This was her one chance to be with him. The notion pounded through her, crowding out logic and caution.
Marcus knew more of her body’s secrets than she knew herself. Every touch was sublime torture. With each caress her need for him became greater, until it all but consumed her. She could never get enough of this, not if they stayed here in this chamber together until the end of time.
He was everything she’d ever wanted. Everything she’d dreamed. She fell into his kiss, into his heat and hunger. When he slowed his pace, she cried out in protest. God forbid she’d have time to think about the wisdom of this encounter, about consequences.
Her gown loosened, then whooshed to the floor. He turned her, kissed her nape with exquisite attention as his hands reached around her to cup and fondle her breasts. Tiny thrills skidded through her. When he grazed her sensitive skin with his teeth, she bit back a cry.
His lips drifted over her shoulder, his hands rubbing her nipples through corset and chemise.
Her legs seemed to melt in the hot, heavy night. She couldn’t stop the pleasured moan that escaped her. Georgie leaned back against him, relishing the feel of his thumbs flicking, circling, rubbing her.
She didn’t want to feel this deeply. Even as he made her body sing beneath his hands and lips and tongue, her heart ached. There would be no more of this after tonight. No more of him for her, ever.
The hardness of his erection pressed against the small of her back. His breathing was harsh and hot in her ear as he continued to play with her breasts. There were no whispered endearments, no murmurs of encouragement. She supposed he didn’t waste words on the women he took so casually to his bed.
Suddenly, the man undressing her, seducing her without love or tenderness or any sentiment at all, seemed a stranger. And she was a stranger to him tonight. He did not know he did all this to his former betrothed, to Georgie Black.
She turned in his arms but before she could speak, he took her mouth again, wildly, and whatever she’d meant to say flew from her consciousness. He slid his lips down her throat, bit down, setting off explosions of pleasure that radiated through her body. She threw her head back and cried out his name, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
He froze. Then he muttered an oath into her shoulder.
Confusion scattered over her. “What is it?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”
“Damn it to hell, it’s no use.” The suppressed violence in his tone shocked her more than the fervor of his lovemaking.
Beckenham swung away from her, raking both hands through his hair. She thought he might speak, but he shook his head, snatched up his clothes, and strode to the door.
He was leaving her. After all this, he simply walked away.
Grief at losing him once more plunged through her. Before she could stop herself, she called after him, “My lord!”
He halted, looked back.
Her voice came out as no more than a whisper. “Don’t go.”
She stood there, half-naked before him, more vulnerable than she’d ever felt before. Begging him to stay.
He stared at her in silence; then his fingers gripped the doorknob. “Get dressed and leave this place,” he said tightly. “You don’t belong here.”
Oh, Marcus, she thought.
The door closed quietly behind him.
Chapter Three
Beckenham had actually stridden several paces down the corridor before he recalled he hadn’t even put on his shirt in his haste to get away from her.
With a biting oath, he ducked into the next bedchamber he came across. The room lay in darkness, its heavy brocade curtains drawn. He groped for a chair on which to throw his belongings, then began to dress.
Marcus, she’d said. She was the only one who’d ever called him that. Even his cousins, as dear to him as brothers and sisters, had always referred to him by his title.
Marcus. How completely she’d undone his furious resolve with that one small word.
The mere recollection of the husky timbre of her voice as she’d said it abraded all his nerve endings, sent a hot spear of lust through his vitals.
He pushed his shirttails into his trousers, trying to ignore the powerful erection that strained to break free. He wanted her fiercely. That had never changed—would never change, he suspected. He’d been right to avoid London society, avoid her all these years.
He was not a man given to melodrama; he’d often cursed his own weakness and folly for never attempting to be in the same ballroom as the woman who’d rejected him. Now he knew such extreme caution had not been in vain. He couldn’t be in the same county as Georgiana Black and resist her siren’s lure.
