All Smiles

by Stella Cameron

  His tone disquieted her, but only for an instant. She was sore and languid at the same time.

  Jean-Marc separated from her and rapidly untied her bonds. “Perhaps I was wrong to restrain you. If so, I promise never to do it again.”

  “I liked it,” she said, and giggled. When he drew her into his arms and stood up with her, she turned her face to his neck and said, “I want to do it every day, please.”

  “Hell’s teeth,” he muttered. “An insatiable wench. Wait until you start feeling your aching muscles. You may change your mind.”

  Still carrying her, he got onto his bed, settled her bottom into his lap and covered them both. The most natural thing was to play with her breasts and kiss her shoulder, but she cried out—differently this time—and he remembered the cuts from the glass in the coach and whispered, “Forgive me, love. I forgot.”

  Meg said, “There is plenty of me that was not cut by glass. Help yourself.”

  He did not recall being so satiated, or feeling so right with a woman. Oh, he was wrong. He had taken a virgin who knew almost nothing of the world. But now he held her in his arms and felt the relaxed heaviness of sleep steal over her. And he wanted her exactly where she was.

  No longer a virgin, yet unmarried. Her life was forever changed. Jean-Marc, Count Etranger, was also changed. For the first time he had taken a woman who had no designs upon him. But he had also created difficulties at a time when he should be avoiding any complications.

  He’d forgotten the big cat. The animal’s unexpected loud, thin cry sent shivers up his spine. “Hush,” he told it. “Lie down and sleep.”

  The cat’s response was to leap upon the bed, climb on top of Jean-Marc and Meg and sit there hissing quietly.

  “What is it?” Meg asked sleepily. “Halibut? What do you want?”

  “Whatever he wants, he won’t be getting it.” He leaned over her and kissed her cheek. “Sleep fast, my love. I will soon be ready to give you your turn. Next you shall tie me down and force unwanted loving upon me.”

  “Unwanted?” She laughed explosively.

  Halibut hissed aloud and stood up. He growled and yowled.

  “Good heavens,” Meg said. “He never makes noises like that.”

  “Be still.” Jean-Marc rolled over to light a lamp beside the bed.

  Meg raised her head to frown about the room. Halibut sat on the bottom of the bed, the fur along his backbone standing up in spikes.

  “Hey, settle down, old fellow,” Jean-Marc said.

  Halibut’s response was to leap from the bed and stalk toward the door leading to the study. There he commenced spitting and yowling louder than ever. Then he used his front paws as if he were pummeling an unseen opponent. He pawed the air before the locked door, and his drawn claws were clearly visible.

  “Ignore him,” Jean-Marc said, drawing Meg into his arms again. “I think he’s jealous of us.”

  Meg laughed, but stopped laughing almost at once. The cry she heard could not be imaginary. “Did you hear that?” she asked Jean-Marc. “That sound?”

  “I couldn’t have,” he said.

  Meg rolled toward him. He kept her close in his arms and looked down at her breasts. “Concentrate,” she told him.

  “I am.”

  “Concentrate on that noise. Oh, Jean-Marc, there it is again. Someone is hurt. Being hurt.”

  “We’ve got to deaden these imaginations of ours.”

  The cry came only once more.

  “There,” Jean-Marc said, “I told you it wasn’t anything.”

  “You’ve just admitted that you heard what I heard—a man shrieking as if he was being hurt. As if he was being bitten, or scratched, perhaps.”

  “That’s outrageous.”

  “Is it? You saw what Halibut was doing—behaving as if he was scratching and biting. And where is he now? Tell me that. Where has Halibut gone? Through a locked door?”

  “Of course not.” Jean-Marc sat up and called, “Halibut, Halibut, come here, boy.”

  “He isn’t coming because he can’t hear you,” Meg said. “He’s too busy chasing whoever—or whatever—was here in this room—spying on us.”

  “Are you suggesting this house is haunted?” Jean-Marc laughed. “By a ghost incompetent enough to get caught by a cat?”

