“I—” What reason could she give?
I was hiding from my husband and my maids.
“I wished to write some letters.”
Mrs. Long’s lips thinned, and her fingers steepled in front of her plain skirts. “This room is not—” She stopped there, as though remembering she was speaking to her mistress. “I will have the fire lit again.”
Flustered, Maryanne shook her head. “Do not bother. I—I don’t believe I will stay.” She turned and awkwardly gathered the letter and the pages. They slid out of her hands, and she had to slap her palm on two to keep them from falling on the floor.
She sensed Mrs. Long waiting. Why wouldn’t the woman leave? She could dismiss her; how foolish that she didn’t dare, in case—in case she aroused suspicions.
“Letters from my family,” she explained needlessly.
But the housekeeper waited to follow her out of the room. In case she set something on fire? Or took something she was not supposed to? Clumsily thrown over her arm, her shawl trailed to the floor.
“Tomorrow, my lady, I wish to review the arrangements for Mr. and Mrs. James Blackmore and young Mr. Blackmore and the Duke of Ashton, of course. I do wish to ensure that all meets your approval.”
“I’m sure what you have planned will be lovely,” she murmured. She cringed, though, at the hurried weakness in her words.
“I have prepared menus for Christmas dinner—”
Roast something
,
how complex could it be?
Maryanne muttered under her breath. “Fine. Wonderful. I shall review them tomorrow.”
“I shall of course attend to place settings, but there are centerpieces for the dinners. Her ladyship—the late viscountess—had Beadles in London make them.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t—” Maryanne stopped. “Whatever has been used before will be perfect.”
“Of course. I shall leave you now, my lady.” And Mrs. Long withdrew.
Bother, why did she feel she had failed at a test?
“We found one of the men who took Lady Farthingale.”
After delivering that stunning statement, Sir William sipped his brandy, ensconced in a leather chair by the crackling fire.
Dash leaped up from his chair. “Which one, the Cornishman? Where did he take her? Who the bloody hell was he?”
“Aye, the Cornishman, Trevelyan Ball. However, he claims he took Lady F to the Ox and Swan Inn, near here, and turned her over to a gentleman named Smith.”
Leaning against the edge of his desk, Dash groaned. “And the trail is cold after that?”
Haunted by memories of Maryanne on the chair by this very desk, her skirts up, he shook his head.
“Indeed.” The brandy was set down with a clink, and Sir William removed his spectacles. Rubbed his temples. “This business grows more complicated.”
Dash stretched his arms behind him and supported his weight on his hands. “Complicated? I’m going to have a half dozen people in my house who want to see me dead.”
The magistrate’s gaze stayed on him, level, penetrating, neutral but all the more accusatory because of that. Sir William cleared his throat. “A woman’s body was found in the woods behind the parish church in the village. She’s been dead for a very long time.”
A woman’s body—found in the village just a mile south of his estate. “How long? Does anyone know who she is?”
“Yes, we know who she is. She wore a locket, on the back of which a name had been engraved.” Sir William’s spectacles dropped to the carpet, where they bounced, the frames reflecting firelight. “Dash, it was Amanda Westmoreland.”
“Amanda,” Dash repeated. Glossy mahogany curls and blue eyes that exuded calm and confidence. The touch of her slender hand on his forearm as they strolled together, as she conversed easily and they shared a warm laugh. Amanda had been lovely. Exquisite. “She eloped to Gretna. With the estate steward’s son. Left a note.”
“Obviously she did not get that far.”
A woman he’d kissed. A woman he might have married—if he hadn’t been so blasted afraid his uncle might kill her as part of his plan to get the title. “It’s been ten years.” His voice echoed in the library—it didn’t sound like his voice. Too sharp. The words shaky. “Why now? Why had no one found her before?”
“She was buried, it appears, though the grave was shallow. It appeared to have been freshly dug.”
“Someone moved her body after all these years? Brought her here? From where?” He pushed himself up from the desk and paced, needing to move. His hands clenched and opened. “You knew her.” He swung around on Sir William. “You knew how lovely she was.”
“Indeed.” The magistrate inclined his head, slid on his spectacles. “She cared for you very deeply, Dashiel.”
“What’s the idea here? That I did it?” He dropped his head into his hands. “Christ Jesus, it was probably my uncle. He would be afraid I’d marry and Amanda would have borne an heir. I told her I couldn’t marry. I was afraid I’d break her heart, but she merely kissed me on the cheek and told me it didn’t matter. That there was someone else, someone she was in love with and she wished to marry. And you’re wrong, Sir William, Amanda was not in love with me.”
Sir William pursed his lips, picked up the brandy snifter. “I do believe you are wrong about that. I would imagine the young lady had a great deal of pride.”
