“Oh, mum, did you see her? Did you see Young Bess? We watched her barge from the top of the house!”
“Yes, Daisy, I met the Queen. We spoke twice this evening, and I shall see her again.”
Daisy’s eyes were round with excitement. “Is she pretty, close up?”
“Yes, Daisy, she is very pretty, with lovely fair skin and red-gold hair and bright gray eyes.”
“Oh, mum, when I tell me mother back in Devon that I saw the Queen’s barge, and that my mistress even spoke to her! She’ll be so proud!”
Skye smiled. “Tomorrow I shall tell you what the Queen wore tonight, but for now help me get ready for bed.”
Obediently Daisy went to work, unlacing her mistress’s gown, helping her disrobe. The beautiful velvet gown was brushed carefully and hung back in the wardrobe. Silken undergarments were gathered up to be given to the laundress. Skye slipped into a pale-pink silk gown with a deep V neckline secured by tiny pearl buttons. The long full sleeves floated, the skirt clung.
Daisy brought a silver basin of warmed rose water, and Skye washed her face and hands and cleaned her teeth. “Shall I brush your hair, mum?”
“Nay, Daisy, I’ll do it. It’s late. Go to bed.”
Daisy curtseyed. “Good night then, mum.”
“Good night, Daisy.”
The door closed behind the little maid, and Skye sat down at her dressing table. Slowly she removed the diamond and pearl ornaments and drew the gold and tortoiseshell pins from her hair. It tumbled down, a night-dark cloud. Picking up her brush, she vigorously brushed the tangles out, all the while wondering if Geoffrey would come … and if she really wanted him to. What would happen if he did come?
She laughed. What would happen, indeed! She would become his mistress, of course. She frowned. Was that what she wanted? To become some nobleman’s mistress? Oh, damn! She was burning for a man’s caress, the hardness of a man’s body on hers. Might she not have a discreet affair and let it go at that? Surely he would understand her desire for privacy. If he did not, then she would stop the affair.
The sound of something scraping against her window startled her. She ran to the window and looked out, then quickly jumped back. Pebbles were being thrown at the window! She laughed and flung the casements wide. Below stood the Earl of Lynmouth, still in his white and gold costume, grinning impudently up at her. “I’m coming up,” he whispered, loudly enough for her to hear. “Leave the windows open, Skye.”
“But how,” she began, and gasped as he reached out and grasped at a thick vine growing up the bricked side of the house. He swung himself up and began climbing. She watched, holding her breath, until he was safely on the sill.
“Good evening, sweetheart,” he drawled lazily, vaulting lightly into the room. In one fluid motion he drew the casements shut behind him and pulled her into his arms. “Skye!” His voice was husky with emotion. His hands reached up to tangle themselves in her hair. Her deep blue eyes grew wide and her breath caught in her throat. She could not speak. “Sweet, sweet Skye,” he whispered, and then his mouth took full and complete possession of hers. Geoffrey kissed her passionately, deeply, the kiss vibrating through her. Thrill after thrill rippled through her as his lips gently persuaded hers to open, allowing his silken tongue to rove unchecked, to meet and subdue hers. “Skye, sweet, sweet Skye,” he murmured against the softness of her neck, her final defenses weakening. She shivered deliciously.
His fingers undid the little pearl buttons at the deep V of her gown. One arm held tightly about her slender waist. His other hand sought one firm and perfect breast, cupping it, fondling it, his eager mouth seeking the tightly closed flower of her nipple. The warm mouth closed over its quivering prisoner, his tongue expertly encircling it again and again until she thought she could stand no more and whimpered a small protest. In response he lifted his swooning treasure up and carried her to the bed. There he resumed delightful loveplay concentrating this time on her other breast.
Her body was now helpless to the passion he was igniting in her, yet her mind rebelled at the thought of seduction. Desperate, she tried to stop him, finally finding her voice.
“Geoffrey, no! Oh, please no!” For a moment he didn’t hear her and she cried out softly again, this time twining her slender fingers in his hair and pulling. “Geoffrey! Oh, Geoffrey, please no!”
