Читать книгу In the Flesh - Portia Da Costa - Страница 8

A Gentlewoman’s Temptation

IT WAS EXACTLY as she imagined drowning might be. Expiring in a well of lush sensation. Transformed into a houri within the space of a few minutes, she gasped in disappointment when Ritchie broke the kiss.

She tried to resume it. Digging her fingers into his thick, curly hair, she attempted to draw his lips back down to hers. Only his hands and mouth seemed real in a world transparent.

“No, no, Miss Weatherly.” His laugh was taunting, soft. “Unless you want me to compromise you even more than you’ve already been, right here on this runner.”

He nodded toward the narrow strip of Turkish carpet adorning the corridor in which they found themselves. Beatrice blinked. How had they got here? She was so disorientated that words temporarily escaped her. She could only stare at Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie, and blink like a nincompoop.

His smile brought her to her senses. It was hard, possessive, hungry, mocking. He was highly amused by the way she’d turned into a willing trollop in his arms with barely a fight. And yet still the twist of his mouth excited her and made her want it on hers again.

And elsewhere.

Between your legs … taste you there …

Dear God in heaven, what would that feel like? His tongue in her mouth had addled her senses. If it touched her there, if it stroked her there, she might go mad.

But still she ached and melted, wanting things that had been unthinkable an hour ago.

What in heaven’s name am I doing? I’m letting him turn my head again.

“Please let go of me, Mr. Ritchie. I’ve got to go back to the ballroom and find my brother.” As she wiggled out of his grasp, her skirts fell back into place like the curtain at the end of an operetta.

A farce, most definitely …

Free and covered again, Beatrice swooped low to scoop up her belongings. “I still have dances on my card and gentlemen waiting.”

“Fuck them!”

The card was whipped out of her hand, and with its tiny pencil grasped between his long, nimble fingers, Ritchie scratched out every name and scribbled his in each place.

“Mr. Ritchie, there’s no need to be so high-handed. Or so profane, for that matter.”

“There’s every reason to be high-handed. When I see you … when I touch you, I want to have you to myself.” As he hesitated, Beatrice made a move but he grasped her arm again, firmly yet gently. “But we need more time together, so we don’t have to be so hasty. The pleasures of sensuality should be savored like a slow, unhurried feast.” His fingers tightened and he tugged her toward a half-open door, a little farther along the passage.

“I’m not going in there for a … a feast with you. I’ve got to go back. Charlie will be worried.”

The tug became irresistible. She started to follow, her teeth gritted, more vexed with herself than with the strong, insufferable man who was leading her along. Enlightened by the lessons of Eustace, she was not going to be bamboozled by a male of the species ever again.

“Your brother is either too busy drinking or gambling or engaged in some other pursuit to worry about you for the moment. Unless of course you’re the precious item he’s wagering.”

“Don’t be grotesque!”

Beatrice went hot and cold. Might it actually be true? Charlie had gone on and on about the loss of her reputation damaging her chances of the marriage that would save both their fortunes. What might he be driven to when his judgment was clouded by brandy?

Her moment of hesitation was fatal, and Ritchie whisked her along just as he’d done in the conservatory. Within seconds, he’d plunged the pair of them into a small study or smoking room, a masculine retreat, lined with books. With an air of triumph about him, he locked the door behind them.

Beatrice stepped back and back, away from her captor. Fear surged, but swirled with a delicious longing in her belly. She was a person of supposedly bad reputation, so why not be worthy of it? Why suffer the disadvantages of being a scarlet woman without tasting any of its advantages?

But maidenly fantasies on a drowsy afternoon were one thing. Facing a powerful man in his lust was quite another.

“Don’t look at me like a terrified mouse, Beatrice.” Ritchie frowned, his broad brow puzzled. “A girl of your experience isn’t afraid of being alone with a man, surely?”

But I have no experience. I was tricked into posing for those photographs. I don’t even know for sure whether I was touched while I slept or not.

So, indeed, some variety of a mouse. But she wasn’t going to admit to being a fool and a gullible ninny, or Ritchie would laugh. And he’d know he could cozen her into any brand of debauchery that took his fancy.

“No, I’m not afraid of you, Mr. Ritchie.” She stared at him, her eyes steady. Then, feeling the edge of a chair just behind her knees, she sank into it, feigning a composure that was far from her true state. “I’m just not particularly fond of your company and I don’t see why I should grant you any further liberties. Even with my experience.”

Ritchie shook his head. He was smiling, but he looked impressed in a vaguely perplexed sort of way. “What would it take for you to grant me a few more of those liberties, Beatrice?” He swaggered over to her and stood looking downwards. He was like a giant, a colossus, looming over her, and he seemed to own the very air around them. “I’ve got a lot to offer.”

