Courting Chaos (Dunaway's Daughters Book 2)

by Lynne Barron

  Harry had been stockpiling all three in Wellclose Square for years.

  Decision made, Harry unlatched the window and pushed it open, breathing deep of the rain-washed air. Her loneliness receded to a familiar sense of solitude, not unwelcome to a woman who had long been a solitary creature, by choice if not by nature.

  Peering down into the darkness below, she expelled a startled laugh when she spotted a rake prowling around the tidy little strip of parkland at the center of the square. Not the fickle feline she’d been searching for, but rather a grown man too foolish to seek shelter from the storm.

  Phineas stopped at the edge of the green, perhaps thirty feet from the corner upon which sat Preston’s Bookshop. Shielding his eyes from the falling rain, he lifted his head to look up at the windows above the row of shops along Grace’s Alley. When his head swung in the direction of St. Sebastian Place, Harry ducked behind the curtain.

  What on earth was he doing in Wellclose Square in the wee hours?

  She waited only a moment before peeking around the velvet to see him slowly walking back into the park. Brushing at the wet seat of the bench in the middle of the park, he slumped down onto the old, warped wood.

  The moon ducked behind a cloud, and the small park went unnervingly dark. Phineas appeared as no more than a faint, black shape shifting restlessly on the bench. The rain continued to fall, the steady, relentless noise of the drops as they hit the ground the only sound in the square.

  What could he be thinking to sit in the rain, in the dark, all alone in the middle of the night? What could he possibly hope to gain?

  Harry simply could not fathom his motive for meandering into her little corner of London, no matter that she pondered it for long minutes while staring down at the indistinct shape on the bench. A shape that ceased to move at all so far as she could determine in the inky darkness.

  When the moon scudded out from behind the clouds, Harry sucked in a sharp, damp breath.

  Moonlight glinted off the raindrops falling around and over Phineas where he sat, legs spread and feet planted in the wet grass, elbows on his knees and head bent into his hands. Defeat was written in the curve of his back, despair evident in the hunch of his shoulders.

  Harry had never thought of Phineas as vulnerable, never imagined he could be laid low by anything. But here he was, slumped on a bench in a beam of moonlight, raindrops glittering like discarded gems as they fell on his bent head and hunched shoulders. A defeated and despairing Phineas Griffith, Viscount Knighton had no place in Harry O’Connell’s world, no place within the tight square that made up her center of gravity.

  It was simply not to be born.

  Quickly crossing the long, rectangular room that had once been a dance studio and now made up the vast majority of her home, Harry ducked into her bedchamber long enough to shrug into her dressing gown. Hurrying back across her flat, she rushed down the stairs, fumbled with the lock on the door before finally hearing the click of the teeth catching. Pushing open the door, she stepped out under the awning, hopping from one bare foot to the other on the cold, wet walkway.

  Whether hearing her or simply sensing her presence, Phin lifted his head from his hands and turned to look right at her.

  “Come in out of the rain,” she called, the words all but lost to the rain falling from the night sky.

  Phin staggered to his feet and gripped the back of the bench as if unsure of his footing. Or perhaps it was his welcome he doubted.

  The brief flash of uncertainty fell away as Phineas started through the park. Each slow, measured step he took gave testament to the confidence with which he’d been born, to the arrogance nurtured by the adulation of countless women over the years. There was a definite swagger to his movements as he crossed the street, a predatory restlessness in his loose-limbed gait when he prowled across the narrow walkway.

  A delicious little shiver chased down Harry’s spine as she watched him from the shelter and safety of the awning.

  Phineas ducked under the overhang and swiped a hand across his face and up into his hair, drops of water flying out behind him to mix with the rain.

  With his raven curls slicked back, the planes of his face were all stark shadows and jagged ridges, his eyes dark and fathomless in the murky light cast from the open door at Harry’s back. The fine sapphire coat he’d worn to the ball was plastered to his broad shoulders and chest, the intricately tied cravat now twisted in a sodden clump around his neck and his black breeches glued to his muscular thighs like a second skin. Rainwater ran down his legs to puddle around him on the walkway.

