From his vantage, he could see both her face and her reflection. Compelling brown eyes. A freckled nose with a fetching bump on the end. Wide, large pink lips. She pursed them at her reflection, and his preparatory juice bubbled out of his cock.
Picking up a silver hairbrush—her own—she stroked it through her hair. The curls stretched to a length of silky brown and then bounced into lively coils as the brush passed through.
He couldn’t take any more.
Forcing his rigid cock down, he stroked it between her cheeks. The mirror reflected startled eyes and her open mouth. “Grab your breasts,” he urged. His orgasm hovered—he felt it in the tightness of his balls, the tension of his muscles, the weakening agony shooting through his legs.
The mirror showed him her small hands cupping her full breasts. Reddened and thick, her nipples pointed at the glass.
He should get oil from his room, something to make her slick and soft, to ease this, but he couldn’t wait. He couldn’t draw his cock away from the hot, tempting cleft of her arse.
She moved forward so her cunny rested against the smooth, rounded corner of the marble-topped vanity. A wriggle of her hips and he understood why. She was rubbing her clit against the smooth, cool stone.
The wicked wench.
Slicking her ass with the wet tip of his cock, he bent forward and nuzzled her earlobe. A pink blush blossomed on her cheeks as she teased herself. Her lips parted as she panted. Rubbing her clit sent her juices flowing—he breathed in the scent.
Nothing compared to the smell of an aroused woman. He could drown in it.
The head of his cock brushed her tightly furled anus, and she moaned in delight. She wasn’t shocked or scandalized. She wanted this. What a delightful woman he’d married—
Assuming she wasn’t part of the plot to kill him.
Should he have told her about the missing women in London…about the actress’s body in Hyde Park? If she was innocent, should he give her the truth?
And how in blazes did he do that? Did he lean forward now and whisper in her ear?
A madman is trying to make me look like a kidnapper and a murderer. But it wasn’t me. I didn’t kill the woman. You believe me, don’t you? After all, you know nothing about me other than rumors about my depravity….
Her bottom pushed back, plump cheeks engulfing his iron poker of an erection.
“Slowly, love,” he rasped. “I want this to be good for you.” While satisfying his own fantasies. She stood on tiptoe, her legs long and shapely, her bottom lifted and served up for his pleasure. Hair tumbling down her slender back, tiny waist flaring to heart-shaped buttocks, she personified temptation.
His wife. He had never dreamed of gently massaging the swollen head of his cock against the resistant anus of his wife.
“How’s that?” he groaned.
“Oooo—good. I like it—” But a slight push of his prick had her squeaking in shock.
Lightly slapping her hip, he drew back. “Ah, lass, I can’t do it like this. Wait for me.”
He threw on his robe, his jutting cock tenting the dark blue silk. Without bothering to tie the belt, he darted to the connecting door to the parlor between their rooms. Maryanne rested her elbows on the vanity, her naked arse sticking up in the air.
A quick sprint to his bedside drawer and he had a glass bottle of oil. His heart hammered in his throat as he ran back. He was afraid to find she’d gone. But she was waiting and squirming with abandon against her vanity.
With splayed hand, he slipped the oil between her cheeks, slicked the puckered entrance with his middle finger. She moaned as his finger penetrated—to his nail and then his knuckle. He plunged it in and out, and she moaned with every thrust.
His finger slid in to the hilt, and she arched against him, crying out. Her breasts bounced.
“Was that only your finger? It felt so delicious. I want…more,” she whispered. She collapsed on the vanity, and he nosed his cock inside her relaxed, slick anal passage. The head eased the tight ring open, and it bit down hard on the shaft as the head popped in.
God, he loved that sensation. The pop and hot bite.
Her throaty moan sang in his head.
Gripped tight by her snug, velvety passage, his cock forged ahead an inch. Instinct begged him to thrust deep and pound hard, and he gripped the vanity to control himself.
Scream for me, love. I need to hear you moan. I need to hear your pleasure.
His cock filled her to the hilt, and two deep thrusts ended on her scream. She came, sobbing as she did, and at the sweet, lusty, throaty sound, he lost his famed control.
