She shivered, some half-formed thoughts tumbling through her mind, but she shook her head. He removed his hand, and she gave a moue of disappointment.
“Let’s play a game,” he said. “We’ll tell each other what we’d like. It can be very…arousing, you know.”
She didn’t know and he must have read bafflement in her face.
“I’ll go first. Stand up.” He was on his feet and reached a hand down to her. Without another word she obeyed his gesture and followed him to the cherrywood dressing table. He arranged her on the backless seat, her bare buttocks on the velvet cushion, skirts spread about her.
“Have you ever been to the opera?” he asked.
“Once, when I was a little girl in Paris,” she replied, puzzled.
“Picture yourself in a box at a theater. The table in front of you is the wall of the box and you’re looking out at the crowds in the pit. The stage curtains are drawn, waiting for the performance to begin.”
She could see him in the mirror, standing behind her. His lips twitched.
“Tut, tut,” he said. “You’re displaying rather more than is seemly in public. We’ll have to do something about that.” He leaned in from behind and, without even brushing his fingers over her flesh, raised the top of her dress to conceal her breasts and carefully tightened and tied the drawstring and the sash. She wanted to cry out, tell him to touch her not cover her up. “That’s better. Me too,” he added, fastening his trouser buttons.
Their eyes met in the glass, his more blue than gray and glowing sensually. She ached for his hands on her, yet found something erotic in his distance, making her keenly aware of velvet under her thighs while her mind conjured other sensations on her skin.
“The orchestra is beginning to play now and the curtain goes up. You are lost in the music.” She closed her eyes, envisioning the scene, the scent and heat of oil lamps, the sounds of the crowds below her mingling with that of harmonious singing. Ever aware of the man standing behind her, and of his voice, the dearest sound in the world to her.
Suddenly she felt cool air at her lower back and opened her eyes. He was leaning over her and raising her skirts, which he tucked into the back of her sash.
“I stand behind you,” he continued, low and husky, “and I care nothing for the opera, only for you. I want you now. So I raise your skirts and caress your sweet little rump.” He made no move to touch her but her inner passage throbbed at his words, and she leaned forward over the dressing table and involuntarily arched her back, further exposing her bottom.
“Yes, my love. Slide back on the seat and open yourself to my hands as I stroke your silken skin. So smooth, so perfect.”
In the mirror she held his torrid gaze, the cool gray eyes transformed into a stormscape of roiling seas and St. Elmo’s fire. And groaned with frustration as he continued to stand motionless.
“Hush, my love. The people in the next box will notice what we’re doing if you make a sound. Lean on the padded front of the box and fix your attention on the stage so that I can pleasure you without anyone noticing.”
Gritting her teeth, she rested her arms on the dressing table. Who would have known mere words could be so arousing. So frustrating.
“Now I kneel behind you and kiss every exposed inch, run my tongue along the valley between your buttocks, and my fingers tangle in your hair and slide into your hot, wet center to tease you where it feels best.”
She’d give him tease! She was going to scream if he didn’t touch her soon.
But he used words alone, describing what he did to her with his hands and lips, lavishly praising her response, graphically delineating his own reactions. Words that aroused her to a peak of longing without his laying a single finger on her.
Her breath came in gasps and she was an inferno, ready to explode, to shatter into a shower of embers. Maddened beyond reason she shifted to kneel on the velvet seat, thrust her face into her arms on the dressing table and raised her behind above parted thighs to offer herself to him.
“You’re so hot, so wet, so ready for me. And I’m so ready for you, hard and aching.”
“Anthony,” she cried. “Now! For God’s sake now!”
“Quiet, love. Not long now. I’m undoing my buttons.” She couldn’t see or hear anything and feared he was doing nothing of the sort. She was becoming insane with lust.
“Now!” he said. “Now at last I’m inside you, thrusting into you, feeling you warm and slick and tight around me. You’re adorable, driving me wild.”
He was driving her wild. She was on the edge of that ecstatic tumble into oblivion, but she couldn’t quite get there on words alone. She cried out his name in frustration.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” he shouted in an escalating rhythm. Then with a final cry of triumph he fell silent. And sighed. “That was perfect.”
And that was all.
After some moments she struggled to her feet in disbelief. “You can’t leave me like this!” she shrieked, slewing around to face him. He was grinning at her, but she was glad to see lines of strain about his mouth, a hint of her own dissatisfaction mirrored in his eyes. And judging by the bulge in his trousers, he was far from done for the evening.
“Fun, isn’t it,” he said, reaching for her and drawing her into his embrace.
“Fun! Fun?” she fumed. “I’ll give you fun.”
“Later,” he said, still smiling. “Don’t forget what I said about anticipation.”
He looked so pleased with himself she had to smile back. “You are outrageous. Would you actually do that in a crowded theater. Have you ever?”
“The thing about fantasies is that they don’t have to be something you’d care to do in real life. The answer is no and no. For a start the box walls are the wrong height and the chairs have backs. Worse still, everything would be in full view of the people in the adjoining boxes, and this isn’t something I like to do with an audience. But one can dream.” He kissed the top of her head. “Now it’s your turn.”
“Turn for what?”
