Voices in the hall and then the sound of familiar footsteps alerted her to Anthony’s arrival. The door swung open and he entered with his long stride.
She put down her cup and smiled. “Well, did you catch anything?”
“Nothing but the damp and cold.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “We caught the rain when we stopped to change horses and I’m chilled to the bone.”
“You can’t wear damp clothing,” she scolded. “You could catch a cold and die.”
He pulled her into his arms and plundered her mouth, his tongue swirling about hers while his hands cupped her bottom to pull her against his erection. A moan issued from Emily’s throat.
“I think,” he gasped, breaking their kiss, “you should help me out of these clothes right now so I don’t take cold and die.”
“It’s the least I can do,” she whispered, running her hands through his hair. “And, of course, I’ll have to take my clothes off too.”
She led him up the stairs to her room and stirred the glowing embers in the fireplace. Flames sparked to life, throwing shimmering light around the room.
“There,” she said. “You’ll be warm soon enough.”
“Did you do anything interesting while I was gone?” Anthony removed his boots and tossed them aside before his hands began the quick work of ridding her of her dress.
“I received any number of callers,” she said, tugging at his cravat.
His fingers stopped under the straps of her shift. “Who?” he demanded. “Who called on you?”
“No one special,” she teased, enjoying his scowl of outrage. She pulled the pins from her hair and scattered them around the carpet as she shook her head. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“Not a bit,” he muttered as he continued to strip her of her clothing. When she was naked before him, he sank to his knees, put his head against her belly and slipped a hand between her legs. “Ahhh…” he sighed. “I’ve missed touching this.”
He ran a finger along her ridge and Emily’s knees trembled. “I’ve missed having you touch me,” she murmured.
Tickling the bud hidden beneath her folds, he asked, “And this?”
Her heart slamming against her ribs, Emily released a long sigh. “Yes. Oh, yes.”
“Would you like me to keep to on touching you until you hit the peak?” His finger continued its work. “Make you hit it while you’re standing here?”
“No,” she said, her breathing coming in short spurts. “I want us in the bed.”
“What else do you want?”
“I want to touch you everywhere. I want you to touch me everywhere. I want your mouth on me and mine on you. I want everything, Anthony. “
“As my lady wishes.”
He scooped her up and carried her to the bed. To his delight, she began to undress him, throwing his clothing around the room with careless abandon, starting with his stockings and leaving his breeches for last. Once she had tugged them down to his ankles and he had stepped out of them, she gently took his cock in her hand. It throbbed and Anthony ground his heels into the carpet.
“I have particularly missed you touching me there, my dearest Emily,” he groaned.
She knelt and slid her hand up and down, letting her fingers flicker across the head of his penis, and his hands found her shoulders to steady himself. “What would this lovely cock do if I kissed it?” she asked.
Anthony’s head reeled. “You could try and see,” he gasped.
Her smile was that of a contented cat in a dairy. “Do men like when women do that? Kiss their cocks?”
“This man does,” he admitted, digging his fingers into her shoulders.
In answer, she lowered her head and gently took his penis into her mouth, sliding carefully along its length, her tongue slipping back and forth. Sweat broke out on Anthony’s forehead as she feasted on him and he ground down his will not to release his seed in her mouth.
At least not today.
She sat back and looked up at him. “You taste good,” she praised, cupping his balls. “I never knew a man could taste like that.”
“I’m glad you like it.” He pulled her to her feet and put her on the bed, placing her against the pillows. “But now it’s my turn.”
Mischief sparkled in her eyes. “Kiss me first,” she commanded. “I want you to taste yourself on my mouth. Like the way I tasted myself on yours after you…”
A blush covered her face and affection for her surged through Anthony. This level of wantonness was still new for her and the use of coarse language during lovemaking, no matter how arousing, obviously made her hesitate.
“When I ate you?” he asked gently, brushing his lips over her forehead.
Incredibly, she blushed. “Yes.”
