Rake to Riches (The London Lords Book 2)

by Nicola Davidson

  Louisa squirmed on the seat. “Do…do they climax when you do that?”

  “Yes. And often again when I’m inside them.”

  “In their cunny,” she said, nodding her head thoughtfully.

  “Louisa!” he roared. “Do not bloody say that word in public. Ever. Christ. I should never…hell.”

  “Goodness gracious, Mr. Howard, calm yourself. I wasn’t planning to have a discussion about it with the patronesses of Almack’s,” she said archly, trying not to grin at the way she had thoroughly disconcerted the king of unflappable charm himself.

  “You won’t be having a discussion about it with anyone.”

  “Except you. And my husband, I guess. Will whoever he is do that, do you think? Touch my breasts and kiss my cunny to ready me?”

  She repeated the word to deliberately get a reaction from George, but his head didn’t explode, nor did he roll his eyes and mock her. Instead he tensed, and his mouth set in grim lines, as if he was very unhappy about something.

  “I don’t know,” he said eventually.

  “Yes, you do.”

  George scowled at her. “No, I really don’t. Another unpleasant fact of life, I’m afraid, that some men take no care whatsoever with their wives, and make the experience painful. That is often why ladies loathe the act and readily accept their husbands having a mistress.”

  “Oh,” said Louisa, her heart sinking. Was there any benefit to getting married? Anything at all? And his words about painful experiences made her think about Kildaire, who was about the last person in the world she wanted in her mind. “Well, look. Cheltenham is just up ahead. You are officially relieved of your confidant duties.”

  And they travelled the rest of the way in awkward, brooding silence.

  ~ * ~

  Cheltenham was a pretty town sitting on the edge of the Cotswolds and possessing wide, tree-lined promenades and gardens as a further enticement for those visiting to partake of the famous mineral springs discovered nearly one hundred years earlier.

  But as he dutifully followed Louisa around the milliner’s shop while she looked at bonnet displays, all George could think about was their conversation in the curricle. Or specifically, the question: Will whoever he is do that, do you think? Touch my breasts and kiss my cunny to ready me?

  Because as he’d said, the truth was brutal: a stuffed shirt duke or marquess or earl most probably wouldn’t care if she was even wet enough to take him easily, let alone whether she reached orgasm or not. In fact, men of a certain generation tended to believe that a woman’s pleasure was not only unnecessary, but actually some sort of sin. And the thought of that faceless, nameless aristocrat causing Louisa pain as he attempted to get her with child angered George no end.

  Well. He’d just have to ensure that the man was of good character. And cared enough about her to make his visits to her bedchamber quite tolerable, if not outright enjoyable. It was the least he could do, if he ended up walking away with twenty thousand pounds.

  “Sir? Sir!”

  George blinked and turned his head to look down at a short, slender man almost hopping from one foot to the other next to him. “Yes?”

  “Please, sir, I beg you to accompany me over to the bonnet display. Your wife says if you do not, she will purchase five bonnets with yellow and orange ribbons, and…and… not only that, but matching shawls. I cannot dissuade her, sir. But with that glorious red hair? It would be an outrage. A travesty, I say!”

  His lips tightened, both at the man’s assumption of their marital status and Louisa’s attempt to wriggle out of their bargain. He’d held up his end, enduring the most excruciatingly uncomfortable conversation in the history of the world. She could bloody well buy some bonnets trimmed in colors that would complement her eyes and hair.

  “Never fear, my good man. I shall whip some sense into her. Why don’t you remove all the samples apart from blues and greens, and perhaps one or two ivory or violet?”

  The milliner nodded, his relief palpable. “Excellent choices, sir. I can see you are a man of taste and refinement.”

  “Just so.”

  Ambling down a narrow aisle to where Louisa now stood staring at cards of lace, he came to a halt beside her. “Bad form. Very bad form. I think you frightened ten years from his life with your threats of yellow and orange, Miss Donovan. Or should I say Mrs. Howard?”