Beatrice swallowed. Right in front of her, he was still aroused and he did indeed have a lot to offer. She stared at his groin from beneath lowered lashes, then back up at his face.

“You’re a tempting woman. Far too tempting.” He reached down and cupped her face, and for a moment she thought he was going to draw her lips to him. Perhaps rapidly unbutton his trousers and offer his cock to her, as Ambrose Chamfleur had done to his Sofia.

“And that tempts me too, Miss Weatherly.” Ritchie laughed softly as if he’d read the lewd visions in her mind. Was he some kind of mentalist, with supernatural powers?

Shaking, Beatrice turned away. If he could read her visions, he could read her desires too. And know that she’d wanted to caress him in that way, and that she’d almost reached out to unfasten his trousers.

I’m going completely mad. I’ve known the man barely more than an hour … and he’s turned me into a jezebel and a slave to carnal appetites.

His fingers curved around her cheek. The touch was as soft as thistledown, but no force was needed. Like a cat hungry for affection again, she rubbed her face against his palm, and when he pressed a little more firmly, it was the simplest matter in the world to follow his urgings.

Beatrice laid her face against the front of his trousers, blindly seeking tangible evidence of his maleness.

Through the fine cloth, he felt hard, warm, alive. His penis throbbed as if it had a sentience all of its own. Beatrice’s mouth watered, remembering Sofia Chamfleur’s enthusiasm, and she rubbed her cheek against him, the response purely instinctive. She had no idea precisely how her action would feel to him, but his low gasp of pleasure was educational

“My dear … my dear …” Ritchie’s voice was ragged, not that of the man who taunted her and who seemed to control her so effortlessly. Now he was teetering on the edge of his own precipice, and the idea of that was both thrilling and alarming.

Ritchie had so much power he could simply throw her on the carpet and ravish her, and even though the throbbing ache between her thighs told her she wanted that, and wanted it badly, some self-preserving thread told a different story.

Don’t give yourself away quite so easily. Always, always remember how Eustace duped you. From now on, you must not let a man take the upper hand.

With one last buss of her cheek against his groin, she broke his hold on her, and wriggling like an eel, she slid sideways and out of the chair. Shooting to her feet, she skipped across the room. Out of his reach.

“I’m afraid that nothing you have is sufficient to tempt me, Mr. Ritchie.” With a twist of her lips, she stared pointedly at the lingering bulge in his trousers.

“I wonder.” He didn’t look down, but his imperious brows quirked.

“I’m quite certain.” It was dangerous to be here with him. She had to get out. “Now, if you have nothing more to say to me, I’ll return to the ballroom.”

Whirling, she sped for the door, not waiting for an answer. She was close. Escape was in sight. She almost had her fingers on the key in its lock.

Ritchie’s hand closed around hers, enveloping it.

How had he moved so fast? And with no sound? Was the wretched man possessed of strange occult powers of bilocation or blink-of-an-eye speed?

“Stay, Beatrice. Let me make you an offer.” He turned her, his ungloved hand on her bare upper arm again. The hot feel of it sent strange sparks rushing through her veins, heading for her deepest, most responsive zones. She opened her mouth to say there was nothing he could offer, to lie in effect, but before she could, he went on in a low, hard voice. “If I can’t tempt you solely with my amenable personality or my prowess as a lover, perhaps I can offer you a more businesslike arrangement?”

It was difficult to breathe. And when she did, the gasps made her breasts rise and fall alarmingly in the low, newly stitched neckline of her dress. Ritchie flashed a glance downwards, and his lips parted on a gasp of his own.

“Please let me go, Mr. Ritchie. There is nothing you can offer that I want.”

“You’re a liar, my dear. Your eyes and your blushing face and the way you’re panting all tell me otherwise. But that’s by the by.” He narrowed his eyes at her, suddenly all ruthlessness, “I’m offering to pay your and your brother’s debts. Which are considerable and far more than you realize, by the way. I’ll also settle an annual sum of money on you both that will keep you comfortable for the rest of your lives.”

Beatrice’s mouth opened and closed, like one of the fish in the conservatory pond. She knew she looked foolish, but there were no words she could utter.

The debts were perilous, she knew that. Many were inherited from their late father, a dear man but a poor manager, who’d caused them to lose Westerlynne on his demise.

But other debts were more recently incurred. Charlie liked to think he was keeping things from her, but he was as good as using a lace handkerchief to mop up a swamp. Her offers of help in planning a stratagem were always brushed aside with mutters of “gentlemen’s business.”

There was no hiding what Ritchie wanted in return for his assistance. She knew it. And she knew he knew she knew. It was a transaction as old as time, and one could either shudder over it or accept it with pragmatism. Well-bred young women weren’t supposed to even be aware of such negotiations, but they could easily be discovered in sensational fiction and the rags like Marriott’s Monde were full of them. The ladies of the Sewing Circle whispered and giggled and chewed over such scandals of the demimonde with relish.

