Lady's Temptations: A Winter's Regency Menage

by Reed, Kristabel

  “I’m heading upstairs to the gallery,” she added for everyone’s benefit. No passerby would think it odd.

  They turned and walked out the entrance she’d used, but Sarina, her heart pounding in fear and want and eagerness, continued her walk around the ballroom. She spotted a small group of several acquaintances and walked in their direction.

  “Marguerite,” she said with a smile to the group as a whole. “So good to see you.”

  In the six weeks since Kingsnorth and word of Georgiana’s death, Sarina had seen very little of her friends and acquaintances, even this close to the opening of the Season.

  She chatted animatedly with Marguerite for several moments, all the while counting the minutes between Prescott and Liam’s departure and what could safely be her own.

  “It’s such a crush in here,” she said after a moment. Sarina felt flush but knew her friends would think nothing more than the closeness of the ballroom and the mass of people. “I’m going for a breath of fresh air in the gardens. I’ll find you later.”

  Giving Marguerite a quick kiss on the cheek, Sarina kept to her mantra of moving slowly, with even steps and a faintly interested smile on her face. One step, two, to lose herself in the crowd, make sure she wasn’t followed, she nodded to acquaintances, smiled politely.

  Her heart raced and it hurt to breathe. Even the far too brief, and mostly silent, meeting between the three of them had been enough to harden her nipples and fan the heat already curling through her into a fire.

  One step, two, one foot in front of the other. Her head held high, nothing amiss for anyone to gossip about. It took her far longer to make her way to the gallery than she’d planned, but then she knew far too many people here.

  Finally, finally, she glimpsed the gallery ahead. And Liam and Prescott waited for her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  They were alone in the gallery, as Sarina had hoped. Stepping into the room, she immediately stopped when Liam walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

  “I’ve missed you,” he whispered against the side of her neck, where his lips did delicious things to her.

  “It’s been too long,” Prescott added. He stood before her, his hands on her hips.

  Her senses overwhelmed, Sarina swayed. The harsh scent of the ball was instantly replaced by the scent of her lovers. The noise of the crush was gone in the face of their words. Her skin prickled with their touch.

  She reached one gloved hand behind her and wound it around Liam’s neck, her head tilted to rest against his shoulder. With her other hand, she reached for Prescott and brought him down for a kiss.

  Even as her body exploded with sensation, a sense of rightness settled over Sarina. She’d never give this up. She never could.

  “Yes,” Sarina gasped when the kiss ended. “It’s been too long. But this is the first chance I’ve been able to get away from them. The first opportunity I’ve had to see you. Henrietta and Maryanne have watched me like a criminal.”

  She turned from Prescott’s dark brown gaze to look at Liam. “I’ve missed you both so very much.” Her voice lowered, caught at the force of love she felt for these two men.

  Taking a deep breath, emotion moving through her so hard she nearly staggered from the force of it, she stopped. Oh, God, she’d missed them. Being here was more than sex, though her body hummed from anticipatory pleasure. It was being with them. She needed them, but more, she never wanted to be away from them again.

  Not like this, like they’d been forced to endure for the previous six weeks.

  “I need you both so very much.”

  Prescott’s mouth was hard on hers, stealing her breath even as Liam’s hands cupped her breasts, his mouth nipping along her shoulder. Lost, Sarina surrendered. She moaned their names, arched into their touch, held them closer.

  When Prescott pulled back and Liam released her, Sarina felt dizzy. Exhilarated. Aroused.

  “There’s a guest room just across the gallery,” she gasped, fighting for breath. Fighting not to court disaster and make love to them both right there on the floor of Faith’s family’s gallery.

  She imagined her friend would spur her on, but her utter and complete ruination was enough for Sarina to take Liam’s hand in hers and hold out her other for Prescott. She’d guide them to the guest room and take her time in the bed there.

  Society, Oliver, and the ball be damned.

  * * * *

  Sarina didn’t care about the room. She knew she’d led her men to the blue room, but other than the name, cared not one bit about the furnishings. Or even if the room really was still blue. She didn’t care about the ball going on outside the door or the very real possibility they’d be caught by wandering guests or servants.

