Rake to Riches (The London Lords Book 2)

by Nicola Davidson

  Just when she was about to do him bodily harm for making her wait, his knuckles brushed the crisp curls between her legs.

  Louisa gasped. “There.”

  “Really? I thought you might like this more,” he replied, and his thumb moved, pressing the deliciously sensitive place she occasionally toyed with when in a particularly naughty and rebellious mood. But his hand felt so much better!

  “What is that spot? Tell me the name.”

  “Don’t you know, thoroughly modern woman of science?”

  She swatted his arm. “Tell me. Immediately.”

  “Your clitoris. Known center of a woman’s pleasure.”

  “Clitoris,” she repeated, liking the cadence of the word. It had to be Latin. Or Greek. The languages of true scholars.

  But soon she couldn’t think about anything anymore, as his thumb circled the swelling nub of flesh, dipping further down to collect some of the moisture gathering between her legs then returning to stroke and tease until she was quivering on his lap, a hot, wild storm brewing within her own body.

  “Does that feel good, darling?” he said hoarsely in her ear. “Are you going to come all over my fingers? Soak me in your sweet cunny juice?”

  The raw words made her whimper in need, and she shamelessly tilted her hips in a plea for more. He obliged, slipping a blunt fingertip inside her, and the pressure of that combined with his thumb on her clitoris and his knuckles rubbing the wet folds between her thighs hurled her over the edge into a splintered world of agonizing, unforgettable pleasure.

  ~ * ~

  When Louisa bucked against his chest with a wild cry, George held her tightly, anchoring her as she shuddered with the power of what might well be her first orgasm.

  Well, to anchor him as much as her. The feel of her in his lap, the scent of sweet rose soap and musky, spicy juices, the way her tight, hot center had pulsed under his hand…any moment now he would come in his trousers and destroy his reputation as England’s premier rake forever.

  “George,” whispered Louisa, and he stared down into her gratifyingly dazed eyes. “I…I liked that.”

  He grinned. “I know you did. I think all the people of Cheltenham know you did, too.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I was quite discreet.”

  “Darling, you wouldn’t even know the meaning of the word.”

  “On the contrary, Mr. Howard,” she replied, sliding her hand into the opening in his trousers. “This is quite discreet, is it not? Would anyone walking past know I am doing this?”

  George sucked in a panting breath as her cool fingers surrounded his cock and gently squeezed. “They might guess.”

  “Tell me what I should be doing.”

  “That is fine. Perhaps a little harder…” His words trailed off as he lost the ability to construct a sentence. Of course Madam Chemist would be a quick study when it came to experimentation.

  Now she was running her fingers firmly up and down his cock, even curling them under and stroking the sensitive underside and his swollen balls. All he could do was count back from twenty in his head, and hope he gave her sufficient time to play before he turned into a seed geyser.

  “Does this feel good?” she asked curiously, rubbing her thumb against the engorged head of his cock now slick with moisture.

  “Yes,” he gasped, unable to halt an instinctive thrust against her nimble fingers.

  “Does it hurt when you are this hard?”

  George gritted his teeth. He’d be lucky to reach fifteen in his count back at this rate, let alone one. And as for her fact-finding questions... “Yes and no. Ache and pressure.”

  “That is how I felt,” she said, nodding. “When you stroked me. I thought I might never get to the place I wanted, and then suddenly I was there. And it felt so very, very good. Everywhere. Not just my cunny.”

  “Louisa,” he said, with a panting groan.

  “Sorry, but it is my new favorite word. Along with clitoris. And now I know how much more those two are capable of, well, no point in shutting the stable door, as they say.”

  “You are going to be the death of me.”

  A wicked smile lit her face. “Only the little death.”

  And then with both hands she gripped his engorged cock, pumping and squeezing and rubbing him, and in seconds he climaxed with a low roar, gushing seed over her fingers and onto the fabric of her ruined gown.

  “Hell,” he breathed, as he struggled to make sense of the fact that an inexperienced virgin had just made him come so hard. In a damned field of all places. After a damned curricle accident.

