She was relying on the more costly pieces Algernon had given her to tide her over if she couldn’t find the last dagger in time. Her ruby necklace would support the work of Mrs. Osgood’s school for a couple years, so she didn’t count that piece in her available stash of portable wealth.
“You were no help at all in there,” Julianne said through clenched teeth as soon as she and Jacob bundled back into her coach. “I might as well have had a sack of potatoes beside me. You left me to do all the talking.”
“So I could do all the listening,” Jacob said smoothly, rapping on the ceiling of the coach with the head of his walking stick to signal the driver they were ready to go. Then he drew the coach curtains, leaned back, and shut his eyes. “A man’s ears close when his mouth is in motion. He’s busy thinking about what he’ll say next instead of listening to the other fellow.”
He made sense, but she didn’t want to admit it. “Well, a woman has more experience in listening while she speaks because if she didn’t, she’d never get a word in edgewise. And what about that Sir Malcolm thinking the blades should have gone to Algernon’s ruddy heir? As though my stepson gave two figs for his father or anything he cared about. Algernon would spin in his grave if he knew—” She bit back the rest of what threatened to tumble out. “All right. If you were listening so intently, what did you hear that I didn’t?”
“That Digory is willing to bend the rules for you by inviting us to an event normally reserved for members only. This will work to our advantage.”
“How so?” She wished he’d look at her. It was disconcerting to converse with a man who might drift off to sleep at any moment. “I’m still relegated to the parlor for tea and tedious talk with the women while you—”
“Do what you hired me to do,” Jacob said. “Do you think I won’t share every bit of what I learn there with you?”
“Won’t Digory be expecting you to and not be as forthcoming on that account?”
“I think that depends on how much he wants to see the dagger.” The coach was a small one and Jacob’s shoulders were uncommonly broad. He opened his eyes, sat up straight, and draped an arm around her over the back of the seat so they fit together more easily on the forward-facing squab. “I won’t be as quick to offer it up as you were.”
She eyed him narrowly. “If you wanted me to do something differently, you might have said so.”
“Never mind. You did fine, Julianne. Truly.” His hand grazed her shoulder in soft slow circles. She ought to make him stop but it felt so wickedly good. Agitation drained out of her with each small caress.
“But if the dagger is to leave your safe, I want it with me,” she said with emphasis.
“Fear not.” He slipped a finger under her chin to turn her face toward him. “The dagger isn’t going anywhere. It will remain in the safe.”
“But you said—”
“We’d be delighted to attend his soirée.” He leaned closer and she inhaled his male scent, rich with spicy bergamot and sandalwood. “I didn’t promise to bring your dagger. He only assumed I would. Among my less than savory associates, there is a skilled artisan who can create a reproduction for us. Your actual dagger will be in no danger.”
His gray eyes darkened from ice to burnished pewter as he gazed down at her. His mouth was so close she could almost taste it. She swallowed with difficulty.
It wasn’t the dagger that was in danger just now. It was her determination not to become involved with a man who was in her employ.
“But if he learns the dagger isn’t the real one, then ... then how will you pry any secrets from him?”
“My associate is very good at what he does, but if by some chance Digory is smarter than he looks, I’m not without a bit of skill myself. How does anyone learn another’s secrets?” He brushed her lips with his and pulled back. “I’ll have to make him want to tell me what he knows.”
Heaven knew, he was making her want. The memory of Jacob’s kiss from last night was burned in her mind. His breath warmed her slightly parted mouth. She flicked her bottom lip with her tongue. Then she leaned toward him, closing the distance between them, and kissed him back.
She hadn’t meant to. It was just that he was so close and male and so vibrantly alive. He made her body remember what it was like to feel real.
There was a time when she’d felt real only when she was onstage, where she might slip off the skin of the poor, common girl who was born in Cheapside and become anything—a goddess, a temptress, a murderess, or a whore. Each night, she tried on other selves as a person might try on a set of clothing. She lived and sometimes died in their most harrowing moments and emerged from the side stage door in one piece when all was said and done.
It was as if her life outside the theatre—the grubby little rented rooms, the endless travel to the next town, the playhouse politics and jealousies—was the fantasy. The only words that tasted true in her mouth came from the script, the only real passions were the ones she indulged in character each night, twice on Saturday counting the matinee.
In some ways, becoming Algernon’s countess was the best role of her career. But it was only a role.
