Their Wicked Ways
Page 15
Nick caught her jaw. “They’ll hear you, sweetheart,” he murmured, covering her mouth with his and catching her little whimpering cries as Darcy fondled her breast with his mouth and tongue unmercifully.
Darkness began to swarm around the fringes of her consciousness. Bronte gripped … someone’s arm frantically as she felt her body soaring upward, felt the tension inside of her winding tighter and tighter until she began to think that she would faint, or die, if she didn’t find surcease from their sensual torments.
Almost as if he’d read her mind, Darcy ceased to tease her. Cool air brushed her skin as he lifted his head, making her nipple pucker more tightly still, throbbing almost painfully. Nick broke the kiss, lifting his head to study her face, she knew. With an effort, she opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“How do you feel?”
Bronte blinked at him. “I … uh … a little faint, actually.”
Darcy frowned. “A little? Or a lot?”
She felt as if her eye balls were rolling around in her head drunkenly. “Very,” she managed after a few moment’s thought. “I feel quite drunk from you two.”
“Close,” Darcy said with a touch of triumph.
Nick gave him a look. “She didn’t faint, though.”
“Am I supposed to faint?” Bronte asked, thoroughly confused. “Why am I supposed to faint?”
Instead of replying, Nick scooped her other breast from the neck of her gown. Cupping the trembling globe in his hand, he bent his head and covered the tip with his mouth.
Bronte gasped, feeling her head swim, moaning mindlessly at the pleasurable sensations until she remembered Nick had said she must be quiet. She was no longer entirely certain why she was supposed to be quiet, but she bit her lip, trying her best to contain the urge to cry out.
She thought at first when she felt the wafting of cool air across her heated flesh that it was the flash of chill that presaged a full-fledged faint, which was probably why the two palms that skated up her bare thighs and around her hips to cup her buttocks sent a jolt of surprise through her.
She shuddered as she felt heated breath against her mound. When his tongue found the opening in her pantaloons and parted her cleft, teasing her clit, she could no longer contain herself. She felt like she was suffocating from a lack of air and began to pant a little desperately, trying to drag air into her laboring lungs.
Having discovered the swollen, achy bud nestled there, however, he caught it beneath his mouth, sucking it and dragging a ragged cry from her. Nick released her breast abruptly, lifting his head to assess the situation, and Bronte opened her eyes, clutching at him as she felt her body beginning to quake with release.
He dipped his head, covering her mouth with his and capturing her cries as her release swept over her with a force that completed her descent into oblivion.
Chapter Eighteen
Bronte was not fully aware of her surroundings again until she felt herself being lowered to a firm surface. Blackness surrounded her when she opened her eyes, but after a few disoriented moments, she realized that the hood of her cloak was over her face. Lifting her hand with an effort, she pushed it back as she felt the seat beneath her dip.
Darcy settled in the seat across from her. After a moment, Nick climbed into the carriage.
“What are we doing here?” Bronte asked in confusion.
“You fainted,” Nick said tightly, settling beside her and slipping his arm around her.
She settled against him gratefully, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I did?”
Darcy grinned at her.
Nick glared at him.
Darcy flushed, looking at Bronte a little sheepishly. “I got a little carried away.”
Bronte reddened, remembering abruptly what had happened just before she’d blacked out. She covered her face with her hand. “Oh my god! We were in the theater.”
“I’m sure nobody’s any the wiser,” Darcy said soothingly. “Nick brought you out the back after you … uh … fainted. And he covered your mouth to keep you from crying out when you … ah … well, you know.”
Bronte bit her lip, trying to decide whether she was more outraged, embarrassed, or just plain stunned by what they’d done.
“I didn’t have a great deal of choice,” Nick said tightly. “Someone would’ve summoned the watch.”
Bronte lowered her hand and sat back. “Where are you taking me?”
“Home.”
Nick was clearly furious. Bronte wracked her brain to think of something that would ease the tension between the two of them and came up empty. “I swear if you two fight over this … insane thing … I’ll never speak to either one of you again.”
Nick slid a narrow eyed glance at her. “The insanity was his idea, but you’re right. I could not have been in my right mind to agree with it.”
“It proved my point,” Darcy said angrily.
“Do you think so?” Nick asked coldly. He turned to Bronte. “What do you think?”
Bronte blinked at him. “I’m not sure,” she said cautiously. “What was the point supposed to be?”
“Do we have a clear winner, or not?” Darcy demanded impatiently.
Bronte clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle the insane urge to giggle. “That was … that was … like a duel?”
Nick reddened, but his lips twitched. “I suppose you could call it that.”