  Abruptly his pleasured euphoria lifted, and he tensed.

  “What is the matter?” said Louisa, her smile slipping as she wiped her hands on the hem of her gown. “Did I…did I do it wrong?”

  “No! No. I’m just reminded that we are in a field, still miles from your parent’s estate. They’ll be wondering where we are. And we will need to report the incident to the local magistrate by ourselves, as it appears we have been permanently abandoned by those damned footmen.”

  “Back to reality, then, Mr. Howard,” she said with a sigh, slowly getting to her feet and wincing as she put weight on what must be her sore ankle.

  “Regrettably, yes. I’m just so damned relieved that you weren’t badly hurt. When I saw you fly through the air…”

  “The landing was much worse than the flying, believe me.”

  He couldn’t help a chuckle as he stood. “You are taking this rather well.”

  Louisa sniffed. “I am not a ton hothouse flower.”

  “No,” he said with reluctant admiration. “You aren’t. And I never thought I’d be so thankful for that fact.”

  “George…” she said quietly, chewing on her lip as they made their way back to the fence where the horses were tied.

  “Yes?”

  “That rider. Why do you think he did such a terrible thing?”

  Again, that insistent unease lifted the hair on the back of his neck. A sensation he was altogether too familiar with after two decades of living with Sir Malcolm Edwards. “I honestly don’t know. Maybe it was a prank. Some damned foolish lad home from university for Christmastide acting up on a dare.”

  “Perhaps,” she said uncertainly. “I mean, I don’t want to make a fuss about nothing, but he didn’t seem like a lad of that age. And what he did could never be called a prank. Not when it was so dangerous.”

  George hesitated. He desperately wanted to reassure away her concerns, to point out some fault of logic. But Louisa was an intelligent woman who knew what she had witnessed, not some featherbrain who swooned at anything depending on the day of the week. And he knew damned well it wasn’t a university lad. When he’d been at Cambridge with the other London Lords, they’d spent most of their free time drinking and wenching, not terrorizing couples out for a drive on a country road. And the way the rider had swung the sack of gunpowder without losing his balance or stride spoke of experience, not a one-off escapade. As for the mask, that only added to the wrongness. It even felt, dare he say it, professional.

  But why the hell would anyone want to hurt him? He was nobody, and more importantly, here in disguise. And hurting Louisa made no sense whatsoever. Kidnapping her for a hefty ransom, sure. But not injuring or killing her.

  “I know,” he said, holding out his hand to help her back over the fence. “I don’t really think it was a prank, but on the other hand, I can’t understand how anyone would want to hurt either of us.”

  “That took planning, George. The road was clear. Before a crossroads where we might have escaped. And the sack of gunpowder.”

  “And your missing footmen.”

  Louisa frowned darkly as she scrambled onto the roadside. “They will be in seven kinds of serious trouble when my father hears of this.”

  “Somehow I doubt you will see them again. They weren’t new employees, were they?”

  “No. Both had been with us at least a year.”

  Not planned w
ell in advance then, instead recently bribed. And that could only have happened when they were in Cheltenham, as the Donovans were keeping to themselves at the present time, and apart from him, hadn’t hired any other new staff.

  Fuck.

  “Then I don’t know,” he admitted, hauling himself over the fence and coming face to face with the wreckage of the curricle.

  His gut churned. The thing was damaged beyond repair, some of it in pieces that had snapped right off. When he thought about how the day might have ended…

  “Don’t,” said Louisa softly, resting a hand on his arm. “Apart from a cut head, wrenched ankle, and belly padding that will never again see the light of day, we are both well. It’s a miracle your wig survived. And your spectacles.”

  George lifted her hand and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. “I hate to say this after everything, but…we cannot behave differently once we are back at your parent’s estate. For both our sakes.”

  She nodded. “I know. I’m on my last tutor warning. And you…you want the payments.”