Jacob’s mouth on hers was real. This kiss wasn’t scripted. It just happened. The way her blood pounded in her ears when he kissed her wasn’t contrived. No audience was hanging on every move waiting to see what happened next. His hand on her skin—
She realized he’d unbuttoned her bodice without her being aware of it and now traced the lacy edge of her all-in-one peeping above her corset. Her nipples hardened at his finger’s nearness. His mouth traveled along her jaw and down her throat. He kissed his way across her shoulder bone.
He slipped a finger under the lace and brushed her nipple with his fingertip. Desire shot to her warm, moist center. She sucked her breath over her teeth.
Her body flared to raging life as he kissed his way down to the hollow between her breasts. He untied the bow on the neckline of her undergarment with his teeth and peeled back the linen to bare her pink nipples just above the heavy boned corset. He closed his lips over one and suckled her.
The jolting coach faded around her.
She’d had lovers before her husband. What actress hadn’t? She’d had a briefly satisfying time with Algernon when he was able to keep his vow to “worship” her with his body. After he died, she’d been tempted to welcome a man to her dowager’s bed.
But she’d never wanted anyone with as much white-hot longing as she wanted Jacob Preston.
She slid her hand inside his jacket, down the front of his shirt and vest. A man’s warmth radiated through the fabric. The image of his naked body rose in her mind. His chest was rock hard.
She suspected another part of him was too.
But before her hand drifted lower to find out, Jacob stopped paying skillful homage to her breasts and raised his head.
“The coach has stopped. We must be there.” He began retying the bow at the neck of her all-in-one.
Her mouth gaped. “Is that all you can say?”
His gaze sizzled into hers. “What do you want me to say? That I’d rather lift your skirts and swive you senseless than continue to work on your case?”
He slid a hand under her petticoats and hoops and ran his palm up her leg. The thin linen of her undergarments was no shield against the shivers that trailed in his fingers’ wake.
“It would be the truth,” he admitted.
Her core throbbed. He covered her sex with his hand, holding her hot mound. A fingertip found the slit in her undergarment and slipped into her wet cleft. She closed her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from moaning.
“Shall I tell the driver to take us around Hyde Park a few times?” he asked, his voice a sensual rumble in her ear.
She ought to say no. She ought to remember her late husband. She ought to keep in mind what would happen if she didn’t find that other dagger in time. But when Jacob’s fingers moved slowly over her delicate parts, all she could do was feel.
“Driver,” she heard Jacob say as if from a great distance. “Three trips around the park, if you please. And ... take your time.”
C
HAPTER
6
T
he coach’s shades shut out the world and threw them into partial darkness, but she didn’t need to see anything. Jacob’s mouth covered hers, swallowing the needy little sounds that tore from her throat. His wicked hand was back between her legs, discovering all her secrets, laying her soul bare with each stroke.
Julianne wouldn’t have stopped him for worlds. She spread her knees wider, hitching one over his lap, to give him complete access.
“Lord, you’re so sweet,” he said, his voice hoarse with need. He released her mouth and started back down to her breasts again. She untied the bow before he got there and lifted her breasts a bit so more of them would be free of the restrictive corset.
He sucked her nipple in rhythm with the rocking coach, in rhythm with his hand on her slit. She tilted herself into his fingers.
Heat. Friction. Warm wetness. She was slick and swollen, aching for him. Desire licked over her in tingling lashes.
He circled her nipple with his tongue while his thumb circled her sensitive spot. She made a small noise of distress. He slid a long finger into her. His thumb continued its maddening game.
She reached down and cupped his groin hard. Through the flannel of his trousers, his balls tensed under her touch. Then she ran her palm over his hard length from root to tip with no gentleness at all.
He growled with pleasure and fastened his lips around her nipple, tugging at her needy flesh. He found the right spot between her legs and stroked her toward her goal with a few deft flicks. She was there before she knew her peak was about to surge.
The wave of release came so fast, it crashed over her without warning. Her entire body shuddered with the force of her inner contractions, her limbs bucking. She seemed to leave her house of flesh momentarily, tossed high into a realm of pure light. Then she slammed back into her body as the last ripples shivered over her, spent and gasping.
When the capacity for rational thought returned, Jacob was kissing her again, his mouth soft on hers.
Coaxing her back from wherever she’d been.
Now it was her turn to send him there. Her lips curved in a feline smile, she moved to the seat opposite him, tugged off her gloves and undid the first button at his waist.
