A Daring Liaison

by Gail Ranstrom

  The moment that second door opened, Georgiana realized they’d come to a gambling club—a “hell” she’d heard them called. But there was nothing hellish about this establishment. It was opulent to the point of being ostentatious. Gilt moldings, intricate wallpaper and plush carpeting lent an almost decadent feeling. A stunning crystal chandelier, at least twice the size of the largest she’d ever seen, hung in the center of an enormous room casting rainbows of light throughout. An open stairway led to a mezzanine where people milled about, watching the play below. The women below appeared to be a bit older than Georgiana, while the women above were younger and more daringly dressed. And their companions seemed somewhat familiar in their handling of them. Demireps?

  Dozens of tables, perhaps more, stood at intervals throughout the room, and players were gathered around every one of them. Some tables appeared to be for cards, some for dice, and yet another held a wheel. Heavy velvet draperies shielded alcoves set into the walls, and while she watched, a couple entered one and a moment later, the drape closed. Whatever could be the purpose of that?

  For Georgiana, who’d only played casual cribbage with her aunt or whist with friends, the scene was fascinating. And quite exciting. She waited while Charles busied himself with a man in a booth, exchanging his chit from Biddle for counters to gamble.

  When he returned to her, he took her arm and led her toward the tables. “What game do you prefer, Georgiana?”

  “I’ve only learned whist and cribbage. Oh, and backgammon.”

  Charles laughed. “None of that here. The games you played were for society. There is nothing social about Belmonde’s. Gambling is serious business.”

  “But everyone seems so polite. I do not hear any quarrelling or see anyone doing anything...déclassé.”

  “Look higher and closer, my dear.”

  She did. Above them, a young man Georgiana could have sworn she had danced with last year stood behind a woman dressed in vivid green. One of his arms wrapped around her middle holding her back against him and the other lingered scandalously near to her breasts. Would he fondle the woman for all to see? She looked away, feeling terribly gauche in such worldly company.

  Charles leaned near to her ear. “Do you begin to see what I meant about civil company, Georgiana?”

  She nodded. A shout of laughter went up at a table across the room, and a croupier pushed a pile of counters toward a woman dressed in elegant cerulean blue. When the woman turned to speak to the man beside her, Georgiana recognized her as a countess much respected in the ton. She was a widow, the mother of three and a popular hostess. Then she looked at another woman, and another. They were accompanied by men, too, and were also women she’d met at soirees and balls.

  Ah, these were mature women who had earned the right to do as they please. Women whose reputations no longer needed guarding. Women capable of weathering a storm of gossip. Was that why Charles had dared bring her here? That, twice widowed and therefore obviously not virgin, she did not need to guard herself as unmarried women do? Or was it that Georgiana Huffington, whispered to be a murderess, could withstand so small a scandal as gambling?

  Suddenly, his motives were important to her. “Charles, why did you really bring me here?”

  He stopped and turned to her. “Someone tried to kill me today, Georgiana, and it wasn’t the person I was trying to provoke. Between my enemies and yours, death is a breath away. I did not feel like sitting at a polite dinner discussing the weather, politics or the latest on dit regarding this duke or that marquis. I wanted to do something to bring an end to this. To flaunt our relationship wherever it might do the most good. To be seen and noted. Certainly not at a family dinner party. We must flush our quarry out of hiding as soon as possible. We may not have much time left. You may not have much time.”

  His words chilled her. “Do you think he will now try to kill me?”

  “Not unless our culprit is Walter Foxworthy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your death would solve his problems. If his suit to become your conservator fails, he loses everything. But with you dead, he is the heir to the Betman fortune unless you conceive. Odd coincidence, is it not, that your husbands have died before they could impregnate you?” Charles smiled and cupped her cheek as he leaned closer. “But no, that is not my concern. If Foxworthy wanted you dead, he’d have made an attempt when you were still unprotected in Kent. If he merely wanted to prevent a future heir, well then, his target would be your husband. If there is anything you’ve forgotten to mention, Georgie, anything you’ve withheld, now would be a good time to tell me. Now, before the authorities close in.”

