Something Reckless
Read Something Reckless Online
Authors: Jess Michaels
Tags: #Fiction, #Erotica, #General, #Romance, #Historical
Jess Michaels
This book is for every reader who has ever taken the time out of their day to tell me what they thought. I appreciate every comment.
And for Michael, my champion and best friend.
Jeremy smiled as Penelope’s mouth dropped open and she stared…
Jeremy paced around his parlor, restless and agitated as he…
Jeremy leaned back against the plush leather seat of his…
Jeremy watched Penelope closely as she motioned him into her…
Penelope sat on her bed, staring at a small pile…
Penelope looked at herself in the mirror, watching as Fiona…
The frayed satin edges of Penelope’s torn drawers stroked her…
Jeremy jolted at the pointed question. From the focused, sensual…
Penelope stared at Jeremy, her eyes as wide as saucers…
How did one find a man with no name? A…
Dawn’s first light was starting to pierce into the room…
Jeremy took a deep breath as he paused before the…
Penelope shivered, though the low fire had warmed her room…
Jeremy strummed his fingers along the arm of the wingback…
Penelope sat on her bed, staring with sightless eyes at…
Jeremy stared out the window at Worthington’s Club, watching as…
“How could you? How could you do this to me?”
“You have barely eaten a bite,” Miranda said quietly. “Is…
Jeremy sat at his desk, afternoon sunlight dancing its way…
1819
“The woman must be stopped.”
Jeremy Vaughn, the Duke of Kilgrath, looked up from his snifter of port with a frown as he watched his friend Anthony Wharton storm around the private room at Worthington’s Club.
“What woman?” he asked before he took a long puff of his cigar.
David Forster, the Marquis of Chartsford glared at him. “Great God, Kilgrath, what do you mean
what woman
? We’re talking about Penelope Norman.”
Anthony nodded his head, his scowl deepening. “Exactly. The woman is a deuced menace.”
Jeremy shrugged, grinding out the remains of his cigar in a sterling silver ashtray as he pictured Lady Norman. With her
lithe frame, long, flowing blond hair, and turquoise eyes, Penelope wasn’t exactly the kind of woman a man of his appetites could ignore. And even if he could, her recent crusade against the sensual excess of the men of the Upper Ten Thousand was making her the current talk of the
ton
.
Still, he could hardly believe she was worth all this ruckus. He came to Worthington’s and met with his friends in order to avoid this kind of gossipy foolishness.
“How much effect can one woman truly have?” he asked mildly.
The other five men in the room all stared at him. These were his best friends. All men of means, aside from Ryan Crawford, whose father had cut him off years before. And all were men of appetites. They enjoyed every advantage their names and wealth afforded them. Especially ones that involved women.
They called themselves “the Nevers,” a silly name coined by Jeremy’s younger brother, Christopher, after a drunken night when the group of them had all vowed never to change or falter or love.
So far, only Jeremy’s brother had gone against that vow. Christopher had married six months before, and was the only one absent from their meeting tonight. Jeremy winced at the thought.
Finally, Anthony gave an outraged snort. “How much effect? Are you bloody daft? The woman stole my mistress.”
Jeremy bit back a laugh, but only because he knew the subject was a sore one with his friend.
“Come, Wharton,” Ryan Crawford said as he leaned back into a leather chair. “That is exaggerating it a bit. You act as though
Lady Norman swooped in and kidnapped Fiona. Fi went of her own volition.”
Nathan Ridgemont, the Earl of Dunfield, tipped his head back with a laugh. “Perhaps she thought this Penelope could satisfy her more.”
Jeremy would have taken a moment to enjoy the spectacular image such a statement put into his mind, but he couldn’t. Anthony lunged at Dunfield with a curse, and the room erupted in shouts as various friends grabbed for the scrapping pair. Jeremy caught Anthony by the arms and pulled him back as his friend struggled.
“Wharton,” he growled. “Come on, you know Dunfield is only being an ass.”
“And you aren’t the only one who has suffered,” Chartsford pouted when Anthony stopped fighting to be free and some semblance of calm returned to the assembly. “My wife, who was always so pliable and didn’t give a damn where I went or who I went with, is now haranguing me night and day and demanding I give up my mistress. And all because of that wretched woman.”
Jeremy released Anthony slowly and backed away. Wharton had become the closest thing he had to a best friend ever since Christopher abandoned him for the pleasures of hearth and home. Jeremy had a hard time reconciling this angry, red-faced man with the normally carefree gentleman he called a friend. Truly, Penelope Norman was more than just a mere annoyance for Wharton. She had come to represent the other man’s deepest humiliation.
