Claiming Her Master, page 4
Oh dear. Not a good start. What would Madame recommend? Was it a good sign he’d given up his bed for me? Or was he too much of a gentleman not to? Either way I’d have to go find him. I couldn’t allow him to bunk down in a drafty, empty room.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, I turned back to the doorway and exited the room. Trailing a hand along the wall, I called for Lucas softly and walked down the hall hoping no staircase would catch me by surprise. Lucas didn’t answer, and I didn’t believe he’d be asleep already.
“Lucas,” I said a bit louder.
“What?” a crabby voice called back from downstairs.
I spun around and felt my way down the stairs, grateful for every bit of moonlight coming through the windows. Once downstairs, finding Lucas in the stygian darkness was easy since he held the lone candle and its light glowed from a room to the left of the base of the stairs.
I entered that room to see Lucas crouched in front of a fireplace, piling logs and bits of paper.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t turn around. “Rowing a boat. What do you think I’m doing?”
“I see what you’re doing. I’m wondering why.”
At that he paused and turned to me. “I’m lighting a fire so I don’t freeze my bollocks off in here tonight.”
I stifled a smile at his curse. If he thought to scare me off by language, he’d have to do better than that. My father had treated me as a son and had thought nothing of letting loose with foul language now and again. “If the house hasn’t been lived in for a while, you’ll be bloody lucky not to have bats and other creatures joining you.”
It was hard to tell in the shadows, but I thought he may have smiled at my returned curse.
“What are you doing here? Couldn’t sleep?” His voice softened.
“No, especially knowing I’d kicked you out of your own bed. This is your home. I’ll sleep down here.”
He snorted. “You’re no lady, but you are a woman. I won’t force you to sleep on the floor. Compared to some of the places I’ve slept, this is practically a palace.”
I looked around, pretending I could examine the furnishings in the dark. “Yes, I can see that. You clearly have the superior room. I shall demand my rights and share it with you.” My words were lighthearted, but I wondered why an earl’s son had slept in hovels. He was no pampered aristocrat.
“You want to sleep here? On the rug?”
I sank to my knees and patted the spot beside me. “Nice and cozy. Come on over.” I tried to hide my regret over leaving the blasted blanket upstairs.
He stared at me for a moment then shook his head with a chuckle. “You’re not what I expected.”
“No?” I adopted my finest lady-of-the-manor accent. “It has become apparent to me that life does not always give one what she expects.” I thought about my life since my parents had died and I’d been forced into early adulthood forgoing a London Season and a beneficial marriage. Expectations for one’s life were never certain.
Lucas sat down next to me with bent legs and leaned back on his hands. “You’re absolutely right about that.” He leaned toward me. “How did a young girl get so wise about life?”
I’d revealed too much. Madame Bella repeatedly warned them. Always keep the illusion. You are a pretty young thing with nothing in your head other than pleasure. According to her, men didn’t want realities of life invading their mistress’s bedroom. They had that at home with their wives.
I released my perfected airy giggle and gently slapped at his forearm. “Oh, you. How silly. Me? Wise? Surely you jest?” I launched myself onto his lap and curled into his heat. “Now, tell me how you plan on keeping me warm tonight?”
I cradled the armful of luscious woman and inwardly groaned. I was an idiot. Every other man would have either remained upstairs in bed with their new mistress or dropped an unwanted one off before allowing her access to his home. Only I was stupid enough to play host to an unwanted woman on a cold, hard floor.
Worse, I was starting to like her. She was smart. She’d figured out in less than two minutes that I’d given her the only habitable room. The few women of my acquaintance would’ve hopped into bed without a thought for her host. Second, she’d exhibited deeper insight about life than I’d expect from a young lady. There was more to Charlotte than met the eye.
So now what? Should I take her offer at face value and accept what she offered? If she kept wiggling around on my lap, there’d be no thinking about it, only doing. “If I go upstairs, are you going to follow me?”
Her smile spread across her face. “There’s only one way to find out.”
