About the Author

Award-winning author PORTIA DA COSTA’s first published story appeared in 1991. Since then, she’s gone on to write well over a hundred stories for magazines and anthologies and has penned almost thirty novels across a variety of genres. She’s best known for her sizzling-hot romances, including short erotic fiction for Mills & Boon®. Portia lives in a typically Yorkshire town with her husband and the three beautiful cats they both adore. Visit her at www.PortiaDaCosta.com.

In the
Flesh
Portia Da Costa

www.spice-books.co.uk

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To my dear friend and critique partner, Saskia Walker,

who’s cheered me on throughout the writing of

this story and many others

CHAPTER ONE

Eyes of the Devil

London, 1890

“WHO IS THAT MAN over there?” demanded Charlie. “See the one I mean? The tall impertinent-looking fellow by the ballroom door, talking to Sir Horace Rumbelow.”

Beatrice Weatherly suppressed a sigh. Her brother could be a bit of a bear sometimes when he drank too fast, and the champagne was disappearing down his throat tonight at an alarming rate.

“I asked you to wear a more conservative dress. Something dark and modest, maybe one of your mourning gowns,” Charlie went on. “But of course you wouldn’t, and now look what’s happened. I swear that if he doesn’t stop ogling you this very minute, I’ll go across there and box his ears for him!”

I’d like to see you try, brother dear. He looks as if he could swat you like a gadfly with just one hand.

“Please, ignore him, Charlie. He isn’t bothering me in the slightest, so I don’t see why he should bother you.” Keeping her face carefully averted, Beatrice sipped her own champagne. She was determined to make every glass last as long as she could tonight. Just look what had happened the last time she’d drunk fizz.

But, truth be told, her bold scrutinizer across the reception room did bother her and it wasn’t an urge to box his ears she felt. No, it was something far more alarming. Her heart pounded and her entire body felt deliciously restive every time she caught his hot gaze on her. Something that seemed to happen every few moments or so because try as she might, she couldn’t help looking back at him. And he hadn’t taken his eyes off her since they’d entered the room.

Of course, when she and Charlie had been announced, it seemed as though almost everybody had swiveled around to stare at them. Oh look, she imagined them all saying, There she is, Beatrice Weatherly, the Siren of South Mulberry Street, the shameless hussy who posed naked for those scandalous cabinet cards. Men who probably owned copies of said cards had eyed her with salacious interest when their wives weren’t looking. The women had frowned and pursed their lips as if worried that their men would be so overcome with lust that they’d flock around the indecent Siren, unable to help themselves. Even the discreet servants circulating with their trays had seemed to study her covertly.

Now, though, the first reaction was over and the hubbub of gossip had returned to its normal clatter. Some wives had won the battle for propriety and a few groups had self-consciously cut her and Charlie, but most of the other guests seemed far more free and easy.

I suppose a fast set like this is more forgiving of transgression, sexual or otherwise, and scandals are two a’ penny, something new every day, she thought.

But the tall man with dark eyes and blond hair continued to stare.

The temptation to glance around at him again was a physical force. It bore down on Beatrice’s chest, making her breathless, and it seemed to be affecting other parts of her anatomy, too. It was as if she’d suddenly appeared in Lady Southern’s salon dressed exactly as she’d been in one of her ex-sweetheart Eustace’s racy photographs.

That was, in nothing but her birthday suit.

Trying to appear not to be moving, she inched her head around, then blushed crimson when he nodded his head in acknowledgement.

Hateful man! I’ve had enough of this!

Beatrice glared back at him, adding a curt nod of her own for courtesy’s sake. He looked vaguely familiar to her somehow, as if she’d seen his image recently, too. An artist’s impression in some periodical or other, although obviously not a nude study. Her face and chest turned rosy pink at the thought of that, too. Especially as the elegant cut of his suit couldn’t entirely mask the rangy power of his body, making the job of her imagination dangerously easy.

Her oppressor gave her a smile. A dazzling, daring smile, so much more arresting than a mortal man’s should be. A smile that had her gulping her champagne as if it were lemonade, regardless of her resolve to be cautious.

His lips were sultry. In a clean-shaven face that was neither young nor older, but somehow strangely both, they were strong and firmly outlined, hinting at voracious appetites never denied. Beatrice imagined him savoring rich food and fine wine, but always in moderation, appreciating every pleasure without going to excess. Lips like that would kiss a woman just as hungrily and with equal calculation. Lips like that would kiss a woman until she gasped.

Lips like that would kiss a woman into doing anything.

Across the room, it was impossible to see the color of the man’s eyes, but they were dark, dark as night, glittering with mystery and menace, his stare unwavering.

Almost suffocated, Beatrice had to look away, barely able to breathe. Had Polly laced her too tight? Much as she disliked corsets, hers hadn’t seemed excessively oppressive tonight, not until she’d arrived here and set eyes on him. Now she wanted to rip open her bodice and wrench the entire miserable thing asunder, laces and all.

Taking small breaths so she didn’t appear to be panting over the strange, aggravating man, she turned smartly toward Charlie and found him frowning at an alternative source of vexation.

Their recently acquired friends, Monsieur and Madame Chamfleur, were talking and laughing with a small but rather animated group, a few feet away. Watching them discreetly, Beatrice envied the way Monsieur Chamfleur kissed his wife’s gloved hand with a decidedly French flair. It spoke of other kisses she’d imagined the two of them sharing, especially if the hot looks they kept exchanging were anything to go by.

“My God, those two are a rum couple, aren’t they?” Charlie swigged down his champagne and took another glass from a passing waiter. “When you first introduced them, I thought them to be persons of quality, but there’s something decidedly fishy about the way they look at each other. Don’t you think so?”

Sometimes Beatrice wanted to give her brother a good shaking. She loved him dearly, because he was a sweet man in his own way and she knew he loved her, but he could act like a towering hypocrite at times. “Well, I think they’re charming, and the way they exhibit fondness for each other is most refreshing. If more couples were as tender in their affections toward each other the world would be a far happier place.”

Charlie clucked in irritation, the expression far too stuffy for his twenty-five years. “I think the less you talk loudly about ‘exhibiting’ and ‘affections,’ the better.

We’re trying to retrieve your reputation here, sister dearest, not damage it further.”

“Don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud, Charlie!” Nerves atwitter, Beatrice tossed back the rest of her champagne and took another glass, too. Better that, to take the edge off her apprehension, than be drawn into a public argument with her sibling. “We both know I’m completely beyond retrieval or redemption in most people’s eyes, so we’ll just have to make the best of it somehow.” She narrowed her eyes at him, keeping her voice low. “I think the sooner you relinquish thoughts of me making a good marriage to mend our fortunes the better. Maybe you should think about getting a job? I’ll work, too. I’m a quick learner and there are plenty of things I could do.”

Her brother looked as if he were about to explode. “No sister of mine is going to work! I’m a gentleman, for heaven’s sake!”

“Goodness, don’t take on so, brother dear. I was only thinking of learning how to operate a typewriting machine and enrolling at an agency. Anyone would think I’d just offered to walk the streets of Whitechapel at a shilling a tumble.”

Charlie opened his mouth, no doubt to reprimand her again, but no words came out. He stared over her shoulder, frowning furiously, and as she watched him, a silvery shiver descended the length of Beatrice’s spine. She hadn’t a doubt in the world who she’d find when she finally turned around, but like Charlie, she was frozen too.

Don’t be afraid, Bea. He’s just a man. Just a man …

“Such a modest sum?” A husky, measured voice rumbled with humor. “If it were me, I’d pay upward of a hundred guineas for such a splendid opportunity.”

“I beg your pardon, sir!” Pink in the face, Charles started to bluster, then shut his mouth again, as if turned to stone by the Medusa’s frightful gaze.

Slowly, as if in a strange, floating dream, Beatrice turned on her toes. Her chin came up, almost as if she were preparing to box some ears, just as Charlie had threatened to, but inside she was quivering to her core.

It was him, of course. The blond man of the dark, intimidating eyes and smooth, hard jaw. The man who’d stared at her so insolently. In an elegant flowing gesture, he bowed low, and it was only when he took her small gloved hand in his larger one that she realized she’d automatically held it out to him.

She could feel his mouth through the satin. The touch of it, the heat of it, burning like a flame. And at the same time she felt it elsewhere too, the sensation so vivid that she almost imagined she was back in the dreamy, drifting stupor Eustace had inflicted upon her when he’d sweet-talked her into letting him take those accursed photographs. A liberated state where she could do anything, feel anything, enjoy anything.

Between her legs, her sex fluttered as if her new admirer stroked it.

“I’m Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie, Miss Weatherly.” He straightened up and stared her directly in the eye, his gaze unwavering.

It’s like drowning. Drowning but wanting to drown.

Beatrice couldn’t look away, couldn’t be modest the way she knew she should be. His eyes were darkest blue, almost black. The color of India ink, fathomless and gleaming. “I won’t say that I hoped to meet you here tonight,” he continued, “because I knew I would. You were invited especially so I could meet you.”

It was Beatrice’s turn to be lost for words. She had them, plenty of them, but what was happening to her body shocked her into silence.

“I say—” Charlie tried to rally, then he too shut up when Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie quelled him with a look almost as disturbing as the hot one he’d given Beatrice.

“Weatherly, I wonder if you’d allow me a moment of privacy with your sister, if I may?” It sounded courteous enough, but it was delivered like a velvet slap in the face, and before Charlie could answer, the ruthless barbarian had Beatrice by the elbow and was steering her away toward a concealed corner between a pair of potted palms.

I should shake him off. I should walk away. I should ask for a carriage to be called and leave this place immediately.

The danger was so acute she almost did it. But she couldn’t. Deep in her body, some demon imp of sweet licentiousness was capering, roused to madness by the delicate touch of Ritchie’s hand on her gloved elbow.

She knew him by reputation. Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie was a famous figure, who featured often in publications such as Town Talk and the scurrilous but fascinating Marriott’s Monde, as well as the society pages of other more distinguished papers. He was a man of enormous wealth, an entrepreneur, owner of properties and businesses and the most notorious reputation with the ladies. He was always described as squiring some famous beauty or other, and the less salubrious periodicals, the sort Beatrice’s maid Polly favored, hinted heavily at a string of affairs.

Yet because he’s got money, he gets away with it all. He’s done far worse than me, but society adores him.

Now away from the throng, she expected Ritchie to launch into a flirtatious conversation in keeping with his notoriety, but he said nothing, not a word, and just stared at her. Beatrice realized she was still clutching her champagne glass, and wished it full again, not for the alcohol, but just for something to do with her nervous hands. As if he’d heard her, Ritchie plucked crystal vessel out of her fingers and set it on a shelf beside them.

High-handed beast!