  “We simply must stop meeting under awnings this way,” Harry said by way of greeting. “Twice in as many days can be chalked up to coincidence, but thrice makes a habit.”

  Phineas’s lips curled up at the corners. It wasn’t precisely an abashed smile, but rather chagrined. Perhaps even melancholic.

  Harry’s heart gave the same queer little lurch she’d become familiar with in recent weeks. The fact that she rather welcomed the sensation only served to demonstrate how truly messy and unpredictable her life had become.

  Harry reached for his hand. His fingers were wet and cold, but his grip was sure and firm. And terribly familiar, a bittersweet reminder of their afternoon at the museum when she’d laced her fingers with his, offering him friendship when she’d wanted so much more without even realizing it.

  She led him over the threshold and up the stairs. The door swung shut with a soft click, the clip of his heels the only sound in the narrow stairwell as they made their way up to her flat.

  The fire in the grate cast a circle of golden light around the furnishings placed near the hearth, while leaving the rest of the space in shadows.

  Harry led Phineas to the light, disentangling her fingers from his and indicating the settee with a wave of her hand. “Make yourself at home, my lord. I won’t be but a moment.”

  So saying, she crossed to the far wall and slid open the pocket doors to her bedchamber, the heavy wood gliding silently on well-oiled wheels. Feeling her way around in the near darkness by memory, she gathered up an armful of fluffy linens from the chest of drawers where she kept them for another randy rake in the habit of stalking the square in all manner of weather. As she searched through the armoire in one corner, she heard quiet shuffling from the other room, barely discernable above the drumming of the rain on the roof. Finally finding the brocade dressing gown in the farthest reaches of the wardrobe, she added it to the stack of linens in her arms and returned to the front room.

  Phineas stood before the hearth, his hands clasped at the small of his back and his head bent down as he stared at the fire. Harry was struck by the notion that he felt some measure of the same sense of isolation and loneliness she had experienced earlier.

  He looked up from his silent contemplation of the flames, firelight playing over his handsome features as he met her gaze and held it. There was a question in his eyes, one she had no difficulty deciphering.

  Heart racing, she clenched her fingers around the linen and silk in her arms as she debated the wisdom of answering the silent query, of claiming the chaos she’d been courting since the handsome rogue had wandered a well-plotted path through Dunaway’s ballroom all those weeks ago.

  There wasn’t the least bit of wisdom to it, only unadulterated idiocy.

  He was a rake, charming and careless and far too handsome for his own good.

  But he was her rake, unintentionally but not altogether unwillingly added to her collection. And once a rake made his way into Harry’s circle, he was caught in the mix and held there by the bonds of friendship and affection.

  Friendship and affection were the least of what Harry felt for Phineas.

  She liked the sincerity he hid beneath flippancy, adored the keen intelligence, wry humor and soft heart he concealed beneath the façade of a dissolute wastrel. Though she could not condone his methods, she admired his misguided determination to hold to the only course he thought available to save
his family and estate from ruin. And she envied his ability to be content, if not altogether happy, no matter the obstacles thrown in his path.

  For better or worse, Harry loved Phineas. She suspected he loved her too, in his own fickle, faithless and fleeting way.

  And he was standing just there, his presence a prelude to all manner of carnal pleasures and unmitigated mayhem, if she but found the courage to risk her heart.

  “Harry.” The question was there in the single word, no more than her name spoken so quietly it was but a breath of sound, a shifting of the air between them. But it provided the courage she needed to continue into the chamber.

  Tossing her bundle onto a delicate little chair, silk and linen spilling over the side to the floor, Harry slowly approached the man who stood so still and quiet. Stopping before him, she reached up and took hold of the lapels of his coat, the fabric wet and cold in her hands.

  Phineas dragged in a sharp breath, his lips falling open as if to speak, to put to words the confusion and uncertainty evident in his eyes.

