BOUND BY THE EARL (Lords of Discipline Book 2)

by Alyson Chase

  Liverpool snorted. “That’s not likely. I’m certain whoever is in charge of the blackmailing ring already knows she’s been picked up. The group is too canny to believe her letter expressing a sudden desire for travel.” Picking up his cigar, he tapped off the ash and stuck it between his lips, sucking hard. “I wonder if they’ll try to influence the new manager.”

  “We can only wait and see.” Julius gathered his coat. “In the meantime, I’ve put people on Lord Hanford, see if any of his associates meet the description of Madame Sable’s associate. And I’ll try to find out if he’s been withdrawing large sums recently. He could be a victim, too.”

  “Thankfully the man isn’t on any private committees in Parliament. He doesn’t have much more knowledge than the general public on matters of state.” He blew out a long stream of smoke. “Keep his involvement in this as quiet as possible. And let’s keep him out of the papers, too. Which means—”

  “No more letters to the editor baiting him.” Shrugging into his coat, Julius set his mouth in a grim line. That was much easier said than done. Amanda’s fight over reform was the only thing to bring a spark back into her eye. That and their nightly romps. But he couldn’t keep her tied to his bed permanently. No matter how appealing the idea.

  “Tell Montague I know of some men who wouldn’t hold Miss Wilcox’s past against her.” Liverpool shrugged. “As you said, she has no husband to control her. If he wants her married off and out of his hair, have him contact me when he returns from his bridal tour.”

  Julius bit back a snarl. That wasn’t going to happen. Amanda wasn’t going to be married off, not to one of Liverpool’s yes-men. And any man who wouldn’t mind her past could hardly be of the quality that she deserved.

  He turned to leave, and Liverpool stopped him. “One last thing, Rothchild. You no longer have to search for Mrs. Westmont.”

  “You’ve found her?”

  “Her body.” Liverpool took a sip of his drink. “She was dragged out of the Thames a week ago. I only received the information today.”

  Julius swallowed. He knew how difficult it could be to identify a body pulled from the water. The distortions that took place on soft flesh. The bits the fish took away. He could only guess as to who put her there.

  With a nod, he stalked from the room, slamming the door behind him. He wanted to slam the whole damn place down. All of London’s clubs were filled with smug men and even smugger servants. Knowing they had life by the balls; not caring how the other half lived. A footman leapt to open the front door before him, and Julius growled. How could a class of men who couldn’t even open their own doors rule the world?

  He stopped on the sidewalk, the cold night air burning his lungs as he sucked it down. He raised his face to the skies and wished the light rain pelting his face could rinse the taint of his meeting away. Liverpool was right. He wasn’t a reformer. Julius could see the injustices, but he wasn’t the man trying to change them. If he saw a weaker man being beaten, or a woman being abused, he was only too happy to step in. Bloodying his knuckles, breaking noses, those were the fights he was good at. That he enjoyed. But fighting an entire system …?

  He waved his carriage off, not wanting to face the prospect of being cooped up for the ride home. Flipping the collar of his coat up to block out the drizzle, he turned his steps towards Montague’s townhouse, letting the wind and rain cool his anger.

  But the loathing didn’t fade. He wasn’t the man to fight the system. But apparently he was the man to block Amanda from her fight. He hated doing it, but Liverpool was right. It was necessary. Change on the scale Amanda wanted would take years, if it ever happened. The threat from the blackmailing ring was immediate. And if they were using Lord Hanford, Julius needed to make sure the man stayed out of the public eye as much as possible.

  Amanda’s calling him out by name hadn’t been helpful. Perhaps Hanford wouldn’t have been so quick to take offense if she hadn’t. But she was a reasonable woman, he consoled himself. Eager to help him with his task. She’d understand why she had to stop writing her opinion pieces.

  And if Julius believed that, he knew as much about the female mind as Liverpool.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A floorboard creaked, and Amanda called out, “Hullo? Is anybody there?”

