WANTON

by Cheryl Holt

  “What’s wrong?” she inquired. “Why did you pull away?”

  “I’m very, very stimulated. I have to calm down.”

  She rose up on an elbow and grinned. “Have I caused your dire condition?”

  “Yes, you vixen. You drive me wild.”

  “Have I become a femme fatale?”

  “I believe you might have always been one. I’m simply luring it to the fore.”

  He put an arm around her and drew her to him so she was draped across his chest, her cheek directly over his heart. She traced lazy circles on his belly.

  “There’s more to it, isn’t there?” she asked.

  “Quite a bit more.”

  “What else happens?”

  Though he was the most dissolute rake in the kingdom, he couldn’t explain it to her. Blandly, he said, “It’s just more of the same.”

  “You’ve clarified nothing at all.”

  “Your husband will show you on your wedding night.” He nearly winced at voicing the word husband.

  “Is it difficult to accomplish?”

  “Not...difficult, precisely. It’s just different from what you’ve ever experienced. It’s different from what you imagine.”

  “I wish you would show me.”

  He chuckled miserably. “Trust me, Amelia, I would love to, but I don’t think I will.”

  “Why not?”

  “You deserve better than me.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I’m trying to behave honorably for once.”

  “Am I having a positive effect on your character?”

  “Yes.”

  “Marvelous.”

  He could sense her smiling, and he smiled too.

  There was a wonderful sort of pleasure in the air, as if they’d finally arrived at the spot where they were meant to be. To his astonishment, he could have lain there forever, but he’d already lingered much longer than he should have, had already committed many moral sins he should have avoided.

  “Where were you the past two weeks?” she asked.

  “I went to Summerfield, to visit my friend, James Talbot.”

  “I missed you,” she absurdly claimed.

  “You did not.”

  “I did! Don’t tell me how I feel. You don’t know me well enough to have an opinion.”

  He snorted. “I stand corrected.” He kept staring at the ceiling, scared to look at her lest he grow even more enamored. “I have a surprise for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Another letter—from your friend, Rose.”

  “A letter! How grand.”

  “That’s actually why I stopped by to see you.”

  “What does she say? Have you snooped into my private correspondence?”

  “I didn’t have to. I told her what to write.”

  She peeked up and glared at him. “And what was that?”

  “Would you grant me a favor?” he inquired.

  “Maybe. It depends on what it is.”

  “Would you go to Summerfield?”

  “Why?”

  “I just wish you would.”

  “Are you trying to coax me out of London?”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “What if I don’t want to leave?”

  “Rose and James are getting married. She needs you to help her with the wedding preparations.”

  She frowned and pouted. “You don’t play fair. I could never refuse to help Rose with any task.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. Will you go then?”

  “Will you come with me?”

  He gazed at her, taking in the glorious sight. With her hair tumbled around her shoulders, she looked rumpled and adorable and ready for more of their intimacies.

  It would be thrilling to hop into a carriage with her, to enjoy a leisurely trip to Summerfield, but it would bind them in ways he would never allow.

  Ultimately, he said, “No, I wouldn’t come.”

  “If I went on my own, would I see you at the wedding?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Or perhaps not?”

  “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  He shrugged and snuggled her down, unable to think clearly when she was staring at him. He thought he might be in deep trouble with her, that he might be developing an attachment that could never blossom.

  Before James had met Rose, he and Lucas had been planning to sail to India. The venture had been abandoned when Rose had entered the picture and changed the trajectory of James’s life.

  Lucas wondered if he shouldn’t proceed on his own. James was wealthy now. Maybe he’d loan Lucas the money. Or maybe Lord Sidwell would cough up the funds if Lucas swore he’d depart and never return.

  He clasped Amelia’s hand and linked their fingers, nestling with her as her breathing slowed, as she relaxed.

  “I’m tired,” she murmured.

  “Sexual conduct can be exhausting.”

  “It certainly is. I’m falling asleep.”

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “You can’t stay in here. I don’t want the maids to find you in the morning.”

  “They won’t,” he vowed. “I’ll just rest a bit. Close your eyes.”

  “Promise you’ll leave.”

  “I promise.”

  She was too drained to remember that he was a consummate liar, that she shouldn’t rely on any promise he made, but this time, it was actually one he would keep.

  He had no desire to run into Barbara Middleton as he was sneaking out the front door, no desire to doze off and awaken to the sound of Amelia’s maid lighting the fire and opening the drapes.

  Shortly, she drifted off, her body collapsed against him. He liked that she was comfortable enough to fall asleep in his arms, but she was a fool to trust him. He never lived up to other’s expectations, and if she started to count on him, she’d regret it in the end.

  He dawdled much longer than he should have, until a bird began to chirp outside, until a hint of dawn appeared on the eastern horizon. Very quietly, he slipped away from her and slid to the floor.

  Like a halfwit, he stood, watching her. His heart was aching, as if it had grown too large in the night and didn’t fit between his ribs anymore.

  “Goodbye,” he whispered.