But no matter the strength of his attraction to her, he’d never, not once betrayed his own notions of gentlemanly behavior while they were betrothed. The shock of seeing her tonight in such an unlikely and suggestive setting had unbalanced him, sublimated his desire and transformed it to fury. Fury had brought a sense that he was somehow entitled to slake his lust upon her.
What he’d done to her tonight was wrong. So wrong, in fact, that he could only be glad she’d kept up the pretense of anonymity. Better she think him a conscienceless rake than the alternative.
Shame twisted inside him like a whiplash. He’d acted like a man possessed. Were he to hear of another man behaving as he had tonight, he’d condemn him without pause.
Beckenham finished buttoning his waistcoat and donned his coat. He had no hope of tying his disheveled cravat, so he didn’t make the attempt. At least the bedchamber allotted him was on this floor. He’d reach it without having to go through the more heavily populated public rooms of the house.
And wasn’t that just his luck? When he arrived in his bedchamber, he found his cousin awaiting him. An orgy raged on downstairs, but Xavier eschewed it so he could meddle in Beckenham’s affairs.
He bit out an ugly curse. His own ramshackle appearance made it all too clear what had transpired in that quiet, airless bedchamber mere corridors away.
“Back so soon?” Xavier regarded him with evil delight glinting from those sapphirine depths. “Ought my commiserations be offered to you or to the lady?”
He sent his cousin a fulminating glare.
Xavier smiled wolfishly. “Dear me. Your reputation as the greatest lover ever seems to have suffered a beating tonight.”
“Go to hell.”
Damn it, but Xavier was enjoying this. Giving him neither answer nor explanation, Beckenham crossed the room and poured himself a drink with an unsteady hand. The brandy caught fire in his throat, warmed his belly. His skin still burned in the aftermath of that lascivious kiss.
One glance in the glass above the fireplace told him he looked as disheveled and bedeviled as he felt. A dark flush burned across his cheekbones. His hair was wild where she’d plunged her fingers through it; his shirt was open, his cravat hanging limp and bedraggled around his neck.
The ache in his groin was beginning to subside, thank God.
Beckenham drained the glass and poured himself another.
“Do you know who that was?” he asked gruffly, not looking at Xavier.
There was a long pause. So long that Beckenham turned to see if he could read his cousin’s thoughts on his face.
If Xavier knew he had just been with Georgiana Black … His mind blanked at the thought. If anyone knew or even suspected what they’d done in that stuffy bedchamber, she would be thoroughly ruined.
And he …
He would have to marry the one woman he’d never wanted to see again.
The dark blue eyes gazed into his for several seconds. It occurred to Beckenham that Xavier scrutinized him keenly, as if searching for an answer in his face.
Finally, Xavier said, “No. I do not know who that was.”
Relief washed over Beckenham like a ten-foot wave. A current of something else eddied at the edges. Something he did not want to identify.
He struggled to keep his tone even. “You said the lady asked fo
r me. What, precisely, did she say?”
There was another hesitation. His gaze shot to Xavier, who gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. “She said she was under your protection.”
“Singular phrasing. What made her say it?” He frowned. “Did you manhandle her?”
“How delightfully you express it. At least give me credit for ceasing my attentions the instant your name came up. I never poach on my dear cousins’ preserves.”
The burning need to beat his cousin to a bloody pulp seized him. It took Beckenham several deep breaths and another hit of brandy to restrain that animal impulse. Georgie had evinced no sign of distress, nor any sign that she’d been assaulted. He ought to let Xavier’s behavior pass.
He ground out, “In future, I’ll thank you to stay out of my affairs.”
“The lady attempted to entrap you, I gather,” said Xavier. His tone was dry. “Might as well try to compromise a saint.”
“I wonder you lent your hand to it if you thought her purpose was to entangle me,” said Beckenham harshly, with a good deal of censure.
