Читать книгу Sin - Sharon Page - Страница 8

Venetia darted along the path that wound through Hyde Park. In the afternoon, the ton would flock here. A stroll in the park was de rigueur in the Season for the haute volée. But in the morning, gentlemen rode the paths. Handsome, sleekly muscled gentlemen on sleekly muscled mounts.

Even on this gloomy day, the panting of lathered horses filled the air. Bold, deep-voiced shouts rose from the men racing on the track—calls of victory, curses of defeat.

A massive black horse thundered up the Row, black mane flying, hooves throwing up sand. Horse and rider charged as one, streaking up the track toward her. Exultant power showed in the rider’s aristocratic face.

She tipped her hood back enough to view him.

It was the Earl of Trent and he rode like a god. Astride that giant coal-black gelding, he rose up, his powerful thighs clamping the horse’s body. Beneath his hat, his raven hair streamed back. Pure ecstasy gleamed in his eyes. Sweat shone on his high cheekbones.

She was mesmerized.

At the end of the track, he reined in and turned the giant beast with a twitch of his thighs. He frowned as he saw her. She began to walk toward him, to make it clear he was her intent.

He urged the horse into a trot and reached her side. She had to hold her hood in place as she looked up at him. On that enormous horse, he towered over her.

“How did you get here?”

His cool voice didn’t hold promise. For the last day—even knowing she was being blackmailed—she’d thought of him. Of that kiss.

“A hackney. It’s waiting for me. I came to find you—your butler admitted you were here.”

“If this is about your career—” he broke off. Smiled. “Don’t look so devastated, my dear. I would like to offer you a commission.”

Confused, Venetia asked softly, “For a book of erotica?” Drawing naughty pictures specifically for him? Her every nerve ignited at the thought.

Heat flared in his eyes but he shook his head. “No, for a portrait. A miniature. Of my nephew. He is but two weeks old, and his mother insists he changes with every moment. I wish a keepsake of him as he is now.”

There was no mistaking the tenderness in his voice, the wistful look in his eyes. “You wish me to paint you a portrait of your nephew?”

He was giving her a reason to stay in London. A reason to paint. A career. “But what of your sister’s family? Do they know who I am? The ton do not accept female artists.”

“I believe my sister, Lady Ravenwood, would be willing to give you the opportunity. She is very strident about rescuing women. As you said, if your father gambles again, what will you do?”

Strangely, she was almost happy her father would recover and be able to gamble again. But she was so astonished by the earl’s offer. How could his sister’s family accept her in their home and let her be in the presence of their child, knowing she painted scandalous art?

“Why would you—would they—do this for me knowing what I’ve done?”

“Lady Ravenwood believes you are an innocent woman forced to do what you must to survive.”

In that mad moment, she loved him. It was the kindest thing anyone had done. Noble, wonderful. She couldn’t imagine why he had even spared her another thought. Face aflame, she snapped herself to rights.

“Why would you do this for me?” What did she want him to say? That the kiss had entranced him as much as it had her? That she’d captured his fancy?

“Do you accept?” was all he said.

He was giving her everything she’d dreamed of—freedom, independence, her art, the excitement of London—but she couldn’t accept. Not until she could stop Mrs. Harcourt’s blackmail.

“Well?” he prompted. Her silence had offended.

She swallowed hard. She thought she’d known despair when Rodesson lost everything. But that had been nothing compared to having this presented to her when she must refuse it. “I came here, my lord, to ask you to take me to an orgy.”

The horse shied. She leaped back, almost tripping over her cloak. The beast reared, hooves flailing. Would it throw him? The earl pulled hard on the reins, forcing the horse down. The earth shook beneath her as the huge hooves pounded into the ground. He’d brought the horse down away from her, saving her life. He stroked the horse’s gleaming black neck, steadying the beast with soothing words and sheer dominant will.

With fluid elegance, he dismounted, swinging his long, powerful leg over the horse’s rump. She watched the beautiful play of his muscles beneath his breeches, the bulge of his calves in his polished boots. In a heartbeat, he was at her side, reins in hand.

