She felt him behind her. She closed her eyes and waited, with an impatience that left her trembling.
He touched her first, in the long, knowing strokes that drove her mad. Control began crumbling. She looked behind just as he lowered his body. She closed her eyes. With the first glide of his tongue, she gave up and abandoned herself to the extreme sensation.
She cried when the pleasure became torturous. She begged. The first tremors of release shook around the edges of her essence. She waited for the violent completion they heralded.
He stopped then, refusing her that finish. She looked back again. He knelt high behind her. His gaze locked on hers while he slowly filled her. He withdrew and entered again. She felt him as she never had before. Her interrupted release left her deeply sensitive, and the most profound pleasure centered around his deliberate thrusts.
The glorious madness engulfed her, bringing its freedom. She moved her hips, trying to take more, seeking the release that teased with its first shudders. He held her hips firmly so she could only know what he allowed her. Harder he thrust, again and again, while she hung helplessly submissive from the bed, until she shattered inside an unearthly burst of ecstasy.
• • •
He did not have to bring Lydia to the meeting with Trilby. He did anyway. She had a right to be there.
They rode in their state coach with two liveried footmen in attendance. At his instruction, Lydia had dressed in a carriage ensemble trimmed in fur. It was important for Trilby to understand the power that stood against him.
“There he is,” Lydia said, looking out the window. They were deep into Hyde Park, far from the areas frequently used in the morning. A few riders dotted the fields back here, but Trilby and his sister stood alone.
The coach stopped. A footman helped Lydia alight. Penthurst joined her and together they walked the thirty yards to Trilby. The footman carried a valise. He set it down when they stopped, and returned to the coach.
Mr. Trilby appeared ashen and cowed. Patricia Trilby did not. She had admitted much in that conversation in Hampshire, as she tried to cast it all as her brother’s doing. If necessary, it would all be repeated to a magistrate. A witness had heard everything, but Penthurst doubted he would need Kendale to back him up. Being a duke had its privileges, one being that magistrates were inclined to believe whatever you said.
“Is that the manuscript?” Penthurst gestured to a wrapped package under Trilby’s arm.
Trilby nodded, and offered it up. His sister thrust her arm in the way. “Is that the money?” She gestured to the valise.
“It is.”
She strode over, grabbed the handles and dragged it back to her brother. Bending low, she opened the valise and pawed through the banknotes.
Penthurst relieved Trilby of the package. “I trust every single page is here. If I find more missing than were given to my wife or me, I will not be pleased.”
“They are all there,” Trilby said. “You will find nothing untoward. I checked myself before we came, just to make sure.” He glanced askance at his sister, indicating who might have thought to take one or two sheets for the future.
“How did you know about it?” Lydia asked. “What made you look for it?”
“Lakewood expressed concerns that you were writing down a record of his time with you. He said you called it a novel, but it sounded like a journal. He worried there was something incriminating there.”
“You mean besides his dishonorable behavior toward me.”
Trilby flushed. “I had been introduced to your aunt. My sister—that is, we decided to try to get it if we could, just to be safe.”
“It took long enough,” Patricia Trilby said, rolling her eyes. “There were too many boring calls before the opportunity arrived. Imagine our surprise to find that the person incriminated was not Lakewood or my brother, but you.” She toed at the valise. “A happy discovery, as it turns out.”
“Mr. Trilby, do you understand the particulars?” Penthurst asked, to end the way the woman goaded Lydia. “You are both to leave the country. Go to America, or Brazil. Go wherever you like. If you do not, or if you return, either of you, a damp cell in Newgate Prison waits for you.”
Trilby nodded. His sister only smiled, brazenly. Her gaze shifted to Lydia and raked her from head to toe. Lydia stared her down.
“Whose idea was it?” Lydia said. “The ships. Who decided to take that dishonorable step?”
Patricia Trilby’s eyes narrowed over that irritating smile.
Algernon Trilby flustered. “That is hard to say. He came by one day and mentioned how from a certain point one could see it all. The notion to see what such would bring just came out of that.” He flushed. “It seemed a very minor sort of surveillance, and barely disloyal. Anyone who walked up Portsdown Hill could see the same thing, after all. The size of a fleet can never be a total secret.”
“Do you have any other questions, Lydia?” Penthurst asked quietly. An interrogation had not been part of the plan for this meeting, but he suspected she had a lot more she would like to know.
She hesitated, then shook her head.
“Then we are done here,” he said. “Take your sister and be gone within a week, Trilby. Do not let her convince you it is not necessary. For once in this sorry business, do not allow her to lead you by the nose.”
He took Lydia’s arm and they turned back to the carriage.
“She led them both by the nose,” Lydia said. “She was the reason Trilby was so inconstant in our negotiations, and kept changing his demands and getting bolder by the week. What a horrid woman. You should have had them thrown in prison. I am sorry my involvement, unaware though I may have been, forced you to be so generous to them.”
“I am not sorry. It gave me an excuse to be generous to someone else too, Lydia. A man who, for all his weakness of character, was once your friend. And mine.”