Damn, he sounded like a prig. And a hypocrite, to boot. If he was so deuced moral, why hadn’t he turned and left as soon as he’d set eyes on her? Or better yet, exposed her masquerade, read her a lecture on the dangers of a gently bred female appearing at such a bacchanal, and escorted her home?
Self-disgust added its might to the maelstrom of emotions swirling inside him.
He’d drawn back because she’d said his name. But even before that, his conscience had niggled at him. That elusive quality of sweetness in her kiss. The soft gasp—of surprise?—when he’d touched her …
Then, he’d been too aflame to examine her response, or to care about the innocence that characterized it. From the reputation she’d gained for shocking behavior, from her sheer presence here tonight, he assumed she’d garnered ample experience in the years they’d been apart. And yet …
Realization washed over him. Good God. He’d left Georgie Black alone in this house. What the hell had possessed him?
Slamming down his glass, he crossed the room to the clothes press and rummaged for a new neck-cloth.
“What now?” wondered Xavier. “Will the legendary lover join my poor party after all? The ladies will riot.”
“No.” He drew the strip of linen around his neck and fumbled briefly with its folds. He’d never cared much for fashion, and his cravat was not the work of genius, but it would serve. He donned his waistcoat and coat, combed his fingers through his hair in a cursory attempt to tame it, then tweaked his cuffs and turned to go.
“Just remembered something,” he said curtly as he strode to the door.
He’d remembered that he was a gentleman.
Beckenham spent the next hour in a fruitless search for Georgie. He’d half expected to find her in plain sight, flirting outrageously—or worse—simply to show him she was not a woman to be trifled with and cavalierly dismissed.
Yet unless she’d found another bedchamber for her activities or lurked somewhere in the shadows of the grounds, he was forced to conclude she’d left the party altogether.
His conscience smarted. Despite her boldness in attending this affair, Georgiana Black was the lady he had once intended to take as his wife. He ought to have set aside his personal turmoil and seen her safely home.
He must find out where she stayed in Brighton and make sure she’d reached there without mishap. There was no getting around that obligation.
Again, his damnable conscience tugged at him. He’d been alone with her in a bedchamber amidst a scandalous masquerade. He’d kissed her, touched her. God, he could still feel the soft, luscious weight of her breasts in his palms.…
If a lady falls in a locked bedchamber and no one sees …
Ah, but he’d seen, hadn’t he? And even if she never spoke a word of it to anyone, even if no one ever discovered what Beckenham had done to her that night, he would know.
His mind shied from the inevitable conclusion.
No. He would not act precipitously. He must think before he acted, sleep on it, perhaps. He gave a grim smile at the mere thought he’d get a wink of slumber this night.
Now, he must find her and return her to her lodgings safely and discreetly.
Then he would consider his next move.
* * *
For once, luck had favored Georgie. After much fruitless searching, she glimpsed her stepsister preparing to enter the Makepeaces’ carriage on the drive outside the villa.
She hastened toward them. But when she saw who accompanied the small party, she halted with a crunch and skitter of gravel.
The worst oath she knew hissed from her lips. Lord Pearce bowed over her sister’s hand.
Pearce. The man who’d destroyed her happiness. The man who’d stirred up a world of trouble between her and Marcus with that cursed lock of hair.
He stood there, a little over average height, elegant, with that dangerous air that lent spice to his stunningly handsome looks. He was not as tall, nor as broad-shouldered and muscular as Marcus. In fact, he was less of everything.
Yet when she was eighteen, Lord Pearce’s world-weary cynicism had intrigued her. His clear interest in her and the audacity with which he’d expressed it had been a balm to her pride. A pride wounded by Beckenham’s seeming indifference.
Lord Pearce only wanted her fortune, of course. Even at eighteen, she’d been shrewd enough to realize that. He’d not managed to take her in with his devilish charm, though his goads had so often pricked at the wildness in her spirit.