“What do you suggest we do about her?” Viscount John Lock
wood asked from the corner where he had been sitting quietly, watching the entire exchange. He was the only one who had made no move to interfere with the fight.
Chartsford and Anthony exchanged a look that made clear what
they
would like to do to Penelope, but said nothing. In fact, it was Dunfield who stepped forward.
“There are six of us here,” he said with a grin. “And we each have a certain reputation. Surely
one
of us could change her mind, put a stop to her meddling somehow.”
“How?” Wharton snapped with a peevish scowl. “What is your plan, if you even have one?”
Dunfield shrugged. “Seduction is one way. It would open the door to blackmail or exposure.”
“Seduce her?” Chartsford barked with an incredulous shake of his head. “Not bloody likely. She’s not called the Ice Queen for nothing.”
“Tried with her and failed, did we?” Jeremy asked as he tipped up his glass and took another slow sip of port.
Chartsford glared at him, but didn’t refute the charge. As the other men began to debate the subject, Jeremy let his mind slip, once again, to Penelope Norman.
He had never felt the epithet of Ice Queen fit her. She might appear cold and distant at first blush, but he’d observed the young woman many times over the past two years. He saw her watching everyone around her. And sometimes, when she thought no one was looking, he saw a hint of burning lust in her pretty eyes.
Unsatisfied
desire, even before her husband tipped up his toes a year before.
No, Penelope Norman was no ice queen. Or if she was, she could easily be melted by the right man.
“Come on Kilgrath, draw a straw,” Anthony barked, stirring him from his thoughts.
Jeremy looked at his friend in wide-eyed surprise. Some time during his private musings, his friend had collected a batch of matchsticks and was now holding out a fistful expectantly.
“You are not serious,” Jeremy said as he stepped away.
Anthony advanced forward, his fist tightening. “Hell yes, I am! That little bitch Penelope Norman stole my mistress, and if she keeps up her crusade against men like us, it could be more than just Chartsford and me who suffer. I want her stopped. One way or another. And we are the only ones who have the balls to do it. Draw.”
Normally Jeremy would have made some pithy statement, but since his friend looked so angry and serious, he refrained. Instead, he reached out and pulled a matchstick from the bundle. He winced when he saw how short it was.
Anthony smirked and moved on to Dunfield. Each man in their circle drew a straw, and each one was larger than Jeremy’s. By the time Anthony opened his fist and revealed the last matchstick, Jeremy had already guessed the outcome of his friend’s little game.
He stared at the short little stick in his hand, a thin piece of wood that had sealed his fate.
“You don’t have to take Dunfield’s ridiculous suggestion to seduce her,” Anthony said as he threw himself into a chair and took a swig of whiskey. “You could threaten her. She’s alone in
the world now that her husband is dead. She only has one other association with any influence and that is her sister, Countess Rothschild. I have heard they’ve been estranged for at least as long as Lady Norman has been in London Society.”
Jeremy paced to the fire with a shake of his head and tossed the splinter of wood into the flames. “I may be many things, gentlemen, but I’ve never been reduced to threatening a woman. No, I’m sure I can find many more pleasurable ways to convince the lovely Lady Norman that her quest against illicit sensuality is one she should abandon.”
He stared at the flames as they devoured a log and thought about what he had been conscripted into doing. Seduce Penelope Norman for the purpose of manipulation.
He waited for a wash of dread or a slap of anger to fill him. But neither one came. Certainly, he normally bedded far more willing partners, but he had never turned away from a challenge.
And Penelope Norman was the ultimate challenge. Beneath her starchy exterior, he guessed there lurked a hypocritical, lustful woman. All he had to do was draw that part of her out. Once she succumbed to her own carnal desires, it would be easy to make her see how wrong she was to meddle in the affairs of others. Or, at the very worst, he could resort to blackmail, as Dunfield had mentioned earlier.
Either way, the entire seduction could be enormously pleasurable. Since Christopher had married, Jeremy had felt quite restless, even bored with his life. He’d parted ways with two mistresses in the past six months and had a decided lack of interest in the numerous opera singers, dance hall girls, and wicked widows who threw themselves at his feet.
Not that he didn’t have his pleasure, but nothing felt quite the same. Yes, ruining Penelope seemed just the thing to put the spring back in his step.
“So what is your plan, Kilgrath?” Dunfield asked as he approached Jeremy with a fresh glass of port. “How
do
you intend to get into the Ice Queen’s good graces?”