“Kindly explain yourself, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice schooled her voice to project the same kind of unruffled authority the man in front of her exuded. It was a tall order, but she managed it after a fashion. At least she didn’t squeak like an outraged mouse. “What exactly did you mean? That you arranged for our invitation here. What do you want from us, sir, that you would do such a thing?”

Ritchie laughed, a low, thrilling chuckle that seemed to roll across her exposed skin and her covered parts, too. If it wouldn’t have caused even more public awkwardness, Beatrice would have slapped him then and there she felt so angry.

But was it just anger? She felt confused. All awhirl. Astonished by the way her body was reacting and betraying her. There was heat in her face and her décolletage, every hidden delicate portion of her anatomy tingled, and her breasts ached in the confines of her gown and its underpinnings. Yet at the same time, the sensations were undeniably pleasant. More than pleasant. In her drawers, her sex felt agitated and hot … as if, oh goodness, it were in need of touching?

“I don’t particularly want anything from your brother, Miss Weatherly. I only want you.” Ritchie paused, and his long, elegant, tapered fingertips rested against the lapel of his perfectly cut tailcoat. Watching him like an adder hypnotized by a mongoose, Beatrice jumped when, with a swift, almost showmanlike panache, he flung open his coat to reveal the inner pocket in its dark satin lining, and the gilded edge of what looked like a cabinet card.

Oh no! So that’s why he wanted to meet me. He’s seen the accursed things rather than just heard about them.

“I wanted to see if the real woman lives up to the promise of this image.” His jacket still open, he ran a forefinger over the card’s sliver of gold edging, slowly and lasciviously. “To see if you really are a siren.” Appalled by the implications of what lay against him, Beatrice experienced a delicious but alarming ripple in the pit of her belly.

I’ve gone quite mad. I only met the man a few moments ago and he’s turned me into a bedlamite!

“A gentleman wouldn’t bring such an item to a social gathering.” She gave him a hard stare, even though every single bit of her felt as if it was melting like a meringue before a gaslight. “A gentleman wouldn’t even own such a thing!”

Ritchie snagged his lower lip in his white teeth for an instant, still fondling the edge of the card. There were stars in his dark blue eyes that seemed to dance in time to the waltz playing in the ballroom beyond them.

“A lady wouldn’t have posed for it in the first place.”

True, but she wasn’t going to admit that to him. A lady wouldn’t have behaved like an incautious ninny and given in to her fiancé’s importuning, champagne or otherwise.

“Touché, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice tried to imagine a steel bar down her spine to match the busk down the front of her corset. Rigid corseting was the only way to stand up to Ritchie without dissolving in the heat from his eyes. “But I’m afraid those photographs represent an unfortunate and misguided incident. An error of judgment on my part that I’m trying to put behind me.” She paused, readying herself for flight at a dignified pace. “And I hope that members of society will also find it in themselves to relegate my indiscretion to the past, where it belongs.”

Turning, she made to walk away, but a hand prevented her. A hand on her upper arm, right in the vulnerable space between the top of her long opera glove and the wisp of French faille that constituted the abbreviated sleeve of her gown.

Bare skin on bare skin. Some time between their first meeting and this moment, Ritchie had removed his white evening gloves and his fingertips were hot as points of fire on her naked upper arm.

“Kindly let me go, Mr. Ritchie!”

Oh, too shrill, far too shrill. But immediately he released her. Or did he? The imprint of his fingers still held her immobilized. As did the dark fire in his eyes.

“You’ll never put the photographs behind you, Beatrice. They are you.” His voice was quiet, yet seemed to ring through the halls of the Southerns’ vast mansion. “I suspected as much when I first saw this.” He drew out the photograph he’d been taunting her with, and it was the most shameful one of them all, the tableau where she appeared to be touching herself between her legs.

Appeared? Is it just that? Did I actually do it? She still couldn’t quite remember, but a shudder ran through her. Ritchie’s eyes licked over her, following its progress.

“And now that I’ve met you, my dear, now that I’ve seen you in the flesh, I know.” His red tongue flicked out, touching the center of his lower lip. “You’re a goddess of sensuality, Miss Weatherly, truly a siren. And the sooner you admit it, the happier you’ll become.” The fans of his eyelashes beat down, all provocation and seduction. How could a man have lashes as long and thick as his and still be so uncompromisingly masculine? They were disturbingly beautiful and sensuous. “As will I.”

“I’m afraid my sensuality … or lack of it … is none of your affair, sir.” She tried to picture the steel bar again, but it was hopeless. She hated this taunting creature who was famous for getting any woman he wanted, but her traitorous body was yearning toward him as if it wanted to bend and mold itself to every contour of his. And trying to tell it not to yearn was wearing her out. She was close to breaking point. “Now, if you would kindly let me go, I’d like to return to my brother.”

“But I’m not holding you.” He laughed softly, the husky sound dancing along her nerves and teasing her most tender parts. “Except here.” He ran his thumb slowly over the cabinet card, letting it linger at her breasts and her thighs.

Aghast, Beatrice almost lifted her hand to strike him, but common sense stopped her. The man was an insulting blackguard, and lingering here was just giving him exactly what he wanted. The best thing to do was to leave, and leave immediately.

“Good evening, Mr. Ritchie.” Beatrice took a step away from him, but somehow it was like wading through molasses. How could she not be running yet?

“Wait a moment, Miss Weatherly, aren’t you at least going to allow me to mark your dance card?”

Beatrice glanced down at the little card dangling on its ribbon from her wrist. “I’m afraid not. As far as you’re concerned, it’s full already.”

And with that, to her surprise, the spell was broken, and as fast as she could without charging like a madwoman, she sped away from him.

She didn’t look back. No, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction!

Yet she could still see him stroking her photograph as she fled.

EDMUND ELLSWORTH RITCHIE DIDN’T FOLLOW Beatrice Weatherly. He couldn’t. He could only watch her as she stalked away from him, her shoulders almost vibrating with antagonism. Every swish of her pale skirts was like a wash of flame across his body as she wended her stiff-backed path through the groups of convivially chatting guests, leaving a faint aura of lily of the valley in her wake.

Even if he could have moved, he probably wouldn’t have. His cock had hardened like a ramrod the moment he’d set eyes on her, and was now a considerable bulge in his trousers. He had a reputation to be sure, but to be seen sporting a prominent erection at a society ball was a bit too risqué, even for him.

Had Beatrice seen the way he’d come up for her? She hadn’t glanced in that direction, but then, what well-bred young woman would?

All of which confirmed his instincts. Despite the fact that he possessed photographs of her lolling naked on an animal skin with her dainty hand pressed between her thighs, he still couldn’t shake off the notion that she wasn’t quite as licentious and free thinking as such a pose suggested.

What are you, my Beatrice? A hedonistic voluptuary or an untouched Vestal? Either way, you’re everything I dreamed of … and more.

It was impossible to decide which role excited him the most, but what he did know for sure was that Beatrice Weatherly had bewitched him. His ensorcellment had begun the first instant he’d set eyes on the card now back in his pocket, but meeting her in the living, vibrant flesh had increased it a thousandfold.

The collection of photographs had been circulating sub rosa at his club for a while, a minor sensation, and bored one day, he’d asked a friend to pass him one.

The sense of shock had been like a blow to his head, heart and gut all in the same moment. He’d been stunned to silence by a young woman’s exquisite, naked beauty, and he still couldn’t entirely deduce why that was so when he’d seen many gorgeous nudes in his adult life. But shock had turned to arousal, and arousal to a worrying obsession. He’d meant to meet Beatrice Weatherly in order to free himself, but now, instead, everything he’d felt seeing the photographs was validated.

Her face, in animation, didn’t possess the classic perfection of some of the society lovelies he’d courted. Miss Weatherly wasn’t even as delicate as the photographic rendering had suggested. There was a wild, untamed quality about her, something he couldn’t quite define and which she didn’t seem to be aware of herself. Her complexion had a creamy, almost animal vigor and her hair was so savage a red that the photograph’s hand tinting had merely hinted at it. He wouldn’t go so far as to say she was coarse or uncouth, quite the reverse, but she seemed to overflow with health and energy, and perhaps appetites that more delicate hothouse paragons sadly lacked.

And her body, oh God, her scented body.

How could she possibly appear as erotic and alluring in her outdated and obviously painstakingly made-over evening gown as she did out of it? It wasn’t attributable to any amount of corsetry or sundry feminine mechanicals, even though Ritchie was well acquainted with what women wore beneath their costumes.

No, with Beatrice Weatherly, every attraction came from the woman herself. Her dark green eyes, her fierce Amazonian expression, the way her head came up and she gasped as he challenged her.

I’ll make you gasp, Miss Weatherly. You can be sure of that. And even if you’re still angry with me, you’ll be glad you let me.

A footman appeared at his elbow with a tray of champagne, and about to reach for a glass, Ritchie paused. He’d been knocked far too far off-kilter in the past few moments to be satisfied by frothy French wine.

“Bring me a glass of whiskey, if you would?” His own voice sounded strange to him, as if he really had suffered an almighty blow. But the servant seemed to notice nothing amiss and stepped away smartly on his errand.

Gazing out into the glittering throng of bejeweled women and immaculately dressed men, it seemed to Ritchie as if they were projections floating on a screen. They weren’t real, just flickering, moving images such as he’d seen at a demonstration by Monsieur Le Prince in Leeds a couple of years ago.

Only the now-hidden Beatrice Weatherly was real to him, and discreetly, so as to avoid attention, he slid her photograph out of his pocket again and savored the contrast between it and the living woman.

Both were sublime to behold.

In the image, Beatrice was unstudied, dreamy and natural, her eyes averted from the camera in a private moment, so unlike the brazen stares of most naked models.

In the flesh, she met his gaze with fire and mettle and challenge.

Both incarnations stirred his loins to an alarming degree. And much, he admitted uncomfortably, in the manner they’d once stirred for his lost, beloved Clara. His first marriage had been fully and mutually satisfying in that department, as well as happy in every other way.

As the efficient footman approached, weaving his way through the chattering, preening guests, Ritchie slipped the photograph safely back into his pocket.

The whiskey was fire and peat on his tongue, and it settled him.

Yes, he could view the photograph, and the others like it, and take pleasure in them whenever he wanted.

But they, and the ministrations of his own hand, weren’t nearly enough now. He had to touch and admire the woman herself. From that isolated moment of contact, his fingers still tingled, feeling the warmth of her skin, and its softness where he’d held her upper arm. His entire body still felt the aftershocks of that singular instant, and his stiff cock jerked anew from simply reliving it.

I’ll feast on you, divine Beatrice. I’ll draw from you every last ounce of sensuality that’s in you. Because I know it’s there, even though you might deny it now. I’ll taste and stroke every last inch of your flesh, and I’ll feel your exquisite fingertips on my cock returning that pleasure.

