Between a Rake and a Hard Place

by Connie Mason

  “Let me guess. This is more from that book on the courtesan’s arts?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I was always a very good pupil.”

  “Then let me see if I can add to your education.” He covered her mouth with his. All his longing and hope poured into her. The royal duke’s bloodless offer for her might come tomorrow, but he’d do everything he could to show her how he loved her tonight.

  I love her. Serena Osbourne, maker of lists of forbidden pleasures, unattainable daughter of a haughty marquis. From the cloud of pale hair on her head to the soles of her delicately arched feet, she was all that was lightness and ease. He needed her to knit up the ragged edges of his soul, to fill him with her brand of chaos to replace the dark anarchy that was there now.

  If by some miracle he could convince her without a word how much he loved her and make her love him back, he’d spend the rest of his life trying to be worthy of her.

  But if he didn’t take her right now, there’d be no rest of his life. He’d die on the spot. He pushed her hips down, sliding into her, impaling her slowly on his rock-hard erection. He groaned, awash in the pleasure of her slick, hot flesh. Then he tore through the thin barrier of her purity and she cried out, but not with pain. The gasp that tore from her throat was the feral sound of feminine triumph as she engulfed him completely.

  He moved inside her, reveling in her softness, lifting her on and off his full length. Skin on skin, they slid against each other, her head thrown back so he could suck her tender neck. They turned slowly, doing a new sort of waltz, moving to unheard music, keeping rhythm with their shuddering breaths and pounding hearts.

  Their bodies joined in perfect concert. Each time Jonah lowered her onto himself, Serena tilted against him, digging her heels into the small of his back, seeking the deepest bonding possible. She kissed his mouth, his cheeks, his closed eyelids. If shared pleasure was their goal, they were nearly there.

  Her eyes were hooded as she gazed down at him. She bit her lip and growled in frustration.

  “Easy, love,” he whispered. “Let me take you there.”

  He braced his feet and moved more slowly, more deliberately till she began to quake in his arms. But as they moved as one, she didn’t look away. He’d never locked gazes at the critical moment with a lover before. Now there was a spark in the depths of her blue eyes, and he saw the exact moment when she teetered for just a blink on the brink of the abyss. Then her insides contracted hard around him as his soul pulsed into her along with his seed.

  Jonah couldn’t say how long it lasted. It might have been seconds. It might have gone on for hours. Time seemed to dissolve, and everything sizzled in the eternal now. When it was finished, her head settled onto his shoulder and he held her as if she weighed nothing.

  Unwilling to part from her, he carried her, still wrapped around his body, over to the waiting bed. He sat down and swung his legs up. Then when she unhooked her ankles, he lay down with Serena draped bonelessly on top of him.

  Gradually, the heat of lust cooled. When he slipped from her body, she shifted to settle by his side, laying her head in the crook of his shoulder. Utterly spent, he gazed up at the shadowy mural of an African savanna on the ceiling.

  Even if he wasn’t restrained by his promise to Miss Braithwaite, there was no need for words. Anything Jonah might say would be redundant. Their bodies had said it all. Surely Serena felt his love enveloping her. His breath had lived in her body and hers in his. They were one soul. With this joining, they were bonded forever.

  He’d never be free of her and didn’t want to be.

  She kissed his neck and snuggled close, relaxing against his body. In a few moments, her even breathing told him she’d escaped into the arms of Morpheus.

  Jonah was tempted to follow her, but if he was wrong, if this was the only night he’d have her, he didn’t want to waste a moment of it on sleep. He’d let her rest for a bit, and then he’d wake her gently for another go.

  Until the stars fled from the sky, Serena was his. It was more than he had a right to ask. More than enough. He wouldn’t think beyond the dawn.

  Besides, he was pretty sure he could teach her a few things she hadn’t learned from that courtesan’s book.

  Twenty-seven

  According to the midwife who attended Lady Caroline Downing during her most recent lying-in, the viscountess was blessed with yet another healthy baby boy. Her husband Lord Downing is reputed to be an affectionate husband who quite dotes on his growing brood. This newest child is the couple’s tenth bundle of joy in as many years.

  Apparently Lord Downing is extremely affectionate.

  From Le Dernier Mot,

  The Final Word on News That Everyone

  Who Is Anyone Should Know

  Serena woke slowly, swimming up through layers of oblivion to the realization that a fine male body was spooned around hers and someone’s lips were teasing the nape of her neck.

  “Jonah,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “I’m not.” She turned in his arms so she could face him. Anticipation made it difficult for her to draw breath. Her belly churned as though a whole swarm of fireflies had been released in it. The sensations were mystifying and new, but Serena was ready to give herself up to them with abandon. She was safe with Jonah.

  Well, not in some ways, she admitted to herself as she succumbed drowsily to his kisses. She’d given him her maidenhead and they’d not taken any precautions against conceiving.

  Of course, if she quickened, she wouldn’t be the first bride who delivered her firstborn “prematurely.” If Jonah did get her with child, she wondered if the royal duke would denounce her for bringing a cuckoo into his nest. Probably not, since a legitimate child was the main goal of this farce of a marriage and the quicker the better.