Jeremy smiled as he took a sip of wine. “My plan isn’t complicated, gentlemen. I will simply convert to her cause.”
Lady Penelope Norman stood in the corner of the ballroom, staring out at a sea of dancers who were swaying together to the music of the orchestra. Everyone around her looked so happy, so content.
And she was anything but. She felt…stretched. Sour. Sort of like an oddity on display. The feeling was entirely unpleasant.
“There, you see, Lord Billingham just snubbed you!” her mother, Dorthea Albright whispered, loud enough that everyone within fifteen paces heard her. “He is the tenth person to do so tonight.”
Penelope sighed and didn’t look at her mother. “Don’t exaggerate, Mama,” she murmured.
Her mother tugged on her arm and Penelope turned. Dorthea’s round face was pink with indignation and her blue eyes, the ones that looked so much like Penelope’s, were wide.
“It isn’t an exaggeration! I have been counting.” Her mother’s fingers tightened around her arm to an almost painful degree. “Your behavior is exposing you to some pointed remarks and cutting you away from certain parts of Society.”
Penelope pursed her lips. She hadn’t even wanted to come to
this gathering, but Dorthea had insisted, saying the party was imperative to the future of Penelope’s two unmarried sisters, Beatrice and Winifred.
Unfortunately, neither one of them were dancing. Which only seemed to upset her mother all the more.
“If you will not think of yourself and your own ability to obtain a new husband, think of your sisters. Your little crusade is hurting them by drawing the wrong kind of attention to you.” Her mother suddenly released her and folded her arms across her chest. “Men like their wives to be pliable. Men like their wives to turn the other way. Men like their wives never to whisper the word,” her mother’s voice dropped, “mistress, let alone argue with him about having one. Penelope—”
Penelope rubbed her hand over her suddenly throbbing head. “Yes, Mother, I hear you. Half the room hears you,” she hissed. “I’m getting a drink.”
She pulled away from Dorthea before her mother could say another word and began to weave her way through the crowd.
How in the world had she become a crusader?
It was a question she asked herself at least once a day. She hadn’t intended to become a voice against the sexual excesses of the Upper Ten Thousand. She had simply had a spirited discussion one day with members of her Ladies Aid Society. And then more women had wanted to talk to her about her thoughts on male behavior outside the bonds of matrimony. And then more.
Suddenly everything had snowballed, rolling out of control until she was being called a demon and a savior, sometimes in almost the same breath. There were men of the
ton
who hissed at
her when she passed and women who squeezed her hand and told her how much they appreciated her “work.”
Penelope shook her head. Well, it didn’t matter how she’d gotten to this point. The fact was, she was now a voice against infidelity and rampant sexuality. And she believed in her cause.
She’d certainly seen and felt firsthand what kind of wicked power a man could wield with sex. Her life had been altered irrevocably by two men who did just that.
“Good evening, Lady Norman.”
Penelope stopped walking, frozen in place by a voice she had come to know well, despite all her best efforts to avoid it and the man who owned it. She forced her expression into a chilly mask and turned to face Jeremy Vaughn, the Duke of Kilgrath.
Her breath caught, no matter how much she didn’t want it to. That was something that always happened when she saw the man. He was beautiful. There was no other way to put it. With dark hair that curled lazily against his forehead, a harsh, strong jaw, sensual lips that seemed forever curled in a knowing sneer, everything about him was pure perfection.
But the one part that made him stand out, that frightened Penelope to her very core and also made her body shiver with a faint, undesired wanting, were his eyes. His dark brows and long lashes framed eyes that were the most striking green she’d ever seen. They were so dark they were almost emerald in color, and they sparkled with a sensuality that represented everything she was fighting against.
This man was sex and sin embodied. And he lived up to the things his handsome face and strong, well-formed body hinted at. Everyone knew his reputation, even the unmarried misses
who were generally sheltered from such things. But who could look at him and not see that he was a man of lustful, searing appetites? A man who reveled in the attention of too many women to count.
Ladies of all rank and circumstance had thrown themselves at his feet over the years. There were stories that discreetly circulated about trysts in back hallways, sinful behavior at country gatherings, and even one public coupling on a London stage with a shameless actress when the play she had performed in was over and everyone had gone home.
This
was her enemy.
And Penelope shivered as another little surge of desire made her a hypocrite of the highest order. Worse, Kilgrath smiled as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.
Penelope pursed her lips. “Good evening, Your Grace.”
His smile widened, and the wickedness in his stare doubled as he let his gaze move over her in a lazy sweep. She fought an urge to fold her arms over her chest in protection and instead arched a brow.