“To tell me what you want to do to me. I should think you’d have some ideas after that.”
“I most certainly do,” she said, her voice rising with the return of a kind of annoyance. “What I’d like to do is tie you to the posts of that bed so you can’t move.”
“Yes?” he prompted. He didn’t seem at all upset at the notion. “Then?”
She recalled their adventures with the profiteroles and cream. “Then I’d cover you with crème chantilly over every inch of your body and lick it off, especially”—she pointed at the bulge between his thighs—“there. And then I’d leave you before you were satisfied.”
He roared with laughter and tightened his embrace. “I adore you, Jacobin, though that’s not very kind. At least in my fantasy you were satisfied.”
“You didn’t say so.”
“Didn’t I? Well, I assure you that you were. And I promise you will be in truth before much more time passes.”
She was relieved to hear it and looked longingly at the bed. Any hint of dread had vanished, and she couldn’t wait to become horizontal again. He was nuzzling her ear and creating new tremors in her eager body.
“Come to bed,” he said.
He was rock-hard and almost dizzy with longing. Seduced as much as she by his own words, he’d had to exert every bit of control he could muster not to make his fantasy real. But this wasn’t just any woman. This was Jacobin, the most important thing in the world to him. He wanted, needed, to show her that he’d changed, that his selfish concerns were dust in the wind compared to her happiness. So he hesitated, his ingrained self-confidence dissolved with his arrogance. How could he make it perfect for her?
“Well?” she asked with a touch of impatience. “Should we undress?”
Trust her to not wait for his lead. For a moment he’d made the mistake of imagining her a shrinking violet. Yet she’d never shown a hint of shyness or diffidence. Not his Jacobin. She charged into events headfirst, and he
suspected he could spend the rest of his life happily following her.
She ran a hand over his bare chest and rubbed a nipple with her thumb. His cock burgeoned and ached harder, though he wouldn’t have thought it possible. “Look at me,” she said. “I’m fully dressed and you should be dismissed for incompetence.
“Mon lapin. Mon coeur,” he whispered, untying the strings at her neckline again.
“Your French is improving.” She replaced her thumb with her mouth.
Without finesse he reached behind her and jerked at the sash. She shrugged the loosened gown from her shoulders, and it fell to the ground with a muslin rustle. Then she set her lips to the other nipple and used her tongue to play with it.
Every one of those damn petticoats had its own tapes.
“I can’t untie them,” he said helplessly. “You’ll have to do it. My fingers won’t work.”
She raised her head at a quizzical angle. “You are most definitely dismissed.” Her lips, the color of new wine but doubly intoxicating, curved in an invitation he had to accept.
“You are rehired,” she said, emerging a little breathless from a long, deep kiss. “Despite your shortcomings you have some useful skills.”
His answer came in little more than a croak. “I am gratified to have pleased my lady.”
And since that particular service had proved acceptable, he cradled her head in trembling hands and repeated it, drawing from her lips and mouth the scent and taste peculiar to her, both sweet and spicy with a faint continuo of vanilla.
Being Jacobin, she didn’t remain passive but met his kiss thrust for thrust and drew him closer until the pressure of her peaked nipples against his chest threatened his scanty control. So he drew back, released her, and fell to his knees.
“I have a task to complete,” he muttered.
Dispensing with dexterity he seized the waistbands of her petticoats and tore them apart, one, two, three, swept each fine muslin layer impatiently to the floor, parted the chestnut curls revealed, and pushed his tongue through them to find her hot, wet, and swollen. Too soon, it took only a few strokes, she uttered a little cry of delight and exploded in his mouth. He wound his arms about her hips and held her tight to him, his cheek against her stomach, filled with a sensation that felt like joy.
“Mon Dieu! Anthony,” she said in a strangled voice. “That was wonderful.”
“A good servant,” he said, looking up to find her eyes round with bliss and a smile that set his heart pounding. “A good servant always endeavors to give satisfaction.”
Jacobin rumpled his hair and bent down impulsively to kiss his forehead. “I think you deserve an increase in wages.”
Still dazed by her climax, she wasn’t sure how she found the words to continue their teasing make-believe but she wanted maintain it. She was learning that Anthony liked to play games in bed, and discovered that suited her very well. But she also sensed this particular charade had a deeper meaning. In playing the servant he renounced their previous relationship. And she thought that in kneeling at her feet and bowing to her wishes he expressed his contrition by his actions, as earlier he’d done in words.
“What is my lady’s desire now?” he asked.
“A good servant anticipates his mistress’s desires,” she replied with a provocative look.
“I believe my lady wishes…” He hesitated, then rose to his feet. “…to be flat on her back.” He snatched her into his arms and tossed her onto the bed, where she landed with a shriek and a bounce.
“Stop!” He made to join her, and she could hardly speak for laughing. “It isn’t polite for a servant to wear clothes when his mistress is naked.”
“My deepest apologies, madame. The matter will be attended to at once.” Apparently he’d recovered his manual dexterity, for it took a matter of seconds for him to shed his pantaloons and undergarments, leaving him deliciously exposed. “I can’t take care of my lady when she’s so far away.”
