The Rake's Inherited Courtesan Read online

  Others had said she was beautiful. She’d heard it all her life, with admiration or with envy, but never had it touched a chord in her heart as it did now. She wanted to throw her arms around him, bury her face in his neck, to ask him to keep her close for ever.

  She couldn’t. She didn’t have the right to ask him to ruin his life, to bring his mother’s wrath down on his head, to be excluded from his world.

  ‘Why didn’t you also take your pleasure?’ She knew different words for the act of copulation, crude, disgusting words used by the whores. But what she and Christopher had done together was so much more. Blissful.

  ‘I could have been anyone,’ he said. ‘Even though you said my name. How could I take advantage of a woman suffering under the influence of drugs?’

  ‘Some men would have,’ she murmured.

  ‘They might,’ he replied. His voice sounded harsh, as if just thinking about it made him angry.

  ‘Then why not, when it was you I wanted?’

  He drew in a deep breath and rolled on his side to face her, one heavy thigh splayed across hers. He picked up a lock of her hair and stroked the ends around the swell of her breast.

  Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. A thrum started low in her belly. A tickle between her thighs made her squirm.

  ‘You are very responsive,’ he murmured, leaning over to lick the tightly furled bud at the peak, before swirling the lock of hair around the other breast.

  She swallowed. ‘Why not, Christopher? I want to know.’

  ‘Single-minded female.’

  She bashed his shoulder with her fist. Not hard. Enough so he would know she meant business.

  He sighed. ‘Because it would have been wrong.’ He bent his head and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘To be honest, I almost succumbed. You were so ready, you did not give me time to get inside you before you came. But I was glad. I never would have forgiven myself for taking advantage of someone who could not say no.’

  She traced his mouth with a fingertip, loving the fullness at the bottom and the fine sculpted upper lip. He caught her finger between his teeth, nibbled it, then sucked it into his hot mouth.

  Desire jolted deep in her core. She rocked her hip against his thigh, felt the sweet promise of pleasure. ‘Are you always so dutiful, so noble?’

  He grimaced and let her finger go. ‘You make it sound like a fault.’

  ‘Oh, no. Pardon me if I seemed rude. I am surprised, that is all, and pleased, naturally. Most men, men like your brother, Garth, for instance, never give a thought to what is right or good for a woman. I must thank you for that. After my experience as a child, I very much feared that I could never let a man get close, let alone touch me. I am grateful.’

  He stared at her. ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I do not understand what you mean?’

  ‘You unman me. These things you say, they choke me up inside.’

  ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘Yes. Just accept the fact that any man with honour would not have taken advantage of your situation.’

  ‘But, Christopher, you don’t understand. Because it was you, I would not have minded had you taken your ease.’

  He rolled on his back. ‘Women,’ he muttered. ‘There’s no understanding them at all. If you were to tie my hands and take me whether I wished it or no, do you think I would like it?’

  She gazed at his erection, proud and stiff, then peeped at his frowning face, with a hesitant smile. ‘I am not so sure you would not.’

  ‘Sylvia, this is serious. Honourable men do not do that sort of thing.’

  ‘I am sorry if I insulted your honour,’ she whispered. ‘It is just that I have never met anyone like you before.’

  ‘There,’ he said, his voice husky, ‘you are doing it again.’

  Perhaps he was right. That only if they were equal partners would the loving be right. Yearning for the contact he’d broken, her hand wandered his magnificent body. As it slid down the flat plane of his stomach, she encountered his turgid hardness. He sucked in a short breath. His stomach ridged with hard muscle. She stilled. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Don’t stop,’ he said. There was agony in his tone.

  With a tentative fingertip, she touched him. He took her hand in his. ‘Like this,’ he said, moving her grasping fingers in swift hard strokes. She glanced at his face and saw abandonment to pleasure.

  She’d learned some things from listening to the filles de joie growing up. Perhaps now would be her only chance to try them. ‘How about this?’ She squeezed him and his breath hissed between clenched teeth.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  She bent her head and kissed the tip and found it silken and smooth, then raised her head to gauge his reaction.