  All she cared about was the fact they were alone, finally alone, and she wanted them. Badly.

  Unfortunately, once again this wasn’t the time for slow and erotic, to taste them all she wanted. No, tonight, right now, was for fast and sated, hard thrusts and fierce orgasms. It was hands and mouths and teeth. It was Sarina pushing Liam to the bed and climbing atop him. Kissing him desperately, as if taking his taste into her.

  Her hands frantically tugged at his waistcoat and shirt, anxious to touch bare skin. Other than their first time, she hadn’t touched her lovers’ skin, and Sarina needed to tonight.

  Liam’s hands gripped her thighs, his mouth hard on hers, taking and taking as his fingers glided up her skin to her center. He didn’t stop to tease, didn’t stroke or caress. Instead, he thrust two fingers into her already wet core and Sarina cried out. Her fingers curling into his chest, she rocked against his touch.

  Behind her, Prescott thrust against her, his hands on her breasts, which had somehow broken free of her bodice. His long fingers teased and pinched her nipples until Sarina forgot all her reservations.

  She didn’t just want tonight to happen, she needed it. Needed the reassurance of them by her, in her. Not only the sex, which was fabulous, but their love.

  Every kiss Liam trailed along her jaw, over her neck; Prescott’s muttered words of love as he nipped along the back of her shoulders. Sarina didn’t doubt their love for her. Never had.

  Suddenly, Prescott pressed her forward. Liam removed his fingers to her whimper of need, and in one smooth thrust, Prescott entered her. He thrust shallowly, just enough to wind the thrilling electricity of need tighter. Just as suddenly he withdrew and slowly, slowly, entered her rear entrance.

  Sarina shuddered, gasped, her fingers curling into Liam’s chest as he guided his own erection into her. Her breath hitched, her mind blanked, and she moaned. Begged. Pleaded for more. Sarina rocked against them, but neither moved.

  Prescott’s fingers continued to torment her breasts, Liam’s fingers found her nub, and all too deliberately they moved. They found a rhythm that built her orgasm higher and higher but held her on the precipice of completion.

  Lost but so attuned to their every movement, Sarina rocked against them. Her dress lay bunched around her, her breasts wantonly against her bodice, one hand holding Prescott’s fingers to her breast, the other curled into Liam’s chest. And still it wasn’t enough.

  She moved harder, faster. Sounds, words, moans fell from her lips, but Sarina didn’t know what she said. All she cared about was more. Them. Yes.

  And then she exploded; colors and sounds and such erotic sensations flowed through her in a warm flood and she cried out. She forgot she was meant to be quiet, forgot about the ball and the guests and the fact they may or may not have locked the door. She cried out as her orgasm overtook her.

  Sarina felt them move harder, Prescott pounding into her, Liam’s hands on her hips to move her faster against him. And then they too climaxed, her name on both their lips.

  When she blinked open her eyes, Sarina found herself facing Liam, Prescott at her back. Lips glided over still-exposed skin and fingers soothed marks she’d never be able to properly explain.

  She lay there, sated and hap
py and trying desperately to forget the crowds and the “What happens next?” question that plagued her. Now that the unbearable tension coiling through her had been somewhat abated, Sarina found she could no longer hold back her thoughts. She’d been so focused on this, now, them, she hadn’t bothered to think about the after.

  But if they were discovered, the scandal would follow them across the world.

  Their business would suffer, and she didn’t even want to think about what would happen to her. Forget ever showing her face in polite society, any polite society. Biting her lips, she slowly sat up and straightened her gown.

  Her hair was a mess, and she’d lost the wide pearl and silver comb she’d specifically asked Lydia to use in her hair. Prescott and Liam watched her silently as she straightened her bodice, gathered what pins she could find, and scooped the comb from the floor where it’d fallen.

  Silent, unable to look at them now, she crossed to the mirror and took those precious few moments to fix her hair. Sarina looked at herself in the looking glass, her flushed cheeks, gown slightly wrinkled, hair a mess down her back.