  24

  The love of a gentle woman, Verbeux thought, would be a wondrous thing. Across the square, soft-skinned Sibyl Smiles would be asleep. How he would like to go to her, to lie with her, to know how to make love to her without terrifying or hurting her—or repulsing her.

  Just the idea of her looking at him with disgust sickened him. Each time they encountered each other, she turned her clear blue eyes on him, and he saw an unspoken appeal there. Without so much as understanding how her eyes invited him to respond, she beckoned him. And he thanked God he was civilized enough to do no more than return her smiles. In future he would ignore her completely—for her own good.

  He could not remain in his rooms, elegant as they were. He must walk and think—perhaps outside. The night was chill, and he threw on a cloak.

  When Verbeux stepped into the corridor and closed his door, the house seemed to settle about him, to whisper, to taunt. On the way to the stairs, he passed his employer’s apartments. That man’s desires were plain to another man of the world. It remained to be seen if the Count would succumb and seduce Meg Smiles. Verbeux prayed afresh. There lay the solution to the problem of how his master could escape his father’s designs.

  Encountering no one on the way, Verbeux let himself out of the house by a back door and slipped quickly through the gardens to a gate leading to the mews. The horses were stabled there, in buildings that housed married servants in second stories.

  A hand settled on his back, and he started violently. By the time he turned around, he held a pistol.

  “Where are you going?” Ila, Lady Upworth, was even more beautiful by moonlight.

  “Get into the house,” he whispered harshly. “I won’t ask where you’ve been. It’s none of my affair. You are mad to be abroad alone—at such a time.”

  “Only now am I abroad, and I am with you. I followed you.”

  He returned his pistol to the waist of his breeches and took her by the shoulders. “What are you saying? What is this game?” He shook her. “The truth, My Lady. I shall find you out in any lies. And you will suffer.”

  “I have already told you the truth. I followed you and could tell all wasn’t well with you. I need your help, Verbeux. Whatever your price, I will pay it. Whatever.”

  He turned his face from her. “Do you think me a fool? Am I supposed to accept your fiction and not ask how you came to see me in the house—and so late? Go back.”

  “It wasn’t fiction. I was coming to you and you left your rooms as I reached the gallery.”

  She flung herself at him, crushed her body to his and held him. “Do not send me away, I beg of you. Oh, please don’t send me away. It’s true that my need gave me the courage to approach you, but I have wanted you to notice me since the day we met. I tried to catch your attention by letting you see me with Jean-Marc, but you are too loyal to lust after what you think is your master’s property. Of late I thought you seemed a little interested, and so I came to you tonight.”

  Lady Upworth was warm, her body womanly and erotic where she formed it to his. But she was right, there was at least the potential for the Count to consider her his when, and if, he wanted her. She was also right that he, Verbeux, had been watching her and found her desirable.

  “I have been a fool,” she told him. “I have almost nothing left of what I inherited from my late husband.”

  He could not make himself push her away. “How could that be, My Lady? And what do you imagine I can do about it?”

  “It can be because I have fallen deep into debt. Cards. I know that shocks you, but I have had little pleasure in my life for a long time. I believe Jean-Marc would help me, but he has ceased to be interested in me. I do not hold tha
t against him. Men and women change their minds about each other. But he does not approve of certain things—definitely not women who gamble, and in low places.”

  “I cannot help you,” Verbeux said, but she touched him where he had thought he couldn’t be touched—in a well-hidden, protective place that did not relish seeing her ruined and in poor circumstances.

  “You could if you wanted to,” she murmured, and he thought she cried. The moon had slipped behind a cloud, and he could no longer see her clearly. She said, “I am not a bad woman. I am—or have been—weak. And I am without money. I am not asking you for money. I am asking you for friendship and comfort. The Count will continue to give me refuge, and I hope to meet someone who will want to marry me. Then I will be saved. But there is something I need so badly and I have nothing to lose by asking for it.”

  He waited, but when she didn’t continue, he said, “Tell me.” The sound of voices came to him, the voices of more than one man entering the mews from an alley between two houses. “Hush, do as I tell you.”