Other men watched them with avid curiosity but none approached. Who did they think she was? His lover? The thought made her tremble.

Filled with concern, his turquoise eyes assessed her. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head.

A sensual smile touched his mouth. “I’d give you another kiss to make certain, my dear, but this is not the place.”

Her heart thundered like the horses.

“Now the truth, my dear. Why have you searched me out to invite me to an orgy? I can assure you I have no intention of taking you, but you’ve piqued my curiosity.”

“I must go because you were correct. Someone else knows about me. I’m being blackmailed.”

“By whom?”

“A Mrs. Harcourt,” she whispered, “I must speak to her. Stop her. She is going to a scandalous orgy at Lord Chartrand’s. You are the only gentleman I know—”

“We cannot speak of this here,” he interrupted. “You must come to my home—you know where I live, of course.”

“So what does this Mrs. Harcourt want from you?” Lord Trent asked as he poured brandy into his glass.

Venetia cradled her enormous, delicate brandy balloon between her palms. Her mother had only taken spirits before noon when she mourned her broken heart—in the parlor, with the drapes closed. As Venetia nervously caressed the smooth glass, she realized, with shock, that the Earl of Trent was the only person she could confide her problems to.

At least she’d taken care to hide her face and hair as she’d walked back here. There had been only gentlemen about, no one had spared her a glance.

She took a sip of her drink. The spirit slid down her throat, igniting fire.

“Money,” she said. “Lydia Harcourt is a courtesan. My father was so foolish! She discovered that his hands are crippled and that he can’t paint. She learned about me. I don’t know if he told her everything or if she guessed, but she wants one thousand pounds to keep silent. I haven’t got one thousand pounds!”

She took another gulp of the brandy—it was easier now to take more than a sip. Courage blossomed in her heart.

“Does Rodesson know about this?

“Not until I told him yesterday afternoon.”

“It seems to me it is his dilemma to solve.”

With sarcasm, she said, “He creates the troubles that must be fixed. At first he assured me that her intention was to hurt him, not me. He insisted that she had no intention of revealing what she knew but that we should pay her. He decided to set off last night in her pursuit—or he would have done, but he had a mild attack of his heart.”

The earl’s brows shot up. “He survived, I gather?”

She nodded. “I was summoned by his footman and sent for a physician. The doctor looked dour and serious, and lectured, but he’s confident my father will recover. Still my father is in no condition to go to Mrs. Harcourt and I fear about what will happen to his health if he is trapped in bed and worrying.”

“And what does the orgy have to do with this, love?”

The earl smelled delicious from his ride—of leather from the saddle and his riding boots, heady sandalwood, his perspiration. Even his library was a delight for the senses. The room contained lavish color—rugs of crimson, indigo, ivory; a daybed heaped with silks and pillows of scarlet, sapphire-blue, deep green. Pillows were strewn on the floor, beside low tables, as though he sprawled there to read. Her book was there, on a table inlaid with jade.

“I went to Mrs. Harcourt’s house this morning and learned she has gone to Lord Chartrand’s orgy.”

“You went to her house?” The earl’s brows rose, then he strolled over to his desk. He picked up a card. Presented it to her. “Chartrand’s bacchanalia. Held in the Cottswolds. Near Moreton-in-Marsh.”

Venetia could barely breathe as she stared down at the printed card, tracing the gilt design with her thumb. It was not addressed to him in particular. With this in hand, she could easily attend.

“You aren’t going to attend an orgy.” He plucked the card from her fingers, tossed it back to his desk.

“But I must go. I can’t wait for her to return! What if she talks before then?”

“Hell and damnation,” he muttered. “You want to go to an orgy because you are afraid that anxiety will kill your father? I would say that he deserves some anxiety.”

But that would only cause her more, so she could not agree. “I believe if I go, I can understand what kind of woman Mrs. Harcourt is. And plead with her not to ruin my family.”