  ‘Sweetheart, don’t stop now,’ he begged.

  She opened her mouth and took all of him in. Hard, hot, male musk and salt on her tongue. He filled her mouth. She cupped him in her other hand. So soft.

  ‘Gently, girl,’ he groaned. ‘God, yes. That’s it.’

  She licked his smooth hardness, turning her head to savour the length of him with her tongue. He grew thicker in her mouth. It was an instrument of pleasure. Her pleasure. It was now her joy to pleasure him, however he desired. She tightened her grip around his rigid length.

  He groaned, and threw his head back, eyes squeezed shut in the agony of ecstasy. He looked so beautiful she wanted to cry. He raised his head and caught her smiling at him. He grasped her shoulders and rolled her on to her back.

  ‘I have to be inside you,’ he said. He hung above her, his gaze fixed on hers. ‘This is what you want, isn’t it? Me inside you.’ The fierceness of his tone frightened her for a moment. Then she saw his need to please her.

  ‘Yes, Christopher. I want you. Just you and no one else. Not ever.’

  ‘My girl. My lovely Sylvia.’

  He pressed his hard male member against her opening. His eyes never leaving her face, he drove his hips forward. Pleasure rippled through her in growing waves and his pleased expression told her he delighted in her arousal.

  With each slow stroke in, she lifted her hips to meet him. The feel of his groin hard against her was sweet grinding torture after sliding pleasure. She lifted her legs around his waist and he probed deeper yet. He filled her, tightening the knot of need, stretching her nerves to breaking point. And yet she did not break. She soared and flew on a gale of pleasurable sensation.

  She cried out. Begged for the final flight to the stars.

  ‘Yes, sweet. Soon,’ he gasped. ‘Hold on to me, stay with me, darling.’

  He lowered his head to her breasts and laved each one with gentle strokes of his tongue that sent her mindless. Then he suckled. The cords that held her together were so tight, so fine, they thrummed in wild vibration. She shuddered.

  His rhythm changed, harder, swifter, deeper. She could barely breathe, but still she matched him stroke for stroke.

  The strands unravelled. Nerve endings shattered in a thousand points of light. She called his name. Somewhere inside her, she heard Christopher’s groan of male triumph and her body surrendered to a river of hot bliss melting her bones.

  She lay beneath him, smelling him, salt and sweat and musky man, feeling him stroke her hair, kiss her breasts, her lips, and listening to his soft murmured praise until she fell asleep. He was hers.

  ‘Wake up, sleepy head.’ Christopher’s warm breath in her ear sent a shivery thrill to her core.

  Stretching, full of contentment, she opened her eyes and smiled at a fully clothed Christopher.

  A grin of pride beamed from Christopher’s beloved, stubble-hazed face. ‘We’re here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Dover.’

  The word had the ring of a death knell, the ending to their interlude.

  He took her hand and pressed it to his warm lips. He turned it over and, starting with her palm, trailed tantalising kisses up the delicate inside of her arm to its crook.

  Her limbs turned to melted b
utter. She sighed and wiggled with pleasure beneath the covers. ‘You are up early.’

  He waggled his eyebrows. ‘Definitely up.’

  ‘I don’t mean that,’ she said, but couldn’t resist a peek.

  He chuckled. ‘Garth has disembarked already, but I didn’t want to wake you. You’ve been through hell these past few days.’

  She sat up. Grey light from the window showed a new day. The ship barely rocked.

  She flung back the covers. ‘Goodness, I’m sorry to keep everyone waiting.’

  Fire blazed in his hazel eyes as his gazed travelled her naked length. He leaned forward and kissed the rise of her breast.

  Sun-gilded hair tickled her skin. She ran her fingers through the silky waves. ‘Are you sure you want me to get up?’

  A groan rolled up from his chest. He raised his head and looked down at her with a rueful grin. ‘No, I don’t. Unfortunately, Captain Porter has to get the Sea Witch berthed further down the coast. So, milady, you needs must arise.’

