How To Vex A Viscount (11 page)

“I suppose that will do.” Daisy gnawed her lip thoughtfully. “I trust you, of course, Nanette, but I wonder if the other servants will spread tales of this little exploit of mine.”

“Rest your mind, mam’selle. Jerome and I have been with Madame most of our lives. We never carry tales, and believe me, we would have plenty to carry should we wish it. But we owe Madame our living. How could we betray her? Lord Wexford’s people, they feel the same. This house, she has many secrets, but she keeps them all, no?”

Daisy certainly hoped so. If word of this little farce ever came to light, she’d be ruined. Not that she minded so much for herself. Being unconventional had always appealed to her, even if it meant public censure.

But her family would be hurt, and there was her younger sister Lily to consider. It would be another couple years before she’d come out, and it wouldn’t do to have a cloud of taint hovering over her because of Daisy’s ill-advised romps. For fear of that, Daisy decided she’d end her association with Lucian as Blanche after tonight.

Then maybe he wouldn’t be so hasty about showing her the door as herself.

“However”—the maid interrupted her thoughts, cocking a delicate brow at her as she helped Daisy rise from the water and towel off—“Madame wished me to remind you that you made her a certain promise.”

“To guard my purity,” Daisy recited. “Have no worries on that score. Lord Rutland is only expecting kissing lessons from his paramour this evening.”

“Ah! But kisses quickly lead to other things,” Nanette said. “And kisses do not willingly confine themselves to the lips.”

Daisy hadn’t considered that. There were any number of places on her person that might enjoy the brush of Lucian’s mouth. Clearly she hadn’t read far enough in Blanche’s journal. Several of the naughty Roman images rose up to taunt her imagination.

But this was just a play. Daisy might flirt with passion, but she had no intention of succumbing to it. She was in perfect control.

“Well, tell Isabella not to be concerned,” Daisy said. “As you so wisely observed, this is how the game is played.”

“The game of love, mam’selle,” Nanette said with hooded eyes. “And sometimes the rules for that game sprout the wings and make to fly away. Come,
cherie.
I shall do your rice powder before you dress.”

Lucian slapped his gloves against his thigh for the umpteenth time. What the devil was keeping her?

He didn’t expect the earl or his wife to trouble themselves with him, but Blanche should have more consideration than to keep him cooling his heels in the Wexford parlour so long. He’d been working like a ditch digger all day, except for when his father had him playing at gold digger with the Bramley’s, and yet he managed to arrive on time, as promised.

He set the little Faunus statuette on Lady Wexford’s Louis Quatorze side table. It mocked him with a leering grin.

“For one glimpse behind her mask, you’d wait too, old son,” he grumbled to the goat-god.

His one regret in hurrying over here, he realized with surprise, was hustling Daisy Drake out of the study like an unwelcome guest. She’d proven her worth today by finding that little tidbit about Meritus. And her questions about the motive for the ancient robbery had set his thoughts racing in a new direction. Perhaps there was more to Daisy Drake than his experience with her pike hand proved.

Of course, as long as his father was on the rampage against her family, it wouldn’t do for Lucian to try to find out. He was beginning to seriously worry for his sire. Sometimes, late at night, he’d wake and hear his father, drunk and loud in the study below his bedchamber. He wondered if a physician’s leeches or purges would drain the venom from his father’s soul.

Finally, the little French maid came to collect him, and he pocketed the Faunus statue. To his delight, instead of being escorted into some other parlour, he was led up the curving staircase to the second level of Wexford’s grand residence.

The Promised Land,
he thought, anticipation tightening his gut. The maid dropped a curtsy and flashed a knowing grin before a closed door on the long corridor, then bustled away.

His hand actually trembled when he reached for the knob. It was still a minor miracle to him that a woman like Blanche
gave
him so much of her time. Since he didn’t have the coin to shower her with jewels as her other patrons had, he was determined to hold her interest by other means. He fingered the little Faunus in his pocket.

He hoped she’d find it clever instead of grotesque.

In the dim room lit by only a few tapers, Blanche was waiting for him. She lounged on the fainting couch, dressed in the most becoming dishabille. A beribboned camisole displayed her creamy décolletage.

Without nipples showing this time,
he realized with disappointment. Lucian decided in the next breath that it was good for a man to have a challenge.

He made a jaunty leg to her.

A lacy
casaque
flowed from her white shoulders to her hips. She seemed to have left off her hoops, for her long skirt completely covered her feet. No stolen glimpse of an ankle here, but he was more disappointed that she yet wore a wig and mask. However, when she extended her hand to him, he forgave her everything.

“Oh, Blanche, the day seemed so long,” he said as he dropped a kiss on her knuckles, taking in her exotic jasmine scent clear down to his toes.

“Did it?” she replied in French. “And I feared the hunting of treasure would be so fully engaging, you would forget all about your promise to visit me.”

“Nothing could keep me from your side.” He knew she understood English, but she seemed intent on holding their discourse in his third language. It had been years since he’d dreamed in Italian, his mother tongue, but he feared his schoolboy French wasn’t up to the task of dazzling this bird of paradise. But with any luck at all, they’d be communicating without need of words in no time.

Perhaps the French, like the mask and wig, was part of her allure. An air of mystery swirled about the woman like her expensive perfume. Lucian’s pulse quickened.

“You did not find that which you seek?” she asked.

“No, not today.” He suddenly remembered the goat-god in his pocket. “But we did find this. I promised you some naughty Roman art. I hope it pleases you.”

She accepted his gift with a smile. “Pan, is it not?”

“Pan to the Greeks, Faunus to the Romans,” Lucian explained, “but by either name, he’s a randy little fellow.”