He sauntered over to a bookshelf, with his long predatory stride, and pulled out a slim volume. “A Gentleman’s Choice,” he read off the spine. “Or a Guide to the Fashionable Impures of 1818. Anything you wish to learn about this Season’s courtesans can be found in here. Lydia Harcourt is featured.”

“Someone publishes an annual guide to courtesans?”

“Illustrated as well.”

Given her own pictures, why was she blushing? “Do you select your mistresses from descriptions in a book?”

“You disapprove?”

Well, she did, but she had no right to.

“But you know how enticing a book can be. Here, take a look.”

She found Lydia Harcourt’s picture near the back of the volume, a voluptuous woman shown wearing only a corset. Large breasts pointed boldly at the viewer, her legs were crossed to hide her quim but to reveal her full thighs and generous bottom. The sketch was ink, in black and white, depicting Mrs. Harcourt with a pretty face and masses of black curls.

“Lydia Harcourt was once the Queen of London’s courtesans,” he said. “But now she is nearing forty, her charms are fading, and the men she once entranced are seeking out new, younger lovers. Rumor has it that she raved at the publisher of that book for placing her at the back and blackened his eye before he had her thrown out. Under her veneer, she’s a coarse scrapper who will do anything to survive.”

“Not very sympathetic, then.” She read the text that accompanied the picture. Magnificent forty-inch breasts…most skilled mouth and clever hands…conquests include the Duke of Montberry, the Earl of Brude…Rodesson’s mocking pictures…

“My father painted her picture.” She hadn’t even thought to look.

Trent nodded. “Several unkind ones that revealed Lydia’s origins as a coarse butcher’s daughter and mocked her aspirations to bed dukes.”

Venetia frowned. Yet Lydia had still let Rodesson come to her bed. Why? Had revenge been Lydia’s goal all along and her father had stupidly played into her hands? Venetia closed the book. “Then I shall have my father write out an apology and take that to her. Surely that will help.” Now she understood—Lydia wanted her father to suffer, she wanted to torment him by threatening to ruin his daughters.

“You can’t go to an orgy, my dear.”

“I want to see what an orgy is really like,” she protested. “It would be…an adventure. I don’t wish to be good and proper and pure anymore! I want adventure. Even if only for once, I want to be part of the world I draw.”

“Have a love affair then, sweetheart. Do you ride horses?”

That surprised her. “Not well,” she admitted.

“Would you want to climb on the back of Zeus, my horse, and race him down the Row?”

“Heavens, no.”

“Then your first sexual adventure should not be an event that exhausts even London’s most experienced and randy men. At Chartrand’s orgy, you would be seriously out of your depth.”

“I know what happens at orgies. I’ve drawn them!” Venetia cried.

Marcus picked up Venetia’s book, Tales of a London Gentleman, and flipped the pages until he found an orgy scene. Rodesson had drawn dozens of such scenes and his father had insisted he look at every one. For his sixteenth birthday, his father enacted his favorite at a brothel. A bloody wretched night it had been, he reflected. Six young ladybirds had sprained their ankles, three of his father’s friends were laid up for a month, and he’d spent the entire occasion fucking one woman with his eyes shut, embarrassed by the wild, heaving display—

Venetia Hamilton’s orgy scene was unique, set amongst gods and goddesses in a temple in the clouds. She had succeeded in turning a tangle of naked human bodies into something playful and undeniably romantic.

He looked away from her picture and sighed. “My dear, you have a very starry-eyed view of an orgy.”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “I am well aware that reality does not sell books, my lord. After all, when is the hero of a romantic story ever balding, pot-bellied, and riddled with gout?”

He laughed. God, she was enchanting. And mulishly stubborn.

“Besides.” She stuck out her chin. “Some Rodesson paintings are more humorous than erotic. A set of plump buttocks sticking up, a gentleman’s tilted sword, a lady tumbled on her back with legs waving in the air. All very silly.”