  “Not for me,” he blurted, unwilling to let her think this was some sort of lark a moment longer.

  “Then who?”

  “Mama.”

  And before he knew it, on the side of the damned road to Cheltenham, next to a smashed curricle, two restless horses, and with an audience of one heiress in a spectacularly ruined gown, he told an abridged version of Sir Malcolm’s disappearance, and discovery of the debt and blackmail letter.

  Louisa blinked owl eyes at him. “Oh my God. That is…that is…bloody hell. Do you think your stepfather might be dead? I hope he is. What a wretched, awful, horrible man.”

  “You have no idea,” he said quietly, looking away.

  “George…”

  His heart sank. She was about to ask him something he didn’t want to answer, he could sense it. “What?”

  “That day Caro and I visited after she got the emergency note from Pearce…did Sir Malcolm do something? Was he responsible for you falling?”

  Raw humiliation stung him to the core, and suddenly it felt like every scar, every burn mark and every gouged ridge on his back was throbbing and prickling. “I don’t want to talk any further about him. Suffice to say, like you, I hope he is dead.”

  Louisa tilted her head, and for one awful moment it was as if she saw right into his broken, tormented center, the place where he kept twenty years of nightmares under fierce guard. Quickly, he walked over to the horses, and began to adjust their saddles for riding.

  “If you ever want to. Talk, I mean—”

  “No,” he said, his head shake so violent he almost made himself dizzy.

  Some nightmares just weren’t meant to be shared.

  With anyone.

  ~ * ~

  Mannering Castle

  The imposter duke had been quiet all day.

  Too quiet.

  It made him nervous, and that was one emotion Percival loathed as much as he loathed Howard Grenville sitting at the head of the huge oak dining table.

  Forcing himself to dab his mouth with a starched linen napkin as though he didn’t have a care in the world, he sat back and smiled genially at his cousin. “Are you quite well, Man…er, Howard? Usually by now you have regaled us with tale after tale of the people you have met while out walking, or a fascinating account of life in San Francisco.”

  Howard rubbed a hand along his jaw. “My apologies. I am feeling a little under the weather.”

  “Oh?” said Charity from her place across the table from Percival. The duchess looked almost as tense as he was. “Not a winter cold coming on, I hope. Shall I instruct the kitchens to prepare you a tonic?”

  “No, Mother, nothing like that. I just keep getting these headaches. Quick, sharp ones where I see people and places that feel familiar…and then they are gone and I can’t remember them. It’s bloody infuriating.”

  “Dear me,” said Percival, picking up his wine glass and taking a sip of quality Bordeaux. “Well, it is not going to help trying to force your memories to return, cousin. The last thing we want is you doing yourself a brain injury.”

  Indeed, the last thing.

  Howard nodded and rolled his repulsively massive shoulders. “Wise words, Percy, but I don’t think I am a patient man…by the by, I wanted to ask you both, did I ever know someone named Em?”

  The snap of the crystal stem in his hand was overloud in the seething silence. Percival ignored the wine soaking his hand and sleeve to exchange a horrified glance with Charity. Then he snatched a fresh napkin to wipe up the liquid. “Em, did you say? Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  Suddenly Charity laughed, an admittedly awful sound like what one might imagine an iceberg made when it shattered. “Oh, Howard, dear. I think I know to whom you refer. Not Em, but Mr. M, short for Mindle. He was your favorite tutor as a lad, the one who taught you the Latin you so enjoyed.”

  “Really?” said Howard, frowning. “Oh. Because it doesn’t sound quite right. In this dream I said, ‘Hand me something sharp, Em.’”

  Percival sat up. “Wasn’t Mr. Mindle the tutor you were forced to dismiss, Aunt Charity? For his terribly poor influence?”

  The duchess sighed heavily, as though the fabricated action regarding the fabricated Mr. Mindle had been one that broke her heart. “Indeed. Alongside his Latin expertise, your tutor was something of a scholar in ancient weapons. Daggers, bows and arrows, that sort of thing. He was always bringing along these ghastly, rusted objects for you to view. I allowed it, but then he became more forward. Encouraging you to handle the weapons, even play with them. And then came the day you cut a kitchen maid with a Celtic sword. Terrible business.”