  He tugged the blankets over her, then spun and tiptoed out while he could still force himself to go.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “What do you think?

  “I think we’re making progress.”

  Amelia and Barbara were in her dining room, eating breakfast. It was early in the morning. After Lucas had left, Amelia had dozed for a few hours, but she’d been up and dressed and nervously pacing when Barbara had finally staggered in.

  “We’re succeeding very quickly too,” Barbara added. “When we started this, you could never have convinced me—in a matter of weeks—we’d have Lucas Drake so enthralled that he’d be sneaking into your bedchamber.”

  “I never thought he’d be enthralled at all.”

  “Oh ye of little faith,” Barbara teased. “I don’t know a lot of things, but I understand quite a bit about men. They’re vain and obtuse and often need to be whacked over the head before they can see what’s right in front of their eyes.”

  “What’s in front of his eyes?”

  “You, you silly girl. He can’t stay away from you.”

  “When I walked in and he was there, I nearly swooned—and I’m not even the swooning type.”

  “How did he explain himself?”

  “He didn’t really, not until the end when he announced that he was delivering a letter from my friend, Rose Ralston.”

  “And the rest of the visit...?”

  “He was brooding and angry.”

  Barbara chuckled. “Brooding is good.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very.”

  “What should I do now?”

  “Just what you’ve been doing. We’ll keep attiring you in provocative gowns and jewels
, and we’ll keep shoving you in his face until he can’t bear it anymore.”

  “I believe he’s already at that point, but I have no idea how to push him beyond it.”

  “His ego and temper will drag him where we need him to be. You won’t have to push him anywhere.”

  “You’re not upset, are you?” Amelia asked.

  “About what?”

  “About his being up in my bedchamber.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s precisely where I’ve wanted him all along. Now that he’s been there, and I helped to bring it about, I can hardly complain.”

  Though Amelia was trying not to be embarrassed by her risqué behavior, her cheeks flushed. “I’m not used to all this relaxing of morals.”

  “You’ll get used to it. Actually, after you’ve carried on like this for awhile, you’ll likely never be able to live any other way.”

  “I don’t think so,” Amelia said. “This flaunting of convention is very out of character for me.”

  “We’ll just change your character.”

  “Can a person change her innate qualities? You truly suppose it can happen?”

  “Absolutely. You were bottled up at that blasted school, so you never had a chance to stretch your wings and fly.”

  “My life was very circumscribed.”

  “Who was the owner? Miss Peabody? Gad, even her name sounds tedious.”

  Amelia smiled. “She was very stern and dull, but she meant well.”

  “You were her captive audience, so you absorbed all she taught you, even if it was silly or wrong, even if it completely strangled your best traits.”

  Amelia had never assumed she had any traits to strangle. She’d always viewed herself as being very modest and unpretentious. It had taken flamboyant Barbara Middleton to rattle loose Amelia’s more robust tendencies. But Amelia wasn’t sure the transformation was genuine or that it would remain once she was no longer around Barbara and subject to her whims and impulses.

  “Miss Peabody was big on decorum and manners,” Amelia said, “and I agree that they’re important. She felt that a woman’s reputation had to be guarded at all costs, that if she lost the good opinion of others, she was destroyed.”

  “Reputation, bah!” Barbara spat. “The whole concept is naught but a ploy to keep females in their place.”

  “Did you ever wish you’d been born a man?”

  “Many, many times. I couldn’t abide the strictures under which I was expected to labor. And don’t forget: All those stupid rules were invented by men to make us behave. They never follow any of them.”

  Amelia thought of Lucas and his many paramours, how he dabbled and caroused and seemed proud of his degeneracy.

  “They certainly don’t,” Amelia concurred.

  “They’re free to rampantly fornicate and sire bastard children. They can gamble away all the family’s money and property. They can become drunkards and create public spectacles—and the dear wife has to put up with all that nonsense. I wasn’t that noble.”

  “Which of those sins were committed by your husband?”

  “None of them,” Barbara breezily said. “He just bored me to tears. I was choking on his lectures and sanctimony. One day, I decided I’d had enough, and I ran away.”

  She hadn’t returned for three decades. Her husband had been dead by then, her son—the one she’d abandoned when he was a baby—was an adult and installed as earl of Penworth. Barbara had few regrets about any of it, and with her having earned her son’s forgiveness, she didn’t rue her choices.

  Amelia refused to have a history similar to Barbara’s. She would never engage in scandalous affairs where her name would be hurled in a derogatory way by all who knew her—and all who didn’t.

  Currently, she was listening to Barbara, acting as Barbara would act, and heeding Barbara’s advice to win the estate Lord Sidwell had promised. But once Amelia’s goal was accomplished, she intended to be a happy, satisfied wife in the country. She would befriend the neighbors, volunteer at church, host the harvest festival and Christmas celebration.

  She would be boring and dull and tedious—as Miss Peabody had been—and in the future, she’d reflect warmly on her London adventure. Then, gradually, it would come to seem as if it had happened to someone else, someone wilder, freer, and more exotic than herself.

  “I have a question,” she murmured.