  She ignored his question for one of her own. “What is your concern, Charles?”

  “That you could be arrested.” He led her to a table where men were casting dice. He leaned close again. “That I could be killed. That time will slip away from us, Georgie. We haven’t a moment to spare.”

  His sense of urgency caught her. “Cease, Charles. Take me home at once. Disassociate yourself from me. I won’t be the cause of your death.”

  “You care what happens to me? I thought you disliked me.”

  “I’ve never disliked you.”

  He laughed and dropped his entire stack of counters on the table after exchanging a few words with another man. As the play began again, he turned back to her. “You lie so charmingly, my dear. No need. I’ve come to terms with it.”

  “Charles, you are the one who walked away from me. One day you were kissing me senseless and the next—”

  A cheer erupted from the table, and the man beside Charles clapped him on the back as the croupier pushed the winnings toward him. “Congratulations, Hunter.”

  “Blast,” he murmured. He scooped up a handful and passed them to her. “Hold these, will you?”

  She cupped her hands and stood quietly while the play continued. The man next to Charles smiled and stepped back from the table to talk to her. “I say, Mrs. Huffington, if you are so lucky for Hunter, perhaps I ought to have you accompany me to a table or two.”

  He knew her name, so he had to know that she hadn’t been particularly lucky for other men. She forced a smile. “Lucky? I think I shall do you a favor and not accompany you, sir. Whatever luck Mr. Hunter has had, he has made for himself.”

  “You are too modest.”

  The play over, Charles turned to them. “Luck is where you find it, Converse, and I do not intend to share mine.” He gave Georgiana a look that made her knees go weak. It was then that she began to understand. His voice, his manners, his heated looks, made it clear that he was making a slow, deliberate love to her. She should have been embarrassed, but she recovered when she recalled that this was his intent—to make society believe that they were lovers, and were, indeed, engaged to be married. She returned his look and was rewarded by a flicker of surprise in his eyes.

  They stared at each other in silence until Mr. Converse cleared his throat and moved away. A slow grin bloomed on Charles’s face. “Well played, Mrs. Huffington.”

  A footman brought a small basket for the counters, and another footman offered a tray of wine glasses. Charles took a glass for each of them and led Georgiana to one of the alcoves and a tapestry banquette where they could sit. He put the basket and glasses on a small table, and when he sat close enough for her to feel his heat and smell faint traces of his shaving soap, she felt her expectations rising. Would he kiss her? In public? Or would he drop the drapery to give them privacy?

  “Now, what is this about me walking away after our kiss?”

  She blinked. How could he not know? Before she could stop herself, she blurted the words she’d guarded since their reintroduction. “Do you really not remember that kiss in Lord Russell’s garden? I was so completely taken with you that I’d have allowed you any liberties you wanted. But then you cooled. I would look for you across a room or at a ball, and you were not there. Or, if you were, you would merely glance at me and turn away.” There! She’d broug
ht it into the open and she only felt relief, not shame.

  “Me? I would glance away?”

  “I was young. I did not know what I’d done. But I came to believe that I’d allowed you too much access to my person. Only cheap things come easily. You must have thought me very cheap, indeed.”

  “Cheap? You think our kiss did not cost me? Oh, Georgiana, if you only knew what it cost me.”

  “Then why—”

  “Hush,” he whispered as he leaned closer, crooking his finger and lifting her chin.

  She was on the verge of tears by the time his lips met hers. Softly, worshipfully. When he ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, she moaned as everything inside her loosened. She opened to him and he accepted the invitation, making small licks against her tongue, inviting her to test him—test his resolve, his passion, his determination.