  It was the second time she’d asked, and like before only silence greeted her. Standing from the small desk in her bedchamber, she picked up her candle and crept to her door. She stretched her hand to the latch, pulse pounding, and jerked it back.

  She was being silly. Houses settled. Boards creaked. It didn’t mean there was anyone lurking outside her door, peering through the keyhole, ready to burst in on her with a knife in his hand and murder in his eyes.

  She twisted the lock in the door and stumbled back. Her imagination was running wild. But with the wind howling outside, rain pounding against her window, and Julius gone out, it was a night for dark inventions. The friendly blaze in her hearth wasn’t enough to dispel the gloom.

  Reggie snored on her bed, apparently unconcerned of the potential for nighttime intruders. Amanda returned to her desk, ignoring the shadows thrown into the corners from her flickering candle. She was used to the dark. The dark was her friend.

  Another squeak, and her shoulder blades slammed together. Just the house settling.

  There was a loud thud, and the door rattled in its frame. A curse followed.

  Leaving the candle on the desk, she flew to the door and unlocked it, pulling it open. Julius stood in front of her, rubbing his nose. He pushed past her, frowning.

  “Why the devil is your door locked? Is someone here?” He paced to each corner, looking behind chairs and curtains.

  Amanda scowled. “Who would be here? Mr. Carter?” She shouldn’t blame Julius for being suspicious. Since they’d started their affair, she’d never locked her door. “How long were you lurking out there? The creaking floors … concerned me.”

  “I just arrived home.” He flopped into her armchair and stretched his legs out to the fire. His silk waistcoat pulled tight across his chest. “It was probably just one of Marcus’s many servants, creeping about. We should go to my house. We’d have more privacy.”

  “And Lady Mary? She’s to join us in such an improper situation?” Amanda wrapped her arms around her body. “We are already skirting the appearance of respectability by you being placed here as my and Lady Mary’s protector. A move to your house would lose even that vestige.”

  “Blast.” He scrubbed a hand across his jaw. “Just as well. Marcus would have my hide if I secreted you away. Although he won’t be too pleased with the situation here, either.”

  Amanda stood next to him, her night rail brushing against his thigh. Her fingers itched to tuck the errant lock of hair out of his eyes and smooth the wrinkles from his brow. But something about such an intimate gesture made her shy. She’d opened her body to him. She was being silly. Still, she couldn’t make her hand stretch forward. A world of meaning would be in that simple caress. It would tell Julius more than she wanted him to know.

  “I won’t tell Liz about us, not if it will endanger your friendship with Marcus.” Amanda clasped her hands together. “If you don’t tell Marcus, he’ll never have to know.” Which meant their intimacies would have to end upon her sister’s and her new husband’s return. There would be no sneaking around. Julius wouldn’t be climbing through her window at night.

  He’d most likely feel their affair had come to its natural conclusion, anyway. That Amanda’s fear of being touched had been overcome. That his job was done.

  Putting his hands on her hips, he guided her into a straddle across his thighs. “I’ll not go out of my way to declare our relationship, but I won’t lie to my friend, either. Marcus has a sharp eye. I don’t think he’ll miss the changes between us.” He trailed his fingers across her collarbone and tugged at the tie at her neck. Her night dress loosened and slipped off one shoulder.

  Amanda licked her bottom lip. “I do
n’t want to get between you and your friend. Perhaps”—she shuddered under his open-mouthed kiss on her bare skin—“perhaps we should end this now.”

  It would destroy her if he agreed. But his friendship with Marcus was for life. Their affair would end regardless.

  “Don’t be an idiot.” He slid the other side of her night rail off her other shoulder, his fingers scraping her flesh. The thin cotton pooled at her elbows and waist. He urged her pelvis closer to his. “This isn’t ending before it has to.” With the flat of his tongue, he swiped across her nipple. Pulling back, he blew a stream of air across her damp skin. Both her nipples hardened to aching peaks.

  She started to pull her arms from the sleeves, but Julius stopped her. “Wait,” he said. Taking the loose ends of the sleeves, he began tying the ends, pulling the fabric tight and pinning her arms.

