.
But that did not explain why he had become a monk in truth. Why had he lived up to Richard’s stupid nickname? He couldn’t really say. He certainly thought about sex enough. But Dolly and Fanny had given him a bad taste for brothels, and he didn’t much like the notion of using another man’s wife. Plenty of maids and serving wenches ha
d offered to warm his sheets, but taking them seemed wrong, too. He was a duke, a peer. How could he use girls with so little freedom for his personal satisfaction? His duty was to protect his people, not prey on them. And merely because a girl did not live on Alvord land, did that make her any less worthy of his protection?
Truthfully, until he’d seen Sarah in his bed, he had not been seriously tempted.
But Sarah—he wanted her like a starving man wanted food.
He studied the brandy in his glass and added a touch more. He took a sip and held it on his tongue. Nothing could warm the chill he felt at Sarah’s leaving.
This proposed marriage had become more than a rational arrangement. Somehow the dreamy boy he’d been before his trip to the Dancing Piper had been resurrected. That idiot who had believed in love and goodness, honesty and faithfulness was now haunting his body. His heart, which until this moment had done an adequate job of keeping him alive, ached for an intangible pipe dream. For Sarah. For her love.
His fingers convulsed around the stem of the brandy snifter. He thought about throwing it into the fire, about how the glass would shatter and the brandy would make the flames flare. But he would still have this infernal ache.
Carefully, he put the glass down on his desk and went upstairs to bed.
“He wants her.”
Philip Gadner stuck his finger between the pages of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage to mark his place. He leaned back in the leather chair and looked up at Richard.
“Why do you say so? Did he drool down her décolletage?”
“Didn’t he just?” Richard reached for the brandy decanter. “If he hadn’t been in the bloody ballroom, he’d have had her skirts over her head.” He threw the glassful of brandy down his throat. “Ballroom—ha! That’s exactly what old James wanted—room to ball his American whore.”
“James?” Philip frowned. He could not imagine James losing control of himself. “What exactly did he do?”
“He danced with the whore!” Richard hurled his glass at the fireplace. It exploded against the stone.
Sally MacKenzie Bundle Page 133