And I’ll do it soon, because if I don’t, I might go mad.

Mad? God no … The most unfortunate choice of word. Raising his glass to his lips again, he shuddered as if an icy specter had drifted across his grave.

No! No dark thoughts now. Beatrice Weatherly was light. Heat. Passion. Everything positive and full of glorious, abundant life.

And, thanks to her imprudent brother’s bad investments, and his foolhardy days at the racetrack and nights at the card table, The Siren of South Mulberry Street was now Ritchie’s for the taking.

CHAPTER TWO

Creatures of the Tropics

BEATRICE FELT AS if her head was on a spring, it swiveled about so often during the dancing.

She wanted to freeze stock-still in the middle of the ballroom, turn around, and angrily demand that Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie stop staring at her!

But the trouble was, every time she was convinced he was watching her, the aggravating beast wasn’t there. Had he become invisible all of a sudden? Was he watching her by some arcane, remote means, like a medium?

And if wasn’t watching her, why not? Absurdly, his lack of scrutiny now annoyed her even more than being watched had.

With a supreme effort, she maintained a courteous interest in her partners, of which, surprisingly, there were quite a few. Obviously, her notoriety as the Siren was attracting most of the men, but it was still a pleasant relief not to be a wallflower, as a twenty-four-year-old spinster with no money and a besmirched reputation should expect to be.

She danced with Charlie, of course, who lectured her throughout, and stumbled once or twice, too. Brandy on his breath told a clear story, but Beatrice made a point of being especially patient and agreeable. It wasn’t all her fault that her brother’s life was difficult, but she certainly hadn’t helped matters by being so gullible in her dealings with Eustace Lloyd, and by leaving it so long to entertain a new suitor at all.

She shared a waltz with Monsieur Chamfleur, tall and bluff and jolly, as well as a cotillion with Lord Southern himself, and several other whirls about the floor with the charming Mr. Enderby, and one or two other husbands of the ladies in her Sewing Circle.

Ah yes, the Ladies’ Sewing Circle. Beatrice smiled wryly. Not much of a stitcher, she would never have joined such a group in the normal course of events, but when a card had arrived out of the blue, inviting her, she’d fallen upon it gladly. In the weeks since those accursed cabinet cards had begun circulating, along with a fruity exposé about them in Marriott’s Monde, all other social avenues had dried up to a state of desiccation. Backs had turned on her at church, the Ladies’ Charitable Guild had requested she not attend anymore, and likewise a ladies’ reading group she’d not long joined but had been enjoying immensely. In the face of this universal discouragement it was worth a few pricked thumbs and a nasty hole-ridden mat or two for the chance of feminine conversation with someone other than Polly or Enid or Cook.

And the talk over the crochet, cross-stitch and teacups had turned out to be unexpectedly racy.

Until Ritchie’s disclosure, Beatrice had believed the Circle to be the primary source of tonight’s invitation. Both Sofia Chamfleur and her friend Lady Arabella Southern had been especially amenable at the weekly meetings.

Now, however, Beatrice had been disabused of that notion.

Either one or the other of those two ladies had acted as a pander, and had expedited her appearance here to serve her up to the infuriating Ritchie. A man who apparently had the power to haunt her when he was nowhere to be seen.

What’s the matter with me? I’m having a perfectly delightful time, a much better one than I ever expected. Why do I keep wishing that every partner was that monster?

It was true. Good company as her dance partners had been, somehow they all seemed like shadows. Even Monsieur Chamfleur, who towered well over a stocky six feet tall. Only the wild, hot feelings she’d experienced in Ritchie’s presence had any verisimilitude. Her arm still prickled where he’d touched her, and when she relived that touch, her thighs trembled and a betraying liquid heat welled between them.

No! He’s a rogue and a womanizer and he’s even less respectable than I am!

Drifting away toward the periphery of the supper room, she looked for Charlie, but he too was nowhere to be seen now. One of his lecture topics on the dance floor had been a stern homily to her on the importance of not being seen in conversation with Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie.

“I didn’t realize it was him until he swanned up to us. The nerve of the man! If the papers are anything to go by, he’s a bad lot. Just stay away from him or he’ll compromise you even further.”

Beatrice had nodded, for once in perfect agreement with her sibling.

Yet she was disappointed. The ball was a dazzling, fairy-tale affair, and all the more so for the remarkable and revolutionary electrical lighting system that the Southerns had recently had laid on in their principal rooms. This new light illuminated the proceedings in a harder and more brittle manner somehow. It was unforgiving, yet it caused the women’s jewels to flash and sparkle and their gowns appear iridescent and vivid. But despite this modern miracle, all seemed lackluster just because she was missing a certain sharply beautiful man with navy-blue eyes, shiny, barely tamed blond hair and a mouth that could have as easily belonged to the devil as to an Adonis.

Lacking appetite, Beatrice sidled out of the supper room and across the broad, gilded reception salon. Glass doors to her right led out of the house proper into a conservatory, a vast and spacious jungle that seemed to have been shipped home from darkest Africa. Within it, the air was moist and hot, as she imagined it might be in the tropics, but it made her shudder, recalling the smaller, far less grand conservatory where Eustace had taken his photographs of her.

“To the devil with you, Eustace!” Muttering, she shook her head as if to dislodge his handsome but now hated countenance. How could she ever have believed she cared for him? Much less pose naked for him?

Loneliness, she supposed, and fear for the future. It’d been so long since she’d been courted—since the loss of Tommy, her first fiancé—and she’d been flattered by Eustace’s attentions. Practical issues had influenced her, too. Engagement to an eligible and apparently affluent bachelor had promised desperately needed security for herself and Charlie, and to her chagrin, she’d bamboozled herself into believing love could grow.

Regrettably, Eustace had been as mistaken in his assumptions as she’d been in hers, although far more deceitful. His affluence was all a facade and the moment he’d discovered the parlous state of the Weatherlys’ own finances, he’d made plans to drop her. But not before wringing a form of income from her in the most despicable way.

“You’ll get your comeuppance, one of these days, you beast. I just hope that I get the chance to witness it!”

Dismissing the weasel who’d shattered her reputation, she forged forward into the greenery. With the sound of a German polka fading in the distance, other sounds came more sharply to her ears. Trickling, tumbling water made the huge conservatory seem more than ever like a wild kingdom, and the cries of birds, and a flash of color right up in the highest edge of her vision suggested there might even be a parrot or two loose in the upper regions. Beatrice pressed on, her footsteps silent on the tiled path in her light dancing slippers.

The source of the water was a playing fountain, fed by an artificial stream. Large, colorful fish swam and wafted their fins in the central pond, and its cool freshness cut through the mulchy, vegetable aromas of the plant life.

What an incredible place. It was like having a patch of the foreign and the exotic in your own home. Unlikely a prospect as it was, Beatrice decided not to let the specter of Eustace deter her. If she ever came into a bit of money again, she’d have a conservatory of her own once more. Something modeled after the garden room at Westerlynne though, and relatively modest.

In the Southerns’ grand enclosure, however, narrow pathways wended away through the aromatic flora, and their promise called to her far more than the superficial world of dancing, chitchat, and social one-upmanship. The mystery of the place reminded her of the dark, troubling attentions of Mr. Ritchie. This wild and steaming jungle would be the perfect setting for his savage male persona.

As she explored further, holding up the hem of her gown to prevent it picking up soil and scraps of leaf matter, another sound, more familiar than tumbling water and parrot calls, caught her ear. Faint voices, both male and female, emanated from a little way ahead of her. She heard laughter and low, intimate tones.

Goodness, an assignation!

Perspiration popped and gathered beneath her corset and between her breasts, feeling sticky. It felt as if someone had suddenly adjusted the furnace that maintained the conservatory’s equatorial heat.

I should turn back … pretend I never heard them … respect their privacy.

But her days of polite, respectable and discreet behavior were over. Inching forward, Beatrice acknowledged a darker, more insatiably curious nature. Creeping like a native amongst the ferns, she followed the sounds.

And came upon a little grotto, right in the heart of Lady Arabella Southern’s metropolitan jungle, where two hungry creatures were cavorting, in flagrante.

Sofia and Ambrose Chamfleur were sitting on a bench, both pink in the face and gasping. She, with the bodice of her dress and her corset loosened so that her milky-white breasts overspilled the top of them. He with … dear heaven … his trousers unfastened and his masculine parts … his cock … fully out on view.

Beatrice’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t breathe. Her heart throbbed like a drum. And low in the pit of her belly, a serpent stirred.

So this was what a gentleman looked like when he was aroused? It wasn’t quite as she’d imagined, but then, what had she imagined? Women weren’t supposed to dwell on this particular part of a man at all until they were married, and respectable wives not even then. But having seen certain medical illustrations, Beatrice had often speculated about it. Long ago, she’d felt Tommy’s loins harden against her thigh when they’d managed to snatch a secret embrace in the rose arbor at Westerlynne, and Eustace too had become agitated and short of breath after a stolen kiss or two.

Beatrice had no idea whether Monsieur Ambrose Chamfleur was a typical fellow, or an especially fine example, but unbidden she wondered if a certain Mr. Ritchie might be even bigger. Sofia, however, appeared to be more than delighted with the size of her husband’s appendage, because she was stroking it in a clever, rhythmic action.

“Dear me, monsieur, what on earth is this?” she murmured, her slender hand apparently untiring as it rode her husband’s gleaming, ruddy length. “I swear it’s quite a monster and I don’t have the first idea what to do with it.”

Ambrose Chamfleur’s broad face looked strained, but almost angelically beautiful for such a large, bluff man. His mouth worked and his hips moved and shuffled where he sat on the bench. Pulling his wife closer to him, and cupping one of her rounded breasts, he whispered something guttural in her ear.

Sofia’s eyes shot wide, but she licked her lips. “Sir, you are scandalous, and a lecherous, low-minded rogue!” The words should have been an expression of outrage, but she was chuckling and smiling. And still licking her lips.

“And if I do that for you, Monsieur Chamfleur—” the clever hand twisted, and Sofia’s thumb seemed to be doing something most dexterous underneath the tip of her husband’s cock “—what will you do for me, in return?”

Again, a husky whisper that Beatrice couldn’t catch, even though she strained her ears to hear it.

“That seems most equitable.” Sofia’s smile was slow and fond, and for a moment, she closed her husband’s hand tightly around her breast, swaying as if the pleasure of it was so acute she was about to expire. Then, in a swift, sudden move, she sprang to her feet, and sank to the ground, her beautiful emerald-green skirts, so at one with her environs, spreading around her as she settled gracefully on her knees.

As she descended, her husband opened his thighs to let her in close.

Botheration! I can’t see!