His throat tightened. His cock began to rise. “At the orgy, would you announce to your host that he has a virgin in his midst, one who has delivered herself willingly to the wolves? Do you have any idea what Chartrand would do with you the moment he discovered a virgin had come to his party?”

Hazel eyes wide, she licked her full lips.

“He would introduce you to the darkest pleasures but first he would make you compliant by stripping you naked before his guests and spanking your nude derriere with a riding crop to teach you obedience. He would be the one to plunder your virginity, likely in public—”

He wanted to frighten her—to protect her—but she stood with a straight spine and a fiercely determined expression.

“I would pretend to be a jade,” she said, “I would go masked. And if you will not escort me, I can hire a bodyguard to do so.”

“Chartrand’s orgy is a weeklong event. A week of men fucking any woman they can get their hands on.”

Her nostrils flared. “A week…they have…they rut for a week? How many encounters do they have?”

“Many.”

“Don’t they…tire?”

“The men, certainly. Women can enjoy, or endure, many partners. At the last one I went to, Chartrand wagered that a woman could not service one hundred men, and he paid a jade to do it.”

“One hundred men are there?”

“He rounded up fifty—she had each man twice. One of his favorite games is to assign six men to pleasure a woman at once—especially if the woman is a novice.”

Her startled look encouraged him to press. He lifted her hand to his lips. Kissed her middle finger. “One man’s cock in your cunny.”

He kept his tone casual, as though he was speaking of the latest Drury Lane play, not sex. If he lectured, she’d close her ears. Presenting sin so calmly would shock her all the more.

A light flared in her vivid eyes. Lust, desire, interest. A bewitching fire. Her breasts heaved in the most endearing and enticing way. He pressed his lips to her index finger. “One for you to pleasure with your mouth.” Kissed her thumb and baby finger. “One prick each for your hands to explore and one to explode and shower your breasts with come. And the last, of course, to be buried deeply in your ass.”

“I must be completely wicked…because I’m aroused.” To Marcus’ surprise, she turned the tables on him, sensually stroking his lips.

“The words excited you…the reality would be very different. Would you wish to lick the cock of a man you don’t know? Would you be willing to kiss his rump? Would you like to be tied up by a woman like Lydia Harcourt and have her kiss your quim?”

Her moan rippled down his spine. “I…I don’t know. You’ve enjoyed such adventures. You attend orgies.” Her soft voice teased his cock into painful hardness.

He fought to stay distant. “I used to find it diverting to attend orgies where men and women are indiscriminate with their pleasure. I don’t go anymore.”

“Have you made love to six women at once?” she asked.

The innocence of the question seared him. “No love, only three at once.” But even as the memory of it made his cock pulse, it was her curious face that made him hunger the most. He leaned back against his desk, shifting his hips.

She stepped toward him. “And you think it is perfectly acceptable for you to do it, while you condemn a woman for wanting to be adventurous? If a woman doesn’t expect marriage, if she is completely independent, why shouldn’t she enjoy erotic games?”

“And you think you would?” He’d never expected a woman to argue women should be as promiscuous as men. Usually women argued that men should learn to be faithful.

“Men will demand things of you. What would you do if a man did this to you?” He tipped up her chin and forced a kiss upon her. He quickly changed to the kiss to a sensuous melding of their lips, and slid his tongue within. Demanding. Filling her mouth.

She kissed him back until he broke it, breathing hard.

“I am not afraid of a kiss,” she said.

He grabbed her left breast. “Then I shall have a squeeze of your lovely tits, my dear.” God, he hated behaving like this—but at orgies, he’d seen it all the time amongst those drunk or fired by aphrodisiacs. Her breast was a lovely weight in his hand, ripe, soft, warm.

Her nipple hardened and poked into his palm. Her hand snaked out, grabbed his ballocks in his breeches and squeezed hard. “Christ Jesus!” he yelled, and he let her go.

“Try that at an orgy and you’ll only enrage a man,” he warned. “They think a woman is there to play.”