He lowered the kiss to her eyelids. “It’s all right to say it, Emmie. Say it for me.”
Her catlike smile became wistful. “When you ate me,” she repeated.
“You see?” He ran his thumb over her lips. “You said it and the world didn’t explode.”
“It will later,” she murmured. “Would you please kiss my mouth first?”
“Whatever you want, Emily. Whatever you want.”
He made his kiss gentle at first, smoothing his lips over hers, tasting her tongue only with the tip of his. He lingered there for several moments before moving to her breasts, suckling and nipping, his tongue tracing the edges of her nipples before suckling her breasts again. Her sighs were a song of satisfied desire and his cock throbbed painfully, impatient to be buried deep inside her.
But not yet. Moving farther down the bed, he spread her legs and she planted her feet against the mattress. He paused to breathe in her scent, dark and sweet and belonging only to her. Her essence was like no other he’d ever encountered, and if he could bottle it he would be richest man in the world.
He put his mouth on her mound and began to drink her juices, running his tongue back and forth along her ridges. When he sucked on her nubbin, her bottom came off the bed and her hands clutched the sheet-covered mattress.
“Anthony,” she moaned. “Oh, merciful heaven!”
He glanced up and her passion-racked face sealed his decision. He inched forward and thrust himself deep inside her. Her legs folded over him and her arms wrapped around his back. He started to rock his hips, but she grabbed his bottom to stop him.
“Don’t move just yet,” she panted. “I want to just feel you inside me for a moment.” She wiggled and groaned. “Oh my, you’re so hard, Anthony. But it feels wonderful.”
He kissed her, long and slow and deep. “You make me that way, Emily.”
Shyness returned to her eyes. “Did you like it when I kissed your cock?”
“So much I will insist you do it every single time we make love.”
“Good,” she whispered, placing her palms on his face. “Good.”
She began to move beneath him, setting him to motion. Bracing himself on his elbows, he began to push back and forth into her wetness, thrusting in and out of her, rocking in a smooth, even tempo. She purred and cooed, and then unexpectedly pulled his head forward and began to kiss his ear. Her tongue smoothed and tickled, swelling him to painful proportions.
“Oh my God,” he groaned. “Emily.”
“Do you like that?” A note of surprise entered her voice. “My kissing your ear excites you?”
“Oh God,” he repeated. “How could I not have told you that? Yes.”
She giggled. “Well, wonders never cease.” She kissed his ear again.
But the simple act drove him into a frenzy and he captured her mouth with his before he finished too soon, leaving her behind. His thrusts became hurried and hard and her moans filled his ears. He released his own moan to let her know she was leading him into the regions of ecstasy.
And then the wave of completion hit him, fast and hard. With her cries echoing his own, he let himself be carried away on a tide of bliss, his seed releasing and pouring into her until he sank against her, the frantic
beating of her heart matching his.
Chapter Thirteen
Seven Dials. A week later…
“’Ey, Freddie!” The stout woman looked up from chopping vegetables on a dirty wooden table and pointed the knife at him. “Grab that tray of food o’er there and take it to room seven! Josie and her client are ’ungry!”
“’Ow’d you know they’re finished?” Freddie grumbled, putting aside his mop. He could scrub the floor until Judgment Day and it wouldn’t help none. Years of grease coated the floor, sticking to the worn bottoms of his shoes. The same grease caked the lone window in the brothel’s kitchen, but there was no way Freddie was cleaning that. Working here provided him with meals and a few coins, and the money would help buy his ticket to Scotland. Just a few more weeks and he should have enough.
“’Cause I knows they like to fuck three or four times ’fore they sends for food,” the woman retorted. “And most times it takes a couple of hours. He’s one of Josie’s regulars so I know his habits.” She wiped the knife on her soiled apron. “Move your ass ’fore the gent raises a stink. And don’t you be sticking your fingers in the pie or drinking any of that cock o’ leekie soup while you’re taking it.”