It suddenly seemed the most important thing on earth to observe the proceedings, and despite branches and fronds of various dripping plants and shrubs almost slapping her in the face, Beatrice edged stealthily around the grotto for a better perspective.

When she achieved it, she clasped her gloved fist to her lips.

Sofia Chamfleur was sucking her husband’s shaft! And thoroughly enjoying it if all her little “mmms” and slithery-liquid sounds of appreciation were to be believed.

Beatrice watched. And watched. And the first shock turned to utter fascination.

I wonder what he tastes like? Is he sweet? Or salty? And what’s his texture? He looks smooth and silky and shiny, even on the length she can’t take in….

Beatrice’s knowledge of men’s bodies and their sexual workings came only from certain volumes she’d studied in the library at Westerlynne, after attacking the lock on the secured cabinet with hairpin. There hadn’t been time to peruse them in as much depth as she would have liked to, but even with only that rudimentary information, it was easy to deduce how much a man like Monsieur Chamfleur enjoyed this act. It must be seventh heaven for any man, pressing the most sensitive part of his anatomy into such a well of heat and moisture and being kissed and licked and sucked by his beloved.

Sofia Chamfleur seemed to be having a fine time of it, too. Despite the fact that her smooth and pretty face was deformed around her husband’s prodigious member, she was attempting a smile and her handsome eyes were sparkling.

She loves to please him.

Reluctant to even think about him now, Beatrice realized that even at her most self-deluded moments, she would never have wanted to kiss Eustace this way. Tommy, probably yes, but Eustace, never! The very idea made her shudder and her skin crawl.

But I’d kiss you, Mr. Ritchie … I’d kiss you.

The idea was preposterous. Ridiculous. Unthinkable. But before she could prevent it, another image sprang into her mind, clearer by far than any risqué photograph.

Instead of the happy Sofia Chamfleur on her knees in front of her beloved Ambrose, Beatrice saw herself, kneeling and sucking enthusiastically, her lips stretched and shiny around the even bigger organ of Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie.

This time her fist didn’t go to her mouth. This time, she couldn’t do anything and was in no danger of uttering a sound. It was as if a giant hand had pushed her sideways, not physically but psychically somehow. The thoughts and images were too shocking for her numbed brain to process, and yet at the same time, she seemed to feel Ritchie’s cock against her tongue.

Licking her lips compulsively, and still half observing the Chamfleurs, Beatrice suddenly experienced the strangest phenomenon. It was as if time itself were slowed down and all thoughts and actions were taking place at a snail’s pace. Her arms fell limp to her sides, and glancing lower inch by inch, she watched the cords and ribbons retaining her fan, her tiny evening reticule and her dance card begin to slide inexorably down the satin slope of her gloved arm and hand.

They’re going to clatter when they land and the Chamfleurs will know I’m here.

In the midst of that thought, she felt less worried about being discovered than she did about disturbing her friends’ pleasure.

What a shame if he doesn’t reach his peak inside her mouth.

But even as these weird observations passed through her mind, and her belongings proceeded at their attenuated pace toward the tiles, another hand, not hers, swept down and caught them.

Who was this prestidigitator, this illusionist? This person who snatched her around the waist at the same time, securing her against him with his other strong hand.

She hadn’t even realized she was falling.

“Hush.”

It was hardly more than a sigh, but she knew the voice, the strength, and the scent of his exquisite shaving lotion. As she breathed it in, her knees were jelly. She couldn’t stand.

The arm around her middle tightened as she sagged, pressing her corset against her body, restricting and controlling her.

“Come along.”

Again, the low voice hummed through her flesh, making the entire length of her torso vibrate where it pressed tight against him. There was no question who it was. It was as if she’d been waiting for him to join her. Somehow waiting since before she’d ever even met him.

Half carrying, half guiding, he began backing her away from the little scene on the bench. The Chamfleurs were completely absorbed in their pleasure, but as Beatrice’s fan swung on its cord, it brushed a palm frond and made it swish and rustle audibly.

Beatrice’s last impression of the jungle grotto was Ambrose Chamfleur glancing her way, smiling briefly, then moaning like a wild animal as his eyes rolled up in crisis.

As soon as they reached a safe distance away from the daring husband and wife, Beatrice tried to struggle against Ritchie’s grip on her then stopped fighting him again, just as quickly. Why give the creature the satisfaction of knowing how much he infuriated her? Especially when there was another distraction it was impossible to ignore.

Against the side of her hip, a sturdy knot of hardness poked at her through the layers of their clothing. And judging by what she’d just seen, back in the hidden grotto, there wasn’t the slightest bit of doubt what it was.

Randy beast!

“Let go of me, Mr. Ritchie,” Beatrice hissed as he manhandled her through a French door and back into the house. They were in another part of the vast Southern mansion now, one some distance from doors by which she’d entered the conservatory.

I’m lost. Lost in a big, strange house with a man who probably has far worse designs on me than Eustace Lloyd ever did.

So why wasn’t she struggling harder? She was a healthy girl with sound limbs, and if a man’s nether regions were as sensitive as Monsieur Chamfleur’s reactions led her to believe, a well-place knee delivered sharply should easily free her.

But you don’t want to be free, do you? proposed a sly, inner voice.

“No, Beatrice. If I let you go, you’ll run away again, and I want to talk to you.” Swiveling her around in his grip, Ritchie’s arms were still unyielding. They held her like iron bands, keeping her jammed up against the hardness at his groin. His cock felt warm and lively against her belly despite the layers and layers of her petticoats.

“It seems to me that you want to do considerably more than talk to me!”

The words came out without her bidding, and worse, her body seemed to have acquired a mind of its own now, too. Her hips jerked and rocked, bumping her abdomen against Ritchie’s loins as if deliberately massaging and caressing him.

What in heaven’s name am I doing?

Her thoughts whirled as he growled. Not quite as loudly and plaintively as Ambrose Chamfleur had done, but still in a way that recognized her desire.

But I don’t want you! No! No! I don’t!

Everything she’d ever read and been taught about ladylike behavior suddenly became nonsense. Stern words that had once tolled in her head were fading, fading. And there was no champagne or other intoxicant to lay the blame on this time. Not even the affection she’d felt for Tommy or misplaced feelings of fondness such as she’d experienced for Eustace.

No, with this man there was nothing more than instinctive antipathy at very first sight, and a low animal reaction to his maleness.

And yet still her hips churned and circled, rubbing her groin against Ritchie’s.

“I can’t deny that, Miss Weatherly. I want to see if that beautiful body of yours is really as luscious as the photographs suggest. I want to touch your skin, stroke you between your legs … taste you there.”

His tongue … oh, his tongue …

Had the ceiling above them opened? It seemed so. From the summer night sky itself, there shot down a bolt of lightning that struck Beatrice and took her breath away. Her legs, the very ones that Ritchie seemed so eager to put his face between, turned as weak as wet wool, making her sway wildly.

No! No! No! she railed again as his arms tightened around her, I am not a fainting miss who has the vapors just because this barbarian is trying to shock me!

“I’ll thank you not to make such crude remarks, Mr. Ritchie.” She stiffened her spine and fought his grip, but it simply became more robust. “They may impress a certain type of woman, but I actually find them boring, even juvenile.”

“Oh Beatrice, you’re such a little liar.” His breath against her cheek was as sweet and clean as his utterances were impure. He smelled a little of whiskey, and that only made her want to taste him. His mouth … his skin … oh, his cock.

Yes, his cock … I like calling it that!

Wicked thoughts, radical thoughts. But they didn’t linger, because at that moment Ritchie’s mouth came down on hers, devilish and hard.

The kiss wasn’t a bit like Tommy’s or Eustace’s. It was dry at first, hot and firm and purposeful. No tentative, boyish explorations. No messy meanderings with lips that were sloppy and vaguely slack. Ritchie’s mouth was strong and businesslike, and totally controlled. And when at last things did get wet, that was different, too. His tongue was a dart of power, pushing into her mouth and subduing her. Down between her legs, she seemed to feel it too, just as he’d described.

Sometime in their flight from the conservatory, she’d snatched her belongings from him, but now, as she tasted his tongue and her own flicked and played around it, her bag, her fan and her dance card tumbled forgotten to the carpet. She needed her hands. She needed them so she could explore his back and his shoulders through the fine dark cloth of his coat, and cling on to him when her knees went weak again.

She needed them so she could cling on when her hips started to press against him of their own accord, driven by a divine madness and a desperate hunger for the same intimate sharing the Chamfleurs enjoyed.

Her body was electric, as if filled with the same radical force that lit the glittering mansion around them, its Promethean power channeled into her every nerve and cell. She felt alight, aflame, filled with yearning and longing and an unstoppable compulsion to press her skin against Ritchie’s skin, cleaving to every last square inch of it.

When she’d had the mad urge to take her clothes off and pose for Eustace’s camera, it’d been nothing more than an anemic whim compared to this. The need to be naked for Ritchie and with Ritchie was a primal drive. An instinct in her blood, pumping and surging.

Aha, this “female hysteria” they write about so coyly in certain advertisements at the back of the Lady’s Weekly Journal. Why on earth do they imply that it’s unpleasant, and to be avoided? Because they’re wrong, so wrong! Completely wrong!

Her breasts felt sore and strange, and yet the sensation was delicious somehow, and far more than pleasant. They chafed against her fine chemise and the inside of her corset and she surged against the solid wall of Ritchie’s body, trying to increase the effect and rub her aching nipples against him.

“Oh, you’re a hot one, Beatrice,” gasped Ritchie as they broke apart to get more breath. Beatrice wasn’t sure she’d taken one for at least two minutes. She was light-headed, but it wasn’t through lack of oxygen … it was Ritchie. “You’re more than I ever dreamed, beautiful girl,” he went on, his mouth against her cheek, then her hair, his jaw brushing the side of her throat. As he spoke, his breath fanned against her, and below his hand pulled deftly at her skirts, with the skill of much practice, no doubt. Up and up they came, and then his fingers slid skillfully amongst the layers, pushing them up so he could clasp the rounded cheek of her bottom through her drawers.

Beatrice shot up in the air and started to struggle again. But just as before, without effort, Ritchie quelled her with his hands on her body and his mouth possessing hers. Conflicting urges battled. Every tenet of good behavior she’d ever had drilled into her waged war with delicious new desires—the craving to touch, taste, rub against and lay herself open to everything this man had to offer.

Her struggle died almost before it had begun, and she softened to the kiss like warmed honey. When he clasped her bottom this time, she almost purred into his mouth like a plump and lazy kitten accepting his affection, wickedly pleased that large, elaborate bustles were no longer en vogue and Ritchie could effect a firm hold on her without that extra hindrance to negotiate.

That’s outrageous! How can I think such things? Her mind raced. How can a kiss affect me this way?