  The panic surprised her. She hadn’t expected it, but with wanting only them, only another evening in their arms, to feel them, the three of them, loving each other, Sarina had convinced herself nothing else mattered.

  The fact her practical side chose to rear up right now, at such an inopportune moment, sent her heart racing for an entirely different reason, and her stomach clenched in knots.

  Prescott moved behind her, and in the looking glass she met his dark gaze. His hands cupped her shoulders, his thumbs lightly caressing the skin. She heard Liam move as well, saw him on the periphery of her vision. Sarina tried to speak, to say something, but her throat closed on panic and affection, lust and love. Swallowing hard to dislodge the emotion, she remained quiet.

  “They won’t miss us yet,” Prescott said softly. She watched as he bent his head, felt his lips brush softly over the side of her neck.

  “There are too many in attendance this evening,” Liam added. He picked up her hand, linked their fingers. Sarina shivered at the contact but remained quiet. “I doubt anyone noticed we slipped away.”

  “We should still make our presence known,” she said, stepping away to finish her hair. “Before anyone becomes suspicious.”

  “Anyone like Hawksmoor?” Prescott said, his voice hard and mean.

  “What do you mean?” Sarina asked as calmly as she could. It hurt to breathe, and she knew her eyes betrayed her surprise.

  Duty and responsibility warred with need. She licked her lips but refused to meet either of their gaze and focused a little too much on her hair.

  “We saw you conversing with him when you arrived,” Liam added, somewhat neutrally.

  “I couldn’t very well ignore him,” she said far more sharply than she’d intended.

  “I would’ve preferred if you had,” Prescott said, but his tone had moderated slightly.

  “When do you plan to inform him that there will be no marriage between the two of you?” Liam asked, stepping closer. But he made no move to reclaim her hand.

  Sarina turned, her hair as fixed as she could manage. Or cared to manage. This night had seemed so perfect, the idea so flawless, when she’d planned it. “Lord Hawksmoor has invited me to visit the estate and I’ve accepted,” she said evenly. “I’ll be visiting with my cousins in a few days. I thought perhaps I’d tell him then.”

  She didn’t like this pressure, though she’d already decided to be honest with Oliver. Sarina breathed in deeply and met their gazes, each in turn. She needed to do this on her own terms.

  “There’s no need for you to travel to his estate,” Liam said even as Prescott nodded. Sarina didn’t know if he nodded in agreement with her or Liam. “Why should you make such a journey?”

  “Because I was invited,” she said in a cooler tone than she’d used previously. “And I feel,” she added honestly, “that for propriety’s sake I should go. Extend him this courtesy.”

  Prescott remained quiet, but Liam’s eyes narrowed. Not in suspicion of her, Sarina realized, but suspicion nonetheless. “You don’t owe him a courtesy. This…situation was imposed upon you. There’s no debt here.”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “There is. Whether I admit to it or not, the Hawksmoor estate is part of my own legacy, and I don’t wish to see it fall into ruin.”

  Prescott’s hand cut through the air. “We’ll take care of that,” he said and caught her hand. “After we’re married. We’ll see he has enough in his lifetime.”

  Sarina nodded, though not in agreement but merely in acknowledgement. She doubted whatever Prescott and Liam offered Oliver was enough to save the estate. Oliver wasn’t an extravagant man, but the estate required an enormous amount of money to function properly.

  “Please don’t be cross with me,” she said softly but firmly. “I’ll tell him at Hawksmoor Estate.”

  Taking a deep breath, she pressed her lips first to Prescott’s mouth then to Liam’s. She stepped back, unable and unsure what to say next. So she simply waited for them to leave first. Sarina counted the time in her head, checked her appearance once more, tugged a few strands of hair back into place, and left the room.

  Her body still hummed, pleasure tugging at her limbs. But her stomach roiled with tension and indecision and the knowledge she might have made a mistake in so wantonly, so blatantly, enjoying the attentions of her lovers at this ball.