The interior of the coach smelled slightly of her faint camellia and strongly of the sweet musk of sex. Jacob’s body responded to both scents. Julianne’s voluminous skirts didn’t allow him a peek up them, not with all the layers of petticoats and hoops, but her lovely breasts were still on display as she worked with concentration on his trouser buttons.
She was a wonder.
He wanted to tell her so, but he was hesitant to say a word, lest he break the spell. His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth as she made short work of the fastenings on his drawers.
His man Fenwick, who’d never been lucky in love, claimed all women were part witch. Had Julianne hexed him with silence? When her fingers found his bare flesh, Jacob decided he didn’t care if she had.
His cock sprang free of his clothing, but she wasn’t content until she’d exposed his scrotum as well. He watched her face while she studied him. Her mouth hung slack as she slid a questing fingertip around his balls, making every wiry hair stand at full attention. She ran her knuckles between his testicles and up the full length of his penis, pausing to thumb the rough skin just beneath the head.
Jacob shuddered with pleasure and willed the pressure in his shaft to drop. Despite his best efforts, a pearl of fluid formed on his tip. He reached over to stroke her breasts. Her nipples tightened, ripe pink berries.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.
“So are you.”
She lifted her skirts and climbed onto his knees, settling herself near his groin. With all the hoops and petticoats bunched between them, it was a good trick, but the tickling warmth of the curls between her legs finally pressed against his shaft.
Thank God for the French.
They might be England’s perennial foe, but they were geniuses when it came to women’s undergarments. The fellow who designed the all-in-one to have an open crotch should be awarded a knighthood at the very least.
The coach hit a pothole that sent both Julianne and him airborne for a moment. They came back down hard with the stiff busk of her corset smacking his top lip and her breasts settling on either side of his nose. His lip stung, but the rest of him was jubilant.
Jacob laughed, deciding it was a fair trade, and covered her breasts with kisses. When he scraped his teeth over her nipple, she made little mewling sounds of pleasure that sent his groin into near spasms.
“Much as I’m enjoying this, we’d better get down to business,” she said with a small chuckle. “Hyde Park isn’t that large.”
She shifted her weight and the tip of him slipped through the slit in her all-in-one. He didn’t enter her, more’s the pity, but he was close enough for the wetness of her arousal to coat him. He bit his lip to keep from spilling his seed like a callow lad.
“Oh, you’re bleeding a bit.” She leaned forward and kissed his injured lip softly.
“Guess that corset of yours was laying for me.” He licked his top lip and tasted the coppery tang of blood.
“It’s not so bad.” She reached into her reticule and pulled out a handkerchief to dab the bit of broken skin. “But it may swell later.”
“I know something that will take my mind off my injury.” He rocked himself under her.
She sent him a perfectly wicked smile and tilted her hips, luxuriating in her own arousal.
Finally, a woman who knew the joys of her body and reveled in them as much as he did.
He wasn’t sure God listened to lascivious prayers, but whatever he’d done to deserve this, he hoped the Deity would show him what it was so he could be certain to do it again. Soon.
Julianne reached between them and guided him into herself.
“Angel woman,” he breathed as she engulfed him in her hot tight channel. His hips rose to meet her but because of their position in the coach, she set the pace.
Her eyelids drooped as she moved on him, losing herself in her own pleasure. Soft light filtering along the sides of the coach’s window shades showed her pink-tipped breasts to devastating perfection. They spilled over the lacy but implacable corset, bouncing joyously as she moved. She raised her arms to steady herself with splay-fingered hands on the coach ceiling.
Jacob reached between them to spread her labia and circle her clitoris, silently blessing George. His physician friend had lent him the medical texts where he’d learned the proper names for a woman’s parts and their many delightful uses.
Her head fell back, her bonnet hopelessly askew. She arched her spine in pleasure, her rhythm ticking up.
Jacob groaned.
He thrummed a nipple with his other hand, then slid down to press her hips more firmly onto him. What he wouldn’t give for a bed so he could spread her out and torment her properly.
Then Julianne began some torment of her own.
She stopped suddenly, looking down at him with hooded eyes, an unspoken dare raising her brows.
Forget angel woman. Now there was a succubus on his cock, promising pleasure and bringing him to the brink only to deny him. Jacob almost pleaded with her to continue, but it wasn’t in his nature to beg. Instead he started stroking her, teasing featherlight touches that had her panting in short order.
She moved on him again and he resumed the pressure she seemed to need. A low feminine growl of desire escaped her throat.
