Maryanne’s cheeks were hot as she returned to Dash holding her muslin wrapped package “I smuggled it in—and it was the very devil to do so. I couldn’t risk having a maid find it during the unpacking. But I have a small compartment in my case.”
Dash’s mind ran riot. A whip? A large dildo? What would be Maryanne’s secret? Slowly she drew the muslin down, revealing curled pages, and then finally she flicked the translucent material away to reveal a stack of paper with an ivory ribbon tied around it. She picked it up, cradled it, and then handed it to him.
Handwriting, tight and neat, covered the first page. The writing angled in every direction as though the notes had been added haphazardly and at different times. Then he picked out the words:
A Novel by M. Hamilton
.
“This is your book. You wrote all this yourself?” He patted the bed beside him.
“Yes.” She laughed.
But it still seemed miraculous to him. That she had created a story and diligently set all these words to the page.
“No one has ever read it before. I’ve never shown it to anyone. I was always too afraid to let anyone see it. But I would like you to read it.” She ducked her head, cheeks pink. “You see, it is an erotic story.”
“Hell,” he muttered, instantly erect, lusty, yet completely astonished.
“You must wonder why I did it,” she hurried on. “And I really cannot say. I edited those stories for the courtesans who wrote for us, and I…I felt a compulsion to put down words myself. To tell a story. Of course, since it is an erotic story, I was hampered by a certain lack of experience.” She stood by the bedpost, her arm curled around it.
Too shy to join him while he read her book? “Not anymore.” He grinned, sat up, and spread his legs. “Come and cuddle between my thighs while I read.”
“I don’t know. You may find parts that are…silly.”
“I doubt that, love.”
“Or physically impossible.”
God, he was hard with anticipation. As he turned to the first page, he watched Maryanne. A curl brushed her cheek, she looked so sweetly demure. Then he looked to the first lines.
I was brought into the ballroom by my guardian, his lordship. Gauche in my uncertainty, I feared only one thing—disappointing him. He had dressed me in a low-necked gown of white, gauzy silk, one that revealed my every curve when I stood in front of candlelight! A fanciful corset trimmed in scarlet narrowed my waist until it was merely as wide as the span of my hand. My breasts, youthful and firm, spilled over the top.
And his lordship had the advantage of height—he could see down my dress. That made me blush, yet excited me, too. I wanted him to look.
I imagined the scene before I stepped through the doors. Thousands of candles! Dazzling debutantes in soft, brilliant silk, breezing through the gathering like flickering flames. And the gentlemen. Surely there would be handsome gentlemen to charm lovely ladies.
Oh, the room was indeed bathed with light. But the women were nude. And bound with lengths of black silk. Rows and rows of nude, bound women crouched on their knees, waiting to pleasure gentlemen with their mouths.
Startled, confused, and oddly hot, I looked to my guardian. My heart beat faster as his lordship grinned, as unabashed at the sight of depravity and sin as the Devil.
“Welcome, sweet nymph, to pleasure—”
Entranced, Dash had to breathe deeply to slow his heart. “A sweet innocent in the power of a debauched rake?”
“It is not us.” She jumped on the bed finally, vehemently shaking her head. “I didn’t even…” A smile warbled on her lips. “I’m supposed to be ‘Verity,’ and the truth is that I did fantasize about you—for months before we ‘met’ at the hunt. But you aren’t the devilish lordship in…” She sighed and crawled between his legs. “All right, you are.”
Dash was touched to his soul.
“This is the point where I should put your story aside and make love to you until you scream my name and faint with passion,” he teased. “But I have to admit, your story is too enticing to put down.” And he read, “‘He walked me up and down the rows to observe the way the women delightedly sucked the men’s swollen and rigid members. He remarked on the different techniques used by each courtesan. There were those that paid greatest attention to the head with lips and tongue and even teeth. And those that took the entire beast down the throats, as their eyes watered. It hardly seemed pleasurable, but it excited his lordship. His trousers tented out in front and—’”
“Stop,” Maryanne admonished. “I hoped to sell many books and knew, of course, that I must depict male fantasies. But it sounds rather silly when you read it.”
“I think you like making sport of male fantasies.”
She smiled. “That is true.”
He laid down the book. “Why not tell your fantasies? Why not reveal what a woman really wants?”
“Georgiana told me that a man would only want to publish fantasies that appealed to men—and our publisher, who actually typeset and created the books, was a gentleman, of course. That was why we had to be so subversive about showing how women reach orgasm.”
Dash laughed. “I would like to know how to please you. How to give you your fantasies.”