I’m standing at the edge a cliff top. One step and I’ll tumble over. Unable to prevent herself, Beatrice pressed her hand to her bosom. Surely her heart was thundering so much the palpitations were visible? But if I don’t plunge, it’s utter ruin for Charlie and me anyway.

How much worse could this be than losing everything? She knew she could survive somehow, get lodgings, and obtain some kind of modest employment. The idea of the typewriting machine ever intrigued her. But Charlie? For all his bravado he was more helpless and without a clue than she’d ever been.

“For how long?” She drew in a breath, narrowed her eyes and looked Ritchie in his eyes. “For how long would you … you require me?”

“Require you?” Behind those dark blue eyes, Beatrice imagined she saw the whirring cogs of some infernal calculating machine.

“Come, Mr. Ritchie, we both know that it’s nothing so noble as an engagement or marriage that you’re offering in return for your largesse. If it were, you’d be all kisses on the hand and tender words and a request to present yourself to my brother and I for tea.”

“You’re very astute, Beatrice. I like that. I see we can proceed.” His hand loosened on her arm, and with a twist of the wrist, he drew the back of it across her chest, his knuckle trailing across one breast and lingering lovingly against her nipple through her dress and corsetry.

Even through the layers, the way he circled the little crest of flesh was demonic. Her nipple puckered, though he was barely touching it, and again, ripples of sensation surged through her body, centering between her thighs. Was she such a sensualist, a woman so easy that even the tiniest of caresses could work her into a frenzy?

Is that really such a very bad thing?

The question was relevant. The boundaries of her beliefs and her values were shifting and metamorphosing. She was no longer the woman who’d arrived here tonight.

It was time to call the arrangement by its name.

“For how long do you require me as your whore, Mr. Ritchie? I’ll enter into an agreement with you, but I insist on a finite period of time. After that, I’ll simply forget you ever laid a finger on me.”

Still stroking her breast, he laughed. It was a strangely young, happy sound and as he threw back his head, his white teeth glinted in the lamplight.

“You’re very wise to set conditions, Beatrice. If I was selling my body for money, I’d do exactly the same.” Then he lunged closer, his breath on her neck as he whispered in her ear, the scent of his shaving lotion coiling in her brain. “But I’m not sure you’ll be able to forget my fingers quite so easily. Would you like a little demonstration?” It didn’t seem that he needed an answer. Reaching for the fullness of her skirts, he began hauling the heavy mass of them upward again. “A little sample of what we might expect … for you and for me.”

He planted a hard, hungry kiss on the side of her neck, and then went at her skirts with his whole attention, lifting all the layers of petticoats so he could get both hands under them. French faille and lace, cotton and linen, all rumpled like an ocean of haberdashery, but Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie was clearly a master mariner in those waters.

I should stop him. It’s too soon. Too great a liberty.

He intended yet more than he’d already achieved, she knew that, but within moments, she was holding up her skirts to help him while he slid his fingers into the vent of her drawers.

Thanking providence she’d chosen an open undergarment this evening, for ease when wearing a multiplicity of petticoats, Beatrice bumped backward against the door. It was hard and uncomfortable against her upper spine, but she barely felt it.

All she could think about, all she could feel, every last thought and notion in her head—all were subsumed to the demands of her aching sex. She moaned out loud when Ritchie found her with his fingertips, effortlessly parting the silky curls and reaching the heart of the matter. Her hips churned when he settled on the little button of flesh there and began to manipulate it in a slow, lazy rhythm.

Her petticoats fell over his arm as he touched her. Beatrice could no longer hold on to them, only on to him. She flung her arms around his neck, gripping hard, as if he were her rock in a wild sea and she would drown if she didn’t maintain her purchase. Her legs worked and kicked, her hips rocked and jerked and circled. But still Ritchie fondled her, not missing a single beat.

One long groan issued from her throat, the sound so bizarre and unusual to her own ears that it could have been the cry of a ghoul or some other phantom.

“Do you touch yourself often, Beatrice?”

No! No gently bred woman should admit to that!

But she did do it—yes, she did—in her quiet, lonely bed.

“Answer me! If you admit to stroking your own clitoris, I’ll double that annuity.”

Beatrice bit her lips, trying to stifle the uncouth sounds she couldn’t stop making. He might command her flesh, but he couldn’t make her utter such personal revelations. Not even for ten times the allowance!

“Don’t fight me, my sweet girl. Don’t fight me. I only want to pleasure you and to hear you describe your private games.” He kissed her neck again, his hot tongue gliding over her skin as his finger slid around and around below.

Beatrice started to whimper again, tossing her head. She might cry and shriek and wail like an animal, but she would not speak the revealing words he wanted.

“So that’s how it is, eh?” He laughed, his husky voice seeming to dance where his fingers flicked and played. “Perhaps another time then? For the moment, I’ll simply make you spend.”

