"My aunt Hypatia," he said, "the dowager duchess of
Carlisle
. She can bring her forward as some sort
of country cousin."
Mowbry simply nodded. He must have known his approval was neither necessary nor welcome. Despite his fury, Edward's estimation of the lawyer rose. Without question, he had behaved abominably, but he had carried it off with rare aplomb.
"You are a man of hidden depths," Edward said.
A small, dry smile acknowledged the warning in his words. "You may call upon my depths whenever
you wish, Lord Greystowe. They are entirely at your disposal."
This man is ambitious, Edward thought, but he could not tell whether that boded ill or well.
CHAPTER 2
Edward dropped Mowbry
at his office,
then
ordered the coachman to drive to Lady Hargreave's. The
rain continued to fall steadily but not hard, and the wheels made a soft, sticky sound as they rolled through the muddy streets. A mist wreathed the city, muffling the edges of the buildings, slowing traffic and sound until he seemed to ride through a dream. The softness of the air was that of spring, but the color could well have been winter.
He closed his eyes and saw again the delicate slope of Miss Fairleigh's shoulders. How vulnerable were the planes of a woman's back: any woman's, but especially hers, in her mended chemise with the fragile bits of lace around the
sleeves.
Warmth crept up his thighs as his blood rushed to his center. He was hardening at the simple memory
of her spine. He thought of her buttocks and ached to cup them in his hands. Shaking himself, he turned his gaze to the fog-shrouded window. Should the strength of his reaction worry him? Perhaps he ought
to put himself on guard.
But, no.
She was a pretty woman; that was all. Any man would have responded. He was glad her
powers of attraction were strong. He wanted Freddie happy. He needed Freddie safe.
They reached Regent's Park and the columned marble stretch of Cumberland Terrace, its houses strung end to end so that they looked like a Grecian temple. Edward flipped his watch open.
Late teatime.
But Lady Hargreave would have no visitors. She'd sent a note that morning, delicately scented, informing him she wouldn't be "at home" to anyone else. Her husband, never the possessive type, was visiting his property in
Scotland
. Despite the clearness of the field, Edward directed the coachman to a public stable down the street. He preferred not to park his carriage near her house. It was one thing to cuckold a man and quite another to rub his nose in it.
He paused in the act of unfurling his umbrella, caught by a half-conscious thread of memory. Whatever
it was, it didn't matter.
Nothing mattered but easing the terrible knot of hunger in his groin.
Lady Hargreave
awaited
in her boudoir. Well aware of how best to display her assets, she was sprawled artistically across an ice-blue chaise longue, with a novel she probably wasn't reading. Her hair, a smooth champagne blonde, spilled like silk down her slender arms. The filmy pink wrap she wore left little to the imagination. He could see the small cones of her breasts beneath it, and the fair thatch of curls that covered her mound.
"Darling!" she cried and, in her usual languid manner, floated to the door to greet him.
His kiss was deeper than was his custom. Rather than let her break it, he gripped her hair to hold her in place. He discovered he wanted to make her melt today; wanted to hear her cry with helpless need.
"My," she said when he finally released her. Her hands slid down his waistcoat to fondle his growing bulge. "Someone's been thinking naughty thoughts."
He did not answer, nor did he want her to speak. He wanted a good hard screw that didn't end for hours. He wanted oblivion and release, and Imogene was damn well going to provide it.
Her hands were clever even through his clothes. She found the tip of his penis and gently pinched it, forcing his linen against the seep of moisture. He gasped as her nails increased the pressure.
"Nice Eddie," she said, and returned to the petting with which she'd begun.
But he wasn't a dog she could cosset to submission. He tore her wrapper down the front and kissed her when she dared to laugh. With inexorable force, he stepped her back to the satin chaise.
To hell with adjourning to her bedchamber.
He would take her here and now.
"The maid—" she gasped, but her little bosom was heaving up and down. Edward watched it, telling himself he did not wish she were lush instead of lithe, or dark instead of blonde, and that he would not rather she tremble instead of pant.
"Damn the maid." Cupping her breast, he nipped its reddened peak. "Let her get an eyeful."
Imogene laughed and wound her arms behind his neck. "Oh, yes," she purred, crushing her groin to the clothbound arch of his sex. "I like you in this mood."
Their embrace became a skirmish, with Imogene fighting to get on top. Edward used his strength against her, something he had not done in all their times together. She did not seem to mind. In truth, she seemed to like it. Her languor abandoned her. She clutched him as if she could not get enough of his muscle and skin, her hands tearing at his clothes, her throat vibrating with desperate cries.
"Oh, please," she begged when he refused to let her open his trousers. "Please, Edward."
Perversely, he knelt above her, straddling her narrow nips, holding her down with one hand spread between her trembling breasts. With the other, he opened his trouser buttons. As the strain gave way,
new blood rushed into tissues already full. He had never been this hard, this needy, and yet he found himself not in the moment but seeing it from a distance. She was lovely, Lady Hargreave, all blonde and pink and eager, her youth wasted on a man twelve years her senior. Edward was what she needed. She had said so many times. Only he could scratch the itch that left her tossing in her bed.
He pushed his trousers to his hips, even that light friction a goad. The air was cool on his fiery skin.