The thought disappeared, drenched in oceans of sensation.

How can a kiss affect me this way?

On a wave of shock and desire, Ritchie plunged his tongue into Beatrice Weatherly’s mouth. He’d wanted her, yes, the moment he’d seen the first photograph, but this … this reality exceeded his every fevered fantasy.

Every part of her stirred him. Her soft mouth he imagined wrapped around his cock. Her delicious body he imagined writhing in uncontrolled ecstasy as he plied her with fingers and tongue, driving her to heights of sensation again and again and again. He imagined fondling the firm, rounded bottom that wriggled so exquisitely against his palm. She was a natural, unstudied sensualist and a little perversity would only spice her ultimate pleasure.

And oh, he wanted that, her ultimate pleasure. He wanted her orgasms. Her complete surrender. Her nakedness, his to enjoy in all ways, open to hand and mouth and a dozen wicked sexual contrivances. He wanted her secured to a bed so he could plunge into her, lose himself in the scent of lily of the valley and woman’s musk and forget every sad thing that had ever troubled him. In the oblivion of her flesh, there might be peace.

He had to have her.

How could he get her?

What could he offer?

A quick tumble with her simply wouldn’t suffice. So would Beatrice Weatherly be amenable to a grande affaire? A bohemian, worldly arrangement, between two adults? A woman of her age and class would normally be on the lookout for marriage, but posing naked for photographs meant she was far from conventional.

But still, the sense that there was more to her than simply a rather licentious young woman plagued him. What if she wouldn’t accept his proposition? The thought of her refusing him and the idea of never having and enjoying every last delicious part of her provoked a sensation like despair in his heart.

There was no alternative. He had power, resources, money in colossal amounts, and he’d use whatever tactics he had to in order to get her. At the back of his mind, guilt—and a distaste for his own self-serving motives—pricked him, but the jabs were faint and fast fading against the hard ache in his loins and the strangely indefinable longing that racked his chest.

Even as sweet lust gouged him, he began to make his plans. Oh, how convenient it was that her brother was such a ne’er do well.

CHAPTER THREE

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.

CHAPTER FOUR

In the Pale Moonlight

CHARLIE WEATHERLY BREATHED deep as he exited onto the moonlit terrace and made his way, somewhat shakily, down the broad steps that led to the garden.

His head was whirling, and his heart beating. This evening was not turning out to be satisfactory at all. Not at all. He’d spent a large part of his time avoiding a couple of fellows from his club to whom he owed a considerable amount of money, and to cap it all, instead of behaving with suitable decorum, and attempting to mend her shattered reputation and conduct herself as a suitable young lady for marriage, Bea had been quite clearly seen in conversation with that wretched ladies’ man, Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie.

The man was as disreputable as he was rich and Charlie would have been prepared to overlook the former for the sake of the latter, if Ritchie wasn’t known to be sworn against further marriages. There were mutterings about not one, but two wives lost already. Hints of mysterious circumstances and nefariousness, but all no doubt hushed up due to the blackguard’s obscene wealth.

Charlie frowned, longing for the taste of brandy, even though he was unsteady enough on his feet already. A card game would be a nice distraction too, even if he was likely to lose again.

All that remained was a cigarette. A mild vice, but it calmed his nerves all the same. Pausing to extract his silver case and light a gasper, he turned briefly and realized that, mired in his troubles, he’d walked a considerable way from the terrace and had ended up almost lost amongst a stand of laburnum bushes.

I should be looking out for Bea. I should be protecting her and sheltering her and steering her away from the likes of Ritchie, and that viper Eustace Lloyd before him. She needs a good man with a bit of money, and a proper home and children. It’s no good we two rattling around at South Mulberry Street together. The house is far too costly to maintain, and we’re getting on each other’s nerves.

Poor Bea. He loved her dearly, and his own guilt made him impatient with her. His sister’s nature was warm and wild, and he loved her for that. But it didn’t make her marriageable. Even her undeniable beauty couldn’t offset the trouble she’d got herself into, posing for those photographs. If only she’d named Lloyd in public as the photographer, they might have had some redress. But she wouldn’t do that, claiming that what was done was done. And because the pair had never been officially engaged, there was no question of breach of promise either.

And now a new set of rumors about her and Ritchie would be circulating. Charlie had seen the eyes of the gossips following the two of them, and the whispered exchanges. Women would be fluttering furiously over the china tea and shortbread during their at-homes in the next few days, and men in clubs all over London would pick over the story while they shuffled cards and consumed brandy and roast beef, weaving salacious fantasies of his sister being debauched by that whoreson Ritchie. He’d already heard murmured asides this very evening about her “moving on to pose in another bed.”

If I’d any guts I’d have shot Eustace Lloyd! One minute he’s as good as proposed to Bea, the next minute she’s not good enough because she posed naked for his camera. Goddammit, he’s the one who sold the photographs anonymously, even if he claims otherwise, and now poor old Bea’s the one who’s ended up alone and ruined.

Charlie’s cigarette tip glowed red as he stood in the shadows, dragging on the thing as if he could suck in good fortune with each breath, and then exhale his self-loathing for not defending his sister better.

After a few moments, the nicotine and the moonlight settled him, and as vague plans and resolutions circled in his head, his senses reached out into the garden.

There was someone else here, just feet away.

“Got a light, friend?” The soft, rough voice reminded Charlie of Westerlynne, and a handsome gamekeeper’s lad he’d known as a curious youth. A man stepped out of the deeper shadows, the white tube of a cigarette poised in his fingers. Powerful fingers, steady yet relaxed.

“Yes, of course.” Charlie drew out his matches again, astonished to be shaking. The sturdy, powerful man seemed much closer than before, even though he hadn’t taken another step yet.

The light from the match showed a strong face too, not coarse, but a little rough-hewn, not a gentleman. What was the man doing out here? Was he a servant? A groom? He wasn’t dressed for the ball, but looked well in a plain dark walking suit, and a striped shirt sans collar. His thick brown hair was as straight as wheat, and might have benefited from the comb.

Charlie shuddered, his blood turned to fire. Dark urges welled in his gut. Another reason to be nervous, and yet excited.

They smoked in silence for a spell, the garden air tranquil apart from Charlie’s heart, thumping in the night.

I shouldn’t do this.

And yet senses he barely understood told him the man smoking in the shadows was of the same persuasion as he. Well, if Charlie could be sure what his own persuasion was half the time.

Charles Weatherly was attracted to his own sex. He was an unnatural, an invert. But the fact that he also eagerly desired women too only added to his confusion.

“So, friend,” said the stranger after a long quiet while, “what brings you out here when the rest of the nobs are in there enjoying themselves? You look like a man weighed down by troubles.”

The Charles Weatherly of polite society bristled. He should rebuke this overly familiar fellow for asking personal questions of his betters. But Charlie, perplexed and out of his depth, wanted to spill all … both metaphorically and physically. Orgasm was a path to oblivious forgetfulness of problems, just as drink and the thrill of the card table were.

“You could say that, friend,” he compromised, taking a drag on his cigarette. “I have my fair share of concerns. But what business are they of yours?”

“Just a sympathetic individual, sir.” It wasn’t uttered with deference. “It seems like you’re looking for diversion on a fine night like this … the pleasures of the moment and to the devil with tomorrow.”

Oh, you’re sharp!

Charlie puffed furiously. He couldn’t speak, silenced by the forbidden, dark excitement, and a new emotion, almost unmanning him. Woes of his own making bore down on him like a heavy yoke, and the sudden sympathy of this stranger strummed his nerves.

His new friend laughed softly, the sound drifting low as he reached out, took Charlie’s cigarette right from his lips, and tossed it with his own, end over end, onto the gravel. “You don’t need that, friend,” he murmured, drawing Charlie by the arm, deeper into the shadows and the moist vegetable secrecy of the bushes.

“What are you doing?” It should have come out as righteous outrage, male and stentorian. But instead, his voice seemed light and insubstantial as the moonlight. He opened his mouth again, but the shaggy-haired stranger covered it with his own, suddenly kissing him with firm warm lips and backing him up against what appeared to be the kitchen garden wall.

Charlie’s head reeled, even as the last vestiges of fight made him press against the stranger’s lapels with his fists. But it was an empty gesture. Just as quickly, his hands relaxed against the muscular, well-shaped chest beneath the layers of wool and flannel of his companion’s clothing. In the blink of an eye, he was clutching the very same lapels, his mouth yielding as he silently begged the man not to withdraw.

Or stop kissing him.

A potpourri of tobacco and whiskey on his companion’s lips was intoxicating, and Charlie wondered momentarily where he’d drunk the latter. Was it purloined from his master’s supply? Stolen like these moments of forbidden pleasure?

But when a warm, wet tongue plunged deep into his mouth, Charlie wanted to weep like a girl, deliciously subdued. The man’s large, confident hand closed round his genitals, at the same time, cupping and squeezing with just enough force.

Squeeze. Release. Squeeze. Release. Hardened to iron, his cock leaped with each tightening.

“Oh good Lord … good Lord,” he gasped when his mouth was suddenly free, then he moaned when deft fingertips found his glans through his linen and squeezed that sensitive tip with particular skill.

“No, friend, not our Lord, just ‘Jamie.’“ His new friend laughed, still continuing his divine ministrations.

Charlie was overcome. Still grasping Jamie’s lapels, he threw back his head, bumping it on the rough masonry of the wall yet barely registering the momentary pain. His knees buckled, and he slumped, his back pressed to the damp brickwork. Biting his lips, he fought to suppress his cries, his hips flaunting forward following Jamie’s teasing, tugging fingers.

“Do you like that, sir?” A redundant question, the impudent honorific, and Jamie’s low laughter only added to the sweet sensations.

“Yes, oh God, yes I do!” Charlie tossed his head against the bricks, aware of the ever-present sooty grime of the city soiling his hair. “My name is Charles … Charlie … oh hell and damnation man, that’s wonderful … oh God!”

“But we’ve only just begun, Charlie,” breathed Jamie, then he stabbed in with another deep kiss, before nibbling on Charlie’s lower lip. “Shall we let the rampant beast see the air now?”

Reality suddenly pierced the hot, sensual haze. Charlie struggled for sanity, for sobriety, and tried to pull away, even though the denying words still eluded him.

But Jamie would not be gainsaid. He squeezed yet harder on the tip of Charlie’s organ, the fleeting moment of cruelty like heaven to a man of Charlie’s sensibilities.

“Oh no, you don’t, sir.” The husky voice was playful yet menacing, “I want a good look at this nice little toy.”

“Not so little, I’ll thank you,” growled Charlie, finding his backbone from somewhere.

“Indeed,” said Jamie, his deft fingers working on the buttons of Charlie’s trousers … and then his linens.