  “Bah. I didn’t say a word about you, if that is what you are implying. I guess I should be thankful that he assumed I was your wife rather than your ladybird. Or sister.”

  “There is no way anyone could mistake us for brother and sister. And that gown you are wearing is too horrendous to belong to a mistress.”

  Louisa sighed. “I know.”

  “Beg pardon?” he said, taken aback. “That sounded suspiciously like agreement.”

  “Oh, go bathe in the Thames.”

  “Stop it. I can only tolerate so much sweet talk.”

  “Here we are, madam!” said the now smiling milliner, bustling back with his arms full of hatboxes. “Your husband has an excellent eye for color and has made some most admirable selections.”

  Louisa batted her eyelashes. “Isn’t he special? How glad I am to have earned such a treat. Although I must confess, I’m glad ’tis only a twice-monthly duty. And over swiftly.”

  The milliner wheezed in a breath, his cheeks going purple.

  George grabbed Louisa’s reticule and withdrew a fistful of guineas. Then he wrote their address on a scrap of paper. “We’ll take four bonnets. Trim them in sapphire, emerald, ivory and amethyst silk with a simple satin bow, no flowers. Send them to this direction.”

  Then, hooking his arm through hers, he half-walked, half-dragged her out the door.

  “Are we going to have afternoon tea now?” she said brightly. “I am a trifle parched.”

  “What? So you can begin discussing my length and width, or perhaps my technique with the tea shop owner?”

  “Of course not.

  “Thank God.”

  “Because I don’t know your length and width,” replied Louisa, matter-of-factly. “And only a small sample of your technique.”

  George rubbed a hand over his jaw, unsure whether to laugh or strangle her. “Get in the damned curricle.”

  “Ask me nicely.”

  “My dear Miss Donovan, please get in the curricle.”

  “Much better.”

  “Before I paddle your backside to match the hue of your hair.”

  “Well!” she began, but her splutter turned into a low shriek when he lifted her off the footpath and hoisted her into the curricle seat in a less than tender movement. “You are not a gentleman, Mr. Howard.”

  “And you don’t have so much as a drop of lady in you, Miss Donovan,” he replied cheerfully as he climbed into the seat beside her.

  “Cretin,” said Louisa, folding her arms and glaring at him.

  “Harpy.”

  “Skunk. And not a nice skunk—a feral, rabid, pock-faced one.”

  George raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware there were nice skunks. Or that they had the ability to catch the pox.”

  “Barnacle-licking bastard!”

  “See, even that fails as an insult. I may not know much about my father, but I do know they were legally married. As for barnacle-licking, I can’t imagine why someone would do that for any reason.”

  “Bah,” she hissed, gripping the side of the curricle and turning away as he flicked the reins and the horses moved into a brisk trot down the street.

  Christ, she was an infuriating woman. Outrageous, shameless, outspoken, hot-tempered…

  And yet he felt alive in a way he hadn’t in a long time. For a few hours, he’d actually not thought about Sir Malcolm. Or his mother’s debt. Or the fact that he was in paid employment and wearing a wig, belly padding and horn-rimmed spectacles every day.

  His world was actually improving.

  “Be of good cheer, my dear. The sun is shining, and you’ll soon have four ne
w bonnets that won’t make you look like a bowl of old citrus fruit.”

  “Ha! If those bonnets actually make it to the estate…”

  When her voice trailed off, he glanced sideways at her. “What is it?”

  She clutched his arm. “That rider ahead. He is approaching very fast.”

  George frowned. It was true, even from this distance he could see mud flying in both directions from the mount’s hooves. “Perhaps someone is in trouble and he is getting help. I’ll slow down a little and move us further over. Don’t worry, we’ll be well out of his way. And that will give your footmen time to catch up to us. They are clearly suffering from the small mountain of pasties they ate while we were shopping.”

  She didn’t laugh, instead keeping her gaze fixed on the rider. “Is he…is he wearing a mask?”

