Читать книгу The Complete Regency Season Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 48
ОглавлениеMariah was enjoying herself.
Actually enjoying herself, when normally she would simply have gone through the motions of doing so at this sort of entertainment, flirting and laughing with the gentlemen whilst at the same time keeping them in line—and their groping hands firmly at bay—with a delicately aimed flick of her fan.
And the reason she was enjoying herself was standing broodingly at her side now that all the guests had retired to the drawing room following dinner, giving every appearance of a dark and avenging angel, ready to swoop down on any who might even think of crossing over the invisible line he had drawn about the two of them since they had sat down to dinner earlier.
The dark and avenging angel Darian Hunter, the Duke of Wolfingham.
As she had warned Wolfingham before coming down the stairs earlier, most of the other ladies were dressed much more daringly than she was this evening. Indeed, there was a plethora of completely bared breasts visible about the drawing room as the gentlemen, and many of the ladies, completely against the normal rules of polite society, enjoyed an after-dinner brandy together. Most of the gowns were without the benefit of that layer of lace that covered Mariah’s breasts and several of the gowns were made of a totally transparent and gauzy material that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
And for all the notice Wolfingham had taken—was still taking!—of any of those erotically displayed ladies, they might as well have been wearing sackcloth.
It was a refreshing change for Mariah to be in the presence of a gentleman whose gaze was not constantly wandering to the half-naked bodies of other women.
Just as Wolfingham’s glowering and tight-lipped disapproval of the approach of both the ladies and the gentlemen present this evening had kept everyone but their hostess from attempting to interrupt their privacy. Wolfingham had wasted no time in dispatching that lady, too, with a few choice and tersely spoken words.
Instead, he had centred all of his attention on Mariah as they ate the sumptuously prepared dinner served to them earlier, his conversation exclusive, and occasionally feeding her the odd delicacy of food from his own plate, as a way, no doubt, of giving further illusion to their intimacy.
Mariah had blushed like a schoolgirl the first time Darian behaved so unexpectedly, that blush having deepened as he centred his hawklike gaze upon her lips when she finally leant forward to take the food from his fork. She had been better prepared the second time it had happened, but still felt unaccountably hot at the way his green gaze stared so intently at her lips.
And throughout all of it Darian had seemed completely unaware of the sexual play going on about them.
The assembled company had been slightly restrained to begin with, all obviously aware of having the imposing Duke of Wolfingham within their midst, but several glasses of wine later, along with Wolfingham’s apparent distraction with Mariah, and those inhibitions had quickly fallen away.
Several of the gentlemen had openly caressed and tweaked bared breasts, and one gentleman had even crawled beneath the table for several minutes, the expression of rapture on the flushed face of the actress seated next to him, followed by her breathy and noisy gasps of pleasure as she climaxed, clearly showing where that gentleman was lavishing his attentions.
Mariah had glanced away as if bored as the gentleman crawled back up into his seat, his mouth moist and lips swollen, the expression on his flushed face becoming one of equal rapture as that lady returned the favour, by unbuttoning his pantaloons and openly stroking him until he, too, reached a completion.
It was a disgusting and embarrassing display, and one that Mariah had been forced to witness at least a dozen times during these past seven years of spying for the Crown.
And one that tonight had caused a flush of heat to course through Mariah’s own veins and an unaccustomed tingling and warmth to spread between her thighs.
A heat and tingling that she had preferred not to question too deeply.
‘Say no, Darian,’ she warned Wolfingham softly now as she shook her own head at Clara Nichols as the other woman moved about the room gathering up the people who wished to play cards.
Darian gave a terse shake of his own head to their poutingly disappointed hostess before moving to stand slightly in front of Mariah, the broadness of his back and shoulders blocking her from the view of the majority of the other guests in the room. ‘Why?’ he returned as softly.
Mariah looked up at him beneath lowered lashes. ‘Because I doubt you will like the forfeit if you lose. Do you ever lose?’
