ThePleasureDevice

  Nicholas jumped up. “Darling, what is wrong?” He pulled her out of the chair and led her to the bed. “Sit with me. Talk to me. Tell me what is bothering you.”

  She sniffled as she sat on the mattress. “Do you have a handkerchief?”

  “No,” he responded brusquely. He slipped off his suspenders and offered the hem of his shirt. “Please, use this,” he said gently.

  She wiped her eyes and her nose, pulling the shirt up as she did so, revealing his torso little by little until she had completely forgotten about her tears and was simply staring at his stomach. She had never seen a man unclothed before and the sight was affecting her in an unexpectedly physical way. “May I touch you?” she asked quietly, unable to quell the awe in her voice.

  “Yes,” he said with a yearning quiver.

  Nicholas lay back onto the mattress and Helena knelt next to him, gazing at his uncovered flesh as she nervously removed her gloves. She touched him tentatively, finding his skin marvelously soft and excitingly warm, then glided her fingers over the taut muscles of his abdomen, through the fine hair of his chest. He responded with moans and sighs, encouraging her, emboldening her, compelling her to bend down and kiss his bare flesh, his hot belly burning her wet lips. His throaty growl provoked her to lick, his exhaled blasphemy incited her to outline tiny circles around his trembling navel with her tongue before following the trail of downy hair to the waistband of his trousers.

  Nicholas sucked in air at her intrusion. “Darling, no!” He sat up. “We mustn’t.”

  For only a moment they stared at each other wide-eyed, puffing shallow, astonished breaths before Nicholas took her in a devastatingly needy kiss.

  Helena gave in to his demands, letting his tongue tangle with her own, letting him twist her to lie back, letting him place his weight on top of her, letting him trap her against the mattress. Her hands explored his back, discovering the muscles masculine and exciting as they moved and reacted to her gripping fingers steadying herself against the assault of pleasure. His hips rocked against hers in a slow rhythm. She responded instinctively, pressing up and tilting down to his sensual cadence.

  He lifted his head, gazing beseechingly. “Darling, your very presence drives me mad with desire.” He stroked her cheek. “Then to be with you like this, to love you like this, to touch you like this, I am beyond my senses.”

  “Me too.” She smiled and drew her fingers down his spine, tracing every ridge, every valley of every vertebra until she reached his waistband. She slid her hands under the fine wool, hesitatingly, slowly. She hardly knew what she was doing, but it felt perfect.

  She sensed a new energy surging through him at her touch. His lips pecked a string of kisses from her ear to her décolletage, his tongue darting under the fabric of her neckline. “My love, Helena, we oughtn’t be doing any of this.” Despite his speech, he did not stop.

  She did not want him to stop. She wanted to ride the tumult of emotions from confusion to delirium. But his truth made her remember why she had to get away from the crowd in the ballroom in the first place. “No, we really oughtn’t,” she said, the words choking in her throat as fresh tears smarted in her eyes.

  Nicholas abruptly pulled back. “Helena?” He slid to her side. “Oh God, I’ve been a brute.”

  “Nicholas, no, please, it’s nothing you did.” She took the edge of his shirt again to wipe her eyes. “When I’m with you I feel nothing but…but joy. Absolute joy, unfettered freedom.” She smiled up at him, his face racked with concern and delight. “I fear I will never experience such feelings with another. I know I could not.” She drew in a bracing breath. “My mother has found a husband for me. I don’t know who it is yet. She said he is a kind man but an older man.”

  Nicholas gaped, then fell back onto the mattress in defeat, gasping, stunned and disheartened as she. “I’m sure whoever your mother has chosen for you will be a suitable match,” he said, staring up at the canopy.

  Helena rested her hand on his belly feeling uneven breaths course through his torso. “Nicholas, I’m afraid. How can I love him if I don’t know him?”

  “Perhaps he is a good man. Perhaps love will grow.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  “But I want to feel what I feel when you kiss me.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “Perhaps he is an interesting man. A man of science.”

  “Can dukes and earls be men of science?” she lamented.