Slowly, reluctantly, he raised his head from the warm bounty of her breasts. His lime-green eyes were glazed and heavy with passion. “Tell me, Skye,” he said quietly, “tell me.”
She gazed at him helplessly, all the logical reasons for stopping now whirling out of her reach. Their eyes locked, and he said quietly, “You’re shy of this for you’ve always been a virtuous woman. I know that. I cannot wish away my wife. If I could I would do so. I love you, and I sense beneath the respectable widow a naughty little sensualist who hungers for me as much as I hunger for her.” She flushed. “What is so wrong in our pleasuring each other?” She sighed, still trying to find words. He was so damnably persuasive. Then Geoffrey Southwood reached out and, taking her hand, drew it to his codpiece. Beneath her fingers she felt the hard throb of him.
“Oh, Geoffrey!”
“I won’t beg, Skye.” He had the weapon to force her, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to use it. He wanted to win her fairly for the victory would be so much sweeter. I do love her! he thought exultantly. Oh, my love, let me have the precious gift of you! And as if she had heard his silent plea, she sobbed, “Oh, Geoffrey, yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!”
He pulled her from the bed and gently drew her gown away. To his surprised delight, she reached out and, with trembling fingers, undid his ruffled shirt. Together they drew his breeches and hose off, and then fell back upon the bed. He wanted to take her then and there, but getting a mighty hold on himself, he held back. She was not to be used quickly. Her surrender would be so much better for the waiting.
She lay shyly, half afraid and confused, almost as though she were a maid once more. The Earl moved downward upon the bed and grasping her right foot began kissing it—the top, each toe, the arch, and the heel. His lips moved oh so slowly to her ankle, and up her leg to the shapely calf, her dimpled knee, her long silken thigh. Moving downward again, he performed his tender ministrations on her left foot and leg.
Returning to her lips, he nibbled at them briefly, leaving her gasping before finding again the sensual warmth of her breasts. Once more he sucked eagerly on the ripe fruit, tempting them to tiny aching peaks, making them tingle with anticipation. Her beautiful body was an unexplored land and he didn’t want to miss a single inch of it.
How firm her waist was. He nuzzled the curves of it, feeling the warm smoothness against his cheek. His hands held her firmly about the hips as his lips slipped across the silken flesh of her belly. His tongue probed teasingly into her little navel, then slid lower, seeking the very core of her. Gently he parted the lips of her vulva. It was already half open, the coral-red flower of womanhood wet and pouting with desire. Bending his head he kissed it, tasting the sweet-salt taste of her. She gasped her shock, her fingers twined tightly in his dark-blond hair, and her body arced to meet his mouth.
Smiling his pleasure, he lifted his head up and said quietly, “Not yet, sweetheart. It’s much too soon yet.”
“Please,” she pleaded. Her excitement was so great that she thought she would die if it weren’t satisfied.
“Not yet, Skye,” he repeated. “I will teach you to enjoy the anticipation, to prolong the pleasures.” He turned her over gently and she felt him licking her back, her shoulders, her buttocks, her legs. Slowly, rhythmically, his knowing tongue stroked her smooth skin, increasing her fever. Her arms lay above her head and she clawed at the sheets, digging fiercely into the mattress. Then, suddenly, he laid his naked body on top of her and rubbed his great organ between the cheeks of her bottom.
Now she fought him, catching him unawares, and throwing him off her, rolling onto her back, hissing angrily, “Bastard! You’re no angel
but a devil! No more!”
Laughing, he pinned her down and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe. Then he raised her legs and, drawing them over his shoulders, buried his face between them. His tongue found her honey, and he used her furiously until she came, his mouth forcing her climax.
“Damn you! Damn you!” she cried, weeping in frustration for she still was not satisfied.
“Look at me, my hot little bitch!”
She squeezed her eyes tightly closed. “No!”
“Look at me, Skye!”
At the cruel sharp note in his voice she opened her sapphire eyes and looked into his green ones. “I’ve fallen in love with you, bitch, and I’ll not take you like a whore.” He rubbed his big blue-veined organ against her belly. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”
“Yes!”