Darian raised one dark brow. ‘At cards?’
‘At anything!’
Well, he was certainly losing his battle tonight in regard to the desire he felt for Mariah.
Dinner with the Nicholses’ guests had been a disgusting display of body parts and licentious behaviour, which he had found distinctly untitillating and which had actually turned his stomach on several occasions. Several sexual acts had actually occurred at the dinner table, made all the more incongruous by the fact that they were all seated about a formal dining table in an equally formal dining room and were being waited upon by the Nicholses’ placid-faced butler and footmen.
He had noticed several gentlemen eyeing Mariah covetously when they first sat down at the dinner table. Glances he had frowned darkly upon. Those glances had then turned towards Darian, envious in some cases and actually belligerent in one or two others.
Because none of those gentlemen had been numbered amongst Mariah’s lovers? Darian hoped it was so.
He had soon forgotten all but Mariah, as he shut out the presence and behaviour of the people around them and concentrated all of his attentions on her.
He had enjoyed talking with her, their conversations intelligent and witty. He had also fed her sweetmeats on occasion, initially as a way of publically demonstrating the intimacy of their relationship, but continuing to do so time and time again as his shaft hardened as he watched her lips encircle his fork and imagined how those soft and full lips would feel encircling him in the same sensuous way. He had almost come undone completely when she had once run her tongue along her bottom lip as she licked away an excess of cream from a bonbon he had just fed her.
‘Very rarely,’ he answered her drily now. ‘What exactly is it that you forfeit here for losing at cards?’
‘Watch.’ She turned to where two tables had now been set up with four card players on each, two gentleman and two ladies on one and three gentlemen and one lady on the other.
‘Good gracious.’ Darian gave a shudder just seconds later as Clara Nichols, obviously the loser of the first hand of cards, instantly stood up to remove her gown, resuming her seat dressed only in silk drawers and pale stockings held up by two pink—what other colour would the woman choose!—garters, her breasts hanging down like two giant udders. ‘There should be a law against such an unpleasant display.’ Darian’s mouth twisted with distaste.
‘No doubt there is outside of the privacy of one’s home.’ Mariah smiled up at him impishly. ‘And some gentlemen find such full breasts...erotic.’
‘I cannot see how they could!’
‘Watch,’ she encouraged again, just in time for Darian to glance across the room and see a prominent member of the government—prominent in more ways than one at this precise moment!—lying back upon Lady Clara’s bare thighs and placing his head beneath one of her pendulous breasts before sucking the nipple heartily into his mouth.
‘He looks like a giant baby taking suck from its mother!’ Darian muttered with disgust.
‘I believe that is Lord Edgewood’s little fetish, yes.’ Mariah nodded. ‘And many women’s breasts become less pert as we age, especially when we have borne children,’ she added with a playful tap of her fan on his shoulder.
Whether intended or not—and Darian suspected not, in his particular case—the movement drew attention to her own perfectly formed and jiggling breasts, beautifully pert rouge-tipped breasts that peeped out at him temptingly from beneath that thin barrier of lace. ‘I am pleased to note your own have not suffered from a similar malaise,’ he murmured gruffly.
Mariah’s breath caught in her throat, her eyes widening in alarm, as she realised she had actually been flirting with Darian Hunter, the imposing and disapproving Duke of Wolfingham, these past few minutes. Openly, coquettishly, flirting.
‘I believe I have seen quite enough for one evening,’ Wolfingham now muttered harshly as he turned away as one of the gentlemen on the second card table, a short and overly plump member of the aristocracy, stood up to remove his trousers, revealing his small and glistening manhood sticking out from the opening of his smallclothes. ‘Shall we retire?’ He held out his arm to Mariah, a nerve pulsing in the hardness of his cheek.
She raised teasing brows as she rested her gloved hand lightly upon his arm and allowed him to accompany her from the room, aware of several pairs of eyes following their abrupt departure. ‘You do realise that everyone will assume we are going upstairs for the sole purpose of making love together?’ she teased drily as Wolfingham took a lighted candle from the butler before they ascended the staircase together.