  “Stop.” Her heart warmed at how quickly Julius released her sleeves, the concern in his eyes, even as her arms mourned the loss of their bonds. But her time with him was finite. And she’d entered this arrangement wanting to stretch her limits, needing to explore her sensuality. As much as she adored being restrained, there had to be more.

  “Are you all right?” A crease formed in the skin above his nose. “Did it bring back a bad memory?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You no longer like being restrained?” Julius asked, his voice a monotone.

  “Don’t be an idiot.” She threw his words back at him with a smile. Shrugging out of the sleeves, she placed a palm over his heart, felt the rise and fall of his chest. He cupped her breast in a mirror action, and she arched into him. “I adore it. When you tie me up, it’s the only time I feel truly safe.”

  “You are safe,” he said gruffly. “Then why—”

  “Because sometimes I want to touch you, too.” She unbuttoned his waistcoat, taking her time to caress the ridges of his stomach through each inch of shirt she revealed. She slid the cravat off his neck, frowning at the wet fabric, and tossed it to dry before the fire. “Tupping can’t only be about having things done to me. Can it?” she asked, furrowing her brow.

  “It can.” Julius gathered her hair together and draped it over a shoulder so it covered one breast. “But I understand what you’re saying. You want to participate more actively.”

  Lowering her head, she kissed the bronze vee of skin exposed at his collar. “Not all the time. But tonight, yes.” She tugged at his shirt, pulling it free from his trousers, and brushed the back of her fingers across his bare stomach. The muscles tensed beneath her touch. “Is that all right?”

  Julius leaned forward and shucked his coat and waistcoat in record time. Grabbing the neck of his shirt, he yanked it over his head and tossed it to the floor. “More than all right. I want you to explore. As long as you’re not planning on tying me up, I’m game for anything.”

  Amanda cocked her head. She glanced at her four-poster bed. She could picture Julius, one limb tied to each post, his body straining against his bonds, her hands roaming his unprotected flesh.

  She wriggled against his thighs. She liked that picture. Very much.

  Julius narrowed his eyes. “Never going to happen.”

  Her body cooled, and she dropped her head. That was his worst nightmare and she was fantasizing about it.

  She wrapped her arms around him and pressed close. “Of course not. I just want to touch.”

  The heat from his bare chest warmed her front. The light dusting of his hair tickled her breasts. Burying her nose at the crook of his neck, she inhaled his bergamot scent.

  He smelled like home.

  It would be so much easier to let Julius take control. Easier, but she’d feel like she’d missed out on an experience. Sitting up, Amanda glided her hands along his shoulders. She found the notch where his collar bone ended at his arm and circled her thumbs into the flesh.

  Julius grimaced.

  Amanda jerked back. “Are you injured? Did I hurt you?”

  “Yes and no.” Taking her hands, he put them both on his left shoulder. “The pain was momentary. A light rub is actually good for it.”

  Tentative, she softly kneaded his skin, examining him for any signs of distress. Julius tipped his head back and rested it on the chair. He sighed, his face relaxing.

  She increased the pressure the tiniest bit. “How did you hurt your shoulder?”

  “In prison.” He rested his palms on her thighs. “Being tied in one position for too long can cause permanent damage. I don’t have quite the same range of motion in my left arm as I do my right.”

  If she could find every last one of his gaolers and hold hot pokers to their feet, she would. With the heel of her hands, she skimmed along his collar bone. The strong column of his throat was exposed, and she couldn’t help but lean forward and take a little nibble.

  His chest vibrated beneath hers. She slid her hands from his shoulders, down his ribs, and to the buttons of his falls.

  He gripped her wrists. “Before we go any further, I need to tell you something.”

  “All right.” Her palms grew damp. He sounded unusually serious.

  “Lord Hanford knows you are Mr. Wilson.” His jaw hardened. “He will most likely expose your identity in his response to The Times.”

  Amanda opened her mouth. Closed it. She hadn’t been expecting that. By tomorrow, everyone could be gossiping about her. Sneering as they said her name. She waited for the panic to come.

