“It’s good you’re here,” she said, testing the water. “It’s so quiet in town, I’d be beside myself trying to find some entertainment.”
“A quiet night at home is never an option for you?”
“A quiet night?” Diana tilted her head and looked at him archly. “Home, yes, but quiet, never.”
He didn’t respond but she caught the slight tightening of his lips, the lines that showed at the corners of his mouth. Was that disapproval? And if it was, what was she doing?
Testing him? Seeing if she could turn the monk into a satyr?
He took another sip of his brandy. Then he smiled lazily, as if there were no tension between them, as if they were simply old friends, relatives, relaxing in each other’s company.
Diana suddenly doubted her ability to read his mood, his thoughts. The subtle, unnamed game bothered her. Despite the one large deception in her life, she was a straightforward woman, honest with herself, with her passions. The game of seduction was the only game she ever chose to play.
She’d wanted to leave all the other manipulation and power play behind, six feet deep with her late husband.
Yet this was the moment. The moment to test him, to see if he really was different from the man she remembered, if his desire for a truce ran deeper than mere words—if his widower status had loosened his iron grip on respectability.
“But in fact, I do have plans this evening. I’m going to Harridan House, to check in, so to speak. Care to join me?”
The genial smile flattened into a thin line and it looked to Diana as if every muscle in his body had gone rigid. Well, almost every muscle.
“Can’t you see that you’re endangering everyone? Yourself, my daughter. The entire family’s reputation?”
There it lay—the shallow worth of his truce. She had known. Why did it hurt?
“We’ve been here before,” she reminded him. “You clearly haven’t changed. I certainly haven’t.”
“I thought perhaps…” he broke off, swallowing hard. “Why do you persist?”
“What, Jason?” Diana stood, planting her feet as she demanded, “what would you have me do?”
“I’d have you shut it down.”
Diana’s laugh was a hollow, mocking imitation of her usual rippling caress.
“Because it offends you? It offends your oh-so-prim and proper morality. What, did you make love to your late wife with all your clothes on, in the dark?” He jumped to his feet, the echo of the drink clattering on the table. “Did she just part her legs and let you do your dirty little work while she thought of taking a bath?”
She’d gone too far. His pale eyes narrowed dangerously and under the finely tailored clothing every muscle of his body clenched with fury.
Diana stepped back, afraid for the first time. She didn’t really know this man for all that they were related by marriage. Perhaps he was violent or beat his wife. A man so insulted was an unpredictable animal.
He stalked her and like prey, she wanted to flee. Instead, wide-eyed and frozen, she kept her stance.
“You think because I don’t choose to fuck every man, woman and oddity that comes through those doors that I don’t know how to fuck you?”
He was nearly on top of her now and she could smell the light fragrance of his musky cologne and the deeper, slightly intoxicating male scent that was uniquely his own.
“Diana, if I wanted, I could have you climaxing right here, right now without laying a finger on you.”
It was not what she had expected to hear. Not from him, not from Saint Jason. His words sent a chill over her body. Her nipples puckered to attention, nearly visible over the low neckline of her gown. His eyes were stormy, overwhelmingly intense in their focus on her.
She realized she had misread his intentions. This man did not wish to hit her. He wished something far more violent. For a brief, wildly insane moment, she wanted to know how his cock would feel inside her, thrusting into her, filling her and making her find the violence of her own emotions as well.
She managed to collect herself.
Coolly, she tilted her head back and looked down the length of her nose at him. “Oh Jason, if I had known all you wanted was to fuck me, I might have let you have your small pleasure and then sent you on your way. You don’t need to torment me to come into my bed.”
“I don’t,” he bit out slowly, each word staccato and harsh, “wish to fuck you.” But he didn’t move and the inch of air between their bodies had become a wall of heat and tension.
Deliberately, she turned around and bent over the side table, leaning on her arms, the movement causing her derriere to press against him. The hard ridge of cock pushing against his trousers gave lie to his words.
“Diana,” he said her name like a warning.
She didn’t stop. She reached back and pulled her dress up till it pooled around her waist and her naked buttocks were only separated from him by the cloth of his pants.
She almost wanted him to call her bluff, to take her up on this. She wanted him with an overwhelming curiosity.
“You can have me Jason, just this once.”
He knew he shouldn’t. He knew this was a game he should never have agreed to play. He should have kept his distance.
The pale, smooth, rounded flesh of her buttocks against his groin was the stuff of fantasy. Looking down, at this angle, he could just make out a hint of the plump folds of her pussy. He wanted in.
Why not? She was offering, even if it was a taunt. As long as he recognized her move, he was still the one in control. He could take this, take what he wanted and then leave.
He laid his hands on her buttocks, enjoying her small, stifled gasp, and pulled her hard against him, letting her feel his full length, steely and pulsing, desperate to exchange one confinement for another.
He slid his hands down, under her dress, to grasp her where her hips met her thighs. He rolled his hips against her.
He thought of the stories she had told him, of her bent over under his cousin’s ancient flesh. Then he thought of all the lovers she had had. All the men who’d used her, all the men she’d used.