“He is . . . gifted, no?” she said with a tinkling laugh as she drew a coy fingertip along Faunus’s erection from its base to the broken tip.

Lucian swelled to rival the little horned god, imagining that same teasing stroke on his own skin. Lord, he’d never thought to envy a chunk of fired clay.

“Yet Pan is not without flaw,” she observed, circling the broken tip of the statuette’s phallus.

He swallowed hard, willing his voice to sound even. “It’s rare to find a bit of antiquity that isn’t a bit flawed.”

“Or a person either.”

“I think I found one.” He leaned toward her. “You.”

She laughed. “Perfection is not one of my gifts.”

“I believe it is,” he said. “And though I confess to extreme curiosity over your hidden gifts, I find the ones I can see nearly perfect.”

“Only ‘nearly’?” She swept her feet to the floor and patted the spot beside her on the couch.

“One thing would improve upon your perfection.” He settled beside her without further coaxing. “Having you in my arms.”

“Clever boy,” she purred as she set the figurine of the goat-god on her silk-covered side table. “And yet, a woman should be wary of climbing to such a high pedestal as perfection. It seems a long way to fall.”

“I’d catch you.”

Her little tongue darted out and swept her bottom lip. His belly tightened in response.

“I believe you would,” she said. “Let us make a test, shall we?”

And she slid her hands around him beneath his frock coat, sidling close. She tipped her head back. Behind her mask, her eyes, whose colour he still could not determine for the dimness of the room, fluttered closed.

His mouth descended on hers by finger widths, as though he were an unworthy pilgrim approaching a shrine. When he finally covered her softness, pleasure washed over him like a warm flood. He gave himself to the wave without a second thought.

“Love is a game. The trick is to make sure both parties win. Or at least believe they have won.”

—the journal of Blanche La Tour

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jupiter!
Lucian needed no kissing instructions. As far as Daisy could tell, the man already knew perfectly well how to kiss. Either that, or he was the sharpest pupil in history.

He cupped both her cheeks and changed the slant of his mouth across hers, applying a little more pressure. Daisy let her lips part the tiniest bit and his tongue invaded her, hot and questing.

What would Blanche do?

She’d welcome him, Daisy realized as she twined her tongue with his in a warm, wet sparring. She suckled him and heard his low groan. He stole all the breath from her lungs and replaced it sweetly with his own.

Everything inside her went soft and liquid. She turned the tables on him and slipped her tongue into his mouth to explore. He mirrored the welcome she gave him.

She ran a hand up the indentation of his spine and he shifted closer. His hands left her cheeks, sliding along the sides of her neck and down to her shoulders. Very gently he pushed the frilly
casaque
off to slip down her arms.

Then his kisses wandered down to her jawline. Tendrils of pleasure followed in their wake. He kissed his way along her neck to the soft indentation at the base of her throat, his warm breath streaming over her chest and sneaking between her breasts. Her stiff peaks ached.

She sighed his name.

“I like the sound of that.” He nibbled his way up to her earlobe. “The way you said my name. For a moment there, you didn’t sound a bit French.”

Jupiter again!
She forgot to pronounce it
Loo-see-ahn,
as Blanche would. At least, thank heaven, she’d used but a wisp of a voice, so the chances of his recognizing her were slim.

“And is it so bad, you think, that I am French?” she asked in Blanche’s language, using the moment as an excuse to pull back from him to a place of relative safety. Not too soon, either. He nearly had her trembling with need.

“Not a bit,” he said, his own tone ragged. “It’s just that my French isn’t the best, and it seems you use it to keep me at a distance.”

If that kiss was distant, she was lost if he got close.

“I think you’ve demonstrated that you have no need of my lessons on the art of the kiss,” she said, rising to her feet. She’d remembered at the last moment to insist on the high heels she’d worn before as Blanche. She tottered over and sat at the small table. “Please come and join me.”

His brows drew together, and she wondered if he’d discerned her secret. Other than the brief slip when she practically moaned his name, she couldn’t point to any un-courtesan-like behaviour.

Then he rose from the fainting couch and took the other chair at the table.

“Nanette will be bringing a bite of supper for us soon,” she informed him. “I do hope you have an appetite.”

“That, mademoiselle, is not in doubt.”

His rakish grin told her that food was the last thing on his mind. She opened the deck of cards and executed a perfect shuffle. Holding the cards felt safe, as though the fifty-two thin pieces of paper were somehow shields.

“You would perhaps enjoy a game while we wait?” she asked.

“Only if it’s a game of chance,” he said.

“And what will you wager?” Daisy wondered. If his financial state was as bad as she thought, gambling was not the wisest course.

“Right now, you and I are partners in my search for the Roman treasure, split in half when we find it,” he said. “For each hand I lose, one percent more of the money we find will be yours.”

“Ah! And if I lose, that one percent shifts to you,” she guessed.

“No.” A slow smile spread across his face. “I’ll take my winnings now in satin.”

“How do you mean?” she asked, thankful he couldn’t see her puzzled frown behind the half mask.

He reached forward and gave the top ribbon on her camisole a tug. The knot gave and her bodice sagged open enough to bare the meeting place of her breasts above her pounding heart.

“Do we have a wager?” he asked. “Or are you afraid you’ll lose?”

A true
fille de joie
wouldn’t be able to resist such a naughty game.

“Ah!
Monsieur le Vicomte,
either way I win.” Daisy shuffled the cards with more bravado than she felt and dealt the hand.

She lost the first round and, with resignation, started to untie the next ribbon.

“No, no,” he said. “Allow me.”

Very slowly he pulled the end of the bow, and Daisy felt her supportive camisole give a bit. More of her breasts spilled out. Still not as much as he’d already seen that first night at the masquerade, but enough that the heat of his gaze made her skin flush rosily.