The Rake's Ruined Lady

by Mary Brendan - Society Scandals 01 - The Rake's Ruined Lady

  ‘Shall I tell you why I think you’d do all that for me, sweetheart?’

  Beatrice nodded, the painful throb in her throat preventing her from voicing a need to have his fullest explanation.

  ‘I think you would risk everything you hold dear because you love me as greatly as I love you. I also think you’re hoping I’m not the immoral lecher others say I am, and will protect you with my name as well as my heart.’ Hugh soothed her quiet sob by stroking his cool lips against her brow. ‘I’ve loved and desired you for years, Beatrice. I’ve tried to force you from my memory by carousing, but you stubbornly resisted being put aside and curbed the worst of my excesses.’

  His mouth slanted on hers, sliding with silky sweetness, his tongue teasing her with tiny persuasive touches.

  ‘The worst of your excesses?’ Bea echoed against his shoulder, although a quiet joy was burgeoning within. ‘You keep two mistresses close by, sir. Did you restrict yourself then?’

  Hugh bent his head, laughing soundlessly against her crown of golden hair. ‘Perhaps in my immaturity I might have liked more, but now I have seen the error of my ways I have no desire for even one mistress, or any woman other than my future wife.’

  Bea raised glowing eyes to his face, uncertain still, yet daring to hope. ‘You are to take a vow of celibacy then, Mr Kendrick...?’

  ‘I suppose I must for the short duration of my betrothal...unless my adorable fiancée will take pity on me and let me love her.’ Hugh gathered Beatrice in his arms, rocking her against his chest. ‘Do you know how many times I’ve railed at myself for letting you slip through my fingers? From the moment I walked away from you three years ago I’ve bitterly regretted my decision to act the martyr, leaving you to enjoy your life with a worthier man who could give you what I could not.’ He paused. ‘When I found out you’d attracted another suitor so quickly I was sure you’d easily forgotten me.’

  ‘Elise warned me I had fallen for Dr Burnett on the rebound. I remember feeling hurt and humiliated by your rejection and wanting somebody to boost my pride,’ Bea admitted.

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, that I hurt you. At the time I thought I was the only one suffering. Your friend Fiona knew, of course, what a mess I was in, and kindly tolerated my pathetic courtship without taking offence. She told me bluntly to come back to you...but I’d heard Burnett was already courting you. I was a damnable fool! We might have started off as man and wife living in a garret, but we would have been together now for three years...’

  ‘No...it would not have worked, Hugh,’ Beatrice interjected on a sigh. ‘We might have quickly grown bitter towards one another, constantly fretting over bills and hating feeling beholden to Alex, who would have offered loans of money,’ Beatrice pointed out.

  Hugh gave her a grateful smile for understanding so completely how humiliating such a situation would have been for him. His greatest fear had been losing Bea’s respect.

  Suddenly Hugh urged her towards a chair and made her perch on its edge. Then, dropping to a knee, he pulled out a grand-looking box from his inside pocket. ‘Will you marry me, Beatrice, and keep me from slipping back into wicked ways?’

  His teasing tone earned him a prim look from Beatrice. But soon her mock reproof was overcome by an expression of wonderment. Hugh had opened the casket to reveal a scintillating diamond ring nestling on a luxurious bed of satin.

  ‘Is this the gift you brought with you this afternoon?’ she asked, struck by its opulence.

  ‘No...I wanted to give you your betrothal ring somewhere more appropriate than Oxford Street.’ Again his hand disappeared into a pocket, to withdraw a smaller, plainer jewellery box. ‘I brought this with me to show to you. I wanted to convince you that I was not toying with your affections when we first met. It was always my intention to propose to you, even if the best I could afford was a betrothal ring of very little value.’

  ‘You have kept it all this time...?’ Bea breathed softly. ‘Show it to me...please...’ she coaxed hoarsely when he hesitated in opening the lid of the little box. Reaching out a single digit, Bea stroked the tiny cluster of sapphires embedded in a thin golden shank.

  ‘I bought it because the blue stones match your eyes. I hoped you might be swayed to accept it with such a sweet thought attached to it. Then my pride took over...’

  Bea raised her eyes to his face, seeing for the first time a bashfulness shaping his features, making him look appealingly boyish. ‘Indeed, there was no need for you to have felt ashamed of your gift,’ she reassured him. ‘In fact, if you were to allow me to choose between the two...’

  She reached out a hand and removed the small golden band from its resting place. Handing it to him, she extended her left hand towards him.

  ‘I will marry you, Mr Kendrick, even though you have made me wait far too long to hear you ask me to be your wife.’

  After he’d slipped the sapphires onto her finger she curled the digit, securing it in place.

  Springing to his feet, Hugh whipped her up into his arms, making her gasp as he spun them both about. ‘You’ve made me the happiest man, even though you don’t like your flawless Golkonda diamond.’

  ‘Oh, I do, Hugh!’ Beatrice cupped his abrasive chin between her palms. ‘Of course I do. But this is my betrothal ring...the one I always wanted...the one I would so proudly have worn three years ago.’ She extended her finger, admiring the small blue gems. ‘That other, finer gift you may give to me another time...perhaps on the birth of our first child...’ she murmured, blushing.

  Hugh let her feet drop to the floor in a way that sensually slid together their bodies. ‘Well, I want to see you wearing that diamond, sweet, so we’d better start on making our family very soon.’