Extracting her from my lap, I stood, picked up the candle and made my way out of the room toward the stairs. Surprisingly, Charlotte stayed put. I turned to look at her then held out a hand. “Come on. Neither of us is stupid enough to sleep on cold floor when there’s a warm bed upstairs.” I accepted the cool hand she placed in mine and led her silently from the room.
My legs started to feel heavy and leaden as they trooped back up the stairs. The events of the past days finally caught up to me. I’d barely slept the previous evening in my haste to discover my brother’s whereabouts and look into the rumors of the virgin mistress auction. As soon as I heard my brother meant to literally buy a woman as a sexual slave, I’d set off to Madame Bella’s where I’d bullied a footman into gaining entrance then participated in the auction. All in all, a full night. If I were to take Charlotte’s offer it would have to wait until I’d had a few hours of rest.
“Mmm, move over, Meggie. You’re on top of me.” With closed eyes, I batted at my sister’s shoulder, grumbling at Meggie’s bed-stealing ways. To conserve resources during the cold winter nights, my sisters and I had doubled up in bedrooms. My hand pushed again at Meggie’s shoulder, however instead of feeling a thin, cloth-covered shoulder, my palm grazed a bare, full, masculine-feeling one. Definitely dreaming then.
Only…something was nibbling at my breasts and a chill brushed my bare skin. “Meggie, you’ve stolen the covers.”
I opened my eyes to yank back the covers from my sister to the sight of unfamiliar dark curls at my chest. The face attached to these curls nuzzled and licked at my bared chest. My nightclothes? Where had they…? With a flash, everything came flooding back. My family’s loss, Madame Bella, the auction… Lucas.
“Lucas,” I whispered.
“Mmm,” he said and pressed his body firmly against mine.
Muscles and coarse hair covered me from neck to ankles with an interesting, unfamiliar pressure between my thighs. Realization dawned. This was the morning passion Madame Bella had spoken of. According to her, men woke up hungry for bed sport. Evidence of that prodded at the juncture of my legs.
Lucas didn’t even seem to be aware he was beginning to make love to me. As soon as we’d entered the bedroom last night, he’d collapsed onto the bed and begun snoring. I’d pulled off his boots with some difficulty then watched him sleep, trying to decide whether to take advantage of his slumber. This was different. Lucas was caught in that dreamlike state between sleep and awake.
Tentatively I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders and ran my palms down the smoothly muscled planes of his back. My head tilted to give him access to the column of my neck in which he burrowed his face and planted tiny kisses.
Our bodies moved together in a sinuous flow, which came naturally to me. My hips rose and fell under Lucas’ thrusting, insistent weight. There was an unfamiliar pressure between my legs, I quickly identified as desire.
I unlocked my hands from his back and slipped them between our bodies to pull up my skirts and push down his trousers. My hand grazed his hot shaft and he released a groan. When he lifted his hips, I grasped him firmly. He continued to thrust as I marveled in the heat and textures of the skin moving along a column of steel.
I was fully awake now, but wasn’t sure if Lucas was awake yet until his lips met mine in a devouring kiss. His eyes remained closed. Did he know what he was doing?
“Oh.” A surprised gasp flew from my lips when his fingers found the dampening folds of my inner lips. Even in sleep, Lucas’ fingers unerringly found my points of intense pleasure, circling and probing.
“So tight,” he moaned against my lips.
Passion and heat invaded me, but reality set in too. I was inches and moments away from losing my virginity to a man who thought me a whore. If he didn’t wake up soon, he’d miss the evidence of my innocence. Give him your innocence, and he’s yours. Madame Bella’s prescient words echoed.
I needed Lucas to be mine, at least for the next few months. My sisters depended on it.
“Lucas,” I said and caught his lips in another kiss, biting down gently.
“Mmm,” was his only response.
His fingers left my core and I was left holding his cock between them. I guided him to my entrance and spread my legs as wide as they could go.
“Lucas,” I said loudly and pinched his shoulder.