He couldn’t do this.
He pulled his hands away and stepped back, watching with a keen sense of loss as the silk of her gown fell like a theater curtain over her limbs.
Chapter Eight
Why should one experience have left her feeling so changed? Much later that evening, restless, Diana paced about her house.
Her body was aroused in every which way but she felt completely unfulfilled. She’d given Lord Simon his congé, but even if she hadn’t, he would never fulfill this gaping need that Jason had engendered in her.
Why him? Why did that insufferable man have the power to make her feel this way? Was it simply that she was attracted to the challenge of a man who refused her?
Just as well she was going to Harridan House. Perhaps this would be the one night of the year that she took some nameless man to her bed, just to slake the lust, the heated fire, that Jason had stoked within her.
She entered, as usual, through the garden door, a swath of silk obscuring her face and the hood of her cape covering her hair. One short flight of stairs took her to the large private suite where her maid Lucy waited.
She had known about Harridan House long before the solicitor read her late husband’s will. Only a year into the marriage, when Roger couldn’t always trust his ability to have an erection, he had brought her to this room—his playroom filled with toys she had never even imagined.
That night, the new inspiration had worked for him and with her bent over the curved arm of the velvet-upholstered chaise longue, he’d managed to fuck her. For her there had been no pleasure that night, merely the relief that he’d been satisfied and that she might still have a child.
They’d come many times after that, always to this room. Until that hardly worked, and sometimes he’d substitute a smooth, cool marble phallus for his own cock. She wouldn’t have minded those nights, the de
licious stretching of the generously sized object, the way the use of it allowed him to put his mouth on her even as he fucked her. She wouldn’t have minded if she hadn’t seen how it had tormented him. And if in his torment he hadn’t taken his anger out on her.
One night, with her hair wrapped up in a turban to hide the telltale reddish curls, she’d gone with him for a tour of the entire house, expanded her education.
He’d prepared her for it, in the dark of night, describing the sorts of scenes she would see, making her wish for the companionship of younger, firmer flesh, so that when she finally witnessed the writhing bodies joined together in every imaginable way, she’d been aroused.
Ironically, that was the last night she’d been able to arouse her own husband.
“Good evening, my lady,” Lucy greeted her, helping her with her cloak, jolting Diana from her thoughts. “It’s a lively evening here. In the blue room, Lord Sedgwick has created quite an orgy. Oh, and you’ll be interested to know that Lord Simon is here. In the Oriental room, last I saw. I gather you’ve dropped the man…”
“Oh Luce, what would I do without you?” Diana sighed, sitting down on that same chaise longue.
Lucy grinned. “I suppose you’d have to dress up as Madame Rouge a bit more often,” she teased.
Madame Rouge…although she had visited the club numerous times in disguise, her alias, the mysterious proprietor, was born of the need to freely move about the house once her husband had passed on. She had a man of business who managed the club in her absence, but if she was going to own this place, she felt she should really know it.
And the disguise gave her power and control over men, something she had never had before.
Then she found Lucy. A woman with a past, willing to accept a job in a less-than-reputable situation, a woman who happened to be physically similar to Diana, with the same peaches-and-cream coloring and green eyes that were like enough in shadowy light. While Lucy’s hair was more brown than red, it hadn’t taken much imagination for Diana to see that in the guise of Madame Rouge, they could easily be twins.
Which was incredibly useful for Diana. So she offered the maid a position…with unique benefits.
In many ways, Lucy had been her closest confidante these last two years, the keeper of her secrets. Until Maggie had come to town earlier this season, no other female had known of Diana’s double life, her sexual exploits.
“Well, I have dropped him. I should have done it ages ago, or never picked him up.” Diana reached her hands over her head and stretched, arching over the curved back of the chair. “The man has no imagination.”
“Certainly not enough to please you,” Lucy teased.
“What would you know of what pleases me?”
Lucy laughed. “I am your spy, my lady. I would be remiss in my duties if I hadn’t ever seen what pleases you best.”
Diana blushed, surprised at her own embarrassment. Lucy knew almost everything that went on in Harridan House. The maid acted as Diana’s eyes and ears when she was away. Diana had known that Lucy had even seen Maggie and Oakley here in this room, when they had engaged in their affair.
Why had she never imagined that Lucy would also watch her?
“I’ll send you to my next lover then,” Diana said with her own little laugh, trying to brush away her confusion. “You’ll have to instruct him to do just that.”
Later, she prowled the hallways, scanning the crowds. Lucy was right. It was a lively crowd here tonight, raucous and entertaining.
Lord Sedgwick’s orgy was impressive. He even had Humboldt’s new mistress involved, the one the man so jealously guarded.
She’d decided before she arrived that she would take a man back to her boudoir and Lucy’s earlier words had heated her memories, but now, faced with actual bodies, her instincts were shying away.
Had Jason managed to poison her with his middle-class morality? Never mind that she, too, came from a less-than-noble family.