“Awright, awright!” Freddie picked up the heavy tray and headed for the rooms on the second floor. Heat radiated off the tureen and he thought of spitting in the soup just for spite. He hoped Josie would tip him for his trouble. Most likely the little bitch wouldn’t. She hung on to every cent she could.
The giggling and laughing inside room seven made Freddie wonder if Josie and her gent were at it again. “Rabbits, that’s what they are,” he muttered.
He considered just knocking and leaving the tray on the floor, but he was going to get a tip from Josie no matter what. Balancing the tray with one hand—Henry had shown him how to do that—he knocked on the thin door. “Food’s here,” he called.
The giggling stopped and someone’s heavy tread crossed the floor. Freddie’s pulse jumped in anticipation. More likely he’d get a tip from the gent than from Josie. Gents could always be counted on for a tip if you treated them right. He forced a smile onto his face and waited.
The door swung open and for a second horror rooted Freddie to the spot.
Run! Run!
He threw the tray at the old duke’s killer and bolted down the hall. The echo of shattering crockery and cries of pain followed Freddie down the hall and stairs. Another couple’s approach halfway up sent him leaping over the banister to the hall floor, racing through the kitchen and out the back door. He didn’t stop running until he reached the rotting, abandoned house five blocks away. Since learning of the Duke of Bradford’s return, he’d changed hiding places every few days. He slammed the door behind him, locked it and sank to the floor. Sweat poured from his trembling body and the sour stench of his own fear flooded his nostrils as he waited for his galloping heart to slow.
Damn it, now he’d have to find still another hiding place and another job. Something that would earn him the means to buy a ticket to some place like America, because with the duke’s killer seeing him, nowhere in England was safe. He’d track Freddie down and carve him up like a side of beef.
Then Ma and Henry would be using his savings to bury him.
* * * * *
Why hadn’t she told Anthony about the passage?
Emily sat studying the tapestry covering the hidden door. Surely there would be no harm in sharing what she had found.
Except it gave her an unexpected delight to know something he did not. After all, he was Anthony Dyson, Duke of Bradford, a peer of the realm! She choked back a giggle at the mental image of Anthony dressed in the traditional robe and wig. He was probably privy to more secrets than half the men in London. The honest ones, anyway.
She picked up the book in her lap and turned to the next chapter of The Mystery of Blackwood Hall. The scene had opened with the heroine discovering hidden documents in a concealed desk drawer. The marriage and baptismal certificate proved the hero to be the true son of an old nobleman who had made a secret marriage years ago. It was really too silly.
“I hope if Anthony does decide to marry Miss Stanhope, he’ll encourage her to read something more than this.” Looking around the room again, Emily tried to imagine where the previous owner might have hidden such documents. There were no paintings where one could place papers behind the canvas, no false-bottom boxes, and she had thoroughly gone through the desk the day after she moved in.
“At least Ihave a secret passage,” she boasted to the room. “So if I wanted to take another lover, I could smuggle him in and out of the house!”
But that thought brought no comfort and she swallowed the lump rising in her throat. A gossip sheet's report of a party—one by invitation only that did not include Emily—Anthony and Margaret Stanhope had recently attended, described how well suited they seemed for each other and how jewelers were taking bets on which one might be asked design the engagement ring should he ask her to marry him.
And that thought brought tears to her eyes. Being Anthony’s lover had been the happiest time of her life. She had not expected to enjoy his company or his friendship so much. All she had wanted was to experience raw, physical pleasure, to have every wicked and delicious desire filled again and again, to truly know the sensation of earth-shattering passion. A simple, temporary arrangement that had suited them both.
And now she had spoiled it all by falling in love with him.