Darcy didn’t look terribly amused. “Nick said you couldn’t make up your mind. I figured … well, you kept harping about taking a lover, damn it!”
Bronte covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking with the effort to keep from laughing.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Darcy said irritably.
“I?” Nick demanded indignantly.
Bronte fought the hysterical urge to giggle to a standstill and peered at them through her fingers. Realizing they were once more on the point of coming to blows, and that Nick was feeling particularly misused, she moved onto his lap, looping her arms around his shoulders and burying her face against his neck. As she’d hoped, he subsided, rubbing her back soothingly.
“I’m sorry as hell I upset you,” Darcy said after several minutes of absolute silence reigned in the carriage except for the clop of the horses’ hooves over the cobblestones.
It was almost enough to set her off again. “It’s all right, Darcy,” Bronte managed to say in a choked voice. “Really.”
By the time they’d turned onto her street, Bronte had sobered enough to realize that Nick’s foul temper might have a cause other than irritation with Darcy’s tactics. Apparently convinced that she was in a state of extreme distress, he made no attempt to release her or to return her to the seat beside him, but he shifted uncomfortably from time to time and the rock hard ridge digging into the side of her hip didn’t mysteriously disappear. She’d shifted against it several times before it dawned upon her what it was.
She stilled when she finally did realize that he was still in a good deal of distress himself, feeling a mixture of renewed desire and more than a little sympathy for his plight. No doubt Darcy was in no better condition, which probably had a good deal to do with their short fuses.
Even if she’d wanted to, and she wasn’t absolutely certain she did after the stunt they’d pulled, there was certainly nothing she could do about it at this point. As they had pointed out themselves, her mother was a light sleeper. She was also prone to get up and wander about the house at all hours. It was nothing short of a miracle that she’d managed to get Darcy out of the house without her mother discovering him and throwing a dying duck fit that would’ve roused the entire household if not the whole neighborhood.
In any case, they had behaved abominably. It had felt wonderful. She wasn’t going to deny that, to herself at least, but scandalously wicked, nonetheless, and about as indiscreetly as humanly possible short of making love to her on the stage itself.
They didn’t deserve a reward for it, and if they were suffering, then they cert
ainly deserved to.
Composing herself finally, she moved back to the seat beside Nick as they neared their destination.
Nick and Darcy were still glaring daggers at one another. She strongly suspected the possibility that violence would erupt the moment she was no longer between them to act as a buffer, but there seemed to be nothing that she could do to diffuse the situation.
The two of them escorted her to the door and politely declined her equally polite offer to come in. She stopped them as they turned to leave. “I’m … I was just wondering.”
Nick and Darcy both stopped and turned to look at her.
She bit her lip. “If I said it was a draw, would you feel compelled to try again?”
Nick and Darcy exchanged a look.
She smiled at them when they turned to her once more. “Goodnight Nick. Goodnight Darcy. I had … an extraordinary time.”
“Lord Sheffield didn’t care to come in?” Lady Millford called from the front parlor as Bronte closed the door and started toward the stairs.
As tempted as she was to fling a comment at her mother and head for the stairs, Bronte stopped and altered direction.
Lady Millford looked her over as she reached door of the parlor and Bronte realized belatedly that she must be in a shocking state of dishabille. She reddened at the knowing look in her mother’s eyes.
“Actually, he … uh … no. I’m really tired, Mother. I believe I’ll go up and get ready for bed.”
Lady Millford sniffed disapprovingly. “Well, I’m sure you’ll say it’s not my affair, for you are a woman full grown, but my own dear mother used to say that you could not expect a man to buy the well if you allowed him to take a drink whenever he pleased.”
Bronte bit her lip. “But … how are you to know you’ll like having him drink from your well if you don’t allow him a sip first?” she retorted and turned and fled for the stairs before her mother could recover sufficiently to offer a rebuttal.
* * * *
As blithely as Bronte had dismissed the possibility of notoriety, the actuality of it was more difficult to take than she’d expected.
She had her first inkling that the little episode at the theater had spawned a great deal of speculation two days later when she attended her first post theater dinner party. She didn’t actually notice the whispers and titters that followed her every move at first. She was accustomed to the oft times underlying maliciousness of society and thought to begin with that they must be gossiping about someone else, or that, perhaps, there was something about her toilet that was not up to their rigid standards.
The frank stares of a number of men who’d previously behaved very gentlemanly toward her began to hammer home the fact that she had, virtually overnight, become fodder for the gossip mills.
It angered her. The plain truth was that very few of them were virtuous enough to have any right whatsoever to criticize her behavior, but then such was the human animal. They had only to catch the scent of blood and straight away they all turned upon the hapless victim.
