On These Silken Sheets

by Sabrina Darby

  “Where is Mr. Coswell tonight?” Oakley asked, as they made their way across the crowded room. He had no idea if she had already addressed the question during the portion of the conversation to which he had not been attending, but he hardly cared.

  “My husband, God rest his soul, died three years ago,” the widow answered. For a moment, he thought her hand clutched his arm tighter. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, rather it made him more aware of the heat emanating from her. He found himself holding his arm closer to his side, drawing her nearer to him. He almost thought he could smell citrus and cloves.

  Horny goat, he chided himself.

  They found themselves standing on the balcony, breathing the cooler air as they sipped their champagne.

  “He was a barrister,” Mrs. Coswell said, and Oakley wondered briefly how the wife of a barrister had gotten herself invited to Lady Ashburton’s house. As if she read his mind, she added, “He was very well known in London, although we lived in Exeter. My cousin, Lady Blount, has been so kind in showing me around. It was rather…lonely in Exeter these past three years.” She met his eyes boldly as she emphasized the word.

  Was she suggesting that she was amenable to an affair? Over the rim of his champagne flute, Oakley studied the woman. She had a lovely, slender figure. Not one he would have thought himself attracted to prior to three weeks ago. Indeed, she was vastly different from Carolina Hargreaves’s lush beauty. But ever since he had met his Amphitrite, he had found himself interested in women who resembled her physically.

  Mrs. Coswell stepped forward to the rail of the terrace and into a fall of moonlight that illuminated the subtle amber specks in her brown eyes.

  “Perhaps you met him,” she started, her head tilted back so she could better look at him. “At some political dinner or event. I hear you are very engaged in politics.”

  “I don’t recall,” he said apologetically, “however, if you had been by his side, I am certain I would always remember.”

  Her eyes widened briefly and then her lashes fell. Her lips curved upward into a pleased smile.

  Rather pleased himself, Oakley returned the smile. He hadn’t known, before a fortnight ago, just how to elicit such a look. He was fairly certain he had started to crack the mystery that was woman.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  His ardor stoked to a boiling point, Oakley left the Ashburton house and headed directly for Harridan House. He needed Amphitrite in a way he’d never needed another woman before, and that little widow’s resemblance had made it worse.

  It was a few minutes before one, before their appointed meeting time, but Oakley hoped to find her there. The insidious thought tugged once again that perhaps he shouldn’t arrive so early—he might find her engaged in activities of which he’d rather be ignorant.

  Hell, he didn’t want to be ignorant. What Oakley wanted was to have her entirely to himself. As long as she worked at a place like Harridan House, he was fooling himself if he thought he was the only one.

  By the time he climbed the staircase to the first floor and knocked on the beautifully carved and gilded wooden doors, jealousy held Oakley firmly in its clutch. It hardly mattered that she was there, opening the door to him, reaching for him with her soft hands.

  He couldn’t stop the torrent of questions.

  “Who were you with? How many men have you fucked today?” He heard the vulgarity leave his mouth as if he were two men, the rational and the insane.

  She backed away from him till she stood pressed against the bedpost, one hand fisted against her chest.

  For a long moment she didn’t answer and he tried to scry her expression from under the mask and the curtain of hair that hid her downturned face.

  Then, out of the corners of her eyes, she peered at him.

  “None, only you,” she said, lifting her chin.

  “I’ll give you everything, love,” he said, thinking quickly now, following instinct. “Everything if you’ll just be mine, alone. A house, more jewels than even the glitter in this room, clothes fit for a countess.”

  “There has been no one but you. What would I do with another man, when you leave me so utterly satisfied?”

  “Carte blanche,” he continued.

  The curtain of curls returned and he waited in agony for her response. He had not felt this sort of anxious tension even when asking for Miss Hargreaves’s hand in marriage.

  “I don’t work here,” Amphitrite whispered, finally.

  “That doesn’t matter, I can provide for you…” His voice trailed off. The import of her words sank in. Slack-jawed, Oakley stared at her. Don’t work here?

  “Like you, I came seeking something not in my life.”

  She was some woman he might know in society. A widow, a wife… And that last thought became all important, because what if she wasn’t even free to be his?

  “Are you married?”

  “I never intended to use this place this way, but I found you,” she continued. “For now.”

  “Are you married?” he repeated insistently. This he needed to know. Had he been unwittingly cuckolding some man? Worse, did she share a marriage bed with this unknown competitor?

  “No.” She sounded surprised. “Just as you are not, but I never thought to ask…” Her words fell away as she seemed to contemplate that failing.

  Though he couldn’t quite settle it all in his mind, he knew what he wanted: Amphitrite in his bed and his bed only.

  “Then will you?” Oakley pressed, taking her hand in his, pressing his lips to her wrist. He’d get to the matter of her identity later, after she’d agreed, after she was his by contract. He knew enough about her. He knew that he desired her as he had never before desired a woman.

  “Will I what?” she asked, as if he had not said carte blanche, had not offered jewels, a house, the love of his body.

  “Be my mistress.”