  With a confidence that stopped her heart he covered her mouth with his in a kiss that was simultaneously demanding yet reverential. Keeping their faces fused together with a hand cupping her scalp, Hugh manoeuvred them slowly towards the armchair. He sat with Bea on his lap, deepening the kiss as he repositioned her to sit facing him, straddling his thighs.

  Swift fingers worked open the buttons on her bodice and the ribbons of her chemise. With teasing leisure he lowered his mouth to the breasts he’d exposed, feasting on the plump milky flesh like a ravenous man. One of his hands swept up her skirt, his fingers caressing the soft inner skin of her thighs with long strokes that stopped a hair’s breadth from their apex.

  ‘Hugh...’ Bea groaned, throwing back her head and squirming against the tormenting pulse rocking her body. ‘Should we not go upstairs? I don’t care—honestly I do not—if you make love to me properly before I go home. But I must return because they will all worry where I am...’

  She gasped in a shuddering breath as his hot mouth and tongue tantalised a rigid nipple. Bea gave herself up to the tension building within, parting her thighs to his artfully sliding fingers. Her panting grew shallow as her back arched, then an explosion of pleasure made her buck wildly against him.

  Hugh drew her face forward, soothing her bruised lips with a courteous kiss. ‘Did you like that?’ he asked gently as she collapsed like a rag doll against his shoulder.

  Bea nodded slowly, feeling too enervated to speak. A moment later, when her heartbeat had steadied, she glanced up at his shady jaw. ‘Do you want me to take off my clothes so you might also like it?’ she asked shyly.

  Hugh buried his lips in her hair. ‘I’d like that more than anything, sweet, but not now...it’s not right...’

  ‘I want to please you. I don’t care what you do...’ Bea started, but a gentle finger laid on her pulsating lips silenced her.

  ‘But I care, sweetheart,’ Hugh said. ‘I’ll not take your virginity like this. I want to savour every second of our first proper time together. I want us to share a feather bed covered in silk sheets. I want to enjoy your beautiful body for hours and hours—not snatch a few minutes’ release on an armchair with the servants listening at the keyhole.’

  Bea started in his arms, darting a horrified gl
ance at the door. ‘Do you honestly think they are?’ she wailed in a whisper.

  Hugh chuckled. ‘No... They wouldn’t dare, if they value their employment with me.’

  ‘Mrs Monk will do her best to smear my name.’

  ‘Your name will soon be my name, and after that nobody will give a damn for a word she says. And neither should you...’ Hugh terminated his concise reassurance with a light kiss on her brow. ‘Besides, I’m conscious of the fact that I’ve been a rank hypocrite where you’re concerned. I’ve protected my sister and Louise from ruined futures, yet would have made you my mistress and put your reputation in jeopardy.’ He dropped forward his head, quite bashfully. ‘I’m sorry... I can’t help wanting you, so I’d do anything to have you and keep you always with me...’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything but love me...that’s enough, Hugh,’ Bea said softly.

  As she snuggled, satisfied, into his shoulder Hugh neatened her clothes, doing up buttons and laces with an expertise that might have worried Bea had she not been still pleasantly dazed with sensuality.

  ‘I’ll get a special licence and we can be married before the end of the week. Just a quiet affair—if you’re happy with that?’

  Bea nodded dreamily, feeling utterly content. ‘There is just one thing I would ask for...’

  ‘You can ask me for anything, sweet, and I’ll grant you your wish,’ Hugh said.

  ‘I should like us to honeymoon in India... I should like to meet Shay.’

  Hugh’s eyes whipped to hers. ‘I was going to offer to cut my ties with them if you wanted me to. I never thought I would ever do so for anyone. I’m very fond of my...of Shay,’ he corrected himself. ‘But I realise you might find the situation hard to accept.’

  ‘I understand why you keep in touch with Shay and his mother,’ Bea said softly. ‘I expect you support them financially, don’t you?’ She tilted her head, watching his expression. ‘I really don’t mind...in fact I think it is very worthy of you to do so.’ She kissed his stubbly cheek. ‘I’m not jealous of Shay or of Rani. I believe you, you see, when you say your future wife is the only woman you want.’ She urged huskily, ‘Take me to India, please; I should love to meet your adopted son, and you said you would grant me anything I wished for...’

  Hugh turned to her, a new depth of adoration for her burnishing his golden eyes. ‘Of course I shall take you to see my boy,’ he said huskily. ‘And when we have our first child, and he or she is old enough, we shall go again, if you would like to, so the children can get to know one another.’

  ‘That sounds perfect...’ Bea cuddled into him.

  Hugh suddenly buried his face into the warm curve of her shoulder. ‘It is time to go and see your father and tell him our wonderful news.’

  ‘You will certainly be his good friend now.’ Beatrice choked a little laugh, tangling her fingers in his glossy hair. ‘I know I have driven him to despair on occasion with my recklessness; he will be pleased to be rid of me, I’m sure.’

  ‘He has my sympathy.’

  Hugh lifted his face. His lashes, wet earlier from his bath, were again clumped with moisture.

  ‘You are a wild and wanton young woman,’ Hugh scolded on a sniff. He took her mouth in a kiss that bordered on bittersweet pain before transforming into a tender salute. ‘But I think I know a way of taming you, Beatrice, that we’ll both like very much...’

  * * * * *

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  ISBN-13: 9781460337127

  THE RAKE’S RUINED LADY

  Copyright © 2014 by Mary Brendan

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