Ripe for Scandal (15 page)

B
eau stretched and ran a possessive eye over her husband. He might call this a marriage of convenience but she was afraid that
she was half in love with him already. Always had been. Just one small push from tumbling all the way… It would be so easy.

It might even be easy to convince herself that he felt the same way. He was certainly prodigiously interested in bedding her.
He rolled over and reached for her sleepily. Beau plucked a sponge out of the jar, slipped it inside her, and slid her leg
over his hip to straddle him.

His cock was trapped between them, hard, straining, ready. Beau rocked her hips slowly, waiting for Gareth to open his eyes.
He was smiling, hands on her thighs, but she wasn’t entirely sure that he was awake.

She leaned forward, breasts brushing across his chest, nipples pebbling. She ran her lips along his jaw, gripped his shaft,
and guided him into her. Gareth’s eyes flew open, shock quickly replaced by gratification.

Their hips met, and Beau moaned as he flexed upward, filling her. “Finally awake?” she said.

He groaned in response, hands moving up to grip her hips. Beau splayed her hands across his chest for balance and began to
move, barely. Really, it was enough to take in the sensation of having him inside her, the slight friction of her swollen
clitoris against his pubic bone. There was something delightful about going from nearly full to almost too full and back again,
over and over and over as her body adjusted and took him deeper with every thrust.

“Have a little mercy,” Gareth said.

Beau ignored him, not altering the pace. Her hands and feet were tingling. Her pulse had spread outward to encompass her womb.
She spread her thighs wider, reaching for the last infinitesimal inch of him.

Her climax was soft, just like their joining. Gareth ground himself against her as her body pulsed around his. His hands gripped
her, forcing a new, harder pace. Beau bit the heel of her hand as she came a second time, and Gareth spilled himself into
her with his own release.

“Good morning, wife.”

His hands were on her bottom, holding her firmly in place. His lips found her nipple, and he flicked his tongue over it. Beau
arched in response, the sensitive, swollen flesh between her thighs throbbing almost painfully with every tiny motion.

“We leave for London in a few hours,” he said, one hand trailing up her body to cover her other breast. He found her nipple
again and sucked hard, drawing her
breast into his mouth until she could feel the slight abrasion of teeth.

“Yes.” Her answer came out in a breathy gasp, the one word all that she could manage.

“Shall we see how many times I can make you come before then?”

“Yes.”

His thumb slicked over the tight peak just above where their bodies joined. “How about on the road? Shall we carry the game
over to the trip itself?”

Beau moaned, unable to speak.

“Was that a yes?” Gareth lifted her, pushing her up until only the head of his cock was still inside her, holding his place,
driving her mad.

“Yes.”

He pulled her back down, hard, bodies colliding with enough force to make her quake with the need to do it again. She pushed
off the bed, slammed back down. Gareth bit her breast hard enough to almost distract her, but the shiver of almost-pain merely
tipped her ever closer to her release.

Gareth let go of her breast and wrapped his arms around her, hands curled up over her shoulders. She pushed up, and he yanked
her back down. She came sobbing his name.

“Again?” he said, withdrawing from her, hand replacing his cock, fingers delving inside her.

“Can’t.”

He tumbled her onto her back. “Of course you can.”

“Can’t. Impossible.”

“One more time, love.” He pushed in another finger,
hand working rhythmically between her legs. “Once more.”

“Bastard,” Beau said, having trouble getting her tongue around the word. Gareth grinned and kissed her, his mouth covering
hers as her breathing hitched and her climax roared through her.

CHAPTER 19

G
ranby finished Nowlin’s letter, dropped the sheet of foolscap into the fire, and swept everything on the mantle onto the floor
with one clean motion. Porcelain shattered into dust. The expensive, ormolu clock broke apart on the fender. The branch of
candles splattered wax all over the hearth.

“Bitch!” Granby let the single word carry him along. Lady Boudicea was married. Married to the son of an earl, no less. His
plans were in ruins.

At the sound of a strangled sob, Granby spun around. Nowlin’s stupid sister leapt off the settee and fled the room in a welter
of tears. Granby slammed the door behind her. The girl had gone from tiresome to annoying. It wasn’t even any fun to bed her.
And if he had to look at her whey-faced countenance for weeks to come… Well, he wasn’t sure that he could.

Married. His hand shook. She’d led him to believe she’d loved him once. He touched the patch that covered his eye. She’d flirted
and fawned and all but offered
herself to him, only to change her mind when he’d done what any man would do with such an offer on the table.