Charlie gasped as the cooler air of the garden night hit his cock. Jamie eased him out of the aperture in his clothing, and he could almost imagine his flesh steaming, hot and hard as an iron bar.

“Fine … very fine indeed,” murmured Jamie, his hand settling upon it.

At first he just held Charlie, his large yet nimble fingers lightly curled as he kissed Charlie’s face in little nips and dabs and busses. It was a delicate exploration, all the more stirring for the intimate hold down below. Charlie wanted to scream at Jamie to pump him.

“Steady, Charlie my boy, steady on.” Jamie’s smile was saturnine as he pulled back a little, staring into Charlie’s eyes, his own hooded and sultry as a finger drummed hither and thither, light and taunting. “I’m not ready for you to spend all over me … at least not yet. You have to earn your satisfaction, my fine lad.”

Luscious fear coiled in Charlie’s gut. He thought of practices performed in certain discreet houses and his organ stiffened harder at the thought, jumping in his lover’s hand.

“You’re a naughty fellow, aren’t you?” purred Jamie, his raw tone revealing his country origins. Despite his desperate state, Charlie felt a rush of warmth, remembering happy times at Westerlynne. “But I’m not doing it all for you, Charlie my lad. Not tonight …” He reached for Charlie’s hand and folded it around his very own flesh.

Blood burned in Charlie’s face and in the hard rod between his fingers. Dark pleasure surged at the thought of exhibiting his private technique. His fingers shook as they fumbled and slid, and his head felt as light as if he’d supped a quart of brandy on top of the several snifters he’d already consumed in addition to champagne.

But the thought of his debts and troubles was all but forgotten, and when Jamie’s hands finally strayed to his own trouser buttons, Charlie didn’t have a remaining care in the whole wide world.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Indecent Proposal

“MISS BEA! MISS BEA! Wake up!”

Sleep had Beatrice in its grip. Holding her down deep, it wouldn’t be shaken off and she was drowning. But not in the sea or the grimy Thames or even the lake at Westerlynne. No, she was lost in a pair of dark blue eyes.

There was no escaping them. And she didn’t want to. Swathed in her dream, and enveloped in heat and sensation, she pressed her soft body to the hard muscled form of a man.

Beatrice’s eyes snapped open as two things impressed themselves upon her.

One was that her maid Polly was leaning over her and shaking her shoulder with far more vigor than most employers would tolerate from their servants.

The second realization brought a furnace of blush to her already warm cheeks. Beneath the covers, her flannel nightgown was bundled around her hips in a twisted, tangled bunch and her right hand was pressed firmly between her thighs.

Damn the man. All his fault. He was debauching her in her dreams now. Heaven help her when …

“Miss Bea! Come on! Please wake up, there’s men in the kitchen!”

“Men in the kitchen? What in goodness’ name do you mean? What men?” Beatrice snatched her fingers from where they’d strayed. Thank heavens for the mound of bedclothes, tucked high up to her chin. She struggled to wake up properly, still blinking at her maid.

“Two men, Miss Beatrice. They just arrived at the area door and Enid let them in. You know how daffy she can be when she’s half-asleep.”

Polly looked flushed, almost as pink in the face as Beatrice imagined herself to be. The young woman’s plain morning cap was sliding awry, as it often did, and one or two wisps of her flaxen hair were already tumbling.

“Arrived for what? What kind of men, Polly?”

A succession of horrid possibilities, all alarming, presented themselves.

When the photographs had first appeared and her notoriety as the Siren had begun, a variety of gentlemen of the lower press had hung around, hoping for a sight of her, or a statement. For a while it had been quite impossible to go out. But then a new sensation had arisen, as they always did, and her journalistic followers had thankfully drifted away, only to be replaced by a threat of another flavor.

Bailiffs!

Oh no, it hadn’t come to this, had it? Just when a solution, however imperfect and insalubrious, had presented itself. And even if it wasn’t the dreaded bailiffs, there’d been some decidedly shady and tough-looking coves loitering in their street the past few days. They didn’t approach in the way the journalists had, but just looked menacing, and Beatrice sorely feared they might be the hirelings of Charlie’s many creditors.

Thoroughly rattled now, Beatrice wriggled her way into a sitting position while at the same time surreptitiously pushing down her nightgown. Erotic fancies must be set aside for the moment in order to deal with hard, cold realities. She just hoped these men could be reasoned with, and persuaded to wait until Ritchie presented his indecent proposal and some money was forthcoming. Reaching for her shawl, though, she was embarrassingly aware that her fingers were somewhat fragrant, and with a scent that Polly would no doubt recognize.

“Have you woken Mr. Charles? I think he’ll want to deal with this.”

He wouldn’t, actually. Charlie would be worse than useless in this situation, and Polly had actually done the sensible thing coming to her first. But she didn’t want to insult her brother’s manhood by coming out and saying he was hopeless.

“No, actually … they … should I say he said to speak to you, Miss Beatrice. The one in charge, that is. He’s brought a letter for you, and he says a reply is expected by return.”

“The one in charge? In charge of whom? What letter?”

Dear heaven, the offer was here already?

And there was only one “man in charge” whose face sprang readily to mind. She could have drawn it in perfect line-for-line detail this very moment. Complete with the narrow wicked smile he’d worn as he dallied with her. The same demonic yet beautiful expression that had been on his face while he’d touched her.

Polly snatched up the tiny silver correspondence tray from the chair beside the bed and presented it as a moment-by-moment memory of all that had occurred last night washed like a waterfall into Beatrice’s mind.

Ritchie’s face. His smile. His hands.

His deep blue eyes, burning like dark coals. The devil!

But even though Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie was only a gentleman of sorts, she couldn’t imagine him being content to wait in the kitchen for her answer to his own letter. Especially not with Cook blathering on at Enid, and the smoky range, and dish cloths and tea cloths all hung up to dry, and the general state of disorder that pervaded a house with not enough servants.

Beatrice grabbed the letter. She had absolutely no shred of doubt it was from him. He was just the type to demand an instant reply. The arrogance of him, all hurry, hurry, hurry, dance to his tune. He wanted to buy her body, on terms to suit him alone, and he wanted the agreement signed, sealed and delivered before she’d had time to entertain first thoughts, never mind second ones. It was a wonder he hadn’t sent a solicitor to notarize the agreement. Maybe one of these men was a lawyer? It wouldn’t surprise her.

Yet now that she had the momentous missive in her hand, she hardly dared crack open its seal, despite the fact that Polly was nearly dancing with curiosity beside the bed. To read the proposal was to make it real. Last night, at the glittering ball, she’d consorted with Ritchie, but now all that seemed like a voluptuous magic-lantern show, as phantasmagorical as the erotic dream from which she’d woken.

This letter represented the cold, sordid fact that she was selling her own flesh to get out of debt. She was an “unfortunate” who was fortunate enough to be desired by a man as rich as Croesus. And the fact that he still excited her was the most disturbing thing of all.

“These men, Poll … how long have they been here? I assume they’re servants, not gentlemen? And if they are gentlemen, what were you thinking not showing them into the parlor?”

“They arrived about five minutes ago, Miss Beatrice. Knocking on the kitchen door … Gave Cook a bit of a start, and before I could stop her, Enid had opened to them. I was going to run round next door for Fred, but it didn’t seem worth it. Either one of them would make ten of him.” Mangling her apron in her hand, Polly seemed to be struck by the same mix of excitement and anxiety that gripped Beatrice. “The fair-haired one said he wouldn’t leave until he had a reply, from your own hand!”

Fair haired? Domineering and bombastic? As the master, so the man … or perhaps one and the same?

But then again, Ritchie wasn’t exactly bombastic. More clever than that, he was a subtle, persuasive libertine, and he’d swept her into scandalous and sensual behavior by dint of making her believe that was what she wanted.

Making her accept, nay, admit that it was what she wanted.

Beatrice set the envelope down on the counterpane and tried to concentrate. What exactly had she said last night?

What did I lead him to expect? Why can’t I remember the precise words?

But it was actions she remembered clearly … and reactions. All else was a delicious, slightly alarming haze. Surely she’d not partaken of all that much champagne? Even the glass of brandy she’d so boldly dashed down had been modest.

It wasn’t the alcohol. If she’d become inebriated, surely she wouldn’t have been able to recall the physical details. His touch. What she’d done, and had done to her. It all still lingered in her memory, every second perfect and crystal clear.

“This man, the blond one. Did he say who sent him? Does he look as if he’s in service with a gentleman?”

Polly’s eyes narrowed and her full mouth took on a sultry expression. Beatrice didn’t need telling that the mysterious message carrier and his associate had made an impression, and stirred up her maid’s frisky side.

“Well, he’s a smart sort of chap. He doesn’t look like a toff, but he’s well set up. Very well set up.” Polly cocked her head on one side, and licked her lips. “They both are, Miss Bea. If I was in the position to get a letter, I wouldn’t mind getting one from either of them, I must admit.” Did Polly wink? Beatrice could swear she had done. She gave the girl an old-fashioned look, and Polly, used to being absurdly indulged, replied with a shrug.

“Did he say who sent him, this spokesman of the pair, who the letter is from?”

“It’s from a gentleman of your recent acquaintance, he said. Said you’d be expecting it too.” Polly nodded at the envelope, where it lay on the bedcover like an incendiary device clad in heavy cream bond. “Aren’t you going to open it now, miss?”

“All in good time, all in good time.” She didn’t look up. Clever Polly had instincts like a razor. Especially when she scented something juicy going on. “You can go back down and inform this man in charge of yours that I’ll reply when I’m good and ready. He and his friend can wait if they so desire, but they might be here all day, and I’m sure whoever sent them has other duties for them.”

“Yes, miss. I’ll tell him that exactly.” Polly’s eyes twinkled when Beatrice finally lifted her gaze, and she adjusted her cap and straightened her apron. “But I don’t really think he’s my man in charge at all, miss. In fact I think his mate is much more my fancy. A bit rough and ready and I like them that way.”

“Polly!”

Beatrice was well aware of what the other woman liked, and it wasn’t always as rough and ready as she’d just claimed.

“Would you like some tea, miss? For while you read your letter?”

Beatrice quelled a smile. Incorrigible as she was, Polly’s heart was kind. The two of them had been together a long time, and circumstances had forged a bond between them far beyond a conventional mistress and servant status. Beatrice was tempted to confide. But she really had to read the letter on her own first, and absorb its import without even Polly to distract her.

“Yes, thank you, Polly. And you might as well give your men some tea too.”

Polly bobbed a curtsy and retrieved the silver tray. “Shall I wake Mr. Charles then?” She paused, her eyes shrewd. “Or will you deal with it, miss?”