  And waited. Aside from a slight queasiness in her stomach, the news didn’t affect her overmuch. She wouldn’t see the sneers. She wouldn’t be attending any public event to suffer the cut direct.

  All those letters others had written to support her stance, those would stop. And that hurt. She tipped up her chin. “I am sorry that my notoriety will hurt the cause for reform. The laws need to be changed. And I may have just set that movement back.”

  “You did your best.” Julius squeezed her leg. “There are plenty of others who can take up the mantle.”

  Yes, it would be someone else’s cause now. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. It was better this way. Liz didn’t need a sister whose shame was constantly paraded through the papers of London.

  And Julius didn’t need a morose lover. She’d spent too many years dispirited, hollow. She wasn’t going to let such a minor thing as her name in the papers bring her low again. She rubbed a hand over the front of his trousers. “Anything else you’d like to discuss?”

  He shook his head, his eyes glazing over.

  “Good.” She pushed his trousers and smallclothes down his hips and gave his hard length a stroke. “Because I, for one, am through talking.”

  Standing, she let her night rail fall from her hips to the floor and stepped out from the cotton puddle. Her toes curled into the pile carpet. Julius sat before her, legs spread wide, elbows resting on the arms of the chair. Hints of red glittered in his brown hair. His sinewy chest gleamed golden from the firelight. And from the careless sprawl of his trousers, his length rose proudly, ruddy and majestic.

  He looked like a dissolute king on his throne, and she didn’t know which royal bit of him to worship first.

  She swiped her night dress off the floor and folded it into a neat rectangle. Placing it as his feet, she knelt upon it, her shoulders brushing the insides of his knees.

  Julius shifted.

  The tension rolled off of him in waves, and Amanda’s heart tripped with anticipation. Running her hands up his thighs, she felt every inch of his muscle beneath the wool. The power that he held so contained. A power he never used against her.

  Amanda dug her fingers into the bunched fabric at his hips. Other men had taken. Her dignity. Her permission. But not the joy that could be found between a man and woman. Julius had shown her that it could still exist, had breathed that part of her into life.

  She wasn’t broken.

  Her hands tingled. Amanda may have been on her knees before Julius, but she felt tall enough to touch the heavens.


  Shuffling closer, she circled his navel with her index finger. She traced the fine hairs that arrowed down, down …

  Julius sucked in a sharp breath. Taking pity, she trailed her finger down the base of his length and up to the crown. She fisted him, and slowly pumped up and down. His skin was so soft, so warm, but underneath he was as hard as stone.

  Julius released his breath on a groan. He stared at the ceiling. “That feels so good.”

  “What feels better?” She added her second hand at his base, and gripped him tighter as she eased up to his head. “This? Or when you slide inside of me?”

  “I’ll not be comparing the pleasures of your body. Everything about you feels good.” He lifted his head and stared into her eyes.

  She shifted her thighs together. “Hmm. A very diplomatic answer. Perhaps you need more information to compare.” Tilting her head, she licked the underside of his shaft, following the course of a thick vein than ran its length. She’d heard enough bawdy talk at the prison to know men could derive pleasure from a woman’s mouth. She could only hope she’d please Julius. His crown peeked out from the surrounding skin, glistening with moisture. She suckled at the tip. He tasted of salt and musk, and she drew harder.

  Julius groaned. He pushed her hair back from her face and gripped her head in his hands. Chest heaving, he stared at where her lips touched his flesh. “Amanda, you don’t have to do this. I don’t expect reciprocity.”

  “I know I don’t have to.” She held his throbbing flesh to her cheek. This man demanded nothing from her, took nothing. “And that’s why I want to.” Sliding her hand down, she tightened the skin of his shaft and licked his length again. She rolled her tongue around the crown, dug the tip into the small crevice.

  He moaned.

  “As this is my first time,” she said, swiping her tongue across the soft sac of his bollocks, “I welcome any instruction.”

  “You’re doing marvelously.” He watched her under heavy-lidded eyes as she stroked and licked his cock, pausing to suckle the tip from time to time.