The only thing to do was to encourage him to offer for Miss Stanhope as soon as possible. Then she would have the perfect excuse to gently but firmly turn him away. She couldn’t possibly continue to be his mistress if he were engaged. Miss Stanhope might be an innocent, but she wasn’t stupid. And Emily would have no part in breaking the girl’s heart. So tomorrow after breakfast, she would suggest Anthony stay at the St. Ives until he proposed to Miss Stanhope. He had suffered enough scandal as it was.
One last night with Anthony. A sob rose in her throat.
“Hullo, Emily. Whatever are you reading?” Anthony’s cheerful voice brought her back to the evening at hand. Looking splendid and sinful in his black-and-white evening clothes, he joined her on the loveseat. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were crying.”
“Only because this book is so dreadful.” She showed him the cover. “But since Miss Stanhope sent it round, I have no choice but to read it. If you do decide to marry her, please encourage her to explore other forms of literature.”
“We’ll see.” He put the book on a nearby table, and then pulled her to her feet. His gaze roamed over her rose-pink dress in appreciation. The modiste had insisted on cutting the bodice lower than Emily preferred, the lace edging starting just above her nipples, but the desire in Anthony’s eyes told her the modiste had been right.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look lovelier, Emily,” he said, kissing her cheek. “You’ll have the ton eating out of your hands tonight.”
“I’ll have a great deal of competition if what Jocelyn tells me is true.” Emily adopted the bantering tone they so often used together. “She says the soiree at the Duke of Laramore’s home tonight will be one of the Season’s grandest.”
“It will be,” Anthony agreed, running a finger along the lace edging the bodice. “What a pity the hairdresser went to such trouble. I’d like to take you upstairs right now before we go.”
She swatted him on the arm. “We most certainly will not go upstairs before going to the Laramore’s.”
He sighed in mock resignation. “Oh, well. To the Laramore’s then.”
“To the Laramore’s,” she echoed, putting her hand on his arm and letting him lead her into the hall. Tonight would be the night for making memories.
Because soon—too soon—memories would be all that remained.
* * * * *
Anthony bowed. “Thank you for the dance, Miss Stanhope. I hope you don’t think it was forward of me to ask you to waltz.”
She smil
ed up at him. “Not at all, Your Grace. My mother thinks there is nothing wrong with waltzing if one knows one’s partner. And we have met on so many occasions during the Season, haven’t we?”
“We have indeed,” he said, leading her back to the row of debutantes and their chaperones sitting off to the side in the Laramore’s ballroom. Hundreds of candles shimmered in candelabras set around the room. The open doors leading to the veranda allowed the spring-night scent to mingle with the aroma of lilies in vases. Some of the crowd stepped aside, allowing them wide passage, but the giggles and whispers from behind raised fans suggested the women were speculating on when he would announce their engagement. He had it on good authority that with the exception of Victoria’s—thanks to Brandon—bets on when he’d ask for Margaret Stanhope’s hand in marriage were already on the books at every club in town.
He returned Miss Stanhope to her mother. A much younger man stood nearby, his obvious displeasure over Anthony’s waltz with Miss Stanhope pulling his mouth into a tight line. So there was competition to be had, was there? Anthony hid his smile, bowed to Miss Stanhope and her mother, and left the young man to try his luck.
He needed to dance with Emily. To be honest, a twinge of jealousy raked over his skin whenever she danced with another. The simple elegance of her rose gown, in spite of its low cut, made some of the other women in their elaborate flounces and frills appear overdressed. Simplicity had always become her and the thought of what lay underneath threatened to harden him like a green boy seeing his first naked woman. Images of a naked Emily—on her knees above him, her hands flat on the mattress, working her body so his cock slipped in and out of her moist, warm folds—sprang unbidden to his mind. He bit the inside of his mouth to keep his cock from stirring against the smooth fabric of his dress breeches.
He would enjoy undressing her later.
He found Brandon and Greg huddled near the refreshment table, deep in a discussion about horses. After sampling the punch and finding it too sweet for his taste, he left the cup on the table and joined them. “Heard anything interesting?”
Be My Lover Page 11