She ignored it, behaving as if she had no idea what the whispers were about, but she couldn’t help but wonder who had begun spreading the tale. She had seen no more than a handful of people at the theater that she even recognized, and of those she knew none of them at all well. She supposed it was possible that they had known her well enough to have an interest, but it seemed rather strange that they would when she barely even knew them by name and some of them not even that well. She also knew very well that no one had actually seen anything.
Perhaps it hadn’t been necessary? Perhaps being with Nick and Darcy was sufficient in itself?
Her brazen, unaffected behavior worked after a fashion. When she did not flee in disarray, there were many who began to wonder just how much faith they could place in the rumors after all.
There were still the truly malicious, those who were determined always to believe the worst of anyone at any given time, but much of the whispering and snickering had begun to subside after a time and Bronte began to relax and enjoy the evening with less grim determination and more actual enjoyment.
She was just returning from the dance floor, with no inkling that her entire world was about to fall apart, when it did.
She’d just noticed Nick and Darcy and started toward them when a former admirer of hers stopped to speak to them. Grinning maliciously, he looked directly at her before dividing a look between Nick and Darcy. “Well, which of you won the wager?”
Bronte halted as if she’d hit a brick wall.
Darcy frowned, giving the man an uncomprehending stare. “What wager?”
William Moreland snickered. “I’ve heard tell that one of you succeeded in proving you were England’s greatest lover by seducing the lovely Mrs. Bronte Dunmore. I was only wondering if I had a debt that needed to be paid. Or if my man had won after all.”
Almost as if he felt her eyes upon him, Nick turned. For several painful heartbeats their gazes met. Slowly, the color completely left Nick’s face. He swallowed with an obvious effort and turned to look at William Moreland once more. The smug expression on Moreland’s face vanished even as Nick reached for him.
Darcy glanced toward her then, studied her face for several moments and turned to Nick and Moreland. “For God’s sake, Nick! Not here,” he muttered, grasping Nick’s arm and trying to pry his hand loose from Moreland’s throat before he could choke the life out of him.
Bronte turned away, staring blindly at the sea of faces around her. Without any conscious thought but escape, she began to thread her way through the crowded room. Her mother met her at the door, grasping her arm.
Bronte looked at her without recognition.
“You can’t run away like this,” Elizabeth Millford hissed urgently. “They’ll believe the rumors are true.”
Bronte stared at her mother, looked around at the people nearest them, who were trying very hard to pretend they didn’t have their ears cocked to catch every word. “I don’t care what they believe, Mother. I never did,” she said almost calmly.
“You don’t mean that!”
Bronte smiled at her mother almost pityingly. “Yes, I do. I’m sorry it distresses you, Mother.”
She pushed past her mother then and made her way down the stairs. She waited outside for the carriage to be brought round, fearful that Nick or Darcy or both would catch up to her before she could leave. Finally, the carriage drew to a halt before the steps and she climbed in. Lady Millford, who’d followed, climbed in behind her.
“You were doing so well,” Lady Millford said mournfully. “Why?”
Bronte swallowed with an effort. She wanted to be alone. She didn’t want to have to try to behave like a civilized, dutiful, respectful daughter. She wanted to release some of the pain that felt like it was going to tear her apart.
She managed a wavering smile. “It seems you were right, after all. It was nothing but a silly wager.”
Lady Millford stared at her uncomprehendingly. “What wager?”
Bronte rubbed her temples. “They didn’t mean it. Neither of them meant it. It was only a wager to see which of them could seduce me … to prove--I’ve no idea what it was supposed to prove, actually.”
“Who? Who didn’t mean what?”
“Darcy--Nick,” Bronte managed to say in a suffocated voice. “I always was a fool about them, wasn’t I? They never cared for me … never.”
Lady Millford stared at her, obviously torn. “The scoundrels!” she muttered finally. “I might have known they would get you into some sort of scrape! They were always doing so when you were a child. Heaven knows I tried to keep you from trailing after them.”
Bronte rubbed her pounding temples. Merely breathing was an effort, for it felt as if a giant hand were squeezing her chest in a tight fist. “I know, Mother. And you were right. I just … I couldn’t help it.”
Lady Millford looked as if she might burst into tears. “I have never seen a harder case of hero worship. You adored those
two young hellions.”
“Yes.”
“They adored you, too. That was what made it so difficult.”
Bronte emerged from her self absorption at that, drawing a shuddering breath. “What?”
Lady Millford’s face crumpled. “We were wrong to arrange a marriage between you and Isaac, weren’t we?”