To involve Charlie now would only cause a disturbance. He’d want to play his “man of the house” role, as any brother guardian quite naturally would. But it would be easier to present this to him as a fait accompli, with all the financial advantage it entailed already in place. He’d been strangely distracted last night in the carriage, and had barely spoken, his face relaxed and dreamy. It was probably much kinder to leave him in the dark for the moment and let him enjoy whatever it’d been that had put him in such a gentle good humor. He’d only get cross if he knew a certain person had come calling, and be both outraged and enraged—with perfect justification—on learning exactly what that person had come calling about.

“No, let him sleep, Polly. And don’t mention our visitors until I’ve seen him.” Polly’s nod spoke volumes about her understanding of her employers, and Beatrice nodded back with a resigned little shrug.

But as her maid reached the door, Beatrice called out. “This man … the one who seems to be in charge. Does his fair hair have a bit of curl about it?” Her hands shook as she studied her own name, written in strong, energetic script on the heavy, expensive-looking envelope.

“Why yes, Miss Beatrice, how did you guess? That’s him to a tee.”

Beatrice picked at the seal on the back of the envelope with the edge of her nail. “And his eyes, did you by any chance catch a glimpse of them? They wouldn’t happen to be blue, would they?”

Polly’s smile was sly, even more speculative than before. “Yes indeed. Dark as night they are, almost black, a bit like India ink, Miss.”

Beatrice ripped open the envelope, tearing the single sheet inside in the process, and when the faint but distinctive scent of a most particular cologne rose up from the paper, her body quivered as if its wearer was reading over her shoulder.

THE OFFER WAS utterly ridiculous.

You’re buying my body for a month, Mr. Ritchie, not my immortal soul in perpetuity!

Not that Ritchie’s largesse wasn’t tempting. Although she tried not to be a greedy and acquisitive woman, Beatrice was honest enough to admit she enjoyed life’s comforts: books and journals; a pleasantly appointed home and tasty food; the occasional new gown or pair of shoes, and outings or at-homes at which to wear them. Yes, she liked all those very much. But the blinding, almost obscene luxury of the high aristocracy wasn’t her particular aspiration. She just wanted to live a middling life without any debts, and the fear of bailiffs and moneylenders’ toughs she would gladly say goodbye to.

But this many thousands? On top of their outstanding debt paid and an annuity apiece for life for her and Charlie? That was absurd. A woman would have to be a combination of Cleopatra, Delilah, Madame de Pompadour and the famous Mrs. Langtry in order to merit such bounty, and Beatrice hadn’t got time to learn but a thousandth of their tricks. She’d need access to all the under-the-counter books in Holywell Street and more for an education to match Ritchie’s extravagance.

I wonder if Sofia can provide me with a few tips?

It would be rather embarrassing quizzing her friend on such intimate topics, and even more so, revealing why she needed the knowledge, but after seeing Sofia’s performance last night in the conservatory, it was clear that the older woman was well versed in the sexual arts.

And then there was always Polly, who seemed to know everything about everything.

Despite these potential wells of wisdom, it was still going to be hard providing Ritchie with value for money. Especially when she was still technically a virgin—despite what had happened with Eustace—and her cavortings with Ritchie last night were the furthest extent of her amatory experience.

No, she’d have to insist on a lesser sum. Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie was a lecherous manipulative rogue, but she still couldn’t bring herself to cheat him. She’d take only enough to pay off the debts that she and Charlie had incurred, and a modest sum to cover their needs while her brother found some kind of sensible paying employment that didn’t offend his gentlemanly sensibilities and where he couldn’t effect any further financial chaos. After that, a little extra to set herself up in a typewriting and secretarial concern for persons of quality.

Good. That’s a decision smartly made. How cool-headed I am in a crisis.

Beatrice narrowed her eyes. There was no doubt who the taller man was, but why on earth would he choose to resort to such subterfuge? Was he trying to discover secrets about her from the servants? Some further skeleton in her closet with which to exert additional leverage over her? That seemed very much his modus operandi.

But even if there was a skeleton, Polly wouldn’t reveal it. And neither would Cook nor Enid, she hoped, at least not deliberately. Unlike some ladies of her acquaintance, Beatrice always endeavored to treat the servants as well as she would like to have been treated herself in their situation. She even helped out with domestic chores as best she could now that the household was much reduced, and she hoped that her efforts to lighten the load offset Charlie’s occasional airs and graces.

So, Mr. Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie, you’ll be disappointed if you’re hoping to find any scandalous morsels about me around the kitchen hearth. I’ve done nothing more wicked than I did with you last night! All my scandalous morsels are already fairly common knowledge.

“AND THEN SHOW the gentleman who seems to be in charge into the morning room, will you, Polly? And tell him I’ll be down presently.”

Fortified by tea, Beatrice prepared for the forthcoming confrontation. Part of her was nervous, part filled with a perverse and delicious longing. She’d soon have a lover, and by all accounts, one as skilled as he was handsome.

“The morning room, not the parlor?”

“The morning room will do. The parlor needs bottoming and it’s only for persons of quality anyway.”

That would show him. If it was him.

“And then shall I return to help you dress, miss?”

Beatrice groaned inside. The corset, the layers of petticoats, her hair … it would all take an age.

To the devil with it! And with him! He’ll see me in dishabille soon enough, and after last night, it’s far too late to stand on ceremony.

Those blue eyes, so well remembered, seemed to taunt her, and between her thighs, she imagined she felt his fingers. A sweet ache coiled and tightened in her belly.

“No, that won’t be necessary, Polly. I’ll receive him in my dressing gown. You just keep an eye on the friend. Have Cook and Enid gone out to the market yet?”

Polly nodded, her eyes popped wide, and Beatrice laughed inside. Her maid was usually unflappable, hard to shock.

“But, miss, it’s not seemly to receive a gentleman in your night attire. What would people say?”

“People? Pah! They already think I’m a hussy and a fallen women, so what difference does it make now? And I’ll be dismissing this fellow again within a few minutes. He won’t have time to be scandalized.” She tossed her hair, wondering what Mr. Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie would think of so much curly redness. Polite society considered such hair savage, too wild and abandoned, but she considered it her very best feature. “Now, about your business, Polly!”

The other woman lingered. She gave a pointed cough.

“Now what is it?” Beatrice hid another smile.

“Won’t you need chaperone, miss? I mean, an unmarried lady receiving a gent on her own … without her corset.” Polly’s eyes twinkled with the spark of a conspirator. “There’s some that might say that’s rather fast.”

“Ah, well, as I said, thanks to Mr. Eustace Lloyd, that famously loathsome and despicable cad, I am fast, Polly. Positively a Derby winner!” Beatrice shrugged. Her damaged reputation still should be considered a calamity, but all she felt was a delicious liberation. “So I might as well enjoy the freedom my speedy status affords me, eh? Now, off you go.”

“Yes, miss!” Hiding a smirk behind her hand, Polly darted from the room.

Now, as to her dressing gown? The old brown woolen one just wouldn’t do. Time to bring out the fine blue one, one of the last new things she’d purchased before their fortunes had turned to dust.

If a man was prepared to pay twenty thousand guineas for the use of her body for a month, the least a girl could do was wear her nicest dressing gown.

RITCHIE COULDN’T RELAX in the damask-upholstered wing chair. It was comfortable enough, and not the usual delicate ladies’ morning-room chair; but waiting, waiting, waiting, he couldn’t find ease in it.

What’s the matter with me? Why am I here like this, sneaking around and behaving like a youth in rut with his brains all addled by his first-ever sniff of a real, live woman?

What was it about Beatrice Weatherly that made him act this way? Despite the licentiousness of the photographs she’d posed for, his gut feeling was still that she was no jaded sophisticate. The women he kept company with were mainly society beauties with inattentive husbands, women eager to share his bed discreetly in return for pleasure and a release from the inherent boredom of the ever repeating Season.

But Beatrice Weatherly wasn’t jaded or bored or married, or even particularly sophisticated, and perhaps because of that, his yearning for her was out of all proportion. She had an elusive quality that spoke to his soul and tantalized his cock. Yet for the life of him he was hard-pressed to define it.

And as for pitching up here in mufti rather than gentlemanly finery? To show her he wasn’t really a toff at heart, he supposed. A self-made man who’d worked hard, like his father before him.

It was also easier to circumvent Beatrice’s ineffectual brother this way too. He’d nothing against the man, but his sister was worth twenty of him.

You’re a sly weasel, Ritchie my lad. Especially when it’s your cock that’s running the show.

Restless, he sprang to his feet, his body humming like an electrical dynamo. The room he’d been shown into by the shrewd-looking maid was pleasing enough, if a little faded and old-fashioned looking, due no doubt the Weatherly’s lack of funds to pay for elaborate furnishings and a sufficiency of servants. Prowling around, he sensed instinctively that this was Beatrice’s domestic domain, the room she spent most of her time in. He studied a number of bookshelves, which were less dusty than some of the furniture, and their eclectic contents surprised and inordinately pleased him. History, the classics, Mr. Darwin’s treatise and other scientific tomes—all these rubbed shoulders with a broad array of novels of high and low style, and notably, issues of the literary publication, Lippincott’s, all well thumbed. He had a feeling that Beatrice read across the entire spectrum of the arts and knowledge represented. He sensed a mind in her as curious as it was sharp.

The mantelpiece was crammed with photographs.

Experiencing a twist of guilt, he sought out the life of the quiet, sweet girl Beatrice must once have been before she’d taken to posing for pornographic images. Almost reluctantly, he scanned the frames, his heart athud.

Even in stiff formal poses, Beatrice exuded the same energetic sensuality that informed her nude studies. Perched on a chaise longue beside her brother, and in the company of an older couple, presumably the now deceased elder Weatherlys, she lit the composition with life and vitality. Even with a perfectly straight face, to Ritchie’s eyes, she seemed to smile.

He passed hungrily from image to image, devouring each glimpse of her. Here in a country house garden, in a white dress, hair down, breathtaking in her purity. Here, with enormous daring, in fancy dress and revealing her sleek thighs in what looked like her brother’s breeches.

And here … oh, here … with another man, in what looked like an engagement photograph. This time it was the lucky fellow who seemed barely able to hide his smiles, while Beatrice was a poem of fond affection.

Ritchie set the frame down with thump; his teeth were gritted and his chest tight. Why such irrational anger? Why so jealous of this lost fiancé? There had been men in her life since, surely, and yet he couldn’t seem to summon up much interest in them, or antipathy toward them. Even Eustace Lloyd, who was her most recent admirer, according to his sources, and a man with whom he was vaguely acquainted and for whom he didn’t much care.

Beatrice had been seen in public with Lloyd on one or two occasions before the photographs had surfaced, but not since. All very decorous, an exhibition or two, once at the theater. There was no sign of any lasting affection for him here though, no image amongst this collection, so whatever had passed between them was obviously over.