  He chuckled. “Yes, I think so.” He gave her a little squeeze. “Why do you not know who it is?”

  “My mother said she has written to my father in California. I think I have to wait until he approves.”

  “Oh.” He could not hide the disappointment in his voice and yet there was a hint of something akin to hopefulness. “Do you have any idea who it might be?”

  “I’ve thought it through. It has to be a duke. I’ve met a couple of those who were at least forty, I think.” She gazed up at him. “Nicholas, I don’t want to think about it right now. I want to be with you.” She slid her hand across his stomach, stroking the silky strands that disappeared tantalizingly beneath his waistband.

  “All right.” He kissed her hair and grabbed her hand, holding it away from him as he tugged down his shirt. “But I don’t think we should continue with what we were doing. I’m not sure I could restrain myself. And I would have the wrath of both your father and your future husband to deal with.”

  Helena giggled. “Tell me about the girl you were with.”

  “No! Absolutely not.”

  He didn’t seem angry, so she pressed. “Do I know her?”

  “I will not besmirch the name of a fine young woman.” Despite his stalwart words, he was smiling.

  “So you admit what you did was wrong?” she taunted mischievously.

  “What? No! I mean, yes, it was very naughty, but if two people—” He broke off.

  “Yes?” she said expectantly.

  “You are incorrigible, you know that.”

  “I do.” She smiled.

  “How any man will put up with that, I don’t know.”

  “You would.”

  “I would,” he agreed. He pulled her close again. “Tell me about the stars, Helena. Tell me about the constellations.”

  He was changing the subject to make her feel better. She nuzzled into the crook of his arm. “When I was a child, Mama and Papa used to tell me bedtime stories about gods and goddesses. One night, Papa took me outside on the lawn of our house in New York. We lay there and he told me the same stories while we looked up at the stars. I spent that summer reading about the constellations and the myths during the da, and studying the sky at night, watching it change as the hours passed.” She sighed. “I suppose the wife of a duke doesn’t really need to know such things.”

  “You never know.” He kissed her hair and threaded his fingers through hers. “I didn’t think it would happen so soon,” he said quietly, his voice betraying his disbelief. “I thought I’d have a bit more time.”

  “Time?”

  He pressed his face against her. “Time to be with you.”

  It was a curious thing to say. Even all the time in the world would not have changed the fact that he was a doctor. Still, an old duke might not mind if she had her pleasures once she bore him an heir. “Nicholas, could we be lovers after I am married?”

  She felt him tense briefly. “I would very much like that, Helena.”

  “We could make love in third-floor bedrooms.”

  He smiled and looked down at her. “How positively wicked.” He pulled her close and took her in a deep kiss.

  She opened for him, letting him consume her, her lungs tightening against the sobs threatening to break forth, knowing it was probably the last time they would be together. She tugged him on top of her to envelop him in her arms, gripping for dear life, letting his body crush hers, just needing to feel him more.

  He broke away reluctantly, loosening her hold on him yet understanding the urge
ncy, letting her run her hand inside his shirt. His muscles trembled under her frenzied fingers.

  “Darling,” he said softly, “I have to go away for a while on business. I mean, there’s a family matter, an illness, and I must attend to it, I don’t know when I will see you next but I will see you. Even if you are already married, I will find you.”

  Helena nestled against him. “And then we can become lovers?”

  “And then we can become lovers.”

  It was said with a hopeful note.

  Chapter Twelve

  Nicholas had lost her. His beloved Helena, gone, to another man, a stranger who did not love her.

  Still, Lavinia—dear sweet, practical, intelligent, beautiful Lavinia—had convinced him he had to see his father even without the hope of Helena. Once the Earl of St. Albans died, the press would discover Nicholas’ relationship to him. It was best for Nicholas’ future—and his marriage prospects—if he made an effort to reconcile with his family. Women adored honorable men, she had said.

  Mason the steadfast butler showed no surprise when he opened the front door to the sprawling estate and saw the proverbial prodigal son returned.