Chapter 22
Lydia could not sleep. After tossing under the bed-clothes for two hours, she threw them aside. Pulling on her undressing gown, she padded to the door to Penthurst’s dressing room. Opening it, she saw a faint light coming from the bedchamber.
Trusting he would not mind, she walked on bare feet and peered in. He had prepared for bed too, but sat in an upholstered chair reading a document. Caesar and Cleo slept at his feet.
She went in and sat on the side of the bed. He set the documents down.
“Can’t you sleep, Lydia?”
She shook her head.
“Are you nervous?”
“A little. The queen does not frighten me so much as all the others. I expect any mistake I make to be spread far and wide by noon the next day.”
She would go to St. James Court tomorrow and be received as Penthurst’s duchess. Rosalyn had proven useful, after all. She had seen this often enough in her years, and knew the protocol to the last detail. It had probably been wise of Penthurst to require her aid be requested. And, Lydia had to admit, the time they had spent on planning had made Rosalyn easier to bear in other ways too. She did not irritate as much as she used to.
“Cassandra and Emma will be there. Not all the ladies will be looking to catch you up. Think of it as a day like any other. Whatever happens does not really signify.”
That was easy for him to say.
She gestured to the papers. “What are you reading?”
“A manuscript written by a friend. It is not published yet.”
“Is it any good?”
“It is extraordinary. Why don’t you lie down and I will read you some of it. Perhaps it will help you sleep.”
She stretched out on the bed. She heard papers shuffling.
“Here is a remarkable passage. I knew I should not permit Mr. Beaumont’s kiss, but love permitted no denial. I closed my eyes as his lips sought mine. The strict lessons of my governess—”
“Stop!” She turned on her side and stretched, trying to grab the pages out of his hand. “I thought you burned that two weeks ago.”
>
“I said I would burn it. And I will. The dangerous parts have been ashes since the day I got this. I thought I would see what a fifteen-thousand-pound story was like before I consigned the rest to the flames.”
She closed her eyes, mortified. “Have you read all of it?”
“Oh, yes. Let me see, where was I— Ah, here. The strict lessons of my governess faded from my thoughts as the excitement of that kiss stirred my womanhood. I neglected to end the kiss as quickly as I had intended. That must have encouraged Mr. Beaumont in ways I had not intended, because he embraced me and lifted me into a kiss that could never be thought one of mere friendship. ‘My dear Christina. I will die from my love for you. How cruel that we cannot marry and know the sweetness of Venus’s gifts. Allow me to at least caress your perfect breasts so I once know their sweet softness before I perish.’ I did not demur, for the intimacy seemed necessary to my own contentment, and a very small one compared with what we could never share. His hand trembled as it closed on one of my snowy hills and—”
She groaned. “Please stop. Really.”
“It gets better. There is another love scene that is quite naughty, although the author’s ignorance becomes apparent toward the end.”
She already knew how much better it got. She definitely knew how ignorant the author had been. “Are you enjoying this?”
He laughed. “Very much. My very favorite part is this description of Beaumont. Did you realize it changes? He starts out with light brown hair but it gets darker. He also grows taller.” He cleared his throat. “Mr. Beaumont was a handsome, overly proud man who looked down on the world. Although his character affected his view, partly it had to do with his significant height. He stood a good head taller than most of his comrades. I found his stature disconcerting. It was a nuisance to be tipping my head back all the time, only to find his dark eyes with their winged eyebrows viewing me with undisguised disapproval.”
She frowned. She sat up. “I did not write that. You are making it up.”
“It is in your hand, I swear. Here.” He handed her the page.
She peered at the page. It was hers. When had she written this? It did not sound like Lakewood at all. It described—
“Why didn’t you tell me that you dreamt of having my hand close on one of your snowy hills, Lydia? I would have been happy to oblige.”
She threw a pillow at him. “You are to burn it immediately.”
“Most of it, I promise. You have to let me preserve the description of Christina’s brother, however. And that of his friend, the scowling, angry army officer. Since you sharpened your knives to a fine edge before carving up some of the bulwarks of society, it would be a shame to lose those paragraphs.” He let the pages fall to the floor and joined her on the bed. “Some of it is not nearly as bad as you claimed. The love story is very compelling. If you ever write another one, you might stick with that and leave out all those lists, perhaps.”
“I am being presented as your duchess tomorrow and you are suggesting I might write another naughty novel. I am sure the queen would be amused if I did that.”
He lay beside her and took her in his arms. “Do not worry overmuch what the queen finds amusing. Stop worrying about tomorrow’s ceremony. I will think none the less of you if it is not perfect. Even if you trip and fall on your face, I will not love you less.”
“Do not even joke about my falling. I will never sleep if I start imagining that—” The words died as she realized what he had said. She turned within his embrace so her face almost touched his. “Do you really love me? Has it come to that?”
“It appears I do, Lydia. Unexpectedly, but happily, I find you have stolen my heart. Do women of the world allow their husbands to love them or is that too ordinary?”
“Being loved by you could never be ordinary. Loving you in turn is not either. It is the most exciting thing I have known.”
