Dilemma in Yellow Silk

by Lynne Connolly

  His kiss made her melt. He darted his tongue into her mouth in quick forays, teasing her, and then he finished the kiss and gazed into her eyes. “Remember to keep them open,” he reminded her before dropping sweet, soft kisses on her cheek, her neck, and pausing to tease her throat.

  When he nipped her, she yelped in surprise. He had sent a shot of pain around her body, a sharp contrast to the lush waves of pleasure consuming her. The difference sent her soaring.

  He did not stop, but kissed further down. Viola held her breath as he pulled a nipple into his mouth and sucked.

  “Oh!”

  His dark hair, unencumbered by his wig but still tied back, tickled her when it swept forward. As he ran his tongue around her nipple, she moaned and squirmed. He covered the other breast with his hand, teasing and plucking until the other peak was stiff and hard. She had not realized her breasts could be so sensitive.

  He released the nipple and kissed it lightly. “Such a pretty color. Dusky pink. I shall find a rose that color and dedicate it to you.”

  Lavishing her with kisses, he gave the other nipple a similar treatment before moving down once more. He could not be—but she had thought of it, so why should he not think something similar? Dipping his tongue into her navel, he showed her how he could make tingles spread over her torso. They travelled down her arms and legs, so she clenched her fists to keep the sensation.

  Down even more. He drew a breath, noisily. “I can’t wait to taste you,” he murmured.

  Yes, he was. He was touching her with his tongue. The little peak of flesh at the front of her cleft rose as if to meet him, and then he had it in his mouth. She could say nothing, only gasp and fight to keep her body still. At first warmth spread through her, the peak becoming the center of her body, everything she had to give. He sucked harder and then brought his hand into play. He touched her opening, pressed a finger against it. Would he take her virginity that way? Viola cursed her innocence and wished she knew how she was supposed to respond.

  Thoughts fled when her arousal rose to swamp her reasoning, overwhelming her with sheer sensation. As if it had a will of its own, her body jerked up, arched into him. His only response was to hum against her and suck harder.

  When he flicked his tongue across the tip, she was lost. Grasping his head, she cried out, heedless of anyone who might hear her, before she crammed her fist into her mouth and bit on the knuckles. If she had not done so, the whole establishment would have heard her screams when she tightened and bucked against him. Ripples turned into a veritable torrent. Viola could not have restrained herself, even had she wanted to.

  She was outside herself, a strange experience. Part of her observed the proceedings and condemned them as immoral. That was the part that had always stood outside her, the rational part had warned her and kept her safe.

  But tonight she did not want safe. She wanted the man doing wicked, lascivious things to her.

  A dreamy lassitude settled over her as Marcus came back to her and eased her into his arms, holding her close. She would have snuggled in and drifted off to sleep, but something made its presence apparent, and guilt rose to swamp her. “But you have not—”

  “And will not,” he said softly. “Believe me, what you allowed me to do gave me happiness enough.”

  “I want it. I want you.” She did, more than anything.

  “Then touch me.”

  Grasping her hand, he guided it down to where his shaft still rose hard and hot. She closed her hand around it as much as she could, for it was large enough to give her pause. Then she let him show her what to do. He seemed to want her to move her hand up and down. When she tried to ease her hold, he tightened his hold on hers, so she gripped him more tightly.

  “Yes, just like that,” he murmured, his breath hot against the rim of her ear.

  When she lifted her chin to see how her actions affected him, he smiled down at her and kissed her. His tongue moved in her mouth in lush praise that went further than words.

  She continued the up and down rhythm, hardly noticing when he moved his hand away and laid it on her breast. He kissed her repeatedly, his eyes closed as she worked him.

  He paused, completely still, before he rolled on to his back, and covered his eyes with his forearm. He let out groans as he shuddered. Every part of him responded, as she had done in her turn. His shaft pulsed, emitting its seed, which splashed in a hot stream on to his stomach.

  His chest heaved as the breath sawed in and out of him. He lay supine, affording her a view that awed and excited her. Naked, Marcus was all man. Hair skimmed his chest, concentrating in a line as it descended to the bush surrounding his member. A shade darker than that on his head, but still with a reddish sheen. He had long, strong legs, sculpted with powerful muscles.

  A fine figure of a man, and for tonight at least, all hers.

  Tilting his head to one side, he let his arm fall and met her gaze. “What are you looking at?”

  “You.”

  “Not just my cock?”

  Oh, that word, used by country folk. She had not known a word could contain so much power, but when he said it, it did.

  He took a corner of the sheet and roughly cleaned himself before swinging off the bed and going to the washstand to do it more thoroughly. That action gave her a fine view of his back—the rounded buttocks she had a sudden urge to feel under her hands and the long, strong muscles either side of his spine and framing his shoulders.

  Glancing at her over his shoulder, he smiled. “Do you need anything?”

  “Only you.”

  “Now those are words every man longs to hear.” He strolled back to her. Although she had pulled the sheet over herself, she felt vulnerable, and she loved it. He could do whatever he wanted to her. She had put herself in his power, and she could not wait for more.

  He settled next to her and pulled her into his arms. “We should get some sleep before we leave. We have to be up early, don’t forget.”