She’d flirted with him, led him a merry dance while always keeping a weather eye cocked for Beckenham’s reaction. She hadn’t been quite as fly to the time of day as she’d thought herself, however. As cleverly as she’d guarded her virtue, Pearce had ruined her life all the same.
He’d departed hastily from England six years ago; she’d hoped never to see him again. Now he’d returned. For what purpose?
It would be fatal to alert Pearce to her own presence at this party. Dangerous for him to see her sister here; yet, what was done couldn’t be helped. At least Violet had the sense to keep her mask on. Her plain domino obscured her gown completely and its hood covered her hair.
Georgie watched only long enough to ensure that Pearce did not climb into the carriage with Violet and her chaperones. She motioned to a footman and desired her own conveyance to be called.
When at last the hired carriage appeared, Georgie picked up her skirts and hurried down the steps of the villa.
Pearce remained standing where she’d last seen him on the drive, watching the scandalous cavorting that took place in the fountain with a pensive air.
Of course he would not recognize her. Not in this light, in this disguise.
Still, she hurried past, giving him as wide a berth as she might.
Her heart beat hard in her chest until she reached the safety of her carriage. When the door smacked shut behind her, she sank back into the squabs. A warm, intoxicating sense of relief poured through her body.
Without turning her head, she watched Pearce through the window from the corner of her eye as the carriage lurched into motion.
With that self-satisfied smirk she’d grown to fear as well as loathe, he raised a hand to her in salute.
Georgie tried to think rationally, but the twin shocks of seeing her sister with Pearce and that smug gesture of recognition made her brain clamor.
Oh, surely he had not known who she was. That quick, confident wave of the hand might well have been an impersonal gesture made on the spur of the moment to an unknown lady.
Her insides twisted. If Pearce had recognized her and spread tales of her presence at that shocking party …
In going to Steyne’s villa, she’d meant to do nothing more than rescue her sister from indiscretion. Instead, she’d encountered the two men she’d hoped never to see again.
Her agitation had transformed to self-righteous anger by the time she finally swept into her
sister’s bedchamber.
Violet, the little minx, was already abed, nestled under coverlet and sheet. She lay on her side and her hands were palm to palm, tucked under her cheek. A slight smile curved her pretty pink lips. Her pale hair flowed over her shoulder like a river of corn-silk. She must have told her maid not to bother papering it, nor even braiding it tonight.
Another person might have been disarmed by the sight. Georgie was tempted to shake her tiresome sister awake.
How dared she look so innocent, so fresh and untroubled after what she’d been up to this evening?
Fear made Georgie’s anger spike. If Pearce had decided to make Violet the object of his attentions, the chit didn’t stand a chance. She was a clever girl, but she was no match for a man of Pearce’s experience.
If only she might be certain that no evil consequences would come of this night’s work.
* * *
Frustrated and furious at himself on many levels, Beckenham headed back to the villa. He’d combed the house and the grounds without gaining another glimpse of Georgie. Perhaps she’d taken his advice after all and left.
He cursed the evil genius that had brought him here tonight. He’d made a series of bad decisions since Xavier had come to him with the tale of an unknown lady seeking his protection.
He’d traveled to Brighton to ask Xavier’s advice on a suitable bride, not to entangle himself with the one woman in England he absolutely could not wed.
The thought had occurred to him more than once during his search: He ought to make reparation for his behavior tonight. If Georgie had been any other lady, he would feel obliged to propose marriage. It was what any honorable man would do.
He had always considered himself an honorable man. No matter how uncomfortable it might be, he followed the path his conscience dictated.
His conscience shouted at him, demanded that he swallow his pride—a huge bite, that—and at least ask the question. An honorable man would not picture himself spurned for the second time and cringe away from that image like a whipped cur. An honorable man would not rely on Georgie’s false assumption that he hadn’t recognized her. He would not hope that no one else was the wiser about that interlude, that Georgie’s reputation did not need rescuing, after all.
The Greatest Lover Ever Page 4