  The thought of wedding the duke was more repugnant than usual. After being with Jonah, she felt more than a little queasy over the idea that she’d have to be as close to another man, and a complete stranger at that, as she’d been to the fellow who was now nibbling at her ear.

  Serena tried to shove the unwelcome thought away. She only wanted to be with Jonah. One night of giving herself to a man who meant something to her, a man she loved, yes, she could admit it to herself even if she couldn’t say it to him. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

  The royal duke still loomed menacingly in her mind.

  Then Jonah pulled away from her arms and rose from the bed.

  “You’re leaving me?” she whispered, feeling totally bereft.

  “Only for a little.” Heedless of his nakedness, he walked across the room to the small commode that held a pitcher and ewer. By the light of the banked fire, Serena admired the strength in his shoulders, the expanse of his back, and the way his lean torso tapered to his tight buttocks. Jonah was as fine a man as she could ever have imagined.

  And he was hers, if only for this night.

  He dowsed his face with water he’d poured into the ewer. Then he slicked his damp hair back, exposing the tender spot just behind his ear that Serena had discovered she loved to kiss. She climbed out of bed and skittered across the room to stand behind him and nuzzled the hairline at his nape, taking in his man smell. It was a scent she didn’t think soap and water could improve.

  “Easy, girl,” he said as she nipped at his earlobe. “Or you’ll have me too randy to think straight.”

  “What do you need to think about?” Serena sighed as she wrapped her arms around him and laid her cheek between his shoulder blades.

  “How to make this night last, mostly,” he said, then under his breath he muttered, “I don’t want to think beyond that.”

  Oh, Jonah, give me a reason to say no to the duke.

  He wet a cloth and turned to face her. “You went to sleep so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to do this earlier.”

  “Do what?”

  He knelt before her. “Spread your legs.”

  She obeyed and with ex
treme gentleness he used the cloth to clean away the dried red streaks on her inner thighs. There hadn’t been much blood, but enough that she was glad he’d thought of it. Serena shivered.

  “That water’s cold.”

  He replaced the cloth in the ewer and toweled her dry. “My hands are warm. Would you rather have them?”

  “You can put your hands anywhere you like.”

  “Remember you said that.” Then he began stroking her ticklish ribs.

  Serena loosed a giggle before she could catch herself. Jonah clapped one of his big hands over her mouth while he replaced the fingers tormenting her ribs with his tongue. Between his warm breath and the way his mouth smoothed over her skin, all thoughts of laughter fled from her mind.

  She felt all achy and curiously heavy inside.

  When he knelt before her again and covered her sex with his mouth, she began chanting his name without realizing she did so. Then when he’d reduced her to shaky-kneed weakness, he stood, captured her, and pinned her, arms stretched over her head against the smooth mahogany paneling. The coolness at her back was a pleasant respite from the heat building inside her.

  He pressed his hard length against her. A flash of warmth between her legs answered his slow knock. His tongue invaded her mouth, and she welcomed the raid.

  He pinioned her wrists together in one of his large hands and gave the other one freedom to explore. There were roughened calluses at the base of each of his fingers. They set her skin tingling.

  She strained against his grip, trying to free her hands so she could touch him. “Let me…please, Jonah…I want to…” The man made her weak as water.

  “Patience, love,” he whispered. “You’ve heard that hunger makes the best sauce, haven’t you?”

  She nodded into his kiss. Love. He called me love.

  “Well, desire prolonged makes the best loving,” he explained when he came up for air again.

  “Is that so?” She managed to pull free and strolled around him, running her fingertips along his lean waist. “Maybe you’d like a taste of your own sauce.”

  “I didn’t know you could cook.”

  “I can do lots of things you don’t know about,” she said. “Now stand still.”

  He came to attention and she tormented him with her nearness. She brushed her breasts on his flesh with glancing touches. He bent his head to kiss her, but she stopped him with a hand to his chest.

  “Patience, love,” she mimicked. It was as close as she dared to a declaration of her feelings until he made a clearer one of his own.

  She circled him again, admiring the fine contour of his spine and the slight indentations above his buttocks. Those twin globes were dusted with fine hairs that glowed in the firelight. She trailed a lazy finger around his hip bones and slid her hand over the length of his maleness in a teasing pass. A muscle ticked in his cheek when she stood on tiptoe to nibble at his neck. Every muscle in his body was tensed with the effort of holding himself still for her. It gave Serena a sense of more power than she’d ever felt.

  How could even a royal duchess feel more?

  “Can I move now, Serena?” he asked between clenched teeth.

  “I’ll be terribly disappointed if you don’t.”

  Jonah swept her up and held her as if she was light as a basket of feathers.

  He kissed her closed eyes, the apples of her cheeks, the column of her neck. Her insides went soft and warm and almost drowsy, surrendering to the sweetness of his mouth.

  Somehow she became aware that he was lowering her to the bed again. She’d been so lost in the wonder of his kisses, she hadn’t felt him walking with her across the room.

  Serena leaned back against the plumped pillows. The linens were cool and delicious, smooth under her palms. Her newly awakened senses delighted in everything she touched and everything that touched her.