Like a shot, his orgasm tore through him, exploding out of his ballocks, through his shaft—he stumbled forward as if his muscles had turned to semen and launched out of him.
He caught himself with splayed hands on the marble vanity and felt his hot semen pulse through him and pour into her. Sharing a low laugh with Maryanne, he nuzzled her neck. They gasped for air together.
“We should bathe again, love,” he whispered. But he hesitated, wrapping his arms around her waist. His chest was damp with sweat, and her back was hot with it. He cuddled her.
He’d never known this before.
The desire to stay with a woman. To hold her for as long as he could.
“And now I’ll leave you to your day.”
Maryanne jerked her head up at Dash’s words. Her entire body still tingled, and she wanted to collapse on the bed and spend an hour or two sighing with delight and shock—in Dash’s arms.
No wonder so many of her courtesan authors’ stories featured that intimate act, so based on trust. It had hurt—only a little, at first, for he’d been so gentle and careful.
And then, when he’d thrust his cock deep, the sensations…oh my! She’d wanted more, wanted him to the hilt.
Her orgasm had almost stopped her heart.
And now, now that he’d tenderly cleaned her derriere and his cock with warm water and cloths, he tied the belt of his robe and strode toward the door.
Her day? But what was she to do? Where was she to start? A strangled sound leaped out of her throat.
He turned.
“But…” She had no idea what to say. Of course she was now supposed to run his household. Of course a wife and husband did not live in each other’s pockets. Venetia and Marcus were not a normal
ton
marriage; in some marriages a husband and wife never even attended the same public events, they despised each other so much.
A husband who despised you would leave you alone to live your life. It would be as if you never married.
No, she didn’t want that. To live under the same roof as someone who hated her. But Dash waited, smiling, for her to finish her sentence.
“You will be careful, won’t you?” she asked. “What do you plan to do?”
“Nothing too dangerous, love, I assure you.”
“
Too
dangerous?” But he was gone, and the door shut behind him.
She swallowed hard. Mrs. Long and the servants would know at once that she was not bred to be a great lady. They would guess at once why Dash had married her. Sniggering jests would be traded from footman to maid. Even the tweenies would know…they would know she had been wanton and gotten pregnant by Dash.
She couldn’t bear to be surrounded by servants who bowed and bobbed curtsies but smirked behind her back.
But how did she face Mrs. Long without a blush after the naughty sexual things she’d done with Dash? Great ladies didn’t have their husbands make love to their bottoms. Did they?
She’d felt her climax in her womb but hadn’t told him that. She was certain it couldn’t harm the baby, but it was a secret she’d kept from Dash. Another one.
With a tug at her heart and a heavy dose of guilt bearing on her shoulders, Maryanne paused by her window. Water droplets dotted the panes, and she longingly remembered all the times she had curled up quietly in a window seat, a book held close to her nose.
But, from this very window, she had also seen Dash fall, and that jolt of remembered fear made her jerk away.
Squaring her shoulders, she walked resolutely to the bellpull and tugged. It was time to put on a disguise, to pretend to be a viscountess.
So within an hour, fed and dressed by her maid, Maryanne met Mrs. Long in the morning room—the room in which the previous viscountess, Dash’s mother, had attended to the morning’s business. Just after summoning the housekeeper, Maryanne had run a nervous finger over the white and gilt escritoire, with its many dockets, now empty.
Dash would have been a child when his parents died. Marcus had mentioned once—shortly after she had seen Dash at a ball on one of the few times he’d attended one—that his parents had died together….
In a carriage accident.
She clapped her hand to her mouth. No wonder he had looked so horrified by the accident on the Great North Road. How could she not have thought of that?
What sort of wife was she? In her heart she wanted them to be at least friends—or civil, if not that. But a friend would have understood his pain and helped him share it….
“My lady?”
Maryanne spun at the housekeeper’s voice. Dressed in her simple gray gown—but a well-cut one—Mrs. Long bobbed a curtsy, and Maryanne almost tripped over the elegant stool.
She stumbled helplessly for something to say. “Where do we begin?”
It was wrong, perhaps, to admit she didn’t know. But Mrs. Long nodded, her hands clasped in front of her. “I would be delighted to give a tour of the house, my lady. And there are the day’s menus. I believe arrangements for the arriving guests will be satisfactory.”