  “Good afternoon, Lord Saxondale.”

  The reference to the courtesy title was jarring. “Good afternoon, Mason,” Nicholas said kindly. With Jack dead, the servants would just assume he was the new Viscount Saxondale. There was no point in admitting his reservations.

  He was led in and his hat and coat dutifully taken. “I’m here to see my father, Mason.”

  “Yes, sir. Right this way, sir.”

  As they climbed the stairs, passing paintings of his ancestors, Nicholas saw how much the house had been left to deteriorate. Along the corridor of the second floor, where a maid would have usually cleaned, dust clung to woodwork and covered the tops of tables, less thick where objects had been removed, probably to be sold. The patent disregard for their once-esteemed heritage disgusted him.

  “Where are you taking me, Mason? This is not at all where I remember my father’s bedroom was.”

  “Yes, my lord. The bedroom wing was closed a few years ago. Much of the house is no longer used. It saves on the expense of coal and other things, my lord.”

  Yes, of course. Jack had acquired his nickname not just because it was a diminutive of his Christian name, Jonathan, but because of his gambling habit, developed, unfortunately, during his university days when he became known as Jack of Diamonds. Nicholas knew his brother had recently been excessively in debt and now the magnitude of that debt stared him plainly in the face. Jack and his father seemingly had fired the entire staff—save for Mason and perhaps a cook—sold family heirlooms and closed off most of the house. It was amazing how much devastation vice could bring upon a family in just a few years.

  Mason stopped before a room Nicholas remembered as his mother’s summer morning room. “We are here, my lord.”

  His heart thumped nervously. “Tell me, Mason. What state is he in? Can he speak?”

  “Yes, my lord. You father is bedridden but he can speak. He will be delighted, I am sure, to see you. He has much to say.”

  “Thank you, Mason.” Nicholas drew in a fortifying breath and went in.

  The room was as he had remembered it when his mother was alive, except a narrow servant’s cot had been placed before the fireplace and instead of the scent of lavender, the stink of death hung in the air. The Earl of St. Albans, a formidable man when in his prime, lay shriveled and pale under a dense goose-down comforter in the small bed.

  “Nicky, is that you?”

  Nicholas’ heart dropped at the sound of the frail voice.

  “Yes, Father, I am here.”

  “Good, good. I have been waiting.”

  Nicholas drew up a chair and sat at the bedside.

  “The bullet went close to my heart, if you would like to see it, Doctor.”

  Nicholas was taken aback. The earl was trying to humor him.

  “If I may, Father.”

  Nicholas drew the comforter down. His father’s left shoulder was covered in a bandage—expertly done, he had to admit. He loosened and pulled back a corner. The stench of infection hit him first. The wound was beyond repair, discolored and decaying.

  “I wish I could have been here to help, Father. I learned how to treat wounds in the mountains of Anatolia.”

  “The doctor did what he could when he could, Nicky.”

  “Yes.” Nicholas tucked the bandage in place and sat back in his chair.

  “Thank you for coming, son.”

  “It was Lavinia who convinced me.”

  “I know.” The earl’s breathing was labored. “Nicky, I know what you heard, but I did not kill her. I did not kill Louisa.”

  Tears welled in his eyes at the sound of his mother’s name. Nicholas fought hard to calm himself, hearing Lavinia’s voice in his head telling him he should listen to whatever his father had to say. “Go on.”

  “I admit I was cruel to her. I regret that. I was selfish, foolish, a criminal. I did not deserve such an angelic woman as she.” He gasped for air.

  “All I read was that you and Jack beat her to death.”

  “No! It was not like that.” There was a heavy silence as the earl bolstered himself to tell the tale. “Jack had taken up with a young man named Percy.”

  “The Duke of Amesbury’s son?”

  “The very same.”

  “Why, he is just a child!”

  “He was when you left us, yes. He was a handsome youth when Jack began his affair with him.”

  Nicholas really liked Percy, a delightful boy full of fantastical notions who amused him with stories of pirates and fairies.