“But you already do.” Brows drawn together, she pointed at the manuscript pages. “You are the hero of the story. You are my fantasy.”
His heart simply ceased to beat.
“I love this,” Maryanne whispered. “Being able to tease you. I would have never dared do this before meeting you.”
“I can’t believe that. You’ve always been bravely outspoken.” He undid the belt of her wrapper, caught his breath as he flung open the sides and drank in the sight of her lovely, curvaceous, nude figure.
Smiling shyly, she fumbled with the buttons on his trousers. He helped her. “I wasn’t though, truly,” she remarked as she freed his cock. “I was only a saucy piece with you.”
She stroked his shaft, and he dropped his head, eyes shut tight.
“Good,” Dash murmured. “Because you, my love, are my fantasy. I fantasized about finding love, having a family of my own. A happy family. It seemed a dream I could never have.”
He slid off the bed, darted around it with his hard cock jutting out. Her feet dangled over the edge of the bed, and suddenly, because he knew he should, he dropped to one knee in front of them, in the classic stance.
“What are you doing?”
“Proposing.”
“But you already did.”
“But I didn’t ask the right question last time.” Dash had hoped to form the right one, but his heart hammered too hard. “Maryanne, will you marry me and become my wife because I love you and because I cannot imagine living without you? You agreed to marry me out of duty. Now I’m asking you out of love.”
“Oh, dear!”
Not the reaction he’d hoped for. “What?”
“I’ve forgotten what you actually said the first time. That’s terrible, isn’t it? You would think a woman would remember the words for the rest of her—”
“Maryanne, you haven’t answered me yet.”
“Yes, of course. Yes.” Her voice wavered, rich and aching with joy. Tears sparkled in her large brown eyes. “Yes because I love you.”
“I want to protect you for the rest of my life,” he vowed.
But she shook her head. “The point of marriage is that we protect and nurture each other.”
“Remember these words for the rest of your life, Maryanne. I love you.”
She grasped his wrist and tugged him up, so Dash obeyed and joined Maryanne on her bed. “I’d like to read a little more of your story.”
But she shook her head and playfully pushed him back on the bed. “I’d much rather act out our fantasies for real.”
“One of mine is you on top,” he suggested hopefully. And Dash groaned as she climbed on top of him and took his cock inside her, joining them.
She rode him, her body lit by sunlight, her face beautiful in pleasure. They arched together, slowly, languorously, and he wanted this—to spend a decadent afternoon in bed. Making love. Ah, he couldn’t ask for a better Christmas.
He cupped Maryanne’s face as she rocked on his shaft. “You took away the pain of my past and showed me that all that matters is now and the future. Our future. Our family. And love.”
And then she bent and kissed him.
Perfect happiness.
Forever after.
T
he door opened, and her abigail stepped back. Reflected in the mirror, Maryanne saw the girl dip in an obedient, if awed, curtsy, and then hasten to the door as Dash strode in. She understood the girl’s trembling movements. He wore the most wicked smile. A heartbreaking smile.
“Lovely gown,” he said. “Now take it off.”
“Take it off? But we have supper guests. Have you forgotten there is to be a ball?”
“Sex first. Balls afterward.”
“Sex! We can’t have sex.”
“I am both husband and viscount. I can command you to have sex. And I can’t resist you or your lovely, remarkable, plump breasts anymore.”
She sighed. Her breasts were huge now that she was feeding Charles, and Dash could not keep his hands off them. Though he had to be very, very gentle. “We’ll smell of it,” she protested. “It will be obvious to our guests—”
“We are married. We have a child—a beautiful, perfect son. Unless you had an immaculate conception, which leaves me out in the stable, I suspect they know how you came to have a baby.”
Maryanne laughed helplessly as Dash pulled out a length of black silk from his pocket.
“What are you doing?” she protested as he prowled behind her and lifted the black silk to her eyes.
He draped the fabric over them, and she blinked, her lashes brushing softness.
“I love you,” he murmured.
She stilled. Those simple words still had the power to make everything stop.
“Do you trust me?” he whispered.
“Yes, you know I do.” She reached up and pulled off the blindfold. To her surprise Dash stood across the room holding a tiny wooden toy in his outstretched palm. It was a miniature horse with carved mane and tail, brightly painted with an endearing smile. Shyly Dash said, “I made this—for Charles.”
“You made this?” She was astonished.
“You can write an entire book—I thought a viscount should be capable of carving a toy.”
“It’s lovely, Dash. Charles will adore it.” She brushed at tears with the strip of silk as she imagined Charles’s sweet, toothless smile as he clutched his new toy. “You are such a good father.” And he was. He had been there at the birth to help her bring their son into the world. He had held her hand, encouraged her, soothed her, and gave her courage and strength.