The clipping of the announcement began to char atop the coals and then went up in a flash. Granby watched it burn, taking
his plans for revenge with it.

He toed the coals, and the blackened paper broke apart, disappearing completely. This couldn’t stand. She couldn’t be allowed
to buy her way out of ruin so easily. She owed him—an eye for an eye—and he had every intention of collecting that debt, one
way or another.

CHAPTER 20

B
eau had expected to enjoy their time in London. There might be scandal attached to them, but a marriage had a way of cooling
even the hottest scandal broth. What she hadn’t counted on was Leo’s continued pig-headedness.

While she and Gareth had been cavorting at Dyrham, her brother had been blackening Gareth’s name with their mutual friends.
And he’d done a thorough job of it.

Gareth came home to her family’s house in Pall Mall with a black cloud hanging over him the very first afternoon. Beau let
the book of furniture patterns that she’d been poring over drop to her lap.

“Gareth?”

He nodded and went to pour himself a drink. He tossed it back and then refilled the glass.

“That good a day?” she said, guilt flooding through her. He looked miserable, and that was her fault. She’d done this to him.

“I’m no longer welcome at The Red Lion.” He gave a
derisive laugh and sat down in the window seat, staring out at the square. Weak afternoon sunlight played over his face, the
edge of his high cheekbones cutting sharply down to the frown that curled the corner of his mouth. “I was shown the door in
no uncertain terms.”

Beau caught her lip between her teeth, a bubble of sorrow blooming behind her sternum. Her brother and his friends were quiet
about the club that met at the coffee shop they all frequented, but it was impossible not to know about it if you paid attention.
And it was equally impossible not to be aware of just how much they all valued it.

“Leo?” she said, knowing it must have been.

Gareth nodded and took a drink, light refracting through the glass like a prism. Beau tossed the book aside and stood, stalking
across the room. Leo was still in town, and this estrangement had gone far enough.

“Don’t,” Gareth called after her, clearly aware of what she was about to do. “Your brother has a right to be angry.”

“No, he doesn’t,” she said through gritted teeth. “He deserves to be flogged. And I think today might be the day I track him
down and make the attempt. At least he’ll be able to vent his annoyance on the proper target.”

“He has every right, brat. I don’t think you quite grasp the full import of my transgression.”

Beau rolled her eyes. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t force you into.”

“
Force
is an awfully strong word,” he said, twirling his now-empty glass between his fingers. Beau’s breath
rushed out of her with a shudder. She could almost feel his hands roaming over her… worse, she wanted to, now. He called her
a libertine, and it was true. She was wanton as a cat in heat.

She plucked the glass from his grasp and refilled it. Once for herself, and again for him. The fiery burn of the brandy merged
with the steady smolder of desire that never seemed to abate.

“Is
tempted
a better word?” She handed the glass back to him, and he gave her a hint of a lopsided smile. Even so, she could feel it
like a caress. She wanted to crawl into his lap, to demonstrate in the most primal way that he’d made the right decision.

“It’s a damn accurate one,” he said.

“Bah.” Beau made a rude, dismissive sound in the back of her throat. “My brother is begging to have some sense beaten into
him.”

A lock of hair slipped from Sandison’s queue as he shook his head. “Give him time, he’ll come round.”

Beau nodded, not believing it any more than Gareth did. She pushed the stray lock back into place, lingering with her fingers
in his hair. Leo had been getting worse, not better. Only her sister-in-law’s intervention had kept him even vaguely civil.

“Was Leo there?”

“No. It was Thane who ejected me.”

“Doing Leo’s dirty work, damn them all.”

Gareth smiled again, clearly appreciating her annoyance on his behalf, even if he didn’t want her to act upon it. He slipped
deeper into his chair, crossing his ankles and sinking his chin down to his chest.

“I knew this was the likely outcome when I agreed to your madcap plan.”

Beau nodded and sank down onto the footstool next to Gareth’s chair. She rested her head on the arm, and he twisted one of
her curls around his finger.

“I guess I’d expected more from him,” she said after a moment. “It seems so petty.”

Gareth chuckled softly. “It is, I suppose, but it’s a petty I can understand. He’s not yet willing to forgive us. Me for acting
the scoundrel with his sister, and you for tempting his best friend into such a betrayal.”

Beau sighed. “Are men always this stupid?”

“You’d never noticed?”

She sat up, laughing, her hair trailing across his hand. “Well, yes, but not the men in my own family.”