Pride? Had that been it? He’d hurt her, but she’d been too controlled a lady to burst into tears or slap him or shout at him?
“And then, within three days, she was gone. As was the steward’s son. Did he do it? Or are his bones buried somewhere?” Pain sliced through Dash’s head, his heart. He’d thought he’d protected Amanda by sending her away. He’d walked into his uncle’s study and told the blackguard he had no intention of marrying, in the hopes of keeping her safe.
But she’d been lost. He hated to imagine what was left of her, buried for ten years. All that life, all that loveliness—lost. A beautiful life cut short.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand. I wasn’t going to marry her. There was no reason for her to be hurt.” Cold fear slid through his veins. “Maryanne,” he said. “Maryanne is why I have to deal with this. I have to end this.”
“Ah, your wife. Do you trust her?”
He frowned. “Any reason why I should not?” He had wanted to tell Sir William she was Verity. That he wasn’t certain whether he could trust her or not. But Sir William’s question provoked the need to defend her. “I want to believe her,” he muttered. It was the hell of it. Wanting to trust, needing to trust, but hesitating, knowing he could not.
“Your wife is a gently bred young woman,” Sir William mused. “I doubt she could be involved.”
He must be mad, Dash thought, to have suspected she could be. But he couldn’t shake away the wariness. Couldn’t lose the fear that the person he should trust most—his wife—was a stranger. And it would be so easy for her to work against him. “You have passed sentence on hundreds of guilty women—women who stole, who murdered, who lied. How can you tell who is guilty or not?”
“I weighed the evidence, Dashiel. And acquired experience from years on the bench. Most of those brought before me were obviously guilty and didn’t have the sense to hide it. But there was one time when I was mistaken. One woman who fooled me utterly and completely. I believed her plea of innocence and later learned I had been bewitched.” Sir William curled his hands around the carved arms of the chair, his grip hard as though anger still flowed at the memory of failure. “Do you believe your wife is lying to you?”
M
aryanne woke to the warmth of lips closing over hers. Her lashes fluttered up, and she caught just a glimpse of Dash’s enigmatic black eyes before he kissed her.
He kissed her breath away, and as he drew back, she let her eyes open slowly. Drawing out each moment made it more exquisite. Sharing her bed with Dash was the most wonderful pleasure, even though he’d joined her late and had merely cradled her close and fallen asleep.
He hadn’t made love to her.
The cloud-soft mattress settled beneath Maryanne as she rolled onto her back. Winter sunlight painted him with silver light touched lightly with gold—he’d obviously opened the curtains and slipped back into bed before waking her with the kiss.
Dash shared her smile with one that heated her to her toes; then he moved over her, easing his lean hips between her spread thighs. She caught her breath. The long muscles of his arms bulged as he braced his weight. Her ivory silk sheets had slid down to lay over the firm curve of his buttocks, revealing his wide shoulders, his muscular chest.
She slipped her hands up to his shoulders and wriggled beneath him, hoping the sinuous motion proved an invitation.
She wanted him so much.
But he wasn’t hard. She could tell where his groin pressed against hers. What was wrong?
Had she done something wrong?
Dash nuzzled her cheek, the caress so tender her throat tightened. But he lifted from his caress, his eyes serious. “Do you have any secrets, Maryanne?”
Startled, she caught her breath. She wanted to shake her head, but he stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “You can tell me anything, love. Trust me.”
“All wives keep secrets from their husbands.” She began lightheartedly, but she stopped. Her nipples, hard with arousal or possibly fear, brushed his chest. Fear and excitement and uncertainty made her dizzy. “Yes, I have a secret you should know about.” Her heart thudded in her chest, drowning out all sound.
His brows dipped. “You have nothing to fear, Maryanne. Tell me.”
If she paused any longer, she’d lose her courage, so she rushed in. “You know Venetia drew erotic art to save our family from poverty. I did something, too…but…but it only mired me in more trouble.” She wasn’t explaining well, but she didn’t dare stop.
But he made her pause by brushing his thumb along her lower lip. “What did you do?”
She knew she had to go on; she didn’t dare stop. “I met a courtesan. Georgiana Watson.”
His warm, slightly rough palm cupped her cheek, and sensation spiraled, stealing her breath. “How exactly did you meet a notorious courtesan?” he asked.
“At Hyde Park,” she admitted as her face flushed. “I would go there before the obligatory afternoon visits by the
ton
. I went to…to write. There was a secluded bench on which I would sit, beneath the trees, and struggle to put words to the page. And then Georgiana began to go, to meet a gentleman—a married earl whom she adored. I saw them meeting, I saw him kiss her hand and could feel the fiery need and desire between the two of them. She was head over heels in love. Once, she saw me seated on a bench, and she approached me. And we…we spoke.”