She spotted Sir Robert George ascending the staircase, and ducked into a room to avoid him. Generally, she liked the man. His intense pursuit of her amused her. Tonight, however, she wished to avoid it.
From having witnessed his insatiable taste for women, Diana knew exactly what to expect from a night with him. The lack of mystery in and of itself helped her keep her distance. It was something else as well, though. She found his desire to possess her, to have had her simply because he had not yet, off-putting.
As much as she enjoyed men and sex, she had never approached the experience as a cold consumer. Sir Robert clearly did.
Which made her wonder what she was doing here tonight, looking for an anonymous encounter when what she really wanted…
What she really wanted was Jason.
Chapter Nine
Earnestina had decided, at the very last minute, that she wanted to throw another little soiree before she moved her household to Brighton for the summer season. She had confided in Diana that she feared she’d have to stretch to fill the rooms. Apparently more people were still in London than other social events suggested, for her rooms had grown stiflingly hot with the press of human bodies and the summer heat lingering in the evening air.
Diana found little enjoyment in the evening. For the first time in years, she had no wish to flirt, no wish to be near any but her closest friends. Even there, pleasure was forestalled. Maggie and Oakley were nauseatingly in love. Watching their little touches and glances when they thought no one noticed made her feel vaguely ill.
Diana escaped to the terrace as soon as she could.
She should be happy for her cousin. Love was rare currency. Diana wasn’t even certain she knew what it looked like.
For a week she had been infatuated with her first lover, Patrick, the first man she had slept with who wasn’t her husband. But that had paled when she learned that her late husband had hired the man to satisfy her since he no longer could.
The romantic glow had faded quickly.
When she had run into the Irishman, her former lover, a year later, at a benefit for the theater, not even the slightest twinge of desire flittered through her body. He was just a man. She knew now how similar and interchangeable all men were.
Still, these last years she’d courted male attention, basking in the flirtation and sexual undercurrents.
Perhaps all she needed was the change of scene another week would bring.
“There you are!”
Diana shifted slightly to face Lord Ashburton as he joined her by the rail. “Here I am,” she agreed, smiling. She considered Ash a friend as much as she considered his wife one.
“I am sent to drag you back inside, to meet my cousin, Colonel Tiptain. He said, ‘Introduce me to the fairest woman in London,’ and here I am. Although I’m not certain I should.”
“And why is that?” Diana asked, knowing he wanted her to. She turned to lean against the rail, her elbows resting on the polished wood.
Ash leaned closer to her, a teasing grin quirking his lips.
“Because I’ll be awfully jealous if he manages to snatch up the loveliest, shapeliest woman I know.”
“You’re too kind.” Diana looked away, a smile curving her mouth. She almost couldn’t help the intake of breath that pushed her breasts up, enlarging the exposed upper curve of flesh. The flirtation was too much second nature to her.
She laughed and turned back to him, meeting his eyes to let him in on the joke, that it was silly that they should talk this way, two friends who would never in reality choose to mate.
“He was in India, right?”
“Yes, and wounded, too, which is why he’s back, but it hasn’t taken away his sense of fun. He’ll be accompanying us all to fair Brighthelmstone.”
Brighton—the sea with its salty air and bucolic delights would wash away the strangeness that had overtaken her ever since Jason had reappeared in her life.
A change of scene was exactly what was needed.
Chapter Ten
That’s a
very nice brandy.” Jason held up his glass so that the golden liquid caught the light.
“Well-aged calvados,” Daniel said, kicking the footstool aside and stretching out in the deep, comfortable chair upholstered in a rich red Moroccan leather. “Seymour procured it.”
Jason nodded. The rest was always better unsaid, even in the privacy of Throckmorton’s study.
“So does the wealth of my liquor cabinet entice you to join us in Brighton for the rest of the summer? We have rooms hired on Air Street and Lizzie is determined to leave London in time to see the Lewes race.”
The idea was an enticing one—instead of returning to the humid heat of Hertfordshire he could spend a few months by the seashore in fine style. Neither Daniel nor he would have considered such a move four years ago when their pockets were to let. Since then, Jason had inherited the baronetcy, and Daniel’s wife had received a mysteriously large inheritance after the death of her long-absent brother.
Money had not changed his friends’ lifestyle. It had merely lubricated the ease with which they played.
But Jason’s lifestyle had changed. Most important, he had become a father, and one could not forget the two-year-old daughter who waited for him at his estate. He may not have loved his wife, having been forced into marrying her, but he did love his child, and while these days in London had been diverting, he didn’t mind giving them up.
“Bring Cassandra,” Daniel offered offhandedly. “There’ll be more than enough room in the house for the babe and her nanny. I’m certain Lizzie would love to see the little girl. You know how she adores children. Wants one of her own.” He said the last in a confiding tone, winking for emphasis.
“I’ll think about it,” Jason hedged, not entirely certain why he was still hesitant with his one great concern solved so easily.
“Do tell me soon, for I’ll invite some other fiend to make good use of the extra space if you don’t. August is always packed. While you’re thinking about that, perhaps you could tell me about what happened last night.”
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