“Then I would tell the man I was ready to play, arrange a meeting and then slip away.”

“And what if he doesn’t want to wait.” His blood thundered in his head. “What if he tosses up your skirts where you stand?”

He felt her heat steaming through her dress. His head swam. Enough blood had surged down to his cock so he could barely think straight. “You are a beautiful woman. You tempt a man to madness.”

“I want you to toss up my skirts.” Desire—innocent, tentative, but fiery—burned in the hazel depths of her eyes.

“I won’t deflower you, angel, but there are many ways to pleasure you.”

“I know. Pleasures with mouths and hands.” Her voice was soft, throaty. “I’ve drawn many pictures of that—of women swallowing a man’s privy member, of men licking a woman’s quim.”

Her words played havoc with his soul. He didn’t debauch virgins. He would not do it.

But her hands slid down, between their bodies. Marcus heard her gasp as they slid over her breasts. She began drawing up her skirts. “Pleasure me, please.”

He glanced down. Her skirts were at her waist, lacy petticoats spilling over her arms. The erotic scent of her arousal flooded his senses. She possessed an abundant bush of sherry-red curls between her smooth creamy thighs. Demure white stockings and ivory garters graced her shapely legs. Her juices shone on her nether lips.

He cupped her naked bottom. Her skin was satin-smooth, her cheeks full, firm, enticing. Sweat beaded his brow, prickled along his collar.

He began to sink to his knees, then stopped. No, he wanted her on her back, legs spread, with her cunny displayed to him.

Scooping her up, Marcus carried her to the daybed.

Venetia tumbled gently back against the silky fabric. She felt as though she were floating, even though she was firmly anchored to earth by the earl’s strong, powerful body. Her dress was a jumble at her waist, her legs spread wide.

The earl kissed her lips, nibbled her ears, brushed his mouth down her neck, and licked the sensitive spot in the hollow of her throat. She arched with each touch of his tongue. Sensation swamped her senses. Her sensitive skin, his wetness, warmth. She wanted to see, smell, taste his naked skin—

With shaking fingers, she tried to push off his coat.

He took over, sliding his tight-fitting riding coat from his broad shoulders. She watched, breathless, as he dropped it to the floor, leaving him in his shirtsleeves. She wrapped her hands around his biceps, rock hard bulges beneath exquisite lawn. With one hand he undid his waistcoat buttons, with the other he cupped her breast. Her bosom seemed so small beneath his large, masculine hand. Pleasure sizzled from his touch. Like a firefly seeking light, it raced through her and burst between her thighs. Oh!

She shut her eyes as he kissed her deeply. Their tongues twined. His hands slid between her back and the daybed, splayed wide over her. The buttons dropped from their loops. He pulled the neckline of her bodice down. Her breasts perched atop her crumpled bodice, lifted for his admiration and pleasure.

He licked the valley in between. “Lovely.”

“But not large.” In pictures, women possessed succulent breasts. “Don’t men favor large—”

“I assure you that you have beautiful tits.”

He nuzzled her nipples. He’d been shaved close, his cheeks and jaw wonderfully smooth, skimming over her sensitive skin. His mouth opened—her nipple disappeared inside. Her touches to herself had been nothing compared to the suction of his mouth, the swirling of his tongue. He laved, licked and suckled, and her dampened nipples gleamed in the faint daylight.

She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. Freed the first. Then she sensibly let him do the rest. It was all she could do to breathe.

His shirt fell open, revealing ridges and planes of muscle, swirls of dark hair, dusky brown nipples. She stroked the soft curling hair, tracing it down over his flat, rippling stomach to the snug waistband of his breeches. Daringly, she coasted her fingers lower, and touched the hard ridge of his cock. She skimmed her hands back up. Her thumbs brushed his nipples, which tightened instantly. “Your nipples are so different than mine.”

“But they are as sensitive and they enjoy the same attentions. Stroke them, pinch them—”

“Suckle them?” she suggested softly.