Look, he thought. Here's what you want.
Imogene looked, her eyes seeming to glaze as she took in the thick red thrust of his erection. Edward studied it himself: the heavy veins, the nervously jumping sack, the sheen of hunger on the bulbous tip. Why did women want this ugly beast? And why did the sight of it, the feel of it hard and ready, imbue him with a sense of power?
She sighed as she watched it pulse in defiance of gravity's pull. Despite his hold, her hands found him, stroked him,
teased
him until he ached to drive inside her. He ground his teeth rather than give in. He
did not know why, only that something compelled him to delay.
"Fuck me," she whispered, her body writhing between his knees. "I want you inside me."
But he touched her first, because he did not wish to be agreeable. He touched her with his hard male fingers, parting her tangled golden hair. Arousal soaked her delicate folds and plumped her tiny pearl.
His fingers slid around the swollen bud. She groaned as he teased it, melting as she never had before,
her fair locks clinging to her temples, the pillow rustling as she lashed her head against the chaise. This was what he wanted, to make her helpless, and yet it did not satisfy the formless need inside his soul. With a growl of frustration, he wrenched her legs wide.
Enough preliminaries.
He would take her and
be damned.
He notched her gate and plunged, but found no resistance beyond the stricture of her size.
"Oh, yes," she said, encouraging him to work his engine in. "Oh, yes."
Her knees rose, squeezed the ribs beneath his arms. Back and forth they rocked until her body eased
and took him, until his thighs tightened to penetrate the final inch. He stopped and held inside her, his body shaking with desire.
"You're a monster," she breathed, her face white, her pupils huge. "You're the biggest fucking cock
I've ever had."
For once he did not doubt this silly claim. He felt like the biggest. He felt as if he could screw the entire world. Her fingers trailed down his spine to grip his straining buttocks.
"Now," she urged. "Do it."
At last, he was willing to comply. With a mutual groan, they thrust in tandem, strongly, smoothly,
both
selfishly eager to reach their ends. Beyond control, Imogene's nails broke the surface of his skin. Edward grunted and gripped the bottom of the couch to lever deeper, to thrust with greater force. Imogene's neck arched off the cushion, her outward breath a wail.
"Keep going," she gasped, her hips frantically beating his. "Don't stop. Don't stop."
He pounded into her, her flesh tightening around him, his pleasure rising. His cock was steel within her heat, so burstingly hard he could scarcely stand it. He closed his eyes and pressed his brow to the small embroidered pillow beside her head. Images flashed behind his lids: a scrap of lace, a tiny foot, a breast swelling above a corset. The muscles of his belly tensed. He yearned. He ached. And then his partner
broke,
great shudders of orgasm that milked him to the tooth-grinding edge of release. He pulled out at
the very last, coming in heavy, draining spurts against her thigh.
He hung above her on his elbows, shaken by a fear he could not explain.
"Oh, my," she murmured, languidly stroking the scratches on his back. "If people knew how passionate you can be, they'd never call you Edward Coldheart."
He was tempted to inquire who called him that, as this was an insult he'd never heard. In the end,
though, he didn't care enough to ask. He looked down at Imogene. Her skin was flushed with satiation, her gray eyes starred. She didn't have the strength to stop him when he pulled away, merely mewled
like a disappointed kitten. Too polite to leave outright, he sat by her hip and stroked her arm. Their
sexual connection had always been strong, but they'd never shared an encounter this intense. He hadn't spent so fiercely since he'd been a lad of seventeen, nor taken a woman with so little finesse.
Not that Imogene seemed to mind.
"Edward," she sighed, her golden lashes drifting down, "you're enough to make a woman petition for divorce." He didn't think she meant it, but the declaration rattled him. He didn't feel closer to Imogene. He felt empty.
And restless.
And weary of the pleasures of life. He raked his hair back
with a sigh.
Come to think of it, he felt alone.
* * *
His mood was
no brighter by the time he called on his aunt Hypatia.
Wednesday was her at-home day and he was forced to sit, hat in hand, while some idiot countess and her two marriageable daughters
tried to engage him in predictably pointless conversation. They left much beyond the recommended quarter hour, and reluctantly at that. Edward nodded stiffly at the departing girls, but could not bring himself to rise.
"Edward," said Aunt Hypatia, "if you hadn't obviously come on important business, I would scold you
for being rude. You're getting too old to dismiss every girl who bats her eyes at you." She patted the
spot beside her on the gold and white settee. "Come closer, dear. You're looking unusually dour, even
for you. I trust nothing untoward has befallen my investments."
"No," he said, jerkily taking the seat, still warm from its occupation by the countess. For the last few years, he'd been handling the duchess's money. "Your investments are safe. It's this business with Freddie."
"Ah," said his aunt, her unruffled response easing some of the tightness in his chest. Hypatia was a handsome woman, slim and straight despite her years, with a crown of silver-white hair that was all
her own. She had not in her youth been a beauty, but her elegance and pride had made it seem as if
she were. Now she folded her hands in the pale lavender satin of her skirts. "I wondered when you'd
get around to asking my advice."
"It is more than advice I need." He bent forward over his knees and tapped his hat against his shin.
"I'm afraid I require your services as a social fairy."