“Don’t worry, my love,” he said, the laughter in his voice obvious for all that he suppressed it. “I want to taste you too much to make you suffer. At least not this time.”
He took her cheeks and spread her.
“Very pretty,” he said, his voice shakier, far less amused. And then his tongue was there, cradling her taut bud with a few massaging flicks before he sucked her into his mouth.
“Ah, God, Magnus.”
He shoved her thighs wider and then pulled her toward his open mouth, tonguing her in firm strokes from her entrance to her stiff clitoris, holding her open with his thumbs, plunging his tongue into her.
Her shivers grew increasingly violent as he rhythmically sucked and invaded. He used his teeth, tongue, chin, and even his nose against her, until she was moaning shamelessly, grinding against him. Only then did he insert two fingers into her, rising up onto his knees as he did so, pumping her with deep, slow strokes.
“I want you so much,” she panted, her hips straining to push higher and open wider.
He manipulated her toward climax not once, but three times, bringing her to the edge and then letting her slide back down; it was a naughty trick he’d learned from her. Her lover was a quick learner in every way.
By the time he shoved his long hard thickness into her, she was ready to explode.
He held her still and full, pressing his chest to her back, wrapping his arms around her and forcing her to bear his weight while he stroked her stomach and breasts with one hand and reached between her lower lips with the other, flicking and circling the aching bundle of nerves until she gave in to sensation.
He groaned as she flexed and contracted around him. “I love being inside you while you have an orgasm,” he whispered, leaving her throbbing bud alone while she shuddered with release.
Instead he teased and pinched her nipples to painful hardness—just as she’d taught him to do—and then pulled out of her body until his flared head was all that was inside. And then he plunged back in while the last contractions gripped her body.
He held her covered, his hips stilling. “Too sensitive?” he murmured, his lips smiling against her temple while he flexed his erection inside her, making it dance against the taut, sensitive flesh.
She gave a weak laugh. “You’re a cruel man, Magnus.”
“Mmm hmm.” He began pulsing his hips. “But I think you love it.”
Melissa tightened around him.
“I think you’re ready for more,” he said.
She clenched hard enough to elicit a hiss of surprise.
“Again, Magnus. Please.”
Her words prodded him like the lash of a whip and he grabbed her hips in a punishing hold and rode her, his pounding savage.
“Yes,” she grated, wanting him to know he should take whatever he wanted, however he wanted. “I want all of you.”
He shuddered and slammed into her so fiercely it drove them both face down onto the bed. He kept her trapped beneath his body, his hips, chest, and stomach muscles tensing like hot steel over and over again as he filled her with jets of heat.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They fell asleep, neither of them waking until gray light peeked through the gap in the curtains.
Magnus’s arm and leg were flung over her body, his breathing deep and steady. Melissa did not move; she was not in any hurry to wake him. Part of her thought they could just get up, pack their things, and get in a carriage. They could go anywhere; Magnus was very wealthy. Even if his property was occupied, they could live in Brighton or Bath. Or, if those places were too filled with people who might recognize her, they could go to somewhere farther afield—perhaps Manchester? Leeds? Scotland, Land’s End? Or, God forbid, even the wilds of America?
“Are you awake?”
Well, so much for her dreams. “Yes.”
His arm tightened and drew her closer. “Want to stay in bed? Perhaps for the rest of our lives.”
“You must be reading my mind.”
“Tell me, Melissa.” His voice was weary and she realized perhaps he hadn’t been sleeping at all, but thinking, as she had been.
She inhaled deeply and then exhaled. “Before I tell you everything, I want a promise.”
It was his turn to breathe deeply. “That is not fair, Melissa.”
“No, but then life is not fair.”
He snorted softly. “Very well, what do you want me to promise?”
“Give me your word you’ll not search for the man’s identity or challenge him if you do learn his identity or goad him into challenging you.”
“That is not—well, I am not sure I can promise you that,” he admitted.
“Then I cannot tell you the rest of my pitiful tale.”
She could almost hear his teeth grating against each other. “Fine. I won’t actively search for him. But if I find were to inadvertently find out . . .” He groaned. “Lord, just tell me, Melissa—tell me the worst of it all so that men like Barclay can never use the unknown against us again.”
“Surely you do not expect me to tell you about each and every time I’ve been with a man?”
“You are fencing with me, Melissa. I’m asking you to tell me the extent of your activities with . . . John—” he shoved the word through clenched teeth. “As for the rest—your tenure at The White House, well, I’ve already heard a good deal about that.”
His words sickened, but did not surprise, her. “Where?”
“At my club. Well, my erstwhile club. I shan’t be keeping a membership there, or anywhere else like it. Before you start worrying about that—it’s not a hardship for me. I’ve always found going there vapid and annoying. Now I merely find it vapid and enraging.”
“Oh, Magnus.”
“Oh, Melissa,” he teased. His tone once again became serious. “It’s all I can promise you—not to seek him out.”
She supposed it was as good as she would get. Besides, she would be gone by tomorrow night—what did it matter?
“Fine.”
He moved away, as if to sit up.
