This was not a game that a woman should play with someone she did not trust, he had explained. He trusted her agreement meant she did trust him, and she was not just seeing how bold she could be tonight.
He left the bed and moved the sheet down, uncovering her. He looked at her ivory form, so elegant in its length. Facedown on the bed like that, her extended arms and legs made her back and bottom taut and perfect. She awed him and also incited a savage desire.
The waiting affected her. Slight flexes revealed her own arousal. She looked over her shoulder at him.
“Is this game ever played the other way?”
“No. It always works like this.”
She frowned. “I would think it could very easily be switched.”
What a rebellious notion. “It is a good thing I am here to teach you the proper way to sin, then.”
She rested her head on the pillow again. “Perhaps you only play it this way because you cannot trust a woman enough.”
“You are thinking too much. It is distracting you from how erotic this is.”
“I promise you that nothing has distracted me from that, Your Grace.” She looked back again, pointedly lowering her gaze down his body. “Nor has it distracted you at all, I see.”
Not at all. He got on the bed and knelt beside her. He kissed the small of her back, and her bottom rose instinctively. Need broke in him like a storm. He clenched his jaw while he found some control and settled between her thighs.
The sensation as he entered shook his essence. He could not believe what it did to him, how good it felt. It was not the first time he had that thought with her, either. He withdrew and entered again, to know it once more.
There is better to be had than you ever knew.
Yes, damn it.
It was the last clear thought he had. The storm permitted no more as it absorbed his mind and body. It obliterated all considerations of gentility too, being born, as it was, of her erotic submission.
Chapter Twenty-four
T
he new Marchioness of Wittonbury was a quiet woman of small stature and soulful eyes. She wore a white dinner dress that complemented her dark hair and a strand of pearls that she occasionally fingered and admired, as if she had just received them as a gift.
She seemed an intelligent woman too. Her English was not perfect, but she contributed to the conversation at dinner in her accented speech. Sometimes Daphne caught her looking at the marquess with touching warmth. They were clearly in love, and that alone gave the party a special joy that affected the whole evening.
Daphne had not known the marquess well. She had only seen him once before he left for the Continent, and his paralysis then had affected his body in various ways. The isolation it encouraged and his reclusive habits then had caused a sickly pallor.
Now his efforts to walk had obviously given him new strength. His gait was not natural yet, and he appeared in some pain at times, but with his wife at his side he entered Castleford’s home on his own and moved from the drawing room down to dinner on his own too.
They all went to the theater after dinner, except Audrianna and Summerhays, who returned home so Audrianna would not get overtired. The rest of them filled Castleford’s box at Drury Lane. The drama onstage proved forgettable, and a buzz of conversation moved through the boxes as people visited each other. Daphne could hear the conversations taking place beside them and below. Peterloo was much discussed, but so was the return of Wittonbury.
Castleford moved to her side just as Joanna approached him. Wittonbury sat in the front row, looking more like his brother Sebastian in this light than he probably had in years.
“Your Grace, you have my gratitude,” she said. She looked at her husband, and her gaze softened. “You have his too. This return has been—difficult. But needed, he believes. He says it is to introduce me to his family, but when he first met my father, he spoke of getting strong. Strong enough to—” She searched for the words in her memory. “Be brave outside.”
“Brave it out,” Castleford said.
“Yes, that was the words. It will be easier now, perhaps? After such great men show him friendship?”
“My reputation is not the best, Lady Wittonbury. My friendship is not known to rehabilitate men’s reputations. Quite the opposite. However, his brother and Hawkeswell are both respected and admired.”
She regarded him thoughtfully. “Perhaps you are too modest? I thank you for whatever you have tried to do tonight.”
She returned to her husband. Daphne tapped Castleford’s arm with her fan. “She is correct. You are too modest. Enough people fear you that they will not slight him now.”
“I assure you that most of society loathes me, not fears me.”
Actually, some parts of society adored him. The very best and highest parts. “Will you invite the prince regent to dine with him, as you did with Verity?”
“Perhaps. In a few months. If it appears necessary. Do you promise to join the party if I do? Perhaps I will make it a ball, so you can wear those diamonds.”
“If I am invited, perhaps I will attend.” She tapped his nose with her fan and moved to the back of the box to talk to Verity, who had pointedly caught her eye.
“It is all done,” Verity said quietly, her back to the wall while she watched for anyone who might overhear. “Audrianna has had the mail waylaid with no difficulty. She told me at dinner that all but two are affirmative.”
“Mystery and the chance for gossip must be compelling them. It is better than I expected.”
“Everyone is in place.” She took Daphne’s hand. “We are with you on this, but you must know that we worry for you. Even if you are successful, there will be no keeping this quiet. No living this down.”
No braving it out, either. “I will be glad for it, I think. I will be relieved when all the secrets are out.” She bent and kissed Verity’s cheek. “You of all of us understand that.”
The box door opened while Verity walked away. Daphne was going to follow her friend, when she saw Latham slip into the box.
He stood there, searching the faces. He startled when he realized she stood not three feet away.
“Ah, there you are. I thought I saw you up here.” He eased closer.
Castleford had sat and now lazily watched the play from his chair next to Celia. No one paid attention to the shadows at the back of the box.