  Even Viola in her inexperience knew the night was incomplete. “But you haven’t…” How to say it?

  Luckily, he got her gist. “We will not. Not tonight.” He gave her a soft kiss, passion temporarily gone. “I do not want to limit your choices, Viola. If you choose me, it will be because you want to, not because I have forced you into it. But I do have one request.”

  “What’s that?” His reasoning came from the heart and because of that, Viola could accept it. Reluctantly. She had done her job as far as she could. Falling on him as soon as they had entered the room was the only way she could have shown him she wanted him. While disappointed he had not taken her, she had to accept his reasons.

  “We arrive in London as a betrothed couple and we remain that way until we have tracked down who wants you and why.”

  “Will the task be easy?”

  “We shall see.” His voice gained a grim tone. “I will discover it, though. Never fear that. When it’s over, you may break the engagement, if you will.”

  Jilt him. Not that anyone would mourn her loss. Marcus was too good a catch. Once society knew he was looking for a bride, young ladies would flock around him.

  She didn’t want to do that, especially now. But she might have to, in the interests of fairness.

  When he pulled her into his arms, Viola had no difficulty sliding into slumber. With his scent surrounding her, their bodies pressed close together, she slept better than she had ever in her life before. For now, she forgot her troubles. Tomorrow was time enough.

  Chapter 10

  Dressing seemed wonderfully intimate. He helped her with her stays and petticoats, and she fastened his stock for him. Not without a few kisses punctuating the process of making themselves decent. Viola almost hated leaving the shabby little room.

  Another day of weary travel later, after jolting through Northampton, they stopped for the night at Huntingdon. The coachman told them they would reach London the next day. However, Viola was not a little surprised to discover Marcus had bespoken two
rooms for them at the inn. They ate in the main inn-room. The food was considerably better than at Lincoln. They lingered over their repast of an excellent mutton stew and oysters, accompanied by apple pie with local cheese. That was when Marcus told Viola he had been fortunate to obtain them a room each.

  The other passengers, who had come to view the young couple as their own private romance, frowned.

  Marcus continued smoothly, “We must be well rested for our arrival tomorrow. My cousin will have planned several entertainments for us. And you know you sleep better on your own.”

  She knew no such thing, and so she told him indignantly when he escorted her upstairs. The night before as dusk was falling they had been engaged in activity so pleasurable she had not noticed anything but him. But tonight, she was to retire with dignity.

  Her spirits rose when he went into her room with her. Even more when she saw the neat arrangement of the furniture and the larger size.

  As if driven to do it, he pulled her roughly into his arms and kissed her. She arched her back so his hand fit comfortably into the hollow and curled her arm around his neck, the hated bob wig tickling her wrist and fingers. She would have pulled it off, but he drew away. His eyes had that dark, wild look she adored.

  “If I spend another night in your bed I will take what I am not entitled to have,” he said.

  “My virginity? It is not so precious.” She no longer considered that puny piece of skin of any importance. Not when he could give her so much pleasure removing it.

  “Consequences could happen. I will not remove the choice from you.”

  “What if I don’t want the choice? What if I give it to you freely?”

  He groaned and set his forehead against hers. “I feel it in my bones, Viola. It’s not right to do this to you. Not in an inn room, not hurriedly or furtively. You deserve better. Although I doubt I would hold off for long if you insisted. Please don’t. Not until we know exactly what is happening and who is chasing you. Marriage is for life. It should not be rushed into.”

  And so the thoughtful, rational Earl of Malton returned, the man she’d known for so long. He thought every decision through and that, it appeared, included this one.

  “But someone has seen us,” she felt compelled to point out.

  “Lord Frederick believes we have a duenna with us. He would also believe we are traveling in a chaise or a private carriage. Not on a stage coach, unchaperoned, with the riff-raff of the country drumming a tattoo on the roof.”

  The top passengers had not been silent, that was true, but Viola had put it down to the whole experience of her first long-distance journey. She would probably return home in style, but when she thought of it, her heart plummeted to her shoes. Because she might be traveling alone.

  Once he spoke, she knew he was right. If he was not willing, and it appeared he was not, it would be unfair to seduce him into marriage. If he took her completely, broke her maidenhead and made her his, he would marry her come what may. She could not do that to him any more than he could compel her.

  She slept badly.

  The next day the coach rumbled on, but as they approached the city, traffic grew more dense and the coachman’s curses more colorful. The horses slowed even more than they had during the rest of the journey, when they had rarely gone above a walk. They had to wait for other drivers to pass or for a comfortable collection of vehicles to gather so they could cross the more dangerous areas close to London in a group. “Highwaymen love it here,” Marcus commented. “There are rich pickings, if they are not caught.”

  “They are almost always caught,” the curate remarked.

  “Who knows?” Marcus answered. “The authorities like to claim so, but we have no way of knowing.”

  True enough. Although her part of the country was not devoid of highway robbery, either. Viola shivered when she recollected the road between Haxby and Scarborough and what could have happened to them there. Any attack on them could have been put down to a random robbery, if nobody was left alive to gainsay the claim.