  “What is it?”

  “Do you think Mr. Drake could ever...well...”

  “Spit it out, darling,” Barbara urged.

  “Could he ever...ah...fall in love with me?”

  Barbara studied her, and the shrewd assessment made Amelia feel young and unsophisticated.

  “Is that what you’re hoping now?”

  “No, I was just wondering.”

  “Are you perhaps falling a bit in love yourself?”

  “No,” Amelia hastily scoffed.

  Barbara leaned across the table and patted Amelia’s hand.

  “Don’t walk down that road, Amelia. We talked about it, remember? You need to separate your emotions from what’s occurring with him.”

  “I know.”

  “If you don’t, and we can’t get him to propose, he’ll break your heart.”

  “I realize that, but he can be very charming. When I spend such intimate time with him, it’s hard to remain detached.”

  “But you must,” Barbara insisted. “He’s a rake and a bounder. Even if he becomes your husband, the chance of sentiment developing is highly unlikely.”

  “He could grow fond though, couldn’t he?”

  “You shouldn’t count on receiving much from such an unreliable cad.”

  “I feel sorry for him,” Amelia blurted out. “He seems lost and alone to me—as if he doesn’t have any friends or focus in his life.”

  “That’s the motherly instinct in you,” Barbara said. “Save it and use it on your children should you have some someday. It’s a waste of energy to let it blossom over a man like Lucas Drake. You’ll only humiliate yourself in the end.”

  They were silent, Amelia drinking her chocolate as Barbara finished eating.

  Amelia knew Barbara was correct, that Amelia shouldn’t permit herself to like Lucas very much, but in actual practice, the notion was extremely difficult. He’d turned out to be incredibly likeable.

  She didn’t want to have a marriage of convenience, didn’t want to snag Lucas into matrimony merely to have him trot back to his dissolute world in London the minute the ceremony was over. She wanted him to love her. So he’d be content in her company. So he’d be glad they’d wed. So he’d stay with her and never leave.

  Yet with Barbara so vehemently opposed to the possibility, Amelia had to keep any burgeoning feelings to herself, and she wouldn’t mind if she didn’t share what she was sensing. Something fine and amazing was flourishing between her and Lucas, and she’d hide it, like a special treasure in a locked box.

  Once in awhile she would take it out, would hold it and rejoice over it, then she’d squirrel it away so no one could see.

  “Remember the letter I mentioned?” Amelia said. “The one Lucas delivered from my friend, Rose?”

  “Yes. What did she want?”

  “She’s getting married at an estate near the Scottish border. She’d like me to join her so I can help with the preparations.”

  “I don’t suppose Lucas will be there, will he?”

  “I asked him if he’d accompany me, but he refused.”

  “He’ll be in London?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you, my dear, have to remain in London too. As long as he is here, you can’t be anywhere else.”

  * * * *

  “I’ve been thinking,” Aaron said.

  “About what?”

  “About Priscilla.”

  Aaron stared at his father who was dressed to go out for the evening. It was just the two of them for a change, with no guests to entertain or interrupt. They were in the main parlor, having a brandy as L
ord Sidwell waited for his carriage.

  Aaron had cried off from the nightly round of balls and soirees. The previous evening, he and Priscilla had had a bit of a row. The quarrel had been so inane that he didn’t recollect how it had started or what it had even been about, but it was another shining example of how awful their life would be.

  His father frowned. “What about Priscilla?”

  “Are you positive I should marry her?”

  “Of course you should. Why would you pose such an idiotic question?”

  “She’s so young and immature.”

  “What has that to do with anything?”

  “It just seems that a husband should...like his wife.”

  “What ever gave you that idea?”

  “Our union might last for fifty or sixty years. I’d hate to imagine it would all be horrid.”

  Lord Sidwell shrugged. “If you don’t get on, you live separately. It works for other couples; it will work for you.”

  “I don’t want to live separately. I want to be happy.”

  “Happy in marriage?” Lord Sidwell laughed nastily. “No man is ever happy in his marriage.”

  “Some men are. It can happen, and I wish it could happen to me. I’m not asking for the moon. I’d simply like to have a sane relationship with my wife.”

  “You’re not wedding Priscilla for her attributes.”

  “Why am I again? I can’t ever recall from one minute to the next.”

  “It’s to bring us an enormous amount of property, especially that tract on our southern boundary. I’ve had my eye on that parcel for two decades.” Lord Sidwell gleefully rubbed his hands together. “And it’s about to be mine.”

  Aaron studied his father, wondering what kind of person he actually was on the inside. It was so difficult to guess what went on in his head.

  For most of Aaron’s childhood, his father had been absent, choosing to reside in London, while Aaron and Lucas were at the estate and raised by nannies and other servants.

  Whenever Lord Sidwell would deign to return, he was treated like a king. As a small boy, Aaron had been in awe of him. It was only when Aaron grew up a bit that he started to understand his father was a miscreant and a dunce. He was also extremely vain and had a massive cruel streak that he regularly exhibited in his punishments of Lucas.