As she’d squeezed his hand and pushed once more, then once more again, and “once more” for a few more times, she’d realized how deeply she trusted Dash.
“I know Rodesson was proud to have our child carry his name.”
Maryanne took a shaky breath, trying to hold back tears. “And thank you so much, Dash, for being willing to do so.”
He grinned. “I’m not afraid of a little scandal, my love.”
“You do realize you will have to carve another of these—”
His brows shot up in astonishment, and she rushed to him and grasped his hand. “No, not for me! Not yet. For Anne.”
“Anne?” He rocked back on his heels.
“She’s expecting another child, Dash. She wrote me to tell me. She is already about six months along—she’s been hiding it from you. She told me you would be impossible and commanding if you knew, so I should not tell you.” Maryanne gave a shy grin. “But she will have to be angry with me—I can’t keep secrets from you.”
Impulsively she rushed to Dash, and he caught her to him in a strong embrace.
“I’m sure all will go well this time,” she whispered, pressed to his hard body. “And I received a letter from Juliette—Lady Farthingale. She is with family in Hertfordshire and is recovering. It is slow progress—those three months had broken her—but I think she is finding her strength again.”
Dash brushed a kiss to the top of her head. “Venetia and Marcus are expecting another babe. And your mother and father are enjoying the pleasures of Italy.”
“And now it is Grace’s turn,” Maryanne added. “I hope Grace settles on a wonderful man and has a normal, safe courtship.”
Dash groaned. “I doubt it.”
“Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered. “And give Charles a kiss before dinner. And then we can come back here and make love.”
She felt Dash’s heartbeat speed up. Wearing a wicked smile, he took the piece of silk from her hand and dangled it before her eyes. “After all,” he murmured as he bent to her mouth, “with a little bit of black silk, the possibilities are endless.”
Turn the page for
Sharon Page’s next book,
HOT SILK!
Coming soon from Aphrodisia!
G
race shrank back against the papered wall of the hallway, fighting the hot bile that clawed at her throat. He’d shared his horrible plans with Wynsome all along. It had been a joke, a wager, perhaps. And she’d stumbled right into it, a stupid, gullible girl.
How many other
gentlemen
knew? Did they all?
“She’s a treat,” Lord Wesley said with callous triumph. “Every bit as good as I conjectured, given that she was a virgin. A born trollop. And, as you will note, she makes my twentieth virgin of the year. Your blunt is at risk, Wynsome. I’ll have bedded a hundred by Christmas.”
She felt pinned to the wall by their appalling cruelty. This was sport to them.
“The rest of the club will be astounded. There’s many who wagered more than they could afford, certain you’d never claim one hundred gently bred virgins.”
The rest of the
club
? There were others, possibly dozens, of men involved in this? Men who would all talk of her ruination? This would destroy her. Oh God, what had she done?
All of society would know—every gentleman who had treated her as a gently bred young marriage prospect. Wynsome knew—would he tell the Earl of Warren about it? Would the handsome, white-haired earl sneer at her, calling her the horrid names he had used on her mother?
“What have you done, my dear?”
Grace gave a strangled scream at the deep male voice that repeated the very question she’d asked herself.
Devlin Sharpe had seen many frightened women in his day. Terrified women. Desperate women. He had seen the eyes of women as they stood on the gallows and waited for the platform to drop away.
But he’d never seen such a mix of fear and loathing and anger shooting from such beautiful and determined eyes. Of course, he did not think he’d ever seen such an intriguing woman before—an intoxicating, alluring mix of angelic golden hair, pretty features, and enticingly carnal curves.
He held the lovely blonde’s gaze, aware from the way her eyes darted and her lips trembled that she intended to lie to him. “Don’t lie,” he warned. “Don’t give me a weak story and try to run away. I want the truth. I want to know what—or who—has hurt you.”
She straightened away from the wall and Devlin knew exactly what had happened. Her small fingers were curled around the crumpled sky-blue silk of her bodice, holding it up over her generous breasts. Beneath the wall sconce, her soft hair was gleaming gold and poured in disheveled curls over her shoulders and down her back. A tear still clung to her lashes of her red-rimmed green eyes. She smelled of sex.
Hearing his half-brother’s mocking laugh from the study was the final piece of evidence. “Did he rape you? Or just seduce you?”
Furious at his damned brother, he’d let a snarl creep in and she drew back. “I should go,” she whispered.