“No, don’t go. I want you to hold me. Perhaps if we are touching when I tell you—” she sounded like a fool.
He settled back behind her without a word, but she could feel the anxiety and tension in his coiled body.
“You recall that I told you John changed toward me as I approached my seventeenth birthday?”
“Yes.”
“That is where I diverged from the truth. First, it had actually started earlier than that. The day I turned seventeen was actually the day I was free. But before then, for some months, he’d come to me less and less.”
His arm tightened and she could tell it was not what he expected.
“You see, I’d become too old for him. He liked his mistresses younger. Or at least he liked their bodies to look younger. I, as you may have noticed, have a womanly figure. I went from sylvan and flat to voluptuous rather quickly. I think he would have cast me off then—before I was seventeen—if he’d not put so much money into . . . well, into my training.”
He shivered at the word and then said, “Go on.”
“The other men in his small group did not share his attitudes. In fact, the more womanly I became, the more these men pressured him to, er, share me.”
“Who are these men, Melissa? Who? You can tell me about them, at least?”
“I can’t. Not after you hear the rest.”
“Oh God.” It was so soft she almost didn’t hear it.
“Frequently the men shared their mistresses. John didn’t like sharing—not because of any attachment he bore me, but rather because he had a terror of contracting disease. But one night he was put in a position where to have refused to share me would have been viewed as unusual and unacceptable. Others had brought their mistresses and—” She stopped, surely that was honest enough? Wasn’t it?
She was in agony and just about to speak when he did. “The rest, if you please.”
“He allowed things to happe
n that night as long as, er, sheaths were used.”
This time the silence was all but unbearable. Again, it was Magnus who spoke.
“I’ve heard of such things and, quite frankly, applaud their use.” His rather cold tone turned wry. “Unlike many others—both in the clergy and out—I don’t believe the open availability of sheathes would encourage sexual behavior and I can understand how they would stop the spread of disease. Go on.”
She closed her eyes. “After that first time he began to attend these parties more and more often.”
“You are speaking of orgies.” He breathed in deeply and exhaled a shaky breath, his heart beating hard against hers.
“Yes.” Now that she had begun this confession, she found she did not wish to stop. “Do you remember the woman I told you about—Dorothy?”
“Yes, the one who helped them do this to you.”
She could not deny it. “Dorothy came to me three months before my seventeenth birthday. The original duration of my contract was until I turned eighteen, but she told me I could escape my contract early, and with all the money I was promised. The price was that I would have to attend certain . . . parties. These were the functions I’d only occasionally attended in the past—always leaving early, before—” She struggled to find the words.
“Melissa—”
“No. Let me finish. This was a small club of elite aristocrats that sometimes brought their mistress, sometimes not. They played cards, drank, what have you. I’d sensed a growing pressure among them. I knew they shared their mistresses at these gatherings—yes, they had orgies—but John had never stayed for those occasions. Dorothy told me I’d only have to endure three months to gain a year of freedom. You might not think much about Dorothy, but she warned me of the nights ahead, going so far as to give me laudanum to get through them.”
His arm was so tight it almost cut off her breathing.
“Dorothy had tears in her eyes.” Mel still recalled her words: “I’m dreadfully sorry I became ensnared in this. A mistress is one thing—but . . . this? He is desperate for money and wishes to settle some debts by using you. He has—well, he’s already begun with another girl.”’
“Good God, Melissa.”
She barely heard him. “Dorothy told me that night that she’d renegotiated the agreement on my behalf. I should have been angry, but I knew she was far savvier than I.”
“I’ve done the only thing I can for you, Melissa. I’ve had it written into the agreement that you would leave early—voluntarily—so that he will not bear the expense of your upkeep. You will give him the months until your next birthday in exchange for a year. He will forfeit the house and contents to you if he allows anything to occur without protection. I’m sorry, I know it is nothing, but it’s the best I can do.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” Melissa said, as if Magnus had argued. “Only later did I understand that Dorothy had probably saved my life—not to mention the lives of a few of those men—by insisting on that requirement. Given the way they lived, it was probable that more than one of them was diseased. I refused opium and even alcohol.”
Melissa turned until she faced him. “Why should I turn myself into a dead-eyed addict after enduring everything? No, I would not do it. I’d done nothing wrong. It was him and it was these men.”
A tear leaked out of one eye but Magnus didn’t stop her.
“I had nothing to be ashamed of and vowed I would face all of them head on, not bowing my head or escaping. I especially kept my gaze on him. Because instead of just whoring me out and leaving, he stayed. He didn’t engage in the debauchery—he was too fastidious for orgies—but he enjoyed watching the show with a glass of brandy in his hand.”
Melissa’s vision clouded over with nightmare visions of the past.
“He was so pleased with himself! What a prize he was offering them. He looked on, chatting with the other men. I knew he never cared for me—not even after three years—but I never imagined he would just sit back, preening when they complimented him on my abilities, my obedience, my resilience. All the while smiling—as if he were witnessing nothing more than the breeding of one of his horses. Allowing all those men to—”
Magnus pulled her close. “Stop,” he said. “Please, my love. Stop. I know, I know.”