‘Let them think it!’ Darian doubted he had ever actually made love to any woman. Had sex with, yes, but never made love with or to.
But this evening—that had been nothing more than several hours of a sickening display of unrestrained debauchery and was beyond enduring for even another moment.
He gave a shudder as they came to a halt as they reached the top of the staircase. ‘I do believe that just the memory of that image of Clara Nichols’s pendulous breasts will make it difficult for me ever to be able to become aroused again, let alone have sexual relations with a woman. I dread to think what outrageous entertainments they will think of for the masked ball tomorrow evening!’
Mariah cursed the blush that had warmed her cheeks as Wolfingham talked so frankly of his arousal. She was a widow aged four and thirty, had been a married woman for twelve of those years. And Wolfingham, along with many others, believed her to have first been an adulteress, then a mistress several times over these past five years. Women as sophisticated and experienced as Mariah Beecham was reputed to be did not blush like a schoolgirl when a man talked of his arousal.
‘This is just a small house party—the majority of the guests will arrive tomorrow evening just for the ball,’ she dismissed lightly. ‘This evening’s guests will no doubt sleep most of the day away after tonight’s excesses.’
‘One blessing, I suppose,’ he muttered.
Mariah nodded. ‘I am afraid the wearing of masks tomorrow evening allows for even more licentious behaviour than you have witnessed this evening. Also, the Nicholses’ smaller and private ballroom is...well, perhaps I should leave that as a surprise for you for tomorrow evening.’
He gave another shudder. ‘I would rather you did not!’
Mariah was about to answer him when there came the sound of loud shouts and whistles of approval from down the stairs. ‘I do believe another lady or gentleman has just been divested of another article of clothing.’
Wolfingham looked frostily down the long length of his nose. ‘In that case I see little reason to celebrate.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘Please tell me that you have never— Assure me that none of those gentlemen have ever—’
‘No,’ Mariah assured him hastily, the warmth deepening in her cheeks.
Those green eyes narrowed. ‘None of them?’
Mariah’s jaw tightened. ‘No.’
‘There is a God, after all!’ he rasped with feeling as he took hold of her arm, the candle in his other hand lighting their way as they began walking down the hallway to their bedchambers.
Mariah eyed him quizzically. ‘I fail to see why it should matter to you one way or the other.’
‘It matters!’ he ground out between clenched teeth.
‘As I said, I do not see why. This, what is supposed to be between the two of us, is merely play—’ The breath was knocked from Mariah’s lungs as she suddenly found herself thrust up against the wall, the candle placed on a small side table as an ominous-looking Wolfingham towered over her. He had placed his hands on the wall either side of her head, making her a prisoner of both his encircling arms and the lean and muscled strength of his body. ‘Darian...?’ She looked up at him uncertainly between long, thick lashes.
Darian was breathing deeply, in an effort to retain his control. He had already been enraged, just at the thought of Mariah having ever been intimate with any of the other men present this weekend—he refused to think of any of those men again as ever being gentlemen! But being dismissed by Mariah, as if he were of no more importance to her, that he was no better than any of them, was beyond endurance.
His nostrils flared as he looked down at her between hooded lids, his senses aflame, flooded, filled, with both the sight of her and the increasing smell of that insidious and arousing perfume.
Her eyes were a deep and drowning turquoise, her skin creamy smooth, with that becoming blush to her cheeks. Her parted lips were so plump and tempting! The bareness of her shoulders made him ache to touch them, the hollows of her throat begging further investigation, with his lips and tongue. And her breasts moved, swelled enticingly beneath that thin lace barrier, as she breathed shallowly.
And all the time Darian gazed down at her hungrily, the very air about them seeming to have stilled, the intensity of that erotic perfume having deepened and swelled, engulfing him, enslaving him and threatening to destroy his last shreds of resistance.