“Not through the corridors of a crowded house with your dress hanging off you. Come with me.”
“Why?” Her golden brows drew together in suspicion.
Now
the woman was cautious.
“I can negotiate this house without anyone seeing us.”
Obviously she could not understand why any man would wish to do her a kindness. She took another step away from him. “You…you are a highwayman, aren’t you?”
“Of course I would never admit to that, Miss…what is your name, by the way?”
Since he’d first spotted her startling golden hair in the ballroom, and then indulged himself with a good look at the rest of her, he’d wondered. None of his father’s servants had obliged him with a name—they’d been more interested in tossing him out on the gravel drive.
Pity they did not know the secret entrances to the house as he did.
“Your name,” he repeated.
“If I do not tell you, it will be one less man who knows.” Her lips formed a sneer at that, and he knew she meant her anger for herself.
What was it with some women that they absorbed their anger, instead of using it for some good? His mother had been like that—taking every blasted insult and slap his father had bestowed upon her and swallowing it up herself.
“I know my half-brother,” Devlin stated, determined to place blame where it lay. “What did he promise you?”
She shook her head. “It hardly matters what he promised me. I should have known he did not mean to stand by his words. I, of all people, should know that—” She stopped abruptly. “Did you murder Lady Prudence’s lover, or is that something you will also not admit to?”
Murder? Hell, so that was the way the gossipmongers had described it. Since that had been his reason for returning here, it struck him on the raw. “I shot him in a duel,” he said brusquely. “It was all damnably honorable—and I lay stress on the word
honorable
. It was also deserved. Not legal, of course, but I doubt that will be the crime I’ll ultimately swing for. It was not murder. I am not asking you to follow me for nefarious reasons, love—and I do need a name to call you, or you will have to listen to endearments all the way up the stairs.”
She goggled at him, as young women so often did, but from the slight curve of her lips—immediately quelled—he knew she’d followed his quick speech. “Hamilton. My name is Grace Hamilton.”
Devlin took a step backward and crooked his finger. “Trust me, Miss Hamilton. You cannot stay out here with your gown half off. And even if I button it for you—”
“I know. I look far too obviously like a harlot.”
She’d tried his patience too far. More roughly than he should, he caught hold of her wrist and forced her to follow him down the hallway. She dragged her heels but had no choice. A thump of his fist against the appropriate molding produced a
snick
and he pried open the secret panel. “In there—there’s a hidden staircase to the upper floors. I apologize in advance for the cobwebs and the dust.”
Plain fear showed in her large, round eyes. Blast. “I have no intention of hurting you, Miss Hamilton. But I promise you, if Wesley took your innocence, he’ll marry you.”
She paused at the foot of the stairs. “You cannot force him to.”
Devlin waved his hand to encourage her to get up the stairs. “A man with a pistol at his back can be forced to do anything.”
But she laid a slender, bare hand on the rickety balustrade. “I don’t want that. I don’t want to marry him. I just want to…to turn back time.”
“Sweeting—”
She stomped her slipper on the worn floor, the thump swallowed up by the stale air. “Don’t. My name is Grace. I told you what it was and I want you to use it. Don’t call me names like that.”
A strand of a spider’s web dangled in front of her face, but she flinched as he brushed it way. The way she’d recoiled made him want to rip out Wesley’s sorry guts. Gently, he shook his head, wearing what he hoped was a soothing smile. “I cannot call you Grace. That is an intimacy a man like me is not allowed. I can call you ‘love’ or ‘sweetheart’ and live up to my audacious nature, or I can call you ‘Miss Hamilton,’ showing you due respect.”
He’d hoped to relax her by making her laugh but she threw up her hands. Which meant her bodice gaped. He caught a glimpse of lush ivory curves with a deep shadowed valley between. His throat dried and his blood rushed down to his cock, making it instantly as hard as iron.
“I don’t want due respect!” she cried. “Nor do I want to be an anonymous ‘love.’ I want—Oh, this is ridiculous. What does it matter what you call me? I can imagine what everyone else will call me.”
With that, she turned and began to clomp up the stairs.
“A little quieter, Miss Hamilton,” he advised, though he hated quenching her spirited anger. It was just what she needed—the best remedy for humiliation. “A little discretion will keep our secret a secret.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered ahead, to the dark and the cobwebs. “Why would you help me?”
“I might be a highwayman, but there are certain things I do not steal.”
“Like a woman’s virtue?” Disbelief rang in her voice.
“Like a woman’s heart. Now tell me your story. All of it.”
APHRODISIA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
850 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Copyright © 2008 by Sharon Page
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 0-7582-3091-5