  Lifting up on her toes, Harry pressed her lips to his and swiped her tongue into his mouth, slow and languid, a gentle rebuke against giving voice to all that had come before this moment and all that would follow.

  Harry wrestled his coat from his shoulders and pushed the garment down his arms until it fell to the floor with a wet thwack that, for some unfathomable reason, made her smile against his lips.

  “Harry, love,” Phineas murmured as his arms came up to wrap around her.

  “Shh,” she whispered, her fingers blindly feeling for the buttons of his waistcoat.

  While she fumbled with the four jeweled fastenings, kissing and nibbling her way from one corner of his lips to the other, Phineas’s hands traced the contours of her back, from the sharp jut of her shoulder blades to the dip at the base of her spine.

  When she released the final button and shoved his waistcoat down to join his sodden jacket, Phineas sifted his fingers through the curls tumbling around her shoulders, trailed his hands up her neck to gently clasp her head. Tilting her just so, he deepened the kiss she’d begun as an admonishment against things better left unsaid.

  There was no admonishment in Phineas’s kiss. It was a celebration, a welcome and an invitation for more. So Harry took more, winding her arms around his shoulders and clinging to him as she met every tender foray of his tongue, every soft press of his lips, every gentle nip of his teeth with the same, until she was lost, blissfully lost in the kiss that became two, then ten, then more and more still, each blending with the next.

  She might have stood there in the circle of his arms for what remained of the night, with the warmth of the fire at her back and the heat of his tall, lean body pressed to her front from breasts to thighs, had a log not shifted in the grate with a crackle and quiet pop.

  Phineas lifted his head, and Harry took the opportunity to draw in a deep breath, only then realizing she was lightheaded from a lack of air. Opening her eyes, she found him looking down at her with a faint smile on his kiss-swollen lips.

  Harry trailed a finger over that smile, traced the cleft in his chin past his strong jaw and down the column of his neck to his wet cravat. As she plucked at the knot, Phineas reached for the belt of her dressing gown. Their eyes met and undressing became something of a dance they performed together. Between kisses and caresses, and accompanied by the music of low murmurs and soft sighs, Harry unwound his neck cloth while he removed her robe.

  While she liberated the sapphire cufflinks at his wrists and the matching studs running up his chest, he unlaced her corset and pushed the satin and whalebone contraption down past her hips to join the growing pool of clothing on the floor.

  Harry tugged his shirt free of his breeches, and he reached back to pull the garment up and over his head. Sighing at the magnificence of his chest, all muscle and sinew, bronzed and golden in the firelight, she combed her fingers through the sprinkling of dark hair surrounding the copper disks of his nipples, squeezing the hard flesh beneath her palms as she pressed her lips to his.

  Phineas adjusted the angle of his head, and his tongue dipped into her mouth to rub against hers, to encircle and tease, to dart and retreat until she followed. Rising to her toes, she curled her hands around his neck, fingers combing through the damp locks at his nape.

  And just that fast, the kiss changed. He slanted his mouth over hers, fused his lips to hers, and his tongue delved deep, caressing with hungry strokes, drawing a husky moan from some secret place within her, the sound dark and desperate in the otherwise silent chamber.

  Phineas pulled her up and against him until she was plastered to him, her breasts pressed to his naked chest with only the thin cotton of her chemise between them.

  He dragged his lips from hers, raced his open mouth along her jaw to her ear, his breath warm against her neck when he growled, “Christ, I want you.”

  “Take me.”

  His hands slid down her back, over the swell of her bottom. He gripped her and lifted her nearly off the ground, pulling her flush against him, and Harry felt his hard length pulsing low on her belly. She tilted her hips, shamelessly rubbing against his shaft.

  With a muttered curse, Phineas swung her up into his arms and strode through the doorway into her bedchamber. Crawling onto the mattress with her held securely in his arms, he deposited her in the middle of the bed and followed her down.