“Yes, sweeting, but for now you are to lie back.” He moved off the end of the daybed and dropped to his knees. He was going to…to kiss her there. Yes, she’d drawn the act, had trembled with illicit desire each time she sketched a man’s head between a woman’s thighs, and now she was burning with anticipation.

Soft golden light traced his cheekbone, his firm lips. In the candlelight, his skin was the color of toasted meringue.

Her breath left in a whoosh as he kissed her nether curls.

His tongue tangled within them. Luxuriant pleasure washed over her. She dug her fingers into the smooth fabric of the chaise, curled her toes.

He slid his tongue down to her quim. Warm and slick, it flicked her nether lips apart. He tasted her juices, groaning as he did.

He watched her over her nether curls—she stared helplessly into his turquoise eyes, a slave to the pleasure he was giving. Then, above her mound, he winked at her.

How could she be so shocked—and suddenly worry about Maidenswode propriety—while arching and moaning on his chaise?

He slid his tongue into her passage, filling her with wet heat. Plunged it in and out and she cried out with each spearing thrust.

He lifted his mouth from her throbbing quim. “Tell me what you like, love. Do you like my tongue to slide inside your cunny?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“Have you seen your beautiful pussy, my dear?”

Again she nodded. She’d held a mirror there to look. She’d been so curious. In paintings it was a mysterious oval-shaped opening. She’d had to know for herself.

“Have you touched your clit?” he asked wickedly. And with that, his mouth closed over her sensitive bud.

Her moan turned to a scream. “My lord!”

He licked her nub with demanding strokes that sent explosions of ecstasy and agony, shock and delight, racing through her. She was pleading for mercy. Crying “my lord” over and over, clutching at his hair.

But he wouldn’t stop. He stroked, stroked, stroked. The tide of sensation, of agony, was building in her. But it was too much.

He caught hold of her hands so she couldn’t push him away or pull free. Relentlessly, he suckled and teased. This was so much more intense than her caresses. She arched her hips up to him. She had to close her eyes, grip his hands.

“Oh! Oh! Oh! My lord!” She wanted him to never stop, to take her over the brink—

She exploded. Her body clenched and pulsed and she thrashed with it. Saw fireworks—worthy of Vauxhall—then sparkling darkness. She was screaming!

He stopped her shouts with a kiss, covering her mouth with his. His lips tasted of her quim, rich and primal and musky, and his fingers stroked her. She was still coming, still pulsing, still caught up in ecstasy. Then, she opened her eyes to find him leaning over her, braced on his muscular arms. He smiled down at her. She touched his cheek, and he kissed her palm. A gesture that made her heart tremble.

Then she realized she was half-naked, drenched in sweat and her juices, and had screamed his house down in the middle of the morning.

She sat up abruptly, almost falling to the side as she did. Her head was dizzy—lovemaking was as intoxicating as liquor. She must put herself to rights but her bodice was crumpled beneath her bare breasts, her skirts a wrinkled mess.

“What is wrong, my dear? Why the haste?”

“I—oh, what have I done? I am—” Horrified, she thought of his offer. “You see I’m not good and proper at all, my lord. I am not the sort of woman who should paint Lady Ravenwood’s baby.”

As she slapped at her skirt to try to smooth it, he kissed her cheek. “Marcus. After that intimacy we are Marcus and Venetia, my dear. And you aren’t wicked, love. However, you aren’t going to Chartrand’s.”

“I do not require your permission!”

“I could stop you in a heartbeat,” he warned, “Merely by telling your father.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I could dispatch a footman with a note immediately.”

He crossed his arms over his bared chest, forearms and biceps bulging—how could she notice such a thing when he threatened to betray her? How could he do such a thing after giving her an intimate French kiss?

To protect her. She almost laughed at the madness. He was the noblest man she’d ever known yet he had just licked her quim until she saw stars.

She stared down at her hopeless skirts. “Then you have won, my lord. I cannot go.”