He tried to smile at her, but knew it was more of a grimace. His aching erection made a true smile impossible. He was close, perilously close. He needed to pull out but he wasn’t ready to sever their connection yet. If he could only feel her come around him, know he’d served her well before he let himself find release.
Julianne leaned forward to kiss him. Their tongues played against each other, a warm, wet joust, as they pushed on toward the pinnacle. He arched his hips up, pressing into her as deeply as he could and she cried out.
Her first spasm began, fisting around his cock while he teetered on the brink of losing control. She pulsed hard. Rolling contractions in her inner walls made her whole body shudder. When he felt the first spurt of his semen rushing upward, he lifted her off him, snatched her handkerchief and covered himself with it.
He pumped steadily for about half a minute, eyes closed in the fierce pleasure of release. Even when it ended, his breathing was still ragged. His heart rate slowed from a gallop to a canter.
As wonderful as part of him felt, another part felt ... cheated somehow.
He didn’t know why that should be. He always withdrew at the crucial moment. It was the gentlemanly thing to do.
Why did it feel so wrong this time?
Julianne slid over to the opposite seat, smoothed down her skirts and fiddled with her bodice. She covered her breasts and tied the lace over them in a neat bow. She struggled to do up her buttons. Her cheeks were flushed.
“Here,” he said softly. “Let me help.”
“I’m perfectly capable of fastening my own buttons,” she said, her voice tight.
Did she feel it too, that odd sense of loss? For a brief moment, they’d been more than the sum of their combined parts, but now they were separate, their souls safely locked in their own houses.
“I know you can do it yourself.” He reached over to slip the last button deftly into its hole with a flick of his fingertips. “But why should you have to?”
She expelled all the air in her lungs in a long huff. “I owe you an apology, Mr. Preston.”
He chuckled. “I think under the circumstances you’d really better call me Jacob, don’t you? And what the devil are you talking about? You’ve done nothing that requires an apology. On the contrary, I think we both owe each other a bit of thanks.”
“No, I must. It was unconscionable for me to ... to take advantage of you like that.”
“What do you mean?” He rearranged his own clothes as the coach made a lumbering turn and slowed. He stuffed the soiled handkerchief into his pocket. Mrs. Trott would read him the riot act for it, but he was accustomed to his housekeeper’s scolding. “Feel free to take advantage of me any time you wish. I do not feel the least abused, I assure you.”
“But you’re my employee. I have never ... well, it was most unseemly of me,” she said stiffly. “I apologize if you felt obliged to—”
He stopped her with a finger to her lips. “First, I never do anything because I feel obliged. Second, I’m not your employee. Consider me your partner in this endeavor, if you must, but that is as far as I’ll allow. Since we’ve yet to come to any agreement about payment, there’s no question of my being in your employ.”
She batted his hand away, her cheeks darkening with embarrassment.
The direction of the conversation was making him testy. Usually his lovers were only too quick to hang on his neck and beg him to name the time for their next assignation. Julianne merely scooted farther away from him each time he leaned toward her.
“Ours is supposed to be a professional arrangement.” She adjusted her bonnet and retied the bow with jerky movements that threatened real violence to the delicate laces. “This”—she waved a hand vaguely—“this changes everything.”
An alarm bell jangled down Jacob’s spine. Now he remembered why he’d always insisted that his lovers be married women. Was Julianne the sort who believed sexual congress outside the bonds of matrimony must be remedied by an immediate plunge into leg-shackled martyrdom?
He wouldn’t have thought so.
“How does this change everything?” he asked suspiciously. The coach shuddered to a halt and Jacob figured they’d reached the modiste’s shop again.
“If we surrender to our baser natures whenever the urge strikes, it will divert us from our purpose, and we haven’t the time for it,” she said, shooting him a look worthy of a spinster governess. Jacob could scarcely believe she was the same woman who’d ridden him with wild abandon only a few moments ago. “And besides ...”
“And besides what?”
“If you must know, it changes the balance of power between us. Regardless of whether or not you feel yourself in my employ, you are acting at my behest. How can I expect you to take direction from me properly if you ... if we ...”
“What makes you think I ever intended to take direction from you?”
“You accepted my case.”
“Perhaps because I thought it would be the quickest way under your skirt,” he said with a grin, hoping to lighten the tone of the conversation.
Her hand flew so fast, he didn’t see it until her palm connected with his cheek.
“How dare you!”
Damn! The vixen had slapped him.