  His lips, hungry and urgent, were on hers before her head touched the pillow, his hands tugging her chemise from beneath her until it bunched around her waist. Easing one knee then the other between her legs, he spread her thighs and lowered his body over her, his weight pinning her to the bed. He drove his tongue into her mouth again and again, setting up a delicious rhythm that had her hips rising helplessly beneath him, pressing her aching flesh against his hardness.

  “You’re a miracle,” he murmured, sliding his lips down her neck and over her collarbone. “A miracle, Harry.”

  He kissed the swell of her breasts, the faintest hint of whiskers grazing the sensitive skin. Dipping down, he took her nipple into his mouth, suckling avariciously through the thin cotton and setting off a riot of tingles that raced down her quivering belly to lodge between her legs. She moaned low in her throat, the sound broken and needy to her ears. Arching beneath him, she threaded her fingers through his hair and clasped his head, nearly delirious with pleasure.

  “More,” she begged.

  Turning his attention to her other breast, he took the peak into his mouth, flicking his tongue over and around before sucking hard, his teeth gently biting her flesh. He teased and tormented her until she was gasping and trembling, writhing and whimpering.

  When she could take no more, when she was certain she would lose her mind from the agonizing pleasure, he released her nipple and rose to kneel between her thighs. Grabbing the hem of her chemise, he went still, drew in a harsh breath and met her gaze.

  His eyes were so dark they appeared black in the flickering firelight drifting through the open door. His lips parted as he fought to control his panting breaths.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered, her heart beating so loud she barely heard her own words or the soft chuckle that lifted his lips into a smile.

  He dragged her shift up and whisked the garment over her head, tossing it away.

  “You are so beautiful, so perfect in every way.” Phineas’s gaze roved over her, taking in her breasts as they rose and fell with her labored breathing and her nipples, pebbled hard from his attentions. Dropping his hands to her knees, he gripped gently and lifted until she planted her heels on the bed, thighs splayed on either side of him.

  He caressed her legs, his fingers lightly stroking along her inner thighs, his thumbs barely brushing the curls between her legs. Harry sucked in a breath, her hips swiveling of their own volition, chasing his touch.

  Phineas’s countenance changed, his lips firmed, a muscle ticked along his jaw and a fierce light shone in his eyes before he tur
ned away and scrambled to the side of the bed to remove his shoes and stockings. Rising to his feet, he tore at the buttons of his falls, tugged his trousers and smalls over his hips and down his legs. When he turned to face her, she sucked in a startled breath, released it on a nervous giggle.

  Harry had never seen a man naked, but even so, she suspected Phineas’s manhood was inordinately large. His shaft was long and thick, the engorged head bobbing as he crawled back onto the bed to kneel between her thighs once more.

  Panic assailed her with the certain knowledge that he would never be able to fit himself inside her. Never. It was impossible.

  Phineas smiled grimly and leaned forward, up and over her, his knees wedging her thighs farther apart as he rested his weight on his hands beside her. Taking possession of her mouth once more, he set up the same glorious rhythm with his lips, his tongue and his teeth, feasting on her as if he could not get enough. Harry was again caught up in the pleasure, little sobs of need clawing free of her throat only to be swallowed by his ravenous mouth.

  His weight shifted, and one hand swept over her hip, coming to rest between her legs. He trailed two fingers through her curls and over the sensitive nub hidden within, his touch light. Her breath left her in a long, broken moan, her arms wrapping around his back, hands gripping hard muscle. She squirmed against his fingers, pursuing them as they retreated, rising to meet them when they returned.

  His touch grew firmer, surer, circling and stroking her clitoris before parting her folds and skimming down to find her center, one long finger barely breaching her body.

  “You’re so wet, love.” His voice was a rough growl, the words vibrating against her lips.

  “More, Phineas,” she demanded on a ragged exhalation.

  “Greedy,” he whispered. “So blessedly greedy.”

  Harry tilted her hips and lunged up, taking what she wanted.

  A faint burning sensation mingled with the pleasure as his finger stretched and filled her. She trembled, her breath leaving her on a little hiss even as her hips twisted in an attempt to take more.