  Meandering down the gallery, as if she’d been there the entire time, Sarina tried to pretend the last hour or so hadn’t happened. A very small part of her regretted her spontaneity, but she had still wanted it. But now, with the very real threat of discovery, she was forced to wonder what she’d done.

  Footsteps echoed along the hallway, and she caught a glimpse of Liam’s coat as he turned a corner. And then more footsteps and her heart froze in fear. Had they seen her? Had they seen Liam? Liam and Prescott?

  Swallowing hard, her fingers twisting in the skirt of her gown, Sarina turned. She didn’t recognize the guest who’d wandered in, and the other woman didn’t seem to notice anything untoward. But Sarnia’s heart pounded painfully in her chest and she couldn’t do more than gasp in short breaths.

  This clandestine affair was going to be the death of her. Shaking her head at her own thoughts, she wondered if actually marrying Prescott would stop her feeling so. Then again, the three of them wouldn’t need to sneak around balls at country houses to be together.

  Nodding politely to the woman, Sarina made her way back to the ballroom. No matter how this was her idea, her plan, how she’d desperately wanted it, sneaking around at a ball was dangerous. She couldn’t do it again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The carriage rocked back and forth on the uneven road. She was already two days behind Henrietta and Maryanne, and the road conditions looked as if they were going to add another day to that. She’d stayed in London, at her cousins’ sly behest, to finish several fittings on gowns she planned to wear for the Season.

  Sarina knew her cousins all too well and knew they planned one of those gowns to be her wedding dress—at her wedding to Oliver.

  After all, it was the Hawksmoor estate they now visited and Sarina traveled to. It was at Oliver’s invitation she now sat in her carriage, with only Lydia for company, during a very wet spring. The constant rain had made the ground saturated and the roads muddy. It was near impossible to keep to a decent pace.

  None of that mattered. It gave her time with her own thoughts, on Liam and Prescott, on Oliver, on duty versus love. Then again, it gave her far too much time with these thoughts until they raced round and round her head in a never-ending circle of what-ifs and maybes and love and sex and duty.

  For a heartbeat, Sarina had wanted to invite Prescott and Liam to her deserted townhouse. McGann seemed to side with her when it came to suitors—rather when it came to thwarting her cousins. Sarina had the feeling he’d prefer Henrietta, Maryanne, and their h
usbands to be at any townhouse but hers. Lately, Sarina hadn’t blamed him.

  Still, he had a tight control over the staff and her inviting two friends of her brother, two of her own friends to afternoon tea, sans chaperone, might not be the most scandalous event ever. Even if those friends were male. And of course he’d never know what happened behind the closed doors of the parlor.

  But she hadn’t. She’d been too terrified of discovery. Of scandal and humiliation and the gossip that’d follow her for the rest of her life.

  She had, she knew, retreated behind her practical façade.

  It’d been more difficult to escape the pragmatism of her life than she’d realized. No matter how she’d wanted to embrace the adventure, the audacious and carefree side of herself sleeping with the two men she loved, Sarina balked. She wanted to—oh, she wanted to. But after the ball, after the delicious secret sex they’d shared, she hadn’t been able to be quite so risk-taking.

  Eventually the rain stopped and the pull of the ground eased. She could all but hear the driver and footmen breathe a sigh of relief when it became easy going. Well, easier. But that only meant that they’d arrive at Oliver’s so much sooner.

  Lifting the heavy curtain, she peered out the window. The day was chilly and overcast and did little to help her mood. She let the drape fall back into place and spent the rest of the long ride trying to order her thoughts.

  Unfortunately, by the time she arrived at Hawksmoor Manor, Sarina was no closer to a plan than she’d been in London.

  The driver called out their arrival, and Sarina lifted the drapery once more to see the manor house. A gorgeous, stately construct, even with the spring rain it looked dignified. The stone was tan, evenly spread throughout each wing. Either the house had been built to look like this and never expanded upon or previous earls had done their best—spared no expense—to see that the same stone was used for all additions.

  It would, she thought uncharitably, explain Oliver’s current indebtedness.