  A deep moan rumbled in his chest and resonated in hers. She could feel his tension like a tightly drawn bowstring ready to snap. Just the memory of what he’d done to her the last time they’d been so enraptured caused a burning in her middle and a moistness at her core. He began to stroke her back, pressing her closer and closer. He would not let her break the kiss and catch her breath. Instead she was falling deeper and deeper into that dark swirling mist of desire until she did not want to breathe. Only to feel. To experience his passion. To be joined to him, locked together in body and mind.

  He slipped one hand around to touch her breast, then push one side of the deep V of her décolletage aside so that he could find one soft aureole and tease it into a tight aching bud. He pinched it tenderly and a streak of pure primal pleasure shot down her middle to that other, more demanding, bud.

  She was so lost to his seduction that she forgot everything but Charles’s hand. His mouth. The pleasure was so intense that she dropped her head back to offer her throat with a deep surrendering sigh.

  His breathing was coming quick and harsh. “Bloody goddamned hell,” he groaned. “Can you stand or shall I carry you out?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  All Charles could think of was getting Georgiana home before they lost control. He’d never been so swept up in a moment. But he would not subject her to this kind of scrutiny and gossip. This was private business.

  He helped her stand and made for the door. As he draped her shawl around her shoulders, he instructed Biddle to cash in his counters and hold the money for him. His carriage was waiting only half a block away and he had Georgiana safely inside within moments of their kiss. This time his lust was not going to get the better of him.

  Though she offered her lips when they were settled and the coach had pulled into traffic, he did not accept. Instead he held her hand, stroking her palm with his thumb. Rather than cooling their ardor, the drive and tension between them heightened it. Expectation quickened their breathing, heated their glances, and kept them mute. Words could only diminish what they were feeling.

  Arriving at Georgiana’s doorstep, he lifted her down and shouted to Peter to go home. He would not need a driver again tonight. Sanders, like any good footman, had been waiting for his mistress’s return and opened the door before they reached it. Charles carried Georgiana up the steps and through the door, ignoring the footman’s look of astonishment and Finn’s confusion.

  Clara’s wide-eyed expression quickly changed to one of concern. “Is she fallen ill, Mr. Hunter, sir?”

  “No,” he growled, heading for the stairs.

  He should put her down. She was capable of walking, but he did not want to release her. Something fiercely possessive had been born in him the moment she had said, Do you not remember that kiss in Lord Russell’s garden? I was so completely taken with you that I’d have allowed you any liberties you wanted. But then you cooled.

  Cooled? He had cooled? Dear God, there had to be some misunderstanding. He had lived that kiss every night since in his dreams. He had looked for it in every woman he’d kissed since. He’d come to believe he’d never experience it again.

  Until tonight. Until her wordless surrender had taken him so by surprise that he’d nearly disgraced them both. Even now he knew gossip would be raging about their hasty departure. He’d wanted that, to flush their quarry, but now he was ashamed that he’d allowed Georgiana to be the subject of such talk.

  Love? Georgiana? Again?

  Her bedroom door was open and he kicked it closed behind them. No need to lock it since no one would bother them tonight. Clara would see to it. Though the lamps were not lit, the fire had been fed and little flickers of light scattered throughout the room. He placed her on her feet and she gasped and swayed as if she hadn’t breathed since they’d left Belmonde’s.

  Her shawl fell to the floor and he threw his jacket on top of it, nearly overwhelmed with his need to have her naked. Quickly.

  “Charlie, I don’t...” Her voice was a whisper.

  No regrets. No second thoughts. “Let tomorrow take care of itself, Georgie. I’m not dead yet.”

  For a moment he was flummoxed as to how to remove her new gown, but then he ceased to care. He’d buy her a new one. He’d buy her forty—every one an exact copy, and every one to meet the same fate. She caught his urgency and let the buttons fly when she pulled his waistcoat open and pushed it off his shoulders. She reached for his cravat as he parted her gown at the V of her neckline. The fragile silk gave way like mere tissue, leaving her corset and chemise to be dealt with. This one laced at the front and he drew the strings from their hiding place between her breasts.

