Ellen realised that she was trembling. ‘O-on my breasts.’
With a harsh, forceful sigh, Maldon moved closer. Ellen bit her lip, biting back a moan of pure longing as his hands moved to the bodice of her dress, brazenly cupping her breasts. The fabric covering her skin now seemed as thin as silk, as gossamer; his fingers burned against her, thrilling beyond measure as he caressed her, his mouth hot on her neck as he kissed her.
Ellen tensed her thighs; she felt tight between her legs, tight and throbbing, full of a frustration that had only just risen to the surface. She relaxed against Maldon’s strong chest, her eyes still on the couple, biting her lip as one of Maldon’s hands moved downwards. Parting the bulk of her skirts like water, Ellen shivered as his palm rested at her thigh; he was so close to the core of her, her aching centre, and it was all she could do not to move his hand closer.
‘What are they doing now?’ Maldon’s teeth grazed her earlobe; Ellen trembled, whimpering with pleasure. ‘Tell me.’
‘They…’ The couple had moved to the bed; Ellen watched the gentleman as he ripped at the ballerina’s dress, revealing a smooth expanse of thigh as the woman laughed with delight. ‘They…’
How could she describe it? How could she begin to detail what she saw, when it didn’t seem to compare at all with what she felt?
She swallowed. ‘They are doing what I dream of doing with you.’
She couldn’t bear it. It was torture, blissful torture, watching the couple and feeling Maldon at the same time. With a whimper of frustration, her hands curling at the collar of his shirt, Ellen pulled Maldon to her as she sank back against the wall of the viewing room.
She was too frantic to be measured in her movements, too hungry for him to be anything other than fierce in her attack. She had never known that she could attack; had never known her hands could cup his face and neck with such open need to touch him. Shame filled her, but was quickly blotted out by the desire that had been building in her for so very long.
She knew that to Maldon, she must not look elegant in the slightest. Her lust was not the same as that of the couple in the viewing room; she couldn’t let any part of it be a show. This was private, hidden, almost painful in its intensity—but Maldon’s face, Maldon’s heavy-lidded eyes, told Ellen that her longing was more than welcome.
She kissed him, open-mouthed, panting; Maldon kissed her back with all the ferocity of a wolf, silent and starving, pushing her against the wall of the viewing room with a thump. Ellen nodded, biting her lip as Maldon moved his hands to the tightly-bound bodice of her dress, tugging and tearing at the fabric with a strength that aroused Ellen as much as it shocked her. Kissing her neck, his teeth deep enough to mark her shoulder and collarbone as he ruthlessly bared her flesh, Maldon let out a sigh of lust as his hands finally touched her bare breasts.
‘Yes.’ Ellen murmured, nodding again as Maldon stroked her newly exposed skin. How shocking it was, how delicious, the way fire raced along her nerves—the way Maldon looked at her as he caressed her, his stare as brazen as his touch! The viewing room was too small, too stifling, to see Maldon’s hands moving; all Ellen could do was close her eyes and feel him circling her nipples, stroking and pinching each stiff, swollen peak until she was sure that she could no longer stand it.
‘Kiss them’ Her own whisper, throaty and urgent, was as much of a shock to her as it was to Maldon. ‘Please.’
With a quick, jerky nod, and another kiss that made Ellen’s core spark with want, Maldon abruptly bent his head to her breasts. He pulled one nipple into his mouth without preamble, his tongue hot and yearning against her swollen peak; Ellen cried out, holding a hand to her mouth as she grappled with the intensity of the feeling. First one nipple, then the other, back and forth in a hard, uncompromising rhythm that spoke of his need to feel her pleasure; to give Ellen what she now knew he had been aching to provide.
She clutched his head to her, as she had seen the woman do in the bedroom. Maldon’s brow was slick with sweat against her skin; the viewing room was powerfully hot, and all Ellen wanted to do to remedy the situation was remove more clothes.
As if he had read her thoughts, Maldon lifted her skirts until the hem of her petticoats grazed her thighs. Ellen bit her lip as he bent his head back to her breasts, sucking her flushed nipples in slow, luscious pulls and tugs as his hands moved to her inner thighs, stroking her there. She had no time to feel self-conscious about how wet she was, how damp and dripping she had become between her legs; Maldon’s palm was already hot on her mound, cupping her there, his voice a low, sighing growl in her ear.