His eyes opened, then widened as his body’s position registered. I arched against him, inviting him closer, deeper and he responded involuntarily with a thrust that seated him deeply in me.
Tears filled my eyes at the combination of pleasure and pain riding through me. I saw the instant he was fully awake and aware of our actions.
“Virgin,” he whispered and tried to retreat, but I wrapped my legs around his hips as Madame had told me to and kept him in place.
“Charlotte,” he said with a groan that sounded like a prayer, but he remained still. “Why?”
“I want you,” I told him which in that moment was one-hundred percent true. Though thoughts of my sisters’ desperate circumstances were never far from my brain, at that moment, I only wanted the fire he’d kindled in me to continue to burn. I wriggled my hips a bit and he sank deeper.
Charlotte’s warm heat wrapped tightly around my cock and spread throughout my abdomen and down my legs. I wasn’t quite sure how I’d got in this position. Well, I had some idea, but no clear memory of it. I’d been dreaming a vivid, real dream and responded to the warm female body pressed against mine.
At this early hour, every reason for keeping my distance from her fled along with rational thought. My only purpose was to slake the fire burning in my groin. Charlotte lay under me with shiny eyes and a warm, welcoming body.
I stared down, trying to read her expression, but she only seemed eager and willing and, God help me, I was not strong enough to pull out.
Taking her mouth in a deep kiss, I moved my hips forward, shuddering at the pleasure it brought. Her inner muscles squeezed my cock and I wanted to move in permanently. I took advantage, plundering and taking her as I’d never taken another woman. Snippets of the auction replayed in my mind, particularly the parts where I won.
Yours.
She is yours.
In my wildest imaginings, I’d never thought it to be an aphrodisiac to own a woman, but it surged to my brain and cock like a heady brandy. Her cries of pleasure were a distant wave in my ears as I pounded in and out of her tight warmth. The reasons for my acquisition of Charlotte fell away, replaced by the reality of her lithe body and sweet scent. I pounded into her, feeling the slide of my hair-roughened chest against the smooth swell of her breasts.
“Lucas.” My name on her lips was music in my ears. The last woman I’d bedded had not spoken English well. It had been years since I’d heard the sweet gasp of my name in my native tongue.
“Charlotte,” I said, my voice an unfamiliar rasp. I opened my eyes to enjoy the view of the flushed, glistening woman beneath me and quickened my thrusts. I was near release if the tightness in my balls was any indication. I allowed myself one more dive into her luscious body before I pulled out and spilled my seed onto her belly.
“Oh,” she released a little gasp, whether in surprise at the mess on her stomach or disappointment at the suddenness of the finale, I didn’t know. Nor did I care to guess.
“I’ll get you a damp cloth,” I said and rolled away, squinting at the sunlight streaming through the window.
Charlotte murmured something from the bed, but I didn’t catch it. My mind reeled with the implications of taking her innocence as I exited the bedroom. I’d never taken a virgin before. Christ, part of me felt as if I needed to seek out her father and go for a special license. But she was a whore, and if she had a father, what kind of useless cur would allow his daughter to auction off her virginity?
I leaned against the closed bedroom door to get a hold of my confused thoughts.
“A good night, sir?”
Bellamy entered the hallway with a nary a blink at my nudity. After seven years traveling the world together, very little rattled Bellamy.
“An unexpected night, Bell.”
“Then I take it you found your brother?” Bellamy stepped past me and put a hand on the doorknob to the bedroom.
I grabbed Bellamy by the wrist. “Don’t go in there. As I said, the night had unexpected consequences.”
“And one of them is in your room?”
I nodded.
“And is the consequence in the same state of undress as you?”
Another nod.
“Well then, I believe I’ll go find some breakfast. Shall I set the table for three?”
Was Charlotte staying for breakfast? Hell, even I wasn’t wicked enough to send her packing mere minutes after taking her. I could afford to feed her first. “She’ll be leaving straight away after breakfast.”
“She will not,” came a call from behind the bedroom door.
Bellamy was too disciplined to laugh, but his eyes brightened.