  “I really think at one point Jack loved Percy. I had even hoped the boy would be his savior from drink and debt. But it did not last long. Jack fell back in with his old friends and began drinking again. That’s when he started abusing poor Percy.”

  Nicholas tamped down the anger boiling within.

  “Your mother and I did not know for the longest time. We would see Percy injured but he always had an excuse. We thought nothing of it. He was always such an active boy.”

  The earl drew in a tremulous breath. Nicholas’ stomach clenched at the sound.

  “I’m not quite certain how it all happened. Your mother must have heard Jack and Percy arguing, must have realized Jack was beating the boy. She found him alone in Jack’s bedroom, crying and bleeding, so she took him and hid him in her own room and cared for him there.

  “Jack came home later that night, more drunk than he had been that afternoon. He looked for Percy everywhere, eventually finding him in Louisa’s room. He flew into such a rage.”

  The earl stopped. He was crying. Nicholas’ head ached from restraining his own tears.

  “It was Jack who beat your mother, Nicky. He hit her as if she were a man equal to his strength. I heard her screams. The whole house did. We ran upstairs to her aid but he had a gun and threatened to kill her. He was raving that Percy was his to do with as he pleased. I knew I had to do something. In my foolishness I leapt for the gun. In the melee, Jack pushed my Louisa down the stairs.”

  The earl made an effort to catch his breath again. “The servants went every which way, some to help your mother, some to tackle Jack. She died on the landing, Nicky. She broke her neck. In her last breath, she spoke your name.”

  Tears blinding his eyes, Nicholas took out his handkerchief. The “R” for “Ramsay” emblazoned on the corner sent him over the edge of grief. The earl weakly reached out his trembling fingers. Nicholas squeezed the frail hand.

  “I went to Percy, guarding him, while the servants sequestered Jack. At that moment, in my sorrow I realized I was the one to blame. Jack learned such abhorrent behavior from me and the way I treated your mother.”

  Something did not make sense. Something was missing from the story. “Father, why did I read that you were involved?”

  “I was involved, really. But it was for the boy’s sa
ke. A son of a duke in a pederastic relationship would not sit well with the ton. That he had been beaten by his lover would have been worse. I had to feed the press something. I told them it was an argument with your mother that ended in tragedy. Of course the gossips embellished the story with Jack’s drunken involvement, that he had been seen with a gun, even daring to insinuate it was murder.”

  Nicholas tried to absorb all he had just heard. Three years ago, he had read newspapers, listened to gossip and had burned every letter his father had sent to him via Lavinia. Had he actually read them he might have known the truth earlier. Still, it would not have saved his mother.

  Mason knocked lightly before entering the room. “Master Nic—pardon, Lord Saxondale, I think it is time your father rested.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Nicky,” came his father’s weak voice. “Will you be staying?”

  Nicholas hadn’t bothered to think that far ahead. “Yes, Father, I’ll stay.”

  “Good. We have some catching up to do.”

  Once outside, Mason led Nicholas down the hall. “I’ll put you up here, my lord. I think it was once a parlor of sorts.”

  “Yes, it was.” His mother used to entertain close friends there. “Tell me, Mason, why is my father not in his old bed? Surely he’d be more comfortable.”

  “I had no one to help me move the bed, my lord. And to be frank, as your mother was killed in the bedroom wing, your father did not want to die there too. He hopes to feel her spirit in the morning room, where she spent so much of her time.”

  “Thank you, Mason.”

  * * * * *

  “Marry Dr. Christopher!” Helena screamed in horror. “Why am I to marry Dr. Christopher? I thought I was to marry a duke!”

  Mama’s fingers fumbled at the buttons on the back of her walking dress. “Now, Helena—”

  “He’s not a member of the peerage, is he?”

  “He’s been made a baronet, darling.”

  “Oh but there are gobs of those, aren’t there? Even Papa could be made one and he’s American.” Helena tugged at her bodice until it fit properly. Her lady’s maid had the afternoon off, and clearly Mama was too anxious to be of much help.