“You’ll have it in good time, Skye. In fact … I’ll give it to you now.” He spread her wide. “All of it, sweetheart!” He drove deeply, enjoying her gasp, the incredulous look on her face.
He was huge and he filled her to overflowing, pushing upward to touch at her very womb as he moved his great shaft skillfully, drawing it nearly all the way out, then thrusting home again. For a moment Skye thought she would be torn asunder, but her body stretched to receive him, almost devouring him in her desperate hunger. She clawed at his back and he caught her arms and pinioned them above her head. She bit into his shoulder, drawing blood, then licked furiously at the wound. He slapped her very lightly, cursing softly at her sharp little teeth.
The pleasure and the pain mingled about and within her. She had known great love, but never had she known such passion. It consumed her, leaving room for nothing else. Onward he drove her, and she reached peak after peak, believing each time that it was not possible to go any further, yet cresting higher and higher. Behind her closed eyelids the world exploded into a rainbow of shattered glass. She felt the contractions of an orgasm so great that she believed death was about to overtake her. Over and over and over again her body shuddered with the force of her passion.
He had joined her in ecstasy, climax for climax, then slowly he regained his senses and managed to roll off her body. For a moment he could but stare at her. She was white and barely breathing. Sitting up, he tenderly gathered her into his arms. She was cold and he strove to warm her. No woman had ever driven him as far as she had done. No woman had ever satisfied him as much as she, and no woman had ever given of herself as fully as she.
Yes, he loved her. And de Grenville could keep his damned barge. He had no intention of jeopardizing his love over an insane bet. Why had he made the damned bet? If Dickon dared breathe a word of their foolishness, he’d call him out.
She stirred in his arms, and slowly her beautiful blue eyes fluttered open again. She searched his face fearfully for a sign of reassurance. He gently smoothed her tangled dark hair from her forehead and said simply, “Don’t ever leave me, Skye.”
“I won’t, Geoffrey.”
For Geoffrey Southwood this was the first love he had felt since his pretty, young mother had died in another futile attempt at childbearing, when Geoffrey was still quite young. His father’s only son, Geoffrey had been born just ten months after his parents’ wedding day. His mother next produced a daughter, Geoffrey’s only full sister, Catherine, who was married now and living in Cornwall. His stepmother had birthed his two half-sisters, one of whom was now wed to a Worcestershire baron, the other to a wealthy Devon squire. She had died, along with a stillborn son. His father had not married again.
His father had been proud of Geoffrey, but had forbidden what he considered soft treatment for his son. At seven, Geoffrey had left his own home to grow up in the household of the Earl of Shrewsbury, as his own son was now doing. He lived with half a dozen other young nobles, learning manners, morals, politics, and the business of being a great lord, but there was no room for love in that life. It was three years before he saw his home again and then he was allowed but a single month’s visit. Only his youngest half-sister, Elizabeth, was still at home, the two older girls already having been settled in other noble households to learn the business of becoming successful wives and mothers. Though Beth had admired the elegant and polished ten-year-old boy, young Geoffrey was far too puffed up by his own importance to pay the little girl much attention.
The following year when he returned for his month, Beth was gone. The next year he was twelve, and married the little heiress whose life had meant so little to Geoffrey and whose untimely death left him wealthy in his own right. Both his mother and stepmother had died. He scarcely knew his sisters, his father had flatly discouraged affection, and his mousy, unimaginative wife was not to his taste and never had been. This mysterious and beautiful woman who lay by his side had given him more than any other person. It was perhaps not so surprising, then, that he was falling in love with her with an innocence extraordinary in a worldly man.
He wrapped an arm about her and she nestled close, her thoughts beginning to reassemble. Her beloved Khalid had given her much joy, but she admitted to herself that she had never known such passion as this. It was frightening, yet it was magnificent. Their bodies seemed to have been created expressly for one another.
That Geoffrey had wanted more than a one-night affair with her had been obvious from the first. He said he loved her, and she was beginning to believe it. Too, Skye was not foolish. She knew she was a stranger in a country foreign to all she had known in Algiers. And when Robbie left, as he soon would, she would be without a man’s protection. Her business had to be run here, not from Devon. If she intended staying in London then she must have a protector.