He circled faster. And as she latched on harder to him, with both arms clasped around his neck, he burrowed beneath her skirts with his other hand, sneaking it into her drawers at the back.

Oh no! Oh no! Please, no!

The thoughts were nonsense. Her whole mind was nonsense. But her body knew what it wanted, what it enjoyed.

When he stroked the rounds of her bottom, and the tender groove between them, she arched like a steel bow and reached her pinnacle. Waves of pleasure pulsed through her belly, and her clitoris beat like a little heart, jumping and throbbing beneath Ritchie’s clever fingertip.

Half out of her senses, Beatrice thrashed and jerked about, holding on hard, and when the pleasure crested again, she buried her face in Ritchie’s neck, her mouth against his collar, her teeth closing and nipping at his skin. He let out a curse, but he laughed, still working on her.

“Enough, oh, I beg you … please, enough,” gasped Beatrice. Perspiration was soaking her chemise, her skin felt like fire, and she was sure that any moment she was going to faint clean away. Her own cautious experimental touches had yielded some delicious little flurries of fulfillment, but nothing like this, oh no, nothing like this. And exquisite as it was, she wasn’t sure if she could survive much more right now.

“Are you sure? Are you really sure?” Ritchie was gasping too, his voice broken as if he’d run a dozen miles without breaking his stride, “A woman like you must be capable of infinite sensuality.”

A woman like you?

As his hands withdrew with a last affectionate pat or two, Beatrice was deposited rudely back into the world of actions and their consequences with a ringing thud. She was angry with Ritchie, but angrier by far with both Eustace and herself.

Mostly with herself. For her own gullibility, and her incautious pursuit of a little affection. If she’d been more prudent, she wouldn’t even have got herself into the start of this trouble.

Finding her feet, she wriggled away, and as her skirts swished down into place again she smoothed them compulsively with her hands. But no amount of smoothing and patting could wipe away what had just happened underneath them.

“You can’t behave as if that didn’t just happen, you know.” He looked at her, long and hard, his eyes dancing. “I have the evidence.” In a slow, lascivious action, he raised his right hand to his lips, and licked the very fingertips that had stroked her so thoroughly. “Mmm … delicious. I could become addicted.”

“You’re disgusting, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice strode across to the sideboard, where a silver tray bore decanters and crystal glasses. It was the first time she’d ever helped herself to alcohol in the way men customarily did, but the aromatic bite of a fine brandy might calm her nerves. She stared at Ritchie over the crystal rim of the vessel, and what she noticed made her grin before she took a revivifying sip.

A vivid red bite mark adorned his neck, just above his crisp high collar, and he still sported a prodigious erection.

Serves you right! I hope it’s exceedingly uncomfortable. Because I’m not going to do anything about it.

“You could help with this.” He glanced down, following her look, his long lashes flicking. “I’m sure you know what to do.”

“Of course I do, Mr. Ritchie, but I’m afraid I’m not going to oblige you at the moment.” Clopping down the glass on the tray, Beatrice swept across the room and retrieved her forgotten fan, reticule and dance card. She half anticipated that her antagonist would intercept her with one of his preternatural bursts of speed, but he remained where he was, and when she reached the door, he even stepped aside. “You’ve had your sample, and there’ll be nothing further until I see an … an offer in writing. With no assets and no good reputation, I’ve got to be sure of what I’m getting before I give anything more in return.”

Ritchie shook his head, but the expression on his face was as much about admiration as it was of thwarted lust. “You’re a shrewd businesswoman, Beatrice.” He rubbed his neck where she’d bitten him as if silently adding a few other choice descriptors. “In your place, I’d do exactly the same. You’ll have a letter tomorrow.”

So easy? Yes, she supposed so. The formal particulars were the least of it. The very least.

“Excellent. Good. I’ll look forward to it.” She turned the key, grabbed the doorknob and swung open the door, her heart thudding. A few moments ago, this wretched man had gasped as if he’d been running, now she felt as if she’d done the fabled run from Marathon too. And probably back again. “I’ll bid you good-night, Mr. Ritchie. I think it’s time I went home. I’m feeling rather fatigued and need to rest.”

Barely pausing to accept his elaborate bow, and not wanting to see his mocking smile, Beatrice rushed out into the corridor, pulling the door closed behind her with a loud slam. Impolite behavior, she admitted, but after what had happened in that room just now, the natural boundaries of polite, acceptable behavior were redefined forever.

Would he follow? She hesitated just a second or two, but the door remained closed. Much for the best, she supposed, but in that case why did her heart sink inside her with crushing disappointment?

What have I done? Oh dear God in heaven, what have I done?

Between her thighs, right at her core, she felt his touch.

The corridor was silent, but in her head, she heard Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie laughing.