‘Tell me you want me here, sweet.’ He ran one finger along her slick channel, parting her lips, brazenly caressing the silken flesh that lay within. Ellen, unused to any touch except her own, shuddered at the intensity of the sensation. She shifted her hips upward, urging his fingers onward; Maldon kissed her with heightened passion as two fingers stroked her entrance. ‘I think you do. Am I wrong?’
‘I do want you there.’ How could she lie? There was pleasure in telling him, in debasing herself, even if Ellen would never admit it. ‘I… I need you there.’
‘All I want to do is give you what you need.’ Maldon’s voice in her ear was as much command as it was explanation. His fingers curled deep inside her, his touch as unashamed as it was intoxicating; Ellen muffled her moan against his shoulder, the woman’s cries from the bedroom only heightening her pleasure. ‘That is all I want, Ellen.’ His teeth grazed her shoulder. ‘I crave it.’
Ellen. He had said her name; he had said it with a catch in his voice, as if saying a prayer. Ellen, pressed tightly against him as her hips bucked, heard her own voice as if from very far away.
‘Your fingers… faster. Deeper.’ She buried her face in his shirt, her shame making her pleasure oddly sweeter. ‘Please.’
‘Oh, sweet.’ Maldon’s lips were hungry against her neck; his fingers moved deeper still, stroking her inner walls with fierce, sensual intent. ‘As you wish.’
That God he wasn’t being cautious; Ellen needed his fierceness, his fire, to help her acknowledge the strength of her own want. Her last rational thought, as she leant her head against his shoulder, involved yet more gratitude; how grateful she was that her body, accustomed to hard work and more than a few rough rides on the village horses, had made this moment of pleasure free of any virginal pain.
How splendid it was, like this—a dark, hungry splendour, where every rush of bliss was followed by an ache for more. Ellen felt her body slowly slipping into a base, needy rhythm, animal in its urgency, pushing her onward to a peak she could barely recognise but knew she thirsted for. All she needed to do was keep moving her hips, rising and falling, clinging to Maldon as if she were in a shipwreck; perhaps she was in a shipwreck, a shipwreck of the soul, and following the raw, deep sensations were her only means of survival. She eagerly drank in Maldon’s moans, the flickers and strokes of his fingers, moving faster and faster with each passing moment as she reached for the peak—pausing only when she realised, with a bitten lip, that she wanted Maldon there with her too.
With one fumbling hand, she reached down to Maldon’s breeches. Ignoring his gasp as she tugged at the fabric, trying to remember what she could of whispered adolescent conversations, Ellen grasped his newly freed cock with a sigh of pure triumph.
There was no time to begin asking for instructions, or being overly cautious. Bringing her palm up to lick her fingertips, gasping as Maldon’s fingers curled particularly deep, Ellen reached back down to take her lover in hand.
This felt crucial now. Necessary. Timing her movements to those of Maldon, moaning at the doubled pleasure, she began to stroke his shaft as firmly and shamelessly as she could. They were always meant to reach for this moment together; every look, every word, had been leading to this ecstasy in a dark, cramped room. Ellen felt her peak, closer now, almost painful in its immediacy. Her hips bucking beneath her, Maldon’s fingers deep and strong as they curled at her most sen
sitive point, Ellen stroked his cock with a sense of almost agonising intensity.
It wouldn’t take long. She didn’t want it to take long; the explosion was coming, sweet and white-hot and all-consuming, and she was damned if she way going to delay it. Ellen bit her lip, losing herself, Maldon’s green eyes the only thing tethering her to the world as her climax came.
‘Ohh.’ She whispered the sound, trembling, the earthquake rippling through her body in deep, delicious waves as Maldon’s fingers kept moving. ‘Oh, Lord.’
‘Yes. Yes, sweet. Let me feel it.’ Maldon’s voice was strained; his cock twitched in Ellen’s hand, rigid and ready. ‘Let me—oh, God. Oh, darling.’
For Ellen, his undoing was almost as pleasurable to feel as her own. She gripped him tightly, caught in the midst of her own wave, feeling spurt after hot spurt splash across her wrist as she kissed him. Only as she pulled away, staring at Maldon, did she allow herself the luxury of a deep, satisfied moan.