  Jonah started with her lips and then began to kiss her all over, moving steadily down past the indentation at the base of her throat, between the hollows of her breasts, on down her body and legs to the soles of her feet and then back up. When he reached her mouth again, Serena felt more tinglingly alive than anybody had a right to feel.

  In the years to come, how can I do without him?

  “You make me feel so loved,” she said as he lowered himself to her. Why doesn’t he say it? She ran one hand absently through his hair, enjoying the clean feel of it. Jonah kissed down her neck to suckle her breast. “Isn’t there something you’d like to say to me?”

  Jonah raised his head, his face screwed into a frown. “You want to talk now?”

  “No, not exactly. I just want you to…” The truth hit her in a blinding rush. “You don’t love me.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “No, you haven’t said anything.”

  “Too many words can spoil a moment.”

  Serena bit her lip, unsure what to say. “And too few can ruin it.”

  Jonah stretched out beside her, dallying with the neat triangle of curls that covered her sex. “I told you when you came to me that I can offer you nothing. That hasn’t changed.”

  Despite the tingling pleasure he gave her, she grasped his hand to still it. “You mean to stand by and watch while I wed the royal duke then?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “If that’s your choice.”

  Serena sat up. “Don’t you realize when you care about someone you can’t stand by and watch while they make a mistake?”

  He dropped a quick kiss on her belly. “So you do think wedding Kent would be a mistake.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “What I think is of no consequence. I’m not the one marrying him.”

  Serena made a growling sound in the back of her throat. “I wouldn’t stand by and do nothing if you were about to do something that might ruin your life.”

  “I’m in no danger of doing that.”

  “Yes, you were. Or at least, I thought you were when you were trying to find that fellow in Portsmouth.” The words tumbled out of her mouth before she considered the consequences of them. “You know who I mean, that Sergeant Leatherby.”

  “How do you know his name?”

  “That’s not important.” She couldn’t admit she’d opened his mail and eavesdropped on his conversation with Lord Rhys and Lord Nathaniel at the old castle.

  Jonah’s expression went suddenly hard. “What did you do?”

  “Once I knew who you were looking for, I thought you were trying to find him because the Triad had ordered him killed. I knew how much your work for them weighed on you, so…so I ordered Mr. Honeywood to find him before you did and send him away.”

  “So you’re the one who paid for his passage to Boston.”

  The steel in his tone chilled her, but she nodded. If they had nothing else between them, at least they’d have the truth.

  He sat up straight and raked a hand through his hair. “Do you have any idea what damage your meddling has done?”

  Meddling! She was only trying to help the man. “I might have a glimmer if you’d just say what’s on your mind once in a while. Believe me, I only thought to spare you, Jonah. If you’d told me why you were looking for him, that you needed his help…” She bunched the bed linens in her clenched fists. “You see, too few words really can ruin things.”

  “You want words? You may not when you hear what I have to say now.” Jonah rose from the bed and began pacing. “Here’s why we needed Leatherby. Just before the Battle of Waterloo, Warrington, Colton, and I led a failed assault near the village of Maubeuge. We led our men into an ambush and only a handful survived.”

  The look of abject misery on his face made her want to crawl not just beneath the covers, but the bed itself.

  “There was an inquiry. While it demonstrated that the scouting reports we received were false, we couldn’t prove we hadn’t colluded with the French somehow. Sergeant Leatherby has information that will exonerate me and my friends. If we’d been able to find Leatherby and compel his testi
mony on our behalf, I wouldn’t have to…”

  She tucked the sheets under her armpits and rose to her knees. “To what?”

  “Fortescue Alcock threatened to see me brought up on charges of treason. I’d have fought the accusation, but even the suggestion of a scandal that horrific would destroy my family’s good name. My father and brother would be tainted by my disgrace. The only way Alcock would let the dead in France stay buried there is if I agreed to do his bidding.”

  Amelia had said the MP was an unpleasant man. She didn’t know the half of it. “What does he want you to do?”

  “He doesn’t want you to wed the royal duke, and I’m supposed to stop you.”

  “How do you propose to do that?” She hoped her use of the word “propose” wasn’t too on the nose, but the man hadn’t caught any of her more subtle hints.

  “He wants me to ruin you.”

  “But you wouldn’t.”

  “Look around, love. I already have.”

  “Oh, God.” She felt the blood drain from her head, and her vision tunneled for a moment. Jonah didn’t love her after all. He’d only seduced her to save his own family.

  Somehow, she forced herself out of the bed and retrieved her discarded night rail and wrapper. She felt wooden, like a child’s discarded toy, as if her arms and legs were controlled by someone else as she put on her clothing without a glance in Jonah’s direction.

  “Serena, that’s how it started with you and me, but now I can’t go through with it. You’re only ruined if you’re caught here,” he said softly. “No matter what Alcock does to me and mine, I promise silence about what has passed between us.”

  Silence. That just about summed up the man when it came to matters of the heart.

  She still didn’t dare look at him. Her heart might leap out of her chest if she did. “For how long?”

  “Forever. It’ll be as if it never happened.”

  As if it never happened. She felt dead inside. Hollow. How was it possible that she continued to breathe? “Then none of this meant anything to you.”