  “Good God,” said Howard, his green eyes wide with dismay. “How awful. I hope the girl wasn’t hurt badly.”

  “She died,” said Charity sadly. “Blood poisoning.”

  Percival coughed to hide a bellow of laughter. His aunt belonged on the stage. “Here now, let’s have no more talk of Mr. M. Not when it distresses you so, ma’am.”

  “It is all right. I would endure any recollection to assist in easing my dear Howard’s mind. ’Tis a mother’s solemn duty to want the best for her child, after all.”

  “No, no,” said Howard quickly. “That sounds like a memory I do not wish to relive.”

  “You were a rascal,” added Percival for effect. “Unfortunately, many times you leaped from rascal to criminal. But we stood by you. Always. As we will stand by you now, should you confess to any unspeakable deeds in the colonies.”

  His cousin’s gaze narrowed, and Percival held his breath, afraid he’d gone a little too far with his out and out lies. Actually, young Howard had been irritatingly well-liked by all the other lads, and the ladies too, because he was so even-tempered and amiable. Equally ready for rough and tumble sport like fencing or boxing, or to be an elegant dance partner. With his uncommon height and build, he’d been invited to parties and soirees and fetes long before he should have been. And that was how he’d met that damned common whore Emily, the daughter of a poor tailor of all things. A pathetic, dirty village fete.

  “I promise you, cousin,” said Howard a trifle coolly, “that I did no such thing in San Francisco. Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I have some business to attend to in my library. Good evening.”

  As soon as the duke had left the room, Percival turned back to his aunt. “That went quite well in the end, I thought.”

  “Fool,” she snapped. “You nearly ruined everything with your theatrics.”

  “My theatrics? After your woeful tale of Mr. Mindle’s daggers and the poor, dead kitchen maid?”

  Charity’s lips twitched. “He believed it, did he not?”

  “Good God, aunt. You even had me believing.”

  “Well, the last thing we want is him trying to remember who Em is. If he did, it would destroy all we have worked toward…speaking of which, what news from your friend in Gloucestershire?”

  Percival hesitated. “In that you ar
e already irritated with theatrics, I’m not sure I should tell you.”

  The duchess pinned him with her arctic gaze. “Tell me.”

  “I thought his lordship would use a pistol. Perhaps some burrs under a saddle. But he rode up to the curricle that the couple were driving in, and frightened the horses with a cloud of, er, gunpowder.”

  “I hope you are joking.”

  “I am not.”

  “That numbskull. He had one task. One. And that does not include injuring the lowborn heiress. With the resources that family has, they could employ some actual competent investigators and have the weight of the local landowners and magistrate behind them. I do hope you sent word to the man and told him his actions were unacceptable.”

  “Naturally,” he lied. “By return post rider.”

  “Good. Then his next message should inform us of a successful mission. It is not a hard task the man has, and with Mr. Edwards far away from London and his powerful friends, he should be very, very easy to…eliminate. He is nothing but an empty-headed, gown-chasing rake, after all. Not a worthy opponent.”

  Percival couldn’t resist a dig. “He did rather well at Eton and Cambridge for an empty-headed, gown-chasing rake. A double first in Latin and history. Remarkably similar to someone else we both know.”

  “Don’t be tiresome, Percival. You are not indispensable. Remember that. Now, write to your associate and inform him he must complete the task at once. Howard has made noises about wishing to travel to London in the New Year, perhaps even take part in the Season, and I want this troublesome matter taken care of long before then.”

  Anger flashed at her words, but he merely inclined his head. “As you wish, your grace.”

  No matter what Charity said, he was neither tiresome nor dispensable. And if she thought Howard would still be duke by the time the Season began in March, she could think again.

  1815 would be Percival Grenville’s year to take full control.

  They could count on it.