The intimate whimpers and sighs of the couple in the bedroom washed over them both. Ellen, slumped against Maldon as he held her close, wondered when she had ever felt so delightfully free.
‘I will see your face like this again. I will see it a thousand times, indoors and outdoors, dawn and dusk.’ Maldon stroked her hair, her face, his eyes full of the raw, unvarnished sentiment that Ellen found near-overwhelming. ‘I will watch you laughing in carriages, sarcastic at balls, content by our fireside as the evenings draw in…’
Such beautiful words. Magic words, weaving a gossamer web of a happy future. Ellen, closing her eyes, let herself revel in the glory of it for a single, honey-sweet second.
One second. Then two. Sighing, she allowed herself the luxury of three full seconds.
When she opened her eyes again, reality flooded her like a wave of icy water.
How many times had Matilda told her that she never believed what a man said immediately after congress? Such words, wonderful as they were, could have no basis in reality. Yes, this was Maldon, the man she had given a profound part of herself to—but this was also His Grace the Duke of Portman, who wasn’t expected to marry just anyone.
Ellen, for all her determination to be better than her birth… well. She remained, despite herself, just anyone.
No time to weaken, to change her mind. Gently, quickly, trying to separate her thoughts from her actions, Ellen disentangled herself from Maldon’s grip. Looking up at her with half-sleepy, half-confused eyes, Maldon barely raised a hand in protest before Ellen shut the door in his face.
She ran upstairs on unsteady feet, holding her dress tight to her as pins fell free from her hair. No-one saw her leave the Viewing Room, as far as she could tell—and she hoped, hoped against hope, that anyone who saw her ashen face would have the good sense not to ask what had just occurred.
It was only once the study door was firmly closed that Ellen let her tears fall. Not because she regretted what had happened. It was because, hugging herself tightly, she knew that she had loved it more than was acceptable.
She wasn’t aristocracy. She wasn’t gentry. She was no-one, and she knew it, and even if Maldon had forgotten it—even if Richard had forgotten it—she could not. Society would not. If any of the foolish, wonderful things Maldon had said even came close to reality, the ton would cut him down to size.
He would begin to resent her. How could he not? And Ellen Brooke, the woman foolish enough to fall for a duke, would never be able to bear it.
She would pack her things. She would stay silent if Maldon knocked at the door; she would hide if necessary. She would sneak away, like a thief in the night, without so much as a word.
Her heart broke at the thought. Ellen, wiping away her tears, decided that a broken heart now was better than a destroyed one later.
The back room at Simpkins, unofficial headquarters of the ragtag assembly known as the Bad Dukes Club, was looking sadly depleted. Selby was away on one of his long, mysterious voyages across the Continent, while Bale was still travelling with Isabella Thurgood. Harding, according to an apologetic letter delivered to the Club, was still recovering from a nasty bout of influenza… only Grancourt was standing in the warm, wood-panelled room as Maldon distractedly entered, almost forgetting to nod in greeting.
In truth, he could barely remember his own name. He had barely slept; eating seemed pointless, as did getting dressed beyond the bare minimum of respectability. All he could think to do was come here, the only place in London guaranteed to be both free of Ellen and full of his friends… but only one of his friends was here, and the haven of the back room was full, absolutely full, of memories of Ellen.
He had tried to find her. He had searched every room of the pleasure-house thoroughly, the embarrassed shouts of ladies and gentlemen dogging his heels as he had searched for her. He had quizzed both Sergio and Matilda very closely, his voice trembling, until he had realised that they knew nothing of Ellen’s disappearance.
Why had he spoken of her so much here at Simpkins, extolling her virtues, retelling her jokes? Why were her things here? Maldon could see one of her handkerchiefs on the fireplace, as well as a scrap of notepaper with her handwriting on it. He had filled this place with her; even the other Bad Dukes had begun to ask what his erstwhile woman of business had done that day…
‘You look bloody awful, Maldon.’ Grancourt tutted, gesturing to a chair. ‘Difficult night in trade?’
Maldon sighed in response. ‘No.’
‘Doesn’t sound like the truth.’ Grancourt raised an eyebrow. ‘Did something happen with Miss Brooke?’