Melissa hadn’t realized until that moment that she’d been crying so hard her eyes burned. She gave a watery laugh at the irony; she’d never shed a tear back then.
But now she was crying as if her life were ending.
Because it was.
∞∞∞
Thankfully, after the horror of her story, Melissa had fallen asleep, exhausted by the harrowing revisiting of her past.
Magnus sorely wished he’d not accepted his uncle’s invitation to go riding. He would have stayed with her, even though he felt as though his body had been struck by lightning.
Still, she slept so soundly that she didn’t even move when he got up. It was likely he could come back before she woke—she’d never even know he’d gone.
While he didn’t want company, he did need to ride, hard. He would ride with his uncle to the park and then beg off, claiming he needed to return home. And then he’d go off alone for a bruising gallop on Friar. It would be just the thing to work this nerve-wracking energy from him body.
He covered Melissa with blankets and then rang for the maid who’d been assigned to her, telling her not to disturb her mistress.
After he threw on his clothing it was still not light so he went down to the library, only to find the charwoman still setting the fire. After she’d gone, he threw himself into his father’s favorite chair, a ratty old thing his mother always threatened to throw away, and stared into the blaze, re-playing what Melissa had told him.
He’d been beyond horrified by the whole sordid tale of this man named only John.
Had it been wise to hear everything? Probably not. Magnus knew himself; it would be a daily struggle not to hunt and kill the man. Melissa had been wise—as usual—to not give hm a name. Magnus would likely be in Newgate right now if he knew the truth.
But that didn’t stop him from wanting to know.
He was still trying to figure out ways of learning the man’s identity without breaking promises to his wife when he realized pale yellow light was spilling through the gap in the drapes. He pulled the bell.
“Have Kelvin bring Friar around,” he told the footman.
While the man went off to carry out his orders, Magnus went back up to his chambers to check on Melissa: she was still sleeping soundly in the exact same position. He scribbled a quick note at the desk, telling her he’d be back shortly, tiptoed to the bed, and left it propped up on the nightstand in front of the clock, where she couldn’t fail to see it.
Booted and coated, he headed out the front door. Movement across the street drew his gaze and he smiled to himself before turning to the footman.
“Tell Riley to bring Friar across the street to me, I’m going to talk with my uncle.” He strode across the green and put a little distance between him and the house before shouting. “Uncle John.”
His uncle, who’d been speaking to his groom, looked up. “Ah, Magnus—I didn’t really expect you to make it this morning.”
They embraced warmly. His uncle had always been as affectionate as Magnus’s own parents. Although they rarely saw each other now—Magnus’s parents rarely coming to London during the Season—Magnus often saw Lord Vanstone when he came up to Yorkshire to visit. His mother and her elder brother were very close, which meant his uncle visited often.
His lordship looked over Magnus’s shoulder. “I see Kelvin is bring Friar over—still have that old nag, do you?”
Good-natured insults were traded back and forth as his lordship’s groom adjusted the earl’s saddle.
“Town is still very thin,” the earl said after they’d mounted and were headed through the brisk, cold winter morning toward the park. “Perhaps we can have a decent run without tripping over park sau
nterers.” He cut Magnus a sideways smile, “That is if that old bag of bones can manage it.”
Well, so much for a solitary ride. Still, it was better than no ride at all.
“Your wife seems an interesting woman. Do I know her family?”
Magnus shuddered. Lord, he hoped not. “I don’t think so,” he said. “She is not one of our crowd, although she was born and raised in London.”
Even though he was certain his uncle wouldn’t frequent a place like The White House Magnus had decided—as he’d lain sleepless in bed last night—that he didn’t want to give the earl Melissa’s infamous name. Not yet.
It had been his plan not to tell anyone—not even his beloved uncle—anything until after he’d talked to his parents again today. No matter how close he was to Lord Vanstone, his mother and father hadn’t seen fit to share the information with him last night. Magnus had wanted to give them one last chance today to accept the situation and provide a united front.
But being in the comforting company of his Uncle John made him reconsider that decision. Magnus had gone to him for advice in the past on important occasions—like when he’d decided to take orders—and the earl had been a source of encouragement and wisdom. Perhaps he might be so again? After all, it wasn’t as if Magnus could—or wanted to—keep his wife’s identity a secret.
He gave his uncle a surreptitious glance; although the Earl of Vanstone was deeply religious, Magnus knew he did not judge and was a fair man. Just looking at his uncle’s familiar, patrician profile gave him comfort. Magnus would wait to see how he felt about confiding in the earl until after he’d ridden hard enough to clear the anxiety from his taut body and tense mind.
“I didn’t think you would ever marry,” the earl said as he steered his mount around a deep, half-frozen puddle. “I didn’t think you even had time for women.”
“I didn’t have time for them—at least not until Melissa.” Magnus deliberately changed the subject. “Do you usually come to town so early, Uncle?”
“No, but I was coming for Michael’s wedding and decided to arrive a bit early and take care of some business before the session starts.”
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