“I heard you had left town,” Latham said. “Imagine my delight in getting your invitation.”
“I trust you will be discreet, as the letter asked.”
“Most discreet, dear. How wise of you to let that house, so you are not tainted by Wittonbury’s scandal or constrained by Lady Sebastian’s curiosity. I look forward to seeing your new home.” He peered at the back of Castleford’s head. “Does he know? He won’t like it.”
“The duke could not care less about anything. Where I live and whom I entertain does not signify to him.”
Latham laughed lowly. “Lost interest already, did he?”
“He could not lose interest he never had.”
“I know him as well as I know myself, Daphne. We were inseparable as boys, and I can still read his thoughts, for all his pose of indifference. You caught his eye, my dear. But as I think you have learned, his gaze never rests in one place long.” His eyes narrowed on Castleford. “Pity that you bored him so quickly. Having bested him on that land, I would not mind seeing his face when I stole you from him too.”
His voice made her skin crawl. She hid the shiver and feigned confusion. “Land? Are you being clever again?”
“He thought to be clever, not me, and enrich himself even more, through a spot of land my father left him. But I have got what was rightfully mine back. It cost me much more than it should, but that will be a pittance once I start bringing out the silver that is in the ground.” He grinned like a naughty boy. “He’ll be out hundreds of thousands before it is over.”
She glared at Castleford’s head. Latham was talking about The Rarest Blooms. Castleford had
sold her home
. To Latham!
“He can be too clever by half sometimes, can’t he?” She turned to Latham. “Regrettably, you cannot checkmate him again. It is true he was briefly interested, but it was the shortest pursuit in the world’s history.”
“Not because you were easily caught, I hope.”
“I am never easily caught, Gerome.”
“Well, perhaps not anymore.” He chuckled at his humor.
It was all she could do not to slap him. Instead she opened her fan so her outrage might not show. “You must leave now. I do not want my friends to notice you here.”
“Of course. Until tomorrow, Daphne.”
She feared he was about to try to steal a kiss. She walked forward, toward her friends, before he got the chance.
“Y
ou sold my home because
it was a Tuesday
?” Daphne glared at him across his dressing room.
He took a moment to admire her high color and note again how strong emotion became her. Ideally that emotion would not be fury directed at him, of course.
“Actually, I would have sold it any day of the week, under the circumstances.”
That did not appease her, needless to say. She strode back and forth, and not gracefully.
“When were you going to tell me this?”
“Soon. Tonight. Or tomorrow. Soon, though.”
She stomped her foot. She came at him so angrily that he really thought she would hit him.
Instead she just looked in his eyes, and her fury changed to dismay and hurt.
Hell, she was going to weep.
“Why?” It sounded like a plea.
“Listen to me. Can you do that? Can you call forth the sensible Daphne just for a moment?” He took her face in his hands. “I did not seek this. He got it in his head that he had to have that land. He is convinced it holds untold riches in its ground and would not hear otherwise.”
“Silver?”
“Silver. Gold. Iron. The rumors abound. He was so convinced that he was ready to contest the will to block my use or sale of it. So I turned his conceit back on him and made him pay dearly for what he demanded.”
Her brow puckered. “How dearly?”
“By the time negotiations were completed, we had settled on eighty thousand pounds.”
Her eyes widened. “What is it actually worth?”
“No more than five, and that is being generous.”
She pondered that, her indignation well gone now. Deciding the worst was over, he removed his waistcoat and went to work on his cravat.
“You are very sure that there is nothing of value there?” she asked.
“Only soil well suited to growing flowers.”
“How very odd that everyone assumes otherwise.”
“There is no accounting for it. I kept telling them the truth, but no one would hear me.”
She came over and finished untying his cravat. She used the two ends to pull his head down so she looked right in his eyes. “Castleford, have you been bad? Does mama have to punish you?”
He pried the ends of the cravat out of her hand. “If it is bad to let an ass be an idiot, I am guilty. As for that other question—I do not care for the mother game. I have never understood why some men do. I think it is distasteful on the hearing of it, and probably perverse in the doing.”
She looked startled. “There is actually such a game? How odd. Who would think of such a thing?”
“Daphne, whatever you could think of in your wildest imagination, there is a game for it and probably has been for a thousand years.” He pulled off his shirt and advanced on her. “For example, there is the lovely lady taken up against the wall game. I’ll show you how it is played.”
S
he listened to his heart beat while her own blood slowed. She loved lying like this, on top of him, surrounded by his arms and listening to his life and his breaths. It was one of the best intimacies, and very sweet after pleasure’s frenzy.
“You do know that I will keep my word,” he said. His hand stroked through her hair. “There is a good farm just over the Surrey line. Not far from where you are now, actually. I will have everything you have built moved there. We will put that eighty thousand in trust for you too, so you are never dependent again.”
“I knew that you would be good to your word. I did not doubt that.”
“Then you do not mind too much? It is another ten miles out. It will be harder for you to visit The Rarest Blooms in one day.”
“I will not be visiting. I will be living there.” She waited for him to argue or to sigh. Neither came.
I will be living there, and very soon you will be glad for it.
“When do you think Latham will know that he paid all that money for nothing more than a moderate-size farm?”