Guests? Venetia, Marcus, their baby, and her mother and Grace were to come—but not until just before Christmas Day.
“The south wing has been prepared for Lord and Lady Moredon. Lady Yardley will be given her usual suite of rooms—the lavender rooms.”
Why had Dash not told her his sister would be visiting? Oh, she wasn’t prepared to meet his sister. Not yet. His sister would guess at once that they’d been forced into marriage. A tremor of fear raced down Maryanne’s back, leaving her shivering. And Lady Yardley—would her ladyship recognize her from Hyde Park?
Maryanne lunched alone. She toyed with the stem of her wineglass and glanced around. Long windows overlooked the gardens, and between the windows hung paintings of landscapes. Twenty chairs lined the table, yet this was only the informal room where the family dined.
Were there any touches here Dash had added?
Platter upon platter had been laid out for her. She thought of Maidenswode, where the smallest serving of ham would feed the entire household for a week. Here, she had barely touched the roast beef, the serving of fish with dill sauce, the bread.
Where was Dash? Would he join her?
She left the table and slipped quietly from the room as the footmen entered. She was to meet Mrs. Long to discuss menus for the next few days. Hugging herself, as if she could flit unnoticed through the hallways by becoming smaller, she found herself lost and confused.
Bother. Where did this hallway lead?
She heard a flurry of noise. The clatter of footsteps across the foyer floor. It could only mean the arrival of guests.
She was not prepared for this—she’d thought Dash would be at her side!
If she couldn’t be found, she wouldn’t have to meet his sister. Not yet.
She could go to the nursery on the uppermost floor. She could pretend to be making decisions.
Glancing down the hallway, Maryanne lifted her hems and raced for the stairs.
“Someone shot at you.”
Dash gave a rueful nod as he poured a glass of sherry for Sophia, Lady Yardley. Trust Sophia to be blunt and to speak of an attempt on his life with disapproval instead of horror.
As he strolled over and handed her the glass, Sophia lay back against the plump, silky cushions of the chaise. “And how did your new wife respond?”
“She raced to me across the snow, her hems in her hands.” His grin widened at the memory. “She looked properly horrified. Of course, she then tripped and fell into the snow on her face.”
He felt Sophia’s gaze rest on him, and he turned and began pacing. He didn’t want to discuss his suspicions of Maryanne. Not after introducing his sweet wife to the intense ecstasy of anal sex. She’d trusted him to give her pleasure, not pain. And, Christ Jesus, it stunned him how much he wanted to let himself trust her.
“The fiend escaped?” Sophia asked.
Lush, voluptuous, and dressed entirely in white and silver, Sophia was breathtakingly beautiful. Many assumed they’d had a long-standing affair. When he’d been a young man, he’d wanted to—he’d tried to seduce her. But she looked on him as a son. She had given Anne a home and had always been his friend.
Sophia had kept him sane.
Dash brushed back his hair with both hands. “Footprints were found that led past the pond to the woods. But others have been in the woods today, and the footprints were lost. And apparently, despite a staff of several dozen tripping over each other on this estate, no one saw the blackguard. No,” he corrected, “two young undergrooms did but could give nothing better than a vague description of a shadowy figure in black.”
“And you suspect one of the Blackmores—your uncle or his son.”
He nodded. “Though there are others who would like to see me dead. Craven and Barrett, to hide their white slavery ring. Jack Tate—”
“The hell proprietor?” She looked startled. “Why…oh, I see. You bested him at cards.”
“Even Ashton.”
Sophia straightened on her chaise, eyes flashing fire. “The Duke of Ashton is not trying to kill you, I assure you!”
“Spoken like a woman in love.”
She waved away the sentiment. “What are you planning to do? This entire situation is madness. Shooting at you! Carriage accidents! Kidnappings in London and murdered women!”
From the hallway, where she lurked behind the door, Maryanne gasped, shocked by Lady Yardley’s words. Kidnappings? Murdered women? Dash had said nothing of that. She gave a hurried glance down the hallway. It seemed unforgivable to spy on her husband, but she couldn’t resist.