  Placing her palms either side of his wonderful face, his lean cheeks rough against her palms, she kissed him soundly on the lips. Sandalwood and soap filled her nose. She loved the male smell of him. Clean and musky at the same time. She licked his bottom lip. ‘Then you must leave and send Jeannie to help me dress.’

  He chuckled. ‘Then you must let me go.’

  A sweet pang squeezed her heart. She never wanted to let him go. Moisture blurred her sight. She gave a shaky laugh and released him.

  His expression turned serious, his eyes the colour of mysterious northern forests. ‘Don’t worry. I will take care of everything.’

  She nodded, unable to speak for tears. What a mix, happiness that she’d found him, tears of losses to come. She flashed him a brilliant smile and hoped he didn’t notice.

  With a last yearning glance, he got to his feet and strode for the door. ‘Do you think you can be ready in half an hour?’

  ‘If you want me to be,’ she murmured with an eyebrow raised.

  ‘Sylvia,’ he said, his warning voice full of laughter. ‘Be good.’

  If she was good, she wouldn’t be here.

  A half-hour later, she and Jeannie met him up on the gleaming mahogany-and-brass-fitted deck of the Sea Witch. She raised her eyes to the white cliffs guarding the English Channel. Somewhere up there, Cliff House clung to its rocky perch. The house where she had grown up and learned the truth about her life.

  Captain Porter touched his hat. ‘Mr Evernden, a pleasure to have you on board again.’ A knowing look crossed his face as his gaze rested on her. ‘Ma’am.’

  Inwardly, she squirmed. He knew, of course, what they’d done, what she was.

  Christopher’s protective hand touched the hollow of her back and he moved closer, claiming her. She relaxed.

  ‘Thank you, Red,’ Christopher said.

  ‘Yes, sir. Good day.’

  With Christopher’s help she and Jeannie clambered into the small boat waiting to take them to the post-chaise at the dockside, where a yellow liveried post-boy sprang to attention and opened the door.

  Once inside, Sylvia snuggled against Christopher, his strong arm around her shoulders pressing her into his hard wall of chest. It was as if all her childish dreams of a noble knight who would rescue her from the dragon of her fears had come true.

  Jeannie, on the other side of the carriage, smiled and nodded.

  Life suddenly seemed unbearably wonderful. Dare she hold on to it?

  After a leisurely lunch at Cobham and several short stops to change horses, the chaise came to a stop outside a curving terrace of Palladian town houses. Sylvia frowned. This was not London.

  ‘Why are we stopping here?’ she asked.

  ‘This is Blackheath. You are spending the night here.’

  The house, fronted by a wrought-iron fence, looked over a green open space on the other side of the street.

  ‘Surely we can reach London in another hour or so?’

  Embarrassment filled his expression and he glanced at Jeannie. ‘I thought you wouldn’t mind staying here. It belongs to Garth. He doesn’t actually live here, he…well, it’s where he lives some of the time.’

  Disappointment emptied her heart. ‘It’s where he keeps his mistress,’ she uttered, her tone flat.

  She couldn’t help her reaction. For some foolish reason, a glimmer of hope had sprung to life that there really might be more than this in her future.

  Christopher opened the door. ‘Since there is no one living here at the moment, Garth is loaning it to us until we make other arrangements.’

  Of course she couldn’t return to his mother’s house. Not now they were lovers. She forced calmness into her voice. ‘I see.’

  ‘Rafter won’t have a clue where to find you. If we go into town, there’s the risk of him ferreting you out. He’ll expect us to go to London.’

  Christopher was carving out her future as surely as if it were set in stone and this the final lettering in the block.

  The thought of parting with him tugged at her newly discovered heart. Why not accept? She could stay with him for a while, a month, a year. They’d make some happy memories together.

  A nagging doubt, a memory of her mother, skittered across her mind like a spider scuttling out of a dark corner. She pushed it aside. If she wanted him, this was her only option.

  With Jeannie trailing behind her, she alighted and followed Christopher up the two steps and in through the front door held open by the butler.

  They were obviously expected.