  Ice-cold reality flooded Maggie. The hazy, drunken dream of their love nest fled.

  If he had said lover—if he had simply suggested they get to know each other outside of Harridan House. If only…

  She slid her hand out of his.

  What they had been doing, had engaged in, was an affair of equals. At least, that was how Maggie had seen it. But he had thought she worked here, thought that with his newly obtained membership he was paying for her time.

  That alone rankled.

  Mistress…He knew nothing of her, except her body, their few conversations here in this room.

  If he knew her as herself—well, he did, and see how well that had gone. He’d hardly noticed her at first.

  Even if he had, a man such as he, an earl, would never see her as an equal, the way he might the widow of a member of the nobility.

  The woman he had asked to be his wife had been the daughter of a baron, not the daughter of a merchant. Not a widow and mother of little social standing.

  Wife. Maggie almost laughed at the word but it helped to clear her mind. It was time to end this…affair.

  She lifted her head, drawing herself up to her full height.

  “I think you’d better leave.”

  It was time to put Amphitrite to sea.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  She’d refused him. No explanation, nothing. She merely asked him to leave and then promptly retreated into another room. He’d waited for five long minutes for her to return, trying to bring his thoughts into some semblance of order. Then he walked out the door, down the staircase and out the rear door into the mews where his carriage waited.

  Later that night, Oakley still wondered what had gone wrong. He had been jealous, yes. He had asked her to be his mistress, yes. The mistress to an earl was not such a mean thing; he would be generous. If she simply didn’t want to tie herself to just one man…

  Oakley had to admit that he no longer was interested in sharing her. He would either make her his alone, as he had somehow deluded himself into thinking he had been doing, or find some other woman with whom to slake his re
naissanced lust.

  He clearly was attracted to other women; there had been that intriguing widow just earlier in the evening.

  The following morning, he fidgeted impatiently through the endless debates. At the luncheon break, he returned to Harridan House and found she was not there.

  Hardly a surprise. She seemed to be there only when they made an appointment to meet.

  He walked through the many rooms, thinking to find some other woman, some other situation, but he knew that nothing here would interest him now. His membership to this exclusive club was useless.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  New undergarments will not cure my mood,” Maggie warned direly, even as she plucked up a flimsy lace nothing between her gloved fingers.

  The dressmaker’s shop was nearly empty, but not entirely so. In fact, the one other customer, busy selecting among three patterns, was one person too many. Maggie wanted to be alone. So she could cry. In frustration.

  “Darling, listen,” Diana whispered. “If I had thought you’d get this attached to the man I would have warned you off of him a week ago. It is simply sex, love. There are plenty of men for that.”

  It had been just sex, Maggie knew. That wasn’t the problem, wasn’t the reason she was having trouble making it through the days, giving Emma her proper attention, or keeping up her end of conversation at social engagements.

  The problem was that Maggie was simply not ready to stop having his particular body, and his particular voice, his particular expression when he reached his climax, or gave her hers. She had felt safe with him. Safe and unfurling, like a rose that had been kept in the dark too long and could now open without shame of its delight in the sun.

  “I want him,” she said stubbornly.

  “Then you shouldn’t have given in to your pride,” Diana said scornfully. “You didn’t need to end it. You still don’t need to. He came looking for you two days ago and left quite frustrated when he couldn’t find you.”

  Maggie gaped at her. “How could I possibly become his mistress? I am a respectable woman!”

  Diana’s laugh was galling. Her friend pulled the flimsy chemise from her hand and dropped it on the rosewood counter.

  “I don’t mean that you must stay in a house he pays for and sit in his opera box like some well-feathered bird. But it would be possible to reveal who you are and simply have an affair.”

  “He wouldn’t want me,” Maggie insisted. “He wanted the mysterious Greek goddess who met him in lust and revealed nothing of her mortal form.”

  Diana remained silent. Maggie took that for assent, because even her cousin had to admit that was true.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When Maggie ran into Lord Oakley again, at an even more unlikely, more intimate, venue, she began to believe that God had a rather twisted sense of humor. She had been crying for the last three nights, her eyes were still red, and though she had evened her blotchy skin with a light powder, just seeing him standing across the small room caused a flush to redden her cheeks.

  The conversation at the Gordons’ home was always political. Mr. Gordon and Maggie’s late husband had been good friends, and the couple had often visited them in Exeter.

  When Oakley approached her after dinner, Maggie found herself trembling. That would never do. She steadied herself and offered him the sort of sultry, confident smile she imagined Diana would give.

  “Mrs. Coswell, it’s fortuitous that I should meet you again,” he said. The warm expression in his eyes reinstated the trembling.

  “Is it?” Maggie was a bit shocked that he had thought of her at all—at least as herself and not the mysterious Amphitrite. Perhaps he had been wondering if he knew her. Perhaps he had finally figured out that she and Amphitrite were the same? Considering the ugly way they had last parted, would he then be smiling at her so seductively?

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said when we last had the pleasure of conversing.” He let his hand brush against hers, long enough that she could feel the hot pressure of his thumb under her wrist. She had taught him how sensitive that area was! “I think we should take the opportunity to get to know each other better.”