Why had her perfume deepened now? How was it possible?
‘Mariah, do you stroke your perfume across and between your breasts and between your thighs?’ he prompted gruffly.
‘Darian!’ she gasped breathlessly.
‘Do you?’ he pressed raggedly.
‘I— Yes. Yes!’ she confirmed achingly.
And telling Darian that, for the perfume to have become stronger, Mariah’s body heat must have deepened, and so increasing the perfume escaping from those secret, hot places.
He closed his eyes briefly, hoping it might aid him in holding on to his fast-slipping control. But closing his eyes only intensified his sensitivity to her perfume. He slowly opened half-raised lids, his heated gaze immediately homing in on the soft pout of Mariah’s parted lips. Lips he had been longing to taste again since she climbed into his carriage earlier today.
An ache he found he could no longer resist as he held her gaze with his own, his arms on the wall beside her keeping his body from touching hers, as he slowly lowered his head to run his lips lightly across her slightly parted ones.
They were soft and hesitant beneath his own, tasting of sweetmeats and brandy as he ran his tongue gently along and between them, running lightly across the ridge of her teeth, stroking along the moist length of her own tongue, before retreating to start the caress all over again, their ragged breathing becoming hot and humid between them.
Mariah had never been kissed so gently before, so slowly and so erotically, her pulse leaping, and her heart beating loudly beneath breasts that had become swollen and sensitised, just the gentle brush of that lace across them causing her nipples to harden and ache as they became engorged and swollen almost to the point of pain. Just as she was aware of a similar swelling, heat, between her thighs.
Her neck arched as Darian’s lips now travelled across her cheek, teeth nibbling her earlobe before moving lower still. Her hands moved out to grasp Darian’s shoulders as she felt his lips against her throat, gently sucking on that flesh, tongue lathing moistly to ease the pain before moving lower still, the brush of that hot and moist tongue now dipping into the deep and sensitive hollows at the base of her arched throat.
‘Darian!’ Mariah was so beset with new and unfamiliar emotions that she had no idea whether her gasp was one of protest for him to stop, or a plea for him to continue.
The response and heat of her body felt so strange to her. Not an unpleasant strange—far from it! She had never felt such pleasure before, or this deep and yearning ache she had to press closer against Darian’s body, to rub herself against him, in an effort—a plea—to find relief for this hot and burning need, both in her breasts and between her thighs.
She groaned low in her throat, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her as Darian’s lips and stroking tongue now explored the tops of her creamy breasts. Sighing her pleasure as she at last felt the heavy weight of Darian’s thighs against her own as he leant inwards to prevent her fall, allowing her to feel his own long and engorged arousal pressed against her softness—and giving instant lie to his earlier claim!
Mariah should have felt trapped, should have felt awash with the usual panic she suffered whenever a man attempted to touch or kiss her. That need she always felt to escape. To free herself.
And yet she felt none of that with Darian, wanted only to press herself closer still, to rub herself over and against him, anything to be able to somehow alleviate the burning ache in her breasts and between her thighs.
‘Darian!’ Mariah gave a helpless gasp as she felt the moist stroke of his tongue across her bared nipple, the first indication she had that he had pulled down that delicate lace barrier and bared her breasts.
That stroke of his tongue was quickly followed by the hot and deliberate brush of his breath over the sensitised tip. The stroking of his tongue again, followed by that soft breath, her nipple standing erect and begging for more as he moved to lavish that same attention to its twin.
It was pleasure like nothing Mariah had ever known before, had never guessed existed.
‘After you for a taste, if you don’t mind, Wolfingham?’
Mariah had frozen at the first sound of that intrusive voice. She now turned her head quickly, her gaze stricken as she saw Lord Richard Nichols standing just feet away down the hallway, his face flushed with arousal, eyes fevered as he gazed unabashedly at Mariah’s completely bared breasts.