  On the outside, the town house looked unremarkable. Inside told a different story. Appalled, Sylvia gazed at the opulent marble staircase with its Turkey runner. Marble and plaster statues of Greek gods and goddesses filled elegant niches; paintings of nude women adorned the walls. Frolicking nymphs leered down from the ceiling.

  Disappointment washed through her and extinguished her hopes. She was a fool to expect something less garish, more genteel. After all she had become her mother.

  It suddenly seemed difficult to breathe.

  ‘If you would step in to the drawing room, Mr Evernden, I’ll arrange for tea,’ the butler said.

  ‘No tea for me, thank you, Bates,’ Christopher said.

  She followed Christopher into the drawing room, while Jeannie disappeared into the nether regions of the house with Bates. A sense of unreality numbed her.

  She glanced around the room, at the rose-coloured walls and gilt furniture, at the satisfied expression on Christopher’s face.

  ‘At least Delia didn’t get started on this room,’ he said.

  ‘Delia?’

  ‘Garth’s last lady. She had a thing about decorating. The entrance hall was her handiwork. It was as far as she got before she was handed her congé.’

  The ease with which he accepted the departure of a woman who had made this place her home sent a chill down Sylvia’s spine. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Eventually, we will go to my house in Kent. I haven’t been there since my grandmother left it to me, so it will take a couple of days to make it ready for us. This will be perfect until then.’

  ‘Perfect.’ Her lips felt stiff.

  He pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips against hers, firm and warm and so tempting. He ran his fingers through her hair and deepened the kiss.

  The feel of him, his large body hard against her, his passion, his heat, his strength, drove her thoughts and fears into the far reaches of her mind. She melted into him. She wanted this with him.

  She reached up and curled her hand around his strong column of neck, arching into him. She nibbled at his lower lip, felt his desire rise, a hard ridge of arousal pressed against her stomach.

  Desire flooded her, rushing through her veins in hot rivers. She ground her hips against him and revelled in his sharp indrawn breath.

  She never imagined wanting a man like this. It went against everything she thought she knew about herself, everything she believed.

  He groaned
and pulled away. ‘I’ll be back first thing tomorrow.’

  Panic gripped her. ‘You aren’t staying?’

  ‘I have business requiring my attention, people relying on me.’

  She couldn’t stay in this place without him. ‘Don’t go.’ She hated the begging note in her voice. ‘Or take me with you.’

  He smiled down at her and gave her a squeeze. ‘I can’t. My ships can’t sail until I sign the manifest, and I have nowhere to take you in London except a hotel, and it would be too easy to find you.’

  Pain pierced her heart. It was starting already. Him leaving her for his other world. His real world. A world to which she could never belong. ‘Can you not go tomorrow?’

  ‘I wish I could.’ He nuzzled her neck, sending a delicious shiver all the way to her core. ‘But I have already delayed this sailing by several days. We will start to lose our crew.’

  Releasing her, he took her hands. ‘Come, sit with me a moment.’ He led her to the sofa and drew her down, his arm around her shoulder. ‘Everything will be all right, you will see.’

  She desperately wanted to believe him, but the spider crawled out of the dark and completed a web of doubt in her mind. Doubt about Christopher and, worst of all, about herself. She sought escape. ‘What if Rafter comes looking for me again? Perhaps it would be better if I disappeared, went somewhere alone.’

  His mouth flattened. ‘Where else can you go where you will be safe? Not to London or France. This is the perfect solution.’ He tipped her chin with one finger and gazed into her eyes. ‘Don’t you want to be with me?’

  Every particle in her body and her heart said yes, but her mind knew better. ‘How long must I remain in hiding?’

  His expression darkened. He sighed. ‘I don’t really have the time to discuss this now. Bates will see to your needs until I get back. You don’t have to worry, he’s very discreet.’

  He would have to be. She drew in a breath. Without Christopher to tempt her, to overcome her reason, she would be able to think. Perhaps it was better if he left. She fought the tears threatening to spill over and nodded.

  He smiled and kissed her forehead. ‘That’s better. Rest now. You’ve been through a lot. We will talk tomorrow.’