  That merest of touches sent a deep shudder through Georgiana and he was gratified. He wanted her shivering, trembling at his touch. God knew his own nerve endings were itching relentlessly, exquisitely sensitive and driving him toward release.

  Unlaced at last, the corset dropped away onto the growing pile of clothes. His cravat and shirt fared the same treatment as her gown. But he slowed a moment to watch her pull her chemise over her head, her arms high and her rose-tipped breasts gloriously bare. He gripped her around her waist and lifted her to fit his mouth first to the right and then the left, teasing the crowns into tight little beads as she tangled her fingers through his hair.

  “Charlie...Charlie...” she chanted, and each little entreaty spurred him on.

  He laid her on the bed, pulled her slippers off and dropped them on the floor, then paused as he reached for her garters. Soft violet stockings that matched her gown were held up at midthigh by white satin garters and were so erotic that he decided to leave them.

  He finished undressing himself, his gaze never leaving the sight of Georgiana, supine and stunning against pristine white sheets. Her eyes half closed, she licked her lips and crooked a knee to make a place for him between her legs. She could not have contrived to say anything so eloquent as that—the simple need to have him fill her and to kiss those lips.

  But not yet.

  “I want more from you than your acceptance this time,” he told her. “I want your participation.”

  “Yes,” she purred. “Yes, yes...”

  He lay down beside her, wondering how long he could maintain his self-control. Not long, he thought. But long enough to slow her down sufficiently to make it last. To make it memorable. There was a fine edge between release and completion, a matter of intensity, and he would teach her the differences and advantage of each.

  Release first.

  He knelt between her thighs, savoring the sight of her there, her olivine eyes glowing with unquenched passion. His. She smiled when she realized what he was doing—learning her, watching her, worshiping her. And she returned the favor, her eyes traveling down his chest to his shaft. Her eyes widened and he watched as she swallowed hard. His flesh tightened as his cock grew and twitched in response. Her breathing hitched and he eased himself downward until his mouth was level with those beckoning rosy buds. He flicked his thumbnails over them and she gasped. Slowly, he began to nibble at first one, then the other, until she crooked both knees to cradle him.

  Read
ing that sign as readiness, he slipped one hand down to her core. Still nibbling her breasts, he stroked her, gathering her dew until his fingers slid easily into her. She moaned and her hips jerked upward. He could feel her internal quivering, and it only took a moment to bring her to a small orgasm. She twisted beneath him, panting, her chest heaving.

  “That, sweet Georgie, was release,” he instructed.

  “Oh!” She gulped. “Th-thank you.”

  He chortled. “The pleasure was mine. And now for the rest.”

  “Rest?”

  He knew he’d only bought them a little time before the passion built to unbearable levels again. Though used to self-denial, he was not certain he could deny himself much longer.

  He kissed his way downward, seeking her mound and the hidden nub with his lips and tongue while he spread her legs a bit wider to accommodate him there. He trailed his fingers down her inner thighs to the garters and stockings, reveling in the smooth heated silk so like her inner sheath. The comparison caused a wanting, an unrelenting need, that seized him, overpowering both reason and reluctance. He wanted Georgiana, and he would have her. Nothing on this earth would stop him. Ever.

  He found her with his tongue and stroked deeply, drawing a surprised gasp from her. She tasted of sex and love, and her scent was an aphrodisiac to him. If he didn’t take her soon, he’d die of the pain.

  Moments later her hands left his shoulders and gripped the bedposts so tightly her knuckles whitened. She began chanting his name again, this time with a hint of desperation. “Charlie...Charlie...help me, Charlie...”

  Thank God. He rose above her, wanting to do this right. Wanting to give her the most intense pleasure of her life. She arched to him, her hands abandoning the bedposts for the less solid bulwark of his arms. “Now, Charlie. Please.”