“We haven’t been spending much time together.”
“It’s like this every year. The Season winding up. The mad rush.” She patted his leg.
His anger dissolved into desperation. He could not lose his wife. Sitting next to her, he braced his arm across her waist.
“You are still as beautiful as the day I met you.”
Clarissa relaxed, one hand caressing his face, and he turned his lips to her palm.
“What is it? You’ve not been happy. Tell me,” she pleaded.
Instead, he leaned forward and brushed a light kiss across her lips.
“Who were you with tonight?” he asked as he pulled away. Her eyes, so pleasing when aroused, popped open. He gazed at her, certain he would find the sordid truth buried in those misty depths if he but looked deep enough.
She smiled again. “I told you. I was with Anne.”
“Madam, I saw the hackney. Anne did not bring you home. Where were you?”
He braced for bad news. Truth.
Clarissa was the first to look away. She closed her eyes and lowered her head.
“Oh God, it’s worse than I thought,” he said. He ran a hand through his hair.
Her attack came from out of the blue. “Are you going to tell me you were at your club tonight? Diligently losing money at cards?”
“This isn’t about me. You even smell like sex. Who fucked you, Clarissa? Who?” He gritted his teeth, fearful that more damaging, more hurtful words would spill out.
“So it’s all right that you question my every behavior, but when the tables are turned, you refuse to answer?”
Anger and guilt tore at his chest.
She thrust the knife of inadequacy deeper. “I have begged you to come to me. Weekly, in case you weren’t keeping track. Yet you continually reject me.”
He leapt from the bed and paced to the fireplace.
Clarissa continued, undaunted by his imposing, impenetrable rejection. “You have no cause to doubt me. So what if I came home late? You have no reason to assume that I’ve been with another man. Were I the suspicious sort, I’d say you were trying to hide your own behavior.”
“My behavior? I saw you kissing Martin DeLacy. Don’t tell me you’re the innocent in this.”
“DeLacy? That was over a year ago! And he accosted me. I can assure you, sir, it wasn’t at my invitation.”
“That’s not how it appeared to me.”
Clarissa gasped and threw the blankets back, covering the same ground as Michael. She stood in front of him with her hands at her hips. “You saw, and you did nothing?”
“What was I supposed to do? Call attention to your behavior? Have everyone at the ball know that I’d caught my wife in the embrace of another man? No, thank you. I’d prefer to keep my dignity intact.”
“Dignity? He could have hurt me. As it was, the fool was drunk enough that a sturdy slap sent him into a flowerpot. And to this day, he still bothers me, yet you turn a blind eye until you find a convenient way to accuse me of improper behavior.”
“I see everything. And he’s not the only one who pants after your flouncing skirts, ready to haul you into a darkened corner and fuck you. I see, Madam.”
“And if I could only get my husband to do the same,” she snapped. “I’m going to bed. You may leave my room. This conversation is over.”
She brushed past him to return to her bed. He clasped her upper arm, yanking her to his chest.
“What? Do you not notice when they accidently brush an arm across your breast, or stare down the front of your dress, hoping for a glimpse of all your charms? How could you not? How many times have you slipped away with another? How many times have these lips caressed the sweetness from someone else’s cock?”
Clarissa jerked away and then slapped his face with a resounding
thwack
. “You are drunk and uncouth. Please leave now.”
Michael stormed away.
At the connecting door he stopped, ready to fling more words.
She beat him to it. “And you can be sure, I will not be returning to York anytime soon.”
Michael heard Clarissa sobbing before the door shut behind him. He hardened his heart. Nothing she said explained her absence tonight. He should have married some whey-faced merchant’s daughter with broad hips and a big nose—then he would have no reason to fear her wandering.
The drink he’d avoided earlier now seemed a necessity, and he bound down the stairs to the library to pour a healthy glass of brandy. The glass shook as he brought it to his lips.
He could not take it any more. He’d lost his mind. A beautiful, desirable wife he panted after and yet he paid for whores. All of his guilt spilled out in his accusations against Clarissa.
Touching the whore had been a huge mistake. He ran a hand over the back of his neck, rubbing at the tight ache of self-recrimination and guilt.
The feel of her tits, the firmness of her ass. His cock squeezed in painful pleasure between their bodies. Fucking her would have been easy, enjoyable and wildly entertaining. In the state he’d been in, he wouldn’t have given Clarissa a second thought.
Until the whore’s words cut through his heart.
He’d passed an imaginary line tonight. He’d believed he had the willpower and the moral fortitude to resist much, much longer. And now that he’d touched her…
Damn. Now that he’d touched her, now that Clarissa had defied him and taunted him, he’d give in. Sink himself into every pleasurable dissipation he could find as long as his cock didn’t give out.
Five weeks, Clarissa said.
He had five weeks to fuck himself to death with the French whore, and he intended to enjoy every minute of it. He palmed his cock, already aching with the need to pound into any available cunt.
Clarissa’s especially. How he’d enjoy reminding her what they had. How he’d enjoy spreading her dewy thighs, her legs and arms bound while he pumped into her and then, before his climax, while he was rock-hard and horny, slide into that tight little ass, wait for the moment when she’d squeeze and then come until he was dry.
Damn.
He gripped his cock tighter, rubbing through the material of his trousers.
Clarissa.
He slipped his hand under his smallclothes, his bare hand touching his hot flesh, and stroked. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had an erection so hard and full while thinking of his wife.
He surged from the chair, threw open the door and took the stairs two at a time. He’d remind her whose cock could make her happy. Whose cock she’d kneel for.