She beckoned expansively from her nest of pillows. “Approach then, lackey.”
Suddenly she was tired of the game. She wanted him in her arms, not at her feet. When more than six feet of masculine muscle, sinew, and skin stretched out beside her, she rolled over to seize him. “Anthony,” she cried and didn’t want to weep with joy so she kissed him instead.
The linen sheets were cool, crisp, and rose-scented. He was warm and firm with a scent she couldn’t have named or described but knew was his alone. She held on tight and took him with her as she returned onto her back, opened her thighs, and wound her legs about his.
And this time it was easy. He slid into her, slick and hard, filling her with joy and a sense of completion she hadn’t known she lacked. His endearments gasped in her ear, barely comprehensible but nonetheless sweet, enhanced her pleasure. She experienced a tremendous sense of power. She had rendered this dominating, controlled man incoherent. And of course he’d reduced her to the same state. Her thoughts scattered and she was aware only of mounting excitement as she met his rhythmic thrusts, higher and higher until she again melted into rapture. While hot waves of delight rippled through every inch of her body, he delivered one more almost tormented cry, wrenched out of her and spent himself, then collapsed, his face buried in her shoulder.
Breath gasping in unison, they lay thus for many minutes until she felt her boneless body and shattered mind reassemble.
“That was splendid,” she murmured, stretching like a cat as he rolled off her and met her eye with sated gaze. She ran an approving hand over the taut muscles of his stomach. “Can we do it again?”
He removed her hand and held it. “Later. First we need to work out how to keep you from being arrested for murder.”
“That Bow Street runner will be back,” Anthony said, lying comfortably against a heap of pillows. He tried to ignore Jacobin’s hip nestling against his own and concentrate on keeping that hip, and the rest of her, out of jail. “We need to find definite proof against Bellamy.”
“How could Bellamy have put the poison in the Bavarian cream?”
“A good question. Tell me how it got from the prince’s kitchen to Candover’s.”
The question obviously troubled her. “The servants from Candover’s and other houses bring dishes to the kitchen door after a big dinner and we fill them.”
“Who?”
“The cooks.”
“Is there any way of telling who filled which dish? Perhaps one of the cooks was bribed.”
“I know who filled it.”
“Who?” Anthony had a bad feeling about this.
She covered her face with her hands and spoke through a crack between her fingers. “I did,” she replied in a small voice.
“Good God! Jacobin!” He sat up with a jerk and looked down at her in horror. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I recognized the coat of arms on the china.”
“For God’s sake don’t tell anyone. We have to pray no one else noticed.” He sighed. “Then what? Which of Candover’s servants would have taken it?”
“My uncle keeps a very small establishment in Brighton, except in the summer. It was probably his valet.”
“Is he bribable? Could Bellamy have paid him to doctor the pudding?”
“It doesn’t seem likely. Morgan has been with my uncle for years. He always seemed loyal. He and Edgar’s man were the only servants who weren’t my friends. The only ones I wouldn’t trust.”
“Now I think of it, the tale going around was that the valet saved Candover by his prompt actions. Nonetheless, I’ll have my secretary see what he can discover.” He lay down again and embraced her protectively. He wanted nothing more in the world than to dispel her look of despondence, to make her so safe and happy she’d never leave him.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I won’t let them take you away. I have some influence, with the prince and others.” A chill thought struck him. “Not as much as I had, I’m afraid, not once Candover spreads the tale of our card game.”
“Gentlemen are supposed to be punctilious when it comes to games of chance.” He couldn’t even begin to explain to her how badly he’d behaved, as far as his peers were concerned.
She looked distraught. “I’m sorry you had to do that for me.”
Gazing at her, he shook his head. “No. Well, yes. For you. But not just for you. For me too. You were right, Jacobin. Avenging myself on Candover was a waste of time. It wouldn’t have solved anything. Not that I don’t still hate the bastard, but there are more important things in life to worry about.” Like the woman beside him in bed, for instance. Especially her. He’d never let her go.
He felt a reawakening of interest.
“I feel much better,” he remarked.
“I’m glad. I feel very good too.” Her head was tilted to one side, and she looked at him with a suggestive gleam in her eye.
“Lovemaking will do that to you. In fact, it probably has a lot to do with my current good health.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Vraiment?”
“Yes, really, Mademoiselle Mischief. It’s been a long time for me.”
“Since when?”
“Since my father died. I haven’t been in the mood. Until I met you. Until the first time I set eyes on you.”
“You thought I was a boy when we first met.”
“Yes.” He grinned. “That was a problem.”
Jacobin was delighted. Perhaps he cared for her, though she dared not hope his feelings equaled her own. Still, she thought optimistically, she would work on that. She reached down and found a certain part of him expressed interest in a second bout.
“Hm,” she said, imbuing her tone with invitation. “After so long you have much to make up for.”
It was some time before either was capable of coherent speech.
“By the way,” he whispered a while later, “sometimes fantasies can become reality. I’d be only too happy to indulge yours, with a happier conclusion, of course. And I’d like to do the same to you.”
She examined the idea of him tying her to the bed and found it not displeasing. Somewhere along the way, she realized, she’d begun to trust this man, as well as to love him.
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