  Throwing an arm around her, he hurried behind a lilac bush and into an utterly black corner. Afraid Lady Upworth might wear something that glittered, he wrapped her beneath his cloak and held her there.

  The raucous fellows were in their cups. Their voices rose and fell depending on how recently one of them had issued a warning to be quiet. They stumbled on the cobbles, and their feet clattered between gusts of ribald laughter. Verbeux had no wish to risk a confrontation with thugs while he had a woman in his company.

  Four men passed at last—he could make out the shapes of them. So drunk were they that they made slow progress, having to stop frequently to drag up whichever of them had just fallen.

  “They are gone,” Lady Upworth whispered when the footsteps and voices faded. “You protected me. Thank you.”

  He said nothing. What he’d done had been innate.

  “Do you still want me to tell you what it is I have wanted?”

  “Yes,” he replied, and he wanted other things he must not have.

  “I have wanted you, Verbeux. You are the most intriguing man I have ever met. And I think you also want me. I have seen how you look at me. There is a wildness in you that reaches out to touch my needs. I have said I am not a bad woman, but I am a passionate one. I need a man who can match my appetites. Are you that man?”

  Her bluntness inflamed him. “Are you asking me for sex, My Lady? Do you want to copulate right here—in this dark corner in the open air—”

  She placed her hand over his mouth. Her other hand she slipped around his crotch, and she cupped and squeezed him.

  He jerked his face away from her hand and said, “For God’s sake,” through clenched teeth. “Are you mad?”

  “Oh, no, not mad.” Her breath was warm on his neck. She kissed him there, so gently he closed his eyes and held his breath. Her lips were insistent, but soft. While she kissed him she went to work loosening his breeches until he felt the air cool upon his belly. There was nothing cool about his rod.

  “A new experience,” he said, and set his pistol on the ground. “Taken by a woman. Used by a woman. A beautiful woman. And only because she lusts for me.”

  “Don’t make fun. If you do I shall make you suffer later—when you want me again. I’ll make you wait a very long time.”

  Why shouldn’t he enjoy what she offered? She was beautiful, and he’d had too little time to satisfy his own considerable sexual appetite. “I do not find you humorous, My Lady. Far from it.”

  “Ila,” she told him, wriggling beneath the cloak, evidently removing clothes. “The moon is playing with us again. Look.”

  Automatically he raised his face, but she laughed and said, “No. Look at me.”

  He did so, and she opened the cloak. Her breasts gleamed white in that flirting moon, and so did her belly and thighs. Between her legs a triangle of hair showed as a black shadow.

  “My Lady!”

  “Ila, if you please.” Her clever fingers worked to unbutton his shirt. She kissed his chest, played the tip of her tongue over his nipples, pressed her naked breasts to his and rubbed them on his belly. Holding his buttocks, she shifted, crying small cries of ecstacy while she used the end of his rod on first one, then the other nipple. She stimulated herself close to frenzy, then took him into her mouth and bit hard enough to cause Verbeux to disengage her. He drew her up and squeezed her breasts while he kissed her.

  “You are without restraint,” he told her. “You are a woman in every way.”

  “Do you like that?”

  “I like it. Don’t you care if you are found like this by another?”

  “No. I care only for the moment, and in this moment I have you. It is not enough, not nearly enough, but it is a start. Lift me. Lift me until I tell you to stop.”

  Verbeux hesitated only a moment before gripping her by the waist and doing as she asked.

  “Higher,” she said, panting. “Higher, damn you. Higher.”

  He did as she asked and she leaned harder against him until she could grip the top of the wall behind him. Her legs went around his neck. “Please me, Verbeux,” she said, her voice husky. “Please me and I will please you. This is our beginning, but our journey will not be boring, I promise you. Yes, yes, I promise you.”

  Ila smothered her own scream. Verbeux was as accomplished a lover as she had expected him to be. Not only did he use his teeth to nip at her, and his tongue to delve, and to drive her wild, but her breasts were his anchors. He held her breasts, pressed them together, used the tips of his nails on her nipples until she feared she would let go of the wall and fall.