That fevered gaze remained fixed lasciviously on her bared breasts as he took a step forward. ‘I’ve long wanted a taste of this particular beauty.’
Mariah was barely aware of Wolfingham moving, aware only of the loss of his heat pressed against her as he strode ominously down the hallway towards the other man, allowing her time to pull the lace quickly back in place before looking up again as she heard Richard Nichols’s squeak of protest and seeing that Darian now had the older man pressed up against the wall of the hallway, Nichols’s feet dangling as he was held several inches above the floor by Wolfingham’s hand about his throat. Darian’s expression was one of cold fury as he looked at the other man.
‘I do mind, as it happens, Nichols!’ he grated harshly. ‘In fact, I would mind very much if I were ever to learn that you had come within six feet of touching Mariah.’
‘But—’
‘Do I make myself clear?’
‘Very—very clear.’ The other man appeared to be having trouble breathing, let alone speaking. ‘L-leave off, do, Wolfingham!’ Nichols choked out, his hand about the younger man’s wrist as he struggled to free himself.
Darian gazed contemptuously at Richard Nichols for several long seconds more, his gaze glacial as he conveyed a stronger, more silent threat to the older man. One of violence and retribution such as Nichols had never seen before.
‘Darian?’
He was so angry, so filled with a need to shake the older man like a rag doll, like the insufferable cur that he was, that for several long moments Darian could think of nothing but the desire he felt to beat this man to within an inch of his life. He was so angry that he could not respond to Mariah’s pleading.
‘Darian, please!’
He heard the sob in Mariah’s voice this time, causing him to break his murderous gaze away from Nichols in order to turn and look at her. She looked so pale, so tiny and vulnerable, in the softness of the candlelight, her shadowed gaze holding his with that same pleading he had detected in her voice.
His expression softened slightly as he continued to look at her. ‘Do not worry, Mariah, I do not intend to kill Nichols. Not this time,’ he added harshly as he turned back to look challengingly at the other man.
His reassurance did nothing to alleviate Nichols’s obvious panic, the other man’s face having become an unpleasant puce colour—much like the unpleasant colour of his wife’s bedchamber!—his pale eyes bulging.
Perhaps because Darian still had his hand about his throat!
Darian gave a disgusted snort as he removed his hand before taking a step back, uncaring as the other man lost his balance and almost fell to his knees as he dropped those several inches back down to the floor. ‘I advise that you stay away from Mariah in future, if you know what is good for you.’
Richard Nichols had his hand raised to his bruised throat, his expression one of belligerent irritation. ‘You only had to say no, old chap. There’s no need for—for such violence. There is plenty to go round—’ He broke off as he obviously saw the savagery of Darian’s expression. ‘I— Well— Yes. I think I will go and rejoin my other guests down the stairs.’
At any other time Mariah might have found amusement in seeing the indignity of the obnoxious Richard Nichols scuttling hastily down the hallway before quickly turning the corner and disappearing in the direction of the staircase.
Here and now, the older man having stood witness to the heated lovemaking between Mariah and Darian—and who knew how long he had stood observing the two of them before he spoke up!—Mariah was too upset to be able to find any amusement in the situation.
Instead, she felt humiliated and sickened, the pleasure of that lovemaking becoming as degrading as the rest of this evening’s events had been. She shuddered just thinking of Richard Nichols having lasciviously watched as Darian suckled and pleasured her breasts. Having heard her gasps and moans as the heat coursed through her body. It was— Her gaze sharpened on Wolfingham as she realised he had made no move since he had stepped back after releasing Nichols, those icy green eyes now narrowed in concentrated thought. ‘What is it, Darian?’ she prompted abruptly.
He drew in a deep breath before answering her distractedly. ‘What was Nichols doing wandering about up here in the first place when the entertainment is downstairs?’
She gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Perhaps he came to collect something?’
‘Or perhaps he came up here for another reason entirely!’ Darian rasped as he turned and strode determinedly down the hallway towards her, collecting up the candle and taking a firm grasp of her arm before continuing on his way to their bedchambers.