“And you didn’t run in preservation of your reputation?”
“No. No one was there to see us. And, given my family, how did I dare judge her?”
“I do adore you, sweet wife.”
I do adore you.
Did he? He threw the words out with a casual chuckle. Each of Georgiana’s titled protectors professed love. At first. And by the end of the affair, Georgiana would be throwing their clothes out of the bedroom window as the gentlemen demanded she move out of the house so the new mistress could move in.
Her mother had loved hopelessly, and so had Georgiana.
“What sort of things did you write, Maryanne? Did you write novels?”
Deep and throaty, his voice mesmerized her, and she said, “Yes. Like Miss Jane Austen,” without thinking. “Or so I desperately hoped. But I had not had a book published. I was too afraid to send one to a publisher. Georgiana was intrigued that I wrote and proposed an idea. She knew of so many jades who were growing older and needed to support themselves and their children.”
“Did you write books for Georgiana?”
“No, I edited the books written by the courtesans. And I was Georgiana’s partner in publishing. I wished to ensure our authors could earn a decent living.”
Dash bent and kissed her neck. Against the hollow of her throat, he murmured. “What sort of books do courtesans write?”
“We decided we must publish books that would sell well, so the courtesans wrote of their…intimate experiences.”
“That explains a great deal.”
Her heart leaped. “What? What does it explain?”
“How you could be a virgin who wished to make love in a notorious salon and in the basket of a hot-air balloon.”
She feared he’d be furious—instead he smiled as though bemused.
“Dash, I’m so sorry. I should have told you before we married. It all went wrong—terribly wrong. I thought I would help these women and help our family. But at first there was no money. Georgiana had a bit, but we accumulated debts. And our authors needed money, so…so I had our man of affairs send them money, rent them cottages, do want they needed to live. I thought the money would come eventually.”
“And it did not?”
“No. Any money that did…it had been spent so many times over, it barely touched the debts. Georgiana withdrew the money we did earn and spent it again.”
“So you have debts, you and your partner?” He slid his fingers down and tweaked her nipple.
Her voice failed her. She just couldn’t gaze into his sincere eyes and tell him she owed thousands of pounds.
“Wait here, love.”
With a brush of a kiss on her forehead, he was gone. Leaving her to stew. She must tell him. She must. But perhaps she should…arouse him first. Georgiana claimed that a woman could ask anything of a man when he was hard.
The door opened with a soft click, and Dash, in his robe, walked back in. Two leather-bound books were tucked under his arm.
Maryanne swallowed hard as he strolled to the bed. A light swing of his arm, and the books bounced onto the counterpane at her feet. Grinning, he dropped his robe and climbed up to join her. He reached for a book, balanced it in his huge palm on its spine, and lay beside her. “This one? Is this yours?” Dash’s wicked grin was both hopeful and lusty. “An uplifting read.”
“I edited the works. I did not write them. Though there was a scene or two I suggested—for development of the plot, of course.”
She could not tell if he wanted to tease her. His eyes glittered; lines bracketed his mouth, his dimple a deep shadow.
Her heart panged. Who was the author of the work that excited him? She held out her hand, and he laid the book there.
She read the spine. “Madame Desirée. Memoirs. They aren’t truly memoirs, you know.”
“Aren’t they? My innocence is shattered, love.”
“She’s very talented, isn’t she?” she said lightly. “Do you have other books she’s written? We published three.”
But he lazily stroked the curve of her hip beneath the sheets. “Who did the illustrations? Your sister?”
She shook her head. He owned her books. Why did it surprise her so much? Of course, he had an entire sexual past she knew almost nothing about. Part of her wished she knew everything he’d done, who had he done it with.
The sensible part knew she was better just to imagine.
Dash lifted the book from her hand, flipped the pages, and smiled down at the spread pages before him.
What was he looking at? What was he reading?
“Do you know what I think of when I read these words? When I look at the pictures?” he asked.
“Sex? Fantasy?”
“You. I would imagine us. I would think of sliding my fingers inside you as I read aloud to you. Or suckling your nipples. Or of you sitting on my cock, riding me as I read the erotic words aloud to you. And you, Maryanne, would you imagine yourself in the story? You might be the governess captured as a sex slave for a depraved earl. Or captured in a harem and I would charge to your rescue to find you had become the favorite of the experienced ladies there. And before we escape, we are treated to a wild orgy with a half dozen odalisques joining us.”
Maryanne was aflame. Her hands trembled as she accepted the book. On the left side was an illustration. A lady did these—a lady who was a grandmother, who had both her own young children and her grandchildren to feed.