  They crossed the dangerous Heath in a group with some private vehicles and another stage coach. Marcus shaded his face with his hat, appearing so sinister Viola was forced to laugh at him, but he did not join in.

  An hour later, she watched, fascinated, as London passed by the windows. Like her own private panorama, scenes rolled past, small dramas she would never know the end of. A pickpocket snatched a handkerchief from the pocket of a man who immediately cried out and ran after the boy. Would the pickpocket get away, or would the man apprehend him? What would happen to the handkerchief? Sold in a shop, like the one where she and Marcus had obtained their clothes?

  Clothes she was now heartily sick of. She would never wear the scratchy, ugly riding habit again.

  Ladies gathered around a print shop window, laughing at something inside. What was it? A caricature of the royal family? It came as a shock to realize the subjects could be Marcus’s family. The Emperors were powerful and numerous, notorious and famous for the extent of their reach. They had members in the City and county, in court and the law courts.

  The coach made its way to Ludgate Hill, the massive dome of St. Paul’s dominating the top of the peak. Viola stared at it in wonder. “How does it hold together? Why does it not just fall down?”

  “Engineering,” Marcus answered. “Should you like to visit?”

  “Very much.” While Lincoln Cathedral was a marvel of the Middle Ages, St. Paul’s was less than sixty years old, belonging to the modern era. Its air of serene immortality was deceiving.

  The coach swung into another inn yard, and relief flooded through her, together with a tinge of regret. Their journey was ending.

  They clambered out once the roof passengers had climbed down. Marcus linked her arm through his and went to the back of the coach to collect their bag. The measly single leather bag that had managed to collect a few more scuffs on their journey looked paltry next to the huge trunks some had travelled with. Nobody took any notice of them. The yard was crowded, but she could see no stables at the side. “What do they do with the horses?”

  “Underground,” he said briefly. “The stables are under the yard. Property is too valuable in the city for them to waste it on stables.”

  “Goodness!” she said faintly. She had expected they kept the horses some distance away. “What an ingenious solution.”

  He cast her an amused glance. “I suppose it is. Seeing London through your eyes promises to be very interesting. You will show me things I took for granted before, will you not?”

  “I shall try,” she said primly, and received a shout of laughter as her reward.

  Outside the inn, people rushed hither and thither. They were intent on business that must be the most important in the world, from the way they refused to slacken their pace. Buildings lined Ludgate Hill, narrow at the front but stretching up to four stories and more, as if some giant had squashed them between his great hands. Two men ran by, a sedan chair between them, the poles in their hands.

  Everything was soot-stained, and despite the warm weather, chimneys smoked, adding to the miasma that hung over the great city.

  A lady wearing a preposterously large hoop pushed past, cursing under her breath. Marcus shocked her by emitting a sharp whistle.

  “What did you do that for?” she demanded.

  A cab with faded, cracked paint halted. The poor beast drawing it drooped his head, his blinkers denying him of everything except the road ahead. Marcus opened the door for her and shouted an address to the man, tossing him a shilling. The bright silver turned over in the air before the man deftly snatched and pocketed it. He wore a mishmash of clothes, the bright green of his coat warring with the blue waistcoat for attention.

  He tipped his cocked hat. “Right y’are, sir,” he said.

  She climbed aboard and made room for Marcus. They were going to Mayfair. She had never imagined visiting Marcus’s exalted family like this, in a shabby riding habit, drawn by an equal
ly shabby cab.

  The carriage rocked its way through the streets, passing the raucous and animated city to the quieter Thames-side mansions. Awestruck, Viola gazed over the broad expanse of the river. “I didn’t realize it was so big.”

  “It matches the city,” he said, his voice revealing warmth. “It will be my pleasure to show you some of it.”

  “After I make myself decent.”

  “After that.” Warmth changed to amusement. “I’m sure my sisters will help you.”

  The gracious squares and streets of Mayfair were a recent addition to London. They reached as far as Hyde Park, which Marcus referred to casually as “The Park.” Even the newer establishments were soot-blackened, but not as badly. Soot-shrouded might be a better description. These streets had pavements, broad areas lifted an inch or more from the level of the road. Watchmen’s boxes, like upturned coffins with hoods punctuated the corners, and brackets outside the shiny black front doors revealed where torches would be mounted after nightfall.

  Many of the doors were without knockers, a sign the residents were not at home. That sent relief washing through her, the knowledge London was not crowded with the great of society. Fewer people to witness the jilting of Marcus Aurelius.

  She did not want to hurt him, especially after the way he had cared for her. He deserved better, so much better than her.

  The carriage drew up outside an imposing residence, the knocker still firmly in place. Marcus leaped down and held out his hand to help her. She took it without hesitation, remarking how easy that simple act had become. Yet still she thrilled to his touch. Two nights ago she had spent the night curled into his embrace, the safest she had ever felt in her life.

  They did not have to ply the knocker or pull the bell mounted beside the door. As they climbed the shallow steps, the door opened, revealing a footman clad in familiar silver-and-blue. Showing no surprise at Marcus’s dress, even the terrible wig, he bowed. “Welcome home, my lord.”

  “Thank you. Have hot water prepared, will you? Enough for two baths.”