‘Darian?’ Mariah was totally at a loss to know what was bothering him as he stepped aside and waited for her to enter her bedchamber ahead of him, before following her inside and closing the door firmly behind him. Because something most assuredly was.
For herself, she could imagine nothing more humiliating than the two of them, their lovemaking, now being the amusing topic of conversation down the stairs, when no doubt Richard Nichols would skip over his cowardly response to Wolfingham’s violent reaction, but enlarge and embellish what he had observed, for the lascivious pleasure of his listeners. It was—
‘What are you doing?’ She frowned as she watched Darian now moving about her bedchamber, lighting several more candles before he commenced prowling about the room. His expression was grim as he moved several paintings aside before moving on to examine the four-poster bed, stepping up on to the pink bedspread to examine the top and back of it. ‘Darian?’
Angry colour stood out in the hardness of his cheeks when he finally stepped down from the bed, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘There are peepholes, through several of the paintings and the frame at the back of the bed, all neatly disguised so that none would know if not aware of them, but there nonetheless.’
‘Peepholes?’ Mariah repeated uncomprehendingly.
‘You had no idea they were there?’
‘I—’ She gave a dazed shake of her head. ‘I do not even know what they are.’
He grimaced. ‘No doubt Nichols came up the stairs just now to check on which bedchamber we had gone into, yours or my own. His intention then being to go back down the stairs and invite his guests to come up here and observe the two of us together through those peepholes, no doubt accessed through a shallow passage between the walls.’
Mariah dropped weakly down on to the side of the bed and felt all the colour leach from her cheeks as she took in the full import of what Darian was saying to her.
A peep show. They were to have been nothing more than a—
‘It did not happen, Mariah,’ Darian soothed as he moved to sit on the bed beside her before taking her into his arms as she collapsed weakly against his chest; one look at the blank shock on Mariah’s deathly white face had been enough to tell him that this was the first she had known of those strategically placed peepholes in the walls of Lady Nichols’s bedchamber.
He felt ashamed now for having harboured even the briefest of doubts that Mariah might have been a willing participant in the entertainment the Nichols had now intended providing for their guests.
An understandable doubt, perhaps, in view of Mariah’s reputation, but Darian now felt a heady relief at realising, from her collapse against him, that if they had made love together she would have been as innocently unaware of the people watching as he was.
A reputation Darian had already started to question earlier this evening and about which he now had serious doubts.
She had been at deep pains in his carriage earlier to ensure that he understood that any show of intimacy between the two of them was for show only.
The gown she wore this evening was positively virginal in comparison with the other ladies’ attire.
Mariah had seemed relieved rather than disappointed when his glowering presence beside her had kept all other gentlemen at bay this evening.
She had been as disgusted as he by the sexual play they had witnessed during dinner and since.
Lastly, he would swear that her responses just now, to his kisses and the caress of his hands, lips and tongue, had been completely without guile or pretence.
As had her dismay when she realised that Richard Nichols had been watching them.
‘It could have,’ she choked now. ‘It could have!’
Mariah pulled out of Wolfingham’s arms before standing up abruptly, knowing, that if Richard Nichols had not played his hand too early, that she had been on the brink—the very brink!—of allowing her emotions to rule her head.
She had wanted Darian Hunter to make love to her.
She had hungered for it.
Had been so lost to the pleasure of his hands and mouth, of wanting that pleasure to continue, that she had almost been on the point of begging him to make love to her!
It was incomprehensible.
Unbelievable.
Unacceptable!
She did not find pleasure in a man’s arms, in his closeness, in his lovemaking. She never had. She never would. How could she when the single memory of that act was of the violation of her body rather than pleasure?
When Martin Beecham, the man who had later become her husband, had forced himself upon her shortly before her seventeenth birthday.
A rape of her body and her soul of which Christina was the result, thus forcing Mariah into becoming Martin’s wife.