“Breakfast, Bell,” I warned and stood guard outside the door until my friend disappeared down the stairs.
“Oh, are we going out?” I asked, smiling at Lucas and Bellamy, who stood in the foyer wearing coats and hats. Lucas twirled a menacing-looking cane. It was a calculated risk, brazenly inviting myself along. However I couldn’t show Lucas how wonderful I’d be in his life if he didn’t allow me entry. I had to force my way in.
“You are not going out. We are,” Lucas said, taking a step toward me. My lover from this morning was gone. Any softness in his eyes was now hardened to flint. He towered over me, forcing me back an inch. Only his warm, appealing scent was the same. I knew he’d bathed after breakfast in the water once I’d finished. I’d offered to stay and wash his hair, but he’d locked me out of the room.
He was back to Lucas the Distant, and I needed to do something. My sisters were anxiously waiting for my letter and accounts so they could begin preparing for a London Season. It would all be for naught if Lucas pushed me out.
I took a breath and sashayed closer to him, daring to place my hands on his lapels and drag him down for a light kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Nonsense. I’ll join you. You’ll have more fun with me than at a stuffy old gentleman’s club.”
His hands fisted on my upper arms and moved me back a step. “We’re not after fun.”
“Oh?” I cocked my head. “I thought all gentlemen your age were after fun before settling down to matrimonial dullness. Where are you off to then? A walk in the park? Horse races? It’s too early for a brothel, so I know you’re not headed there.” I gave a light laugh, as if he could do that when he had everything he needed in a woman already at home. My stomach turned to ice when I saw the exchange of looks between Bellamy and Lucas.
“A woman? Really? Are you so debauched, my virginity wasn’t enough? What more could you need?” I folded my arms below my breasts, feeling my cheeks flame with ire. I wasn’t the only one with red cheeks. Bellamy’s whole face turned red as a hot poker at my mention of my lost virginity.
Lucas had the good grace to look uncomfortable. “It’s not what you think. We’re only going to question her.”
“His brother’s former mistress, you see,” Bellamy confided, as if it explained everything.
Lucas shot Bellamy a look of extreme annoyance for revealing that fact then turned his glare to me.
I delivered my own if-looks-could-kill glance. “Why are you doing that? Are you so obsessed with your twin, you wish to be identical in every way? Are you collecting a harem of his discarded women?”
A shriek lodged in my throat as Lucas yanked me to his side and forcibly walked them to the parlor and thrust me onto the couch.
He stalked to the cold fireplace and poked at the logs with his cane. “If I seem obsessed with my brother, it is because I wish to expose him, not emulate him.” His shoulders gave a series of small shudders. “Never that.”
I rose from the dusty seat cushion and walked behind him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder blade. The hot skin I remembered from this morning was hidden under cloth layers, but the strength of his muscle still flexed through. “Tell me. What has the earl done?”
The room filled with silence as I waited, my nails biting indentations into my palm, hoping he’d open up and confide in me.
Lucas whirled to face me, his eyes blazing. His calm, even voice didn’t match the anger in his face. “I have reason to believe my twin murdered our eldest brother to gain the title for himself.”
I heard a gasp and realized it was my own. Now I understood why he’d bid on me last night. Lucas was rescuing me. Underneath the cloak of his piratical looks, beat the heart of a true knight. “Murder. Your brother? Are you certain?”
He gave a curt nod. “And that is why you will stay here while we go question his former mistress. Men talk to their lovers. Perhaps he let something slip. And when I return, you will give me the name of your family so I can return you to their loving bosom.”
“I cannot. I will not.”
His eyes narrowed at me. “You can and you will. You were a virgin until a few hours ago and you dress like a governess.” He gestured toward my sensible gray dress I’d slipped into from my old life. My two new gowns from Madame Bella’s were ridiculous for daytime and difficult to put on without the help of a maid. “You’ve had your fun in the big, bad city, now it’s time to return to real life. Surely, you have a concerned parent or maiden aunt looking for you?”