  Her thighs jerked, clamped his head. “Too much,” she moaned. “No, too much. I cannot do this.” And with that she bent over him and clung to his muscular shoulders.

  “Too much, My Lady? How could I be too much for you?”

  She would silence his jesting. “Are you ready, Verbeux? And you are to call me Ila.”

  “Hmm, I could be ready.” He lowered her slowly, and when she reached down between his legs, she discovered how ready he was.

  “You have another name, Verbeux. Don’t you think I should know it?”

  “Names do not matter here. Not now. One day they may.”

  She filled her hands with his hair and pulled, and while she pulled, she kissed his mouth hard, bit his lips and tasted his blood. He would not ever consider himself her master, the one who made rules.

  “Sacre Dieu.” Verbeux forced her face away. “Stop, My Lady, or I shall be forced to make sure you do.”

  Ila laughed. She hung her head back and laughed aloud. “Make sure, Verbeux. I should like that. Hurt me. I should definitely like that.”

  His response was to hold her hips, lift her slightly and bring her down again. With unerring accuracy he impaled her. Ila panted and squealed. With her feet splayed wide on the wall behind him, she added the strength in her legs to the power that allowed him to hold and move her over him again and again.

  “Is that what you had in mind?” he asked, clearly not short of breath.

  Ila said yes, and flung out her arms, delighting in her total abandonment. She knew what he saw as he took his pleasure—and gave Ila hers. Just imagining the vision through his eyes drove her wild.

  He spilled into her, but did not stop moving until she begged him to, and grabbed his arms, and swung her feet to the ground.

  “Ila,” he said, enfolding her, draping his cloak around her.

  Ila shuddered and held him in arms that trembled. On his lips, her name was exotic. Joined with him, she was complete. Almost complete.

  “I shall want you again,” he said against her temple. “Often.”

  “I know. I shall want that, too.”

  He stroked her back and her bottom and pulled her to him. His kisses were hard upon her neck and shoulders. “Come to my bed, now,” he said, and she heard desperation in his voice. “Now, Ila. I will help you dress and take you there.”

  True to his wo
rd, he helped her. He put on her chemise and gown—which she had tossed on the lilac bush—and finished dressing her as if she were a child. When his clothes were straightened and his pistol retrieved, he took her by the hand and led her into the garden behind Number 17.

  She went willingly. She went with a lump in her throat. She went with the certainty that true luck and contentment would never be hers.

  Verbeux’s rooms were graceful and filled with valuable paintings and furnishings. He didn’t as much as speak to her again until they were in his bedchamber and he had removed her clothes once more. Once he had taken her hair down and brushed it, he placed her in his bed and undressed himself.

  His face strained, his eyes so dark they appeared black, he slid in beside her and held her for so long she grew desperate. She did not want to care for him—could not care for him. Yet when he looked at her like that her resolve wavered. Never before had she known what it was like to be certain the arms that held her did so because they belonged to a man who wanted more than her body.

  She was being a fool. Verbeux’s approach might be different, but beneath it all he was the same as the others—just a man with a man’s need for sex.

  As if he heard her thoughts, he made love to her again. No, he made love to her for the first time. He took her with gentle desperation, and left her even more confused and filled with longing afterward.

  He must not think she was anything but a hard, calculating woman. “You are wonderful,” she told him. “You know how to use this.” She manipulated him without subtlety.

  “Ila,” he said, embracing her. “Sleep, cherie. You must be tired.”

  “I’ll sleep,” she said, “after I tell you what I want. Don’t worry, I intend to enjoy you often. And I’ll give as good as I get—probably better.”

  He grew still. A candle remained alight beside the bed, and he raised her chin until he could look into her face. His steady regard caused her to flinch.

  “I need your cooperation, Verbeux.”

  His gaze moved from her eyes to her mouth and back again. “Cooperation?”

  Only with a weighty heart and a stomach that clenched did she make herself speak. “If you don’t want me to turn Jean-Marc against you, you will help me.”