  Yanking off his spectacles, George looked ahead. Unease chilled the back of his neck. Christ, there was something damned odd about the rider, almost as though he’d moved over to match them. But how could that be? Nobody set out to have a collision, did they?

  “Might be some damned fool lad with too many ales in his belly,” he said calmly, feeling anything but as he deliberated over speeding up to reach the crossroad a quarter mile ahead or stopping the curricle entirely.

  The rider clearly had no such thoughts, as he continued to approach them at a thunderous pace. One hundred feet…eighty feet…sixty feet…

  George’s unease leaped to fear as the stranger reached one hand down and lifted something, swinging it beside him. A sack? A weapon?

  Forty feet…twenty feet…

  Pandemonium.

  All at once, the rider opened the sack to release a heavy cloud of black dust, spooking the two horses into rearing, their frightened whinnies blending with Louisa’s terrified scream as one of the reins snapped and the curricle lurched onto two wheels. George was wrenched one way, his temple scraping painfully on the front of the curricle, but he could

  only watch in horror as Louisa was flung the other, out of the curricle and over a low fence into an adjacent field.

  “Louisa!” he screamed over his shoulder, scrabbling for the unbroken rein, trying desperately to regain control of the horses and stop them. “Louisa!”

  But she didn’t move.

  Chapter Eight

  While there were many occasions gunpowder could have led to her demise, it had to be said that a cloud of it causing a curricle accident on a rutted winter road never crossed her mind as being the culprit.

  Quite embarrassing, really. And hollow.

  Louisa sighed, and a tear slid in an itchy path down her cheek. Surely she deserved the dignity and fanfare of an explosion sending her to meet her maker. Sparks and fire and brimstone aplenty. Not with jarred and bruised limbs and ringing ears. Not utterly alone. Not with a bleak gray sky above her, cold, wet grass below her and one leg submerged to the knee in thick, slimy mud. Surprisingly, the alone part bothered her the most. No one to hold her hand as she slipped away, or cry at losing her forever.

  “Louisa.”

  There was an urgency to the faraway voice that made her want to lift her head and look around, but she was so very tired and cold, and her ankle hurt terribly. Well, everything hurt right now. The angels were being rather tardy in fetching her to heaven, this pain malarkey while she waited was just not on. Unless, of course, this was the precursor to going to hell, and any moment the ground would split open and she would be sucked downward into a fiery pit. Horrid old Reverend Perkins could actually be correct with what he’d bellowed from the pulpit, and that would be yet another grave disappointment.

  “Louisa.”

  The voice sounded nearby now, but her ears were behaving strangely so it was hard to guess where it came from. With another sigh, she closed her eyes and prepared herself to be taken away by good or evil, whichever arrived first.

  “Louisa! Christ. Oh fuck. Please wake up. Come on. Please.”

  Damnation. An angel of the Lord would surely never arrive on that note. Fiery hell it was, which she supposed was fitting for someone with both red hair and a penchant for explosives, but rather disappointing from a lack of wings and halo perspective.

  Something big dropped to the ground next to her, and then the voice was very close. And it was male. “You open your eyes this minute, you stubborn harpy. I’ll answer all the bloody questions you want. About anything. And if you want to wear yellow every fucking day, that is fine. But don’t you give up and leave me. Don’t you fucking dare.”

  Blinking, Louisa peered up at the face staring down at her. How interesting. The escort to take her away looked exactly like George Edwards. Perhaps it was like a last request, one nice thing before eternity in purgatory?

  “Of all possible demon forms, I’m glad it’s your likeness,” she said.

  A bark of laughter escaped the George demon, but it sounded remarkably uneven and emotional. Odd. “What the bloody hell are you on about, woman?”

  “I’m dying,” she snapped, as she began to shiver and the throbbing pain in her ankle worsened. “Clearly perfect looks are not accompanied by a brain down where you’re from?”

  “You aren’t bloody dying. Don’t be ridiculous. And I’m not a demon. Purgatory wouldn’t want you anyway—beautiful hoydens are far too much trouble. Can you sit up? Where does it hurt?”