He kissed her softly, then rose on his arm and looked down at her.
“Did you know how I felt?” she asked. “Did you guess?”
“Not at all. I did not expect a declaration from you in return. I spoke of it because I wanted you to know. After how this marriage happened, I thought you should.”
“I suppose that is what you meant by the unexpected part. Or were you referring to how you repudiated me when you were fifteen?”
He covered his eyes with his hand and groaned. “Who told you? Rosalyn? I will put her away in a tower house and remove the ladder.”
“She is innocent, although her first scold made much more sense after I heard.” She gave his side a little poke. “You must have thought fate had ensnared you when you said those vows in Scotland.”
“That never entered my mind,” he said, gallantly.
“If I had been you, I would have been stunned by the irony.”
“It did occur to me that ducal decrees were not worth a lot.” He laid his hand on her face, and became serious. “I did not feel ensnared in that Scottish church. The marriage seemed more inevitable to me than ironic. Last week in Hampshire I realized I had been waiting for you to grow up, and that I loved the woman you had become.”
She filled with emotion too precious to bear. She stretched up to kiss him. She let her lips linger on his, so she could make an eternal memory of the first kiss they shared after baring their hearts.
“You should probably sleep, so you are ready for tomorrow,” he murmured.
“Not yet. I want you to fill me. I want to feel you inside my body and my heart and know all the excitement of being in love with my husband.”
He did as she asked, until they were joined so totally that she felt him in her soul. He moved, then closed his eyes and moved again. “It is perfect, Lydia.”
It was perfect. She bent her legs to take him in deeper. She opened her heart, and allowed her love to be free and reckless.
As the power built and they melted together, she whispered declarations of love into his ear, so he would know how he astonished her, and how his love made her life extraordinary.
Keep reading for an excerpt from
The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne
by Madeline Hunter
Available from Jove Books
MAY 1798
The final sale at Fairbourne’s auction house proved to be a sad affair, and not only because the proprietor had recently fallen to his death while strolling along a cliff walk in Kent. It was also, from the viewpoint of collectors, comprised of very minor works, and hardly worthy of the reputation for selectivity that Maurice Fairbourne had built for his establishment.
Society came anyway, some of them out of sympathy and respect, some to distract themselves from the relentless worry about the expected French invasion for which the whole country had braced. A few flew in like crows, attracted to the carcass of what had once been a great business, hoping to peck a few morsels from the body now that Maurice did not stand guard.
The latter could be seen peering very closely at the paintings and prints, looking for the gem that had escaped the less experienced eyes of the staff. A bargain could be had if a work of art were incorrectly described to the seller’s detriment. The victory would be all the more sweet because such oversights normally went the other way, with amazing consistency.
Darius Alfreton, Earl of Southwaite, peered closely too. Although a collector, he was not hoping to steal a Caravaggio that had been incorrectly called a Honthorst in the catalogue. Rather, he examined the art and the descriptions to see just how badly Fairbourne’s reputation might be compromised by the staff’s ineptitude.
He scanned the crowd that had gathered too, and watched the rostrum being prepared. A small raised platform holding a tall, narrow podium, it always reminded Darius of a preacher’s pulpit. Auction houses like Fairbourne’s often held a preview night to lure the bidders with a grand party, then conducted the actual sale a day or so later. The staff of Fairbourne’s had decided to do it all at once today, and soon the auctioneer would take his place on the rostrum t
o call the auction of each lot, and literally knock down his hammer when the bidding stopped.
Considering the paltry offerings, and the cost of a grand preview, Darius concluded that it had been wise to skip the party. Less explicable had been the staff’s failure to tell him of their plans. He learned about this auction only through the announcement in the newspapers.
The hub of the crowd was not near the paintings hung one above another on the high, gray walls. The bodies shifted and the true center of their attention became visible. Miss Emma Fairbourne, Maurice’s daughter, stood near the left wall, greeting the patrons and accepting their condolences.
The black of her garments contrasted starkly with her very fair skin, and a black, simple hat sat cockily on her brown hair. Her most notable feature, blue eyes that could gaze with disconcerting directness, focused on each visitor so completely that one would think no other patron stood nearby.
“A bit odd that she is here,” Yates Elliston, Viscount Ambury, said. He stood at Darius’s side, impatient with the time they were spending here. They were both dressed for riding and were supposed to be on their way to the coast.
“She is the only Fairbourne left,” Darius said. “She probably hopes to reassure the patrons with her presence. No one will be fooled, however. The size and quality of this auction is symbolic of what happens when the eyes and personality that define such an establishment are lost.”
“You have met her, I expect, since you knew her father well. Not much of a future waiting for her, is there? She looks to be in her middle twenties already. Marriage is not likely to happen now if it didn’t happen when her father lived and this business flourished.”
“Yes, I have met her.” The first time had been about a year ago. Odd that he had known Maurice Fairbourne for years, and in all that time he had never been introduced to the daughter. Maurice’s son, Robert, might join them in their conversations, but never Robert’s sister.
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