She should marry again, but after Khalid el Bey, who would suit her? She was too exotic and, she believed, too well-born, to wed with a mere London merchant. On the other hand, she was not sufficiently high born for a lord. Since Geoffrey was married, there seemed only one course open to her. Though she shrank from it, she knew she must take it. To cap the argument, there was also Willow to think of.
It would not be so awful. Geoffrey was handsome, and in love with her. He would treat her well, and since she need not rely on him for financial support she would retain a great measure of independence. This would set her above other men’s mistresses. And as his acknowledged mistress she would be safe from other men, for no man in his right mind would dare approach the Earl of Lynmouth’s woman!
Geoffrey’s breathing had become quite regular. How handsome he was in sleep, very much the Angel Earl of his nickname once sleep took the cynical and faintly arrogant look from his face. There was an almost vulnerable look, though he was indeed a strong personality. She let her eyes wander from his face to his wide shoulders and broad chest, down to his narrow waist and slim hips. His legs were long, shapely, and covered with a fine pale golden down. His feet were slender, high-arched, the nails neatly pared. Her eyes wandered upward again to his sex, limp now and settled cozily in its nest of soft blond hair. It looked so sweet and harmless now, yet a short while ago it had been a great, blue-veined beast driving her to pleasures she hadn’t known existed. She wanted to reach out and touch him.
“I trust it all meets with your approval, sweetheart.”
She started and color flooded her face. She gasped.
He chuckled, then opened his lime-colored eyes and, reaching up, pulled her down into his arms. “So, witch, you were taking inventory of me. I ask, does it meet with your approval?” Kissing her ear, he ran his tongue around it, then thrust in and tickled her.
She squirmed, shivering deliciously. “Stop it, Geoffrey! Yes! Yes! Your assets certainly do meet with my approval.”
He cupped a breast in his hand, rubbing the nipple. “The Queen will be resting for the next few days, so I am free. I want to take you away somewhere and spend all my time making love to you.”
“Yes!” she replied, slightly surprised at herself.
He chuckled again. “How flattering you are, and how honest. I approve, sweetheart. I know of an inn about
half a day’s ride up the river. It’s small and elegant, and the food is excellent. I am well known to the landlord.”
“Do you take all your mistresses there?” she said more sharply than she would have wished.
“I have never taken any woman there,” he said softly, understanding her. “It is my own special place when I wish to escape the trials of being who I am. I thought we would go there and see if, after spending several days with me, you would like to become my mistress. That way, if you decide against it, our liaison will remain our secret. Though it would please me to shout our love to the world, I would not embarrass you publicly.”
“Geoffrey. I am so sorry I spoke in haste. And I thank you for being so considerate.”
“Sweetheart. I have had several mistresses in my day, but you’ve been a wife. It’s hard for you, I know, to reconcile yourself to this position.” He took her face in one hand and kissed her tenderly. “God, you’ve got the sweetest mouth!”
She felt herself growing languid again and she leaned back. Sighing happily, her deep blue eyes warm, she said, “Damn you, Geoffrey. What is it you do to me that one kiss renders me weak—and wanton besides.”
“What do you do to me, Skye, that renders me insatiable?”
Quickly they were in each other’s arms again, their mouths and tongues and hands devouring each other. Bodies entwined, they kissed until their mouths were bruised and both were breathless. Already aroused, his manhood beat against her thigh. Reaching down, she caressed him with teasing fingers, reaching out to cup the soft pouch beneath his shaft, running a sure finger firmly beneath it, hearing his gasp of surprised pleasure.
There was no excruciating waiting this time. She parted her thighs easily and he slid into her warmth. Confident now, she tightened her vaginal muscles about him as Yasmin had taught her. “Jesus!” he cried out softly as the wave of pleasure overpowered him. He drew back to thrust deeper yet, and again she tightened around him. “Stop, witch!” he begged. “It’s the most delightful torture I’ve endured, but stop before I die. I want to pleasure you, too!”
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