At her door, he remembered the frilly white gown she wore and the soft downy comfort of her bed. The innocent look on her face. His cock shriveled. He struck his head against the door jamb.
He wouldn’t degrade his wife by requiring her to perform the sex acts that satisfied him.
He loved his wife. He respected her. He yearned for the return of those intense feelings of desire for her. Those feelings that actually caused movement in his otherwise unresponsive cock.
But what he needed, he couldn’t get from her. Maybe it was just as well she was finding her own amusements. Maybe it was what she wanted all along, for him to take his desires, his perceived perversions to another and stop bothering her.
Whores would have to provide the entertainment, and he knew just where to find one who’d already had a taste of his wicked desires.
* * * * *
The message from Madame DuPuis had been brief.
You are needed at once
.
Clarissa had already dressed for the evening but had changed her mind about the ball she’d planned to attend. All day she’d fumed, except when she was mindless with worry that she’d angered him needlessly and sorrow that she didn’t know how to correct what was wrong.
She wouldn’t go without her husband, not in the mood she was in. Randall VanLandingham’s flirting might have more appeal than just the casual enjoyment of a handsome man telling her she was pretty. Maybe she would return the flirtatious gestures. Then she could let Michael know all of his silly suspicious were true.
Michael had disappeared from the house early this morning. She didn’t know if he’d made it to his bed last night. She wouldn’t have heard him if he had.
Then Madame DuPuis’ missive arrived, and she’d thanked God she’d been home.
For a moment, she clutched the note to her chest.
Then she picked up her skirts and ran to the stairs, ordered the closest footman to find a hackney and climbed the stairs to her room. She called her maid and changed into another plain gown. She wished she had time for a bath.
But if what she suspected was true, she didn’t have a moment to spare.
Michael had gone back to Madame DuPuis’.
She hoped she wasn’t too late. What with the mood he was in…
Maybe he took the first available whore. Maybe at this very moment, his hands were on another woman. His beautiful cock being touched by a strange woman who’d never appreciate what a fine man she held in her arms.
She’d have to hurry, before it was too late.
The carriage jostled to a stop. Clarissa stepped down and hurried to the back door. Madame DuPuis did not meet her, instead it was another younger woman.
“Hurry, Mademoiselle.”
The quiet young thing knew what she was about and assisted Clarissa into a similar, flimsy corset—this one all black with satin ribbons. The makeup went on, her hair came down, the perfume was splashed all over her. As the mask slipped over her face, she caught a glimpse in the mirror. She looked every inch the whore.
Today, she felt much more prepared, excited even. Much more the experienced whore, able and willing to satisfy her client.
Clarissa squirmed at the sudden trailing wetness between her thighs.
“We must go,” the young girl urged.
Clarissa followed, fighting back the sickening nerves while quelling an urgent and odd need to laugh at the farcical and idiotic nature of this endeavor. Neither seemed appropriate.
At the top of the stairs, Clarissa stopped to catch her breath before she was led to the same small side-room. The swift ascent couldn’t account for her breathless anxiety. Madame would only have called upon her for one reason. Michael was on the other side of the door.
As she looked down, she caught sight of her wedding band. With a quick tug, the ring came off and she placed it on the top shelf of a bookcase near the outer door.
She chanted to herself, the words a soft whisper, “I’m a French whore. I’m Michael’s whore.”
Madame DuPuis swept into the room, plumped Clarissa’s breasts so they displayed better, fluffed her hair and uttered one word. “
Bon.
”
She pushed Clarissa into the room with a gentle shove from behind and closed the door.
Michael paced in front of the chair he’d lounged in last night. A drink was in his hand but he was fully dressed, his clothing and hair rumpled.
Clarissa experienced a moment of guilt. She had driven him to this and the choice had been excruciating for him. Every line of his face reflected his decision. He’d made up his mind to completely abandon his marriage vows. He’d lived with himself while skirting the fines edges of marital corruption.
Now she’d pushed him over the edge and he appeared determined to see it to completion.
“
Mademoiselle.
”
“
Monsieur.
” Clarissa lowered the long black robe. Instead of being led to the bed, she stood, waiting for him to give her direction.
He approached. He clasped her arms and slid his hands upward to her shoulders and then down to her breasts, full and round with tight nipples. She wondered what he saw as he gazed at her fleshy breasts.
Michael cupped them both, filling his hands. Clarissa knew a moment of utter contentment and her head fell back as a long-awaited sigh escaped her. Her hair caressed the cheeks of her butt, whisper soft.
He tweaked her nipples, rolling and pinching. His mouth found her neck. His tongue and lips and mouth kissed and licked and suckled their way back to the tightly drawn nipples. He laved at a nub then opened his mouth and sucked in as much of her breast as he could and set to gently sucking.
One hand searched lower, finding her ass and pulling her into an embrace, bringing her to her tiptoes. He rubbed his hard cock into her bared mons.
She heard a light pop when he pulled away, her nipple elongated and tight. His mouth descended on the other until it peaked and stretched too.
Clarissa’s cunt dripped, a runnel sliding down her leg. She squirmed against him, dizzy and wanting. He lifted one of her arms around his neck. The strings of her corset were being loosened and she felt the push backward, her feet getting tangled in his as he guided her toward the bed.
The corset fell away.
Michael bunched his shoulders, his jacket sliding backward. His shoes followed and Clarissa fumbled at the studs on his shirt.
“Leave it,
chérie
. On the bed and spread yourself.”
She’d been naked with Michael hundreds of times, but not in the full light of so many candles. Mostly they loved by firelight. Here, two candelabra, each with twelve stubby wicks with wax runnels marring the display burned on each side of the bed.