  Maggie nearly choked on her sherry. Dear Lord, he was propositioning her!

  Pride made her want to slap him, and anger at the way he seemed to so easily forget Maggie-as-Amphitrite made her want to throw her sherry on his smug face. But her stupid little heart and her traitorously aching loins wanted only to say yes.

  Yes, let’s have an assignation. Yes, I want to know what it feels like to have your body fill mine again, your hard, long cock thrusting inside me and your tongue licking its way up my neck. Yes, let’s go away now.

  She knew something of her passionate, desirous thoughts must have been written on her face, because Oakley’s smile widened and he dipped his head down close to hers.

  “I am so pleased,” he murmured.

  As he walked away, she wondered how he had ever fooled society into thinking he was a dull man. There was nothing in the long, lithe lines of his body, or the wicked twist of his smile that suggested anything other than a red-blooded man entitled by his birth to whatever he should desire.

  And right now, clearly, what he desired was plain, ordinary Maggie Coswell.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  He’d planned well. The small flat was in an out-of-the-way part of town where she knew no one and no one knew her. It would be easy to meet there and avoid prying eyes.

  What was she doing?

  Maggie Coswell, widow of a respected lawyer, mother, stepmother…in broad daylight, engaging in an affair? With an earl? Never mind that she had already slept with this man, slept with him when she didn’t even know his name, if he was married, or if he had slept with half of London. Never mind that she had left her morals at the door of Harridan House three weeks earlier.

  None of that mattered, because it was almost as if it hadn’t been her. That had been a dream, a voyage of drunken desire that took nothing of herself, of Maggie.

  Daylight flooded the room.

  “Margaret.” He pulled her into his arms.

  “Maggie,” she managed to say, twisting away from him. Everything felt wrong. “Margaret sounds too much like my grandmother.”

  She looked around, nervously, seeking something to make herself comfortable, something that would reassure her she was not making an irreversible mistake.

  “Maggie.” Oakley stepped near her again. He cupped her cheek with his palm and turned her to face him. His hand, warm against her skin, held a measure of safety. She met his eyes with her own hesitant gaze.

  There. She sighed. In the depths of his startlingly blue eyes was the comfort, the reassurance she had been needing.

  Lord Oakley might be a stranger to her, the room might be unfamiliar, but she knew this man.

  “My lord,” she breathed. She turned her face so that her lips met his wrist.

  His breath sucked in. She glanced up and found his eyes closed, his expression pained.

  He took a step back, freeing his hand.

  “Perhaps, a glass of wine?” he suggested.

  All her awkward nervousness flooded back. She nodded mutely. Perhaps a glass of wine would help. Dear Lord, what was she doing? And why did he now seem as rattled as she?

  “Is something the matter, my lord?” she ventured.

  “Oakley,” he muttered, pouring a glass for each of them from the decanter on the side table. Finally, he turned, but he left the glasses where they were. “Nothing is the matter…it’s just…”

  He was next to her in three steps, his arms crushing her to him, his lips claiming hers. For a brief moment, Maggie wondered at the sudden change. Then she was caught up in the rapture.

  His lips were everywhere, on her cheek, her earlobe, her neck. He pushed at the collar of her gown to kiss her chest. His hands ran down her back and came to rest, clutching her buttocks. She met his fervor with her own.

  They undressed almost shyly. Magg
ie stood in her new lace-trimmed chemise and waited for Oakley to finish unfastening his waistcoat.

  Then she started again, rolling one stocking down at a time, growing more confident under the heated light of his eyes.

  He was naked before she. Catching sight of him, she stilled.

  She marveled at his body, illuminated by sunlight, the broad shoulders, the well-defined arms, the hair that tapered down to his hands.

  And his chest, muscular but not overly so, his stomach young and taut. The hollow at his hip begged to be kissed but she held back, taking in all of him, from the jutting erection whose call her body weeped to answer, to his long legs, ankles and feet.

  He had been beautiful by candlelight, but a man such as this deserved to be admired in his full masculine glory.

  Suddenly shyness and doubt filled her again. The same light that revealed him so wonderfully would make her vulnerable. He would see clearly every flaw.

  Had he noticed by candlelight the faint marks on her belly that came from carrying a child?

  He stepped forward.

  Taking a deep breath, she forcefully shrugged the emotions away and raised her hands, letting him lift the chemise over her head.

  There was her body and his, both nude, both alive and warm. Tentatively, he cupped one breast in his hand, running his thumb over the nipple.

  The glamour of Harridan House, its myriad silks, disguises and dimly lit rooms was far away. What was here was this woman, like any other that he might pass on the street.

  So like the woman who had unleashed a passion in him Oakley had never even suspected, who had made him truly understand the sensual nature of John Donne’s poetry.

  But yet so unlike.

  Maggie was shy; he could feel her hesitation even as he skimmed his fingers over her skin. She seemed new to this, new in the way Oakley had felt just weeks ago.

  Her body in his hands was a mass of contradictions: delicate but firm, small but strong. Every inch of her glowing and lovely in the afternoon light.