In the picture a new maid was being introduced to the household. The novice was bound hand and foot. Her legs were folded beneath her so that her naked bottom stuck up in the air. Her face was buried between the thighs of a pretty lady’s maid who lay on the floor and pinched her own nipples. The housekeeper, who was a voluptuous wanton, held a long, curving dildo pointed toward the new girl’s cunny.
The shackles. If she wore her hands shackled and her ankles bound, she could be positioned that way. Completely available to her husband. His erotic prisoner.
She held the open volume out to him, and he took it.
“That picture. That intrigues me.”
The book slid from his fingers, pages fluttered as it crashed to the floor.
She’d shocked scandalous Lord Swansborough.
Wearing a grin worthy of a marauding pirate, Dash dangled the cuffs by the silver chains so the diamond-and-ruby encrusted clasps twirled before his astonishing wife. She ducked her head shyly, soft brown curls dangling around her face, but she gamely clambered up onto the daybed in the library and bent over like the maid in the picture. Dutifully she crossed her wrists behind her back, the picture of submission.
The black drapes framed her pale curves—the scoop inward at her waist, the rounded flare of her hips, the heart-shaped lushness of her bottom. All begged him to touch, to feast with fingertips first and then his lips, his mouth.
“Why does this intrigue you, Maryanne?” he murmured as he approached. He knew she would hear his boot soles slowly thunk along the floor, and he saw the almost imperceptible shiver she gave.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, head bowed. Then she looked up, curls spilling down her back. “Does it mean there is something wrong with me?”
He laughed. “No, love. I know you would not want this for real. But the game intrigues. It arouses you so strongly you can’t help but be tempted to just pretend…just for a little while.”
She nodded. “It is like reading the books, only it is so much more…because I am actually doing it.”
Stripping off his shirt, he cast the black linen to a chair. Cool air prickled over his skin and his dark nipples tightened. But the dominant was supposed to be immune to discomfort, for that was what entranced the submissive.
He strolled around, crossed his arms in front of his bare chest, and quirked a brow as he towered over his lovely, diminutive wife. “Are you ready to be bound?”
Frank brown eyes gazed at his face. “Yes, bind me.”
He crouched and cupped her chin. “If I do anything you do not wish, you can stop me with a word. It won’t be ‘no,’ for that word becomes meaningless in intense pleasure.”
Her hands slid off her back, so he tapped her cheek. “Hands.”
She put them back, again crossed at the wrists. “What do you wish me to say?”
“This is a word I don’t wish you to say, but a necessary one. If you want me to stop, say ‘desist.’”
She nodded, and he stood once more. He bent over her graceful naked back—heard her sharp breath—and clasped the shackles around her wrists. Her entire body stiffened, but he bent and kissed the curve of her spine. She relaxed, and he turned the key and slipped it into his pocket. Lined with velvet, the cuffs bit gently into the fine bones of her wrists.
He’d never expected to see a wife in this position.
Did she want to do this, or was she enduring it to please him?
Black silk. Dash twined the length of it around his wrist. Her skin was softer, more alluring than silk. Her beauty more precious.
She waited with her arms locked together and linked by a short silver chain, resting just above the shadowed valley of her bottom.
Maryanne. His wife, who trusted him. Who had revealed her dangerous secret to him—a partnership with a courtesan to publish erotic books.
Hell, unless she was an actress who could put the entire company of Drury Lane to shame, that was her true secret. Her only secret.
Unwinding the length of black silk, Dash looped it around her ankles and bound them together, dressing his arrangement with a bow. Normally he would draw out the torture for his submissive playmate, but this time, with Maryanne, he couldn’t control himself.
He slid his fingers between her smooth thighs and stroked her wet cunny. Her loud, surprised moan echoed throughout the quiet room.
“Oh!” she gasped. “It seems a terrible sin to moan in a library.”
“No, sweeting. I’ve known sin, and this isn’t it.” But his heart gave a pang at the innocence in her rich, soft voice. And he knew he didn’t want the game. Didn’t need it. He didn’t want to use sex to forget. He wanted sex to share intimacy—special, precious intimacy—with Maryanne. He wanted to gaze into her eyes as they joined. He wanted to kiss her lips, feel her hands embrace him.
He needed it.
Click!
He unlocked the shackles and took them off. Then undid the binding at her ankles. She twisted, surprised. “You don’t wish to play?”
Gently he rolled her onto the silk-cushioned daybed. “Not this time. No games. Just you and I, loving each other.”
Her arms locked around her neck, and she pulled him into a kiss.
It had never been like this. He’d never felt so…connected to a woman, not even to Maryanne before. He’d never known a woman reveal all her heart to him.
Last night, he’d drunk half the contents of the brandy decanter. Oblivion. He’d wanted to drink until his brain stopped working and the bloody guilt ceased pounding at his soul like a hammer.
He should have taken better care of Amanda. He should never have believed she’d run off to Gretna.