  Louisa carefully lifted her head, and a big strong arm slid underneath her, helping her to rise. “Did you just call me beautiful?”

  “Doubtful. Not wearing a straw-colored gown with mud and grass accessories—”

  “Ah. So I didn’t imagine what happened. That man, that rider?”

  “No,” he said tightly, a frown creasing his forehead. “You didn’t dream it. Some bloody bastard came at us with a sack of damned gunpowder of all things, and frightened the horses with it before galloping away. They reared, I went one way and you went the other. Fuck. You could have been killed….fuck.”

  The concern and anger in his voice warmed her heart, making her feel a little better. “Language, Mr. Howard. I will be fine. Well, my ankle and backside and left elbow hurt, but other than that, fine. Truly. What about the horses? Where are they?”

  “Tied to the fence and munching grass. Unlike your damned footmen who still haven’t appeared. The men paid to protect you. Your father must let them go immediately. Useless, disloyal, good-for-nothing…you could have been killed…”

  George turned away, his fist pressed to his mouth, and it was then she saw the seeping wound at his temple, the blood a stark contrast to the paleness of his skin.

  “George! Your head!”

  Clumsily, she tore a section from the least filthy part of her hem, then lifted it to dab at the cut. It didn’t look too deep, but it was jagged and probably stinging, too. Actually, tending to him made her feel useful, and cleared the rest of the fog from her brain. The ringing had gone from her ears and her limbs seemed to all be in working order at least, if rather sore.

  “I’ll live,” he said irritably, but he wasn’t pulling away from her. In fact, he had briefly closed his eyes, as if enjoying her touch.

  Unable to stop herself, she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “There.”

  “What was that for?”

  “I was kissing it better.”

  “Is it fixed?”

  Three innocuous, gruffly spoken words, and yet they sounded like a challenge…and almost a plea?

  Tugging George’s head down, Louisa brushed a second kiss along his jaw. Then his cheekbone. The corner of his mouth. “No, not fixed…still not fixed. I think you’ll need several more, just to be sure.”

  He sucked in a ragged breath. “Playing with fire again?”

  Ignoring the words, Louisa slid her hand down his chest and delved under his shirt. “Hmmm. No belly padding.”

  “It dislodged…Christ…we can’t…damn, that feels good.”

  “Does it?” she replied, continuing to caress his chest and sculpted abdomen, slowly moving lower and low
er and feeling like the most sensual and skilled woman in the world as his hips jerked and he groaned.

  “Yes.”

  “I want more,” she blurted. “Right here. Right now. We’re alive and well, George.”

  “No. That is the accident speaking. Just the aftermath of a bad fright. You’ll get your bearings back in a few minutes.”

  “I won’t. I’ve wanted you for the longest time. Let me. If I’m not to have anything after I’m married, let me have this at least.”

  George cursed, and somehow she knew on this occasion, in this muddy, damp field with no one around, she would get her way. “Get on my lap, then.”

  “Why?”

  “If you’re touching me, then I’m damned well touching you.”

  Excitement fizzed her blood, and mindful of her ankle, Louisa carefully maneuvered herself until she straddled his lap. Then she got to work on his trouser fastenings, finally managing after several attempts, to undo them and discover hot, silken flesh.

  Good grief. Like every other part of George, his cock was big. And getting bigger by the moment as she stroked a fingertip back and forth along the length. Never had she thought an erection would feel like it did, the skin fascinatingly soft and smooth and yet so hard underneath.

  “Stop,” he growled.

  Louisa looked up in dismay. “Why?”

  “I’m too close. Besides, ladies first.”

  She started to protest, and then his hand slid under her gown and trailed along the inside of her thigh, and the words died on her lips. George’s thumb was making circles on the delicate flesh, but he remained entirely too far away from the place she wanted him most.

  “Don’t tease me. Not today. Touch me properly.”

  “Aren’t we bossy,” he drawled, but his gaze was hot, making her feel beautiful and desirable when she must look the worst she ever had.