Everything had happened with Miss Brooke. More would have happened, if Ellen hadn’t remembered to be sensible—God knows Maldon had forgotten himself completely.
He forced himself to reply in a tone that approximated normality. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
Grancourt frowned, staring. There was a moment of almost open hostility, before he shook his head with a quiet chuckle.
‘Fine. We’ve had another letter from Bale.’ He threw the letter onto a nearby table with a sigh as Maldon stopped. ‘He and Isabella have spent the last weeks sketching busts in Saint Mark’s Square and drinking champagne in gondolas. Every pen-stroke stinks of happiness.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Maldon barely registered the words as he idly traced his fingers along the top of the fireplace. ‘Lovely.’
‘Quite.’ Grancourt narrowly eyed Maldon. ‘And the unicorn hunt through the basilica sounds as if it was thoroughly entertaining.’
‘I can imagine.’ Maldon toyed with the edge of a gilt frame. ‘Such fun.’
‘Richard.’ The unexpected use of his Christian name brought Maldon abruptly back to the present. ‘What the bloody hell has happened to you over the past month?’
‘I…’ Grancourt’s sudden attack was as unexpected as it was unsettling. ‘I cannot possibly imagine what you—’
‘Stop. I am not, under any circumstances, doing this ridiculous dance. My precious Club time has already been ruined by your moping, and it shall not be ruined further by your lying.’ Grancourt glowered, but Maldon saw a touch of concern hidden deep in his irritated stare. ‘Come now. Spit out whatever toad you’re harbouring.’
Maldon sighed. There was no possible way he could spit out the complex, shimmering mass of sentiment that had evolved in him by slow degrees, coming to a head in the viewing room with Ellen. The sense of power, twinned so inextricably with the feeling of vulnerability, was something he had never previously felt—as was the deep, painful throb that came to him whenever he thought of Ellen’s face, or voice, or her body under his hands.
He would need to say something as close to the truth as possible, though; Grancourt was more insightful than his gruff manner hinted at. Maldon, his words failing him, went for the coarsest expression that came close to encapsulating what he felt.
‘Nothing. I believe I’m cunt-struck.’
Grancourt’s eyes widened, then narrowed again. ‘Then go and be so somewhere else.’
‘Why are you being so atrocious?’ Maldon glared at Grancourt, who flung himself into his favourite fireside chair. ‘Bale was half-mad for Isabella Thurgood, and I don’t recall you baring your fangs at him.’
‘I could deal with Bale’s romantic nonsense because the man hid it well, Maldon.’ Grancourt exasperatedly bit off the end of his cigar, reaching to the crackling fire to light it. ‘He kept his suffering appropriately hidden. You, on the other hand, are moping all over my passion-free sanctuary with an attitude of exaggerated idiocy.’
‘Romantic nonsense?’ Maldon stared at Grancourt, his teeth gritted with irritation. ‘Did you not just hear me? This isn’t romance. I assure you that romance is the absolute furthest thing from my mind.’
‘Maldon. Unless you have suddenly taken to jotting down your musings, you are carrying around the woman’s pencil.’ Grancourt stared at him, his gaze a mixture of pity and extreme annoyance. ‘Weren’t you talking about the grey ones, saying you were going to find them in Burlington Arcade for her? I’ve seen cunt-struck men. You, my friend, are in an infinitely worse condition.’
Blinking, Maldon looked down at his waistcoat pocket. One of Ellen’s characteristic grey pencils, the end of it slightly chewed, poked smugly out of the fabric.
‘Oh, Lord.’ He sat down heavily, the heat of the fire barely warming him as he sighed. ‘Oh, Lord.’
‘Yes. Another one, lost to the fray.’ Grancourt yawned and stretched, scowling. ‘At this rate I’ll have no sensible gentlemen left to talk to.’
‘I cannot be in love with her.’ Maldon stared at Grancourt, his mouth dry. ‘I cannot.’
‘Well. That’s something of a shame.’ Grancourt settled back into his attitude of extreme repose, cigar tucked neatly into his mouth. ‘Love isn’t like a taste in breeches, or a liking for jam. Difficult to change one’s abiding interest once it has begun.’
‘She is a governess. Was a governess. She has no title—she isn’t even gentry.’ Maldon laced his hands together, closing his eyes. ‘It is impossible.’
Private Passions Page 94