Frowning, Ritchie tapped his fingers on the shelf, thinking, thinking.

Gut instinct told him there’d been no intimacy with Lloyd. The man was personable enough, but there was something not quite pleasant about him, and he’d been suspected of theft at the Plenderley’s house party Ritchie had attended last year. Even though he barely knew her yet, Ritchie already credited Beatrice Weatherly with a discerning taste in the men to whom she gave herself.

And yet … who’d taken the nude photographs? He hadn’t asked Beatrice, and she’d offered no information of her own volition. Could it have been Lloyd? The man had certainly shown an unusually avid interest in cameras at the Plenderley shindig.

It was something Ritchie would have to look into, as a priority. He had agents and resources aplenty; it wouldn’t take long. There must be a good reason why a refined and spirited woman like Beatrice Weatherly had exposed her beautiful naked body to a nonentity like Eustace Lloyd.

Filing that thought away, he moved to the small piano in order to distract himself from uneasy speculation. It seemed odd that the instrument was in here, rather than one of the more formal rooms, but there was Chopin on the music stand, and various selections from Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan tucked beneath it, along with the sentimental “The Lost Chord.” Did Beatrice play? Most well-bred young women of her class did; it was one of the traditional accomplishments of marriageable young fillies. He pictured her slender, delicate fingers flowing over the ivories and jerked with raw desire, imagining the same dexterity on his cock.

Soon.

He was confident that she’d accept his offer. Not because he believed himself irresistible, but because he’d sensed pragmatism in her, and desire, and the hot spark of something less definable, but still intense. For his part, he’d suffered a coup de foudre, one might say, although emanating mainly, he owned, from regions far more southerly than the heart.

His cock ached as he rubbed his thumb and fingertip together compulsively. She’d been so wet and silky last night. Exquisitely responsive. Right there with him. No grim, tight, resisting miss she. No bitter disappointment to him after the promise of her beauty.

A familiar cloud nudged its way into his consciousness, but he shook his head, dislodging it. He would not think of that now—or of her—just when Beatrice Weatherly was about to appear. The only woman of his recent acquaintance who could truly make him forget.

As if answering his prayers, the doorknob rattled as it turned, and he spun around.

“Good morning, Mr. Ritchie. I didn’t anticipate seeing you again quite so soon.”

She was a vision, everything he remembered from last night, and much, much more.

“Good morning, Miss Weatherly.” Moving swiftly amongst the furniture, he strode toward her and snatched up her hand. The touch of her skin, so smooth and warm, expunged all darkness. “And why wouldn’t you expect me? Didn’t I say I’d have an offer for you this morning?” Like a voracious schoolboy let loose in a sweet shop, he let his eyes rove over her, unable to hide his sudden, surging desire.

Beatrice Weatherly took his breath away just as easily as she stiffened his cock.

His mouth pressed to the fingertips of her raised hand, Ritchie stared at her over her knuckles. Her brilliant hair was unbound save for a few constraining strands caught in a white ribbon at the back of her head, and she looked a fair demoiselle or an enchanted queen in a painting from the hand of Mr. Rossetti. Her magical curls tumbled and drifted like flame, heating his blood.

“Gentlemen … and those not quite so gentle … say a lot of things, Mr. Ritchie. And regrettably or otherwise, they don’t often mean them.”

At another moment, he might have frowned over her words and demanded to know who’d misled her—whether it be Lloyd or some other fellow—in order to thrash the living daylights out of him. But right now, his mental processes were too derailed by the need to catalogue her beauty, from head to toe, every dreamlike inch.

Daringly, Beatrice was wearing her dressing gown rather than her day clothes, and she was clearly uncorseted. Fabric of a rich blue shade lay closely against her delicate curves, hinting at the glorious form enclosed and compelling Ritchie to speculate on what was underneath the robe.

Was she wearing undergarments? Or a nightgown? Maybe a chemise? Or perhaps stockings only, with lacy froufrou garters and a flower garland embroidered down the seam?

Or perhaps she was naked, warm and velvety, his for the taking.

“Mr. Ritchie, may I have my hand back, please?”

Ritchie straightened in surprise, then laughed as he released her. She’d bewitched him so completely he’d fallen into a lust-drenched stupor of speculation, just from kissing the tips of her fingers.

“Of course, Miss Weatherly … or may I call you Beatrice, now we’re to be close? I see that we’ve dispensed with the customary chaperone for an unmarried lady.”

She stood away from him, gripping her fingertips at the exact place he’d kissed her. For a moment, he saw an image of feminine hands, nervous and agitated, attempting to rub away his touch, but Beatrice didn’t do that. Instead, it was as if she was folding her fingers around the kiss to seal it in.

“After last night, I’d say that the issue of my chaperon-age where you’re concerned has become redundant, Mr. Ritchie.” Her eyes flashed, and he couldn’t tell whether it was from anger or from desire. Perhaps it was both. “But even so, that doesn’t automatically indicate our continued closeness. I haven’t agreed to your proposal yet.”

Beatrice was a woman of medium height, but she had a towering quality about her as she stared at him. Her sharp eyes surveyed him as if he were a petitioning worm wriggling on the carpet at her slipper-clad feet. Fresh desire gouged Ritchie’s belly so hard he felt the urge to double over.

“But my friends call me Bea, so I suppose you can too.”

The concession came out of the blue, rocking him harder than the lust did.

“Bea,” he murmured. “I like that. Does it mean we might be friends?”

“It’s hard to know that yet, Mr. Ritchie. Or should I call you Edmund?”

“My friends generally just call me Ritchie …” He paused, watching patterns of assessment cross her face, sharp and wary, but bizarrely stimulating too. “So I suppose you can too.”

Then she laughed—a free, rich sound—and the tension between them snapped like an India rubber band. It didn’t dissipate entirely. No, there was still an edge in the air. But the atmosphere in the room was distinctly lighter.

“Touché, Mr … touché, Ritchie. So shall we sit down and discuss this ridiculous proposition of yours?” With a graceful gesture, she indicated the damask-covered chair he’d been sitting in, and its mate, facing it before the small, cheerful fire set against the early morning chill. “That is when you’ve first explained to me why you’ve arrived in this rather unorthodox manner. Sneaking around the tradesman’s entrance and dressing like a bookmaker or a pieman, rather than wealthy man of business.”

“I wanted you to see another side of me.” He plucked at the lapels of his commonplace houndstooth-checked suit. “See the blunt, plain man rather than the facade of Savile Row tailoring and society manners.”

She gave him a wry look, as if she did indeed see straight through him and any manner of subterfuge he chose to erect. “It must be a very peculiar society that encourages manners like yours, Ritchie.” She acknowledged his shrug with one of her own. “And I still consider your offer quite absurd.”

“Why so?”

Though he took care not to show it, Ritchie felt irrational disappointment. He understood her qualms, but still, the idea of not having her after all hit him like a rabbit punch. “I believe that it’s a generous offer, Bea, but I daresay I could be persuaded to parlay it a little further if you decree it insufficient.”

He watched as she slid her hand into a pocket in her dressing gown and pulled out both his letter, and another envelope, presumably her reply. It was a simple, artless, everyday action, completely without airs, but still his cock throbbed harder at the sight of it. In his imagination, he saw that same pale, beautiful hand sliding elsewhere; slipping inside the unbuttoned fly of his trousers, seeking his flesh.

What would her fingers feel like on his cock? Would they be cool and soothing? Or warm and tantalizingly heated?

Lord, I don’t care! I just want her to touch me!

“It’s absurd simply because it is so generous. Twenty thousand guineas is a disproportionate sum. Not to mention the debts covered, and the annual payment thereafter.” She looked away, sideways, a soft blush gathering on the apples of her cheeks. “I have no illusions as to my own value, Ritchie. I consider myself a gentlewoman, and I’m quite pretty, I think. But I’m just a woman like any other woman, when it comes down to it, with face and limbs and shape … and other parts—” the roses deepened “—and a month of my time is worth far less than twenty thousand.”

Was she toying with him? Angling like a practiced courtesan in a game of advance and retreat? Somehow, he thought not. Despite her recent notoriety and her avid response last night, the impression came again that the Siren of South Mulberry Street was relatively inexperienced. Was that the root of his obsession with her? A yearning to educate an eager acolyte into a new world of exotic bedroom games?

And she had been willing. It hadn’t been a mask, worn as some did, until it was too late.

Compressing his lips, he expunged the dark thoughts again and sought the light instead.

Beatrice Weatherly of the crimson hair, intelligent green eyes and sweet, uncorseted curves. Irresistible temptation in a softly fitted dressing gown.

“Let me be the judge of your value, Bea. I’m usually fairly shrewd in these matters and I always get my money’s worth.”

Those eyes widened into brilliant pools of jungle green, snapping with outrage. It was all he could do not to throw himself bodily at her and begin cashing in his investment right here in this pleasant little morning room. But instead, he held his hand out for the letters. “So, let’s see your counteroffer, shall we?”

CHAPTER SIX

Counteroffer

BEATRICE’S HAND SHOOK as she passed the letters over. Would her sweaty palms have smudged the ink? It was impossible to stay calm and cool around Ritchie. His masculinity was brilliant, as hard and bright as Lady Southern’s newfangled electric lighting, with a heat that singed the unwary woman who got too close. As he studied her swiftly penned response, she had to prevent herself from wrapping her arms around her middle. She felt as if she’d fly apart in pieces any moment.

Either that, or throw herself bodily at this handsome, atrocious man who proposed to buy her.

Ritchie was quite a different fellow this morning, yet fundamentally the same. His suit was a soft, well-worn, workaday checked thing, not the tailored, beautifully cut miracle he’d worn last night. With his curling undressed hair, and the suspicion of unbarbered whiskers, he looked almost the ruffian—piratical, wild and strong. He wore no collar, and the top of his striped shirt lay unbuttoned, baring not only a tantalizing triangle of his throat and chest, but, oh goodness, a few curling wayward wisps of sandy-colored body hair. He might as well have been a Gypsy rover in her morning room, and he certainly didn’t look like the sort of plutocrat who could casually toss away twenty thousand guineas in pursuit of a paramour.

No, you’re more the sort of buck a certain class of woman might lavish twenty thousand on for a month of your bedroom services!

Pressing her hands against the skirt of her robe, Beatrice calmed herself as best she could. She had to remain in control, no matter how intimate matters became. There was pleasure ahead, in the weeks, days and even hours, perhaps. But she still had to keep her wits about her and steer clear of any softer feelings toward Ritchie, for her own safety. Just look what had happened last time she’d thought herself sweet on a man. And yet somehow, Eustace Lloyd had drifted out of focus, like one of his own photographs, completely eclipsed by the man now sitting so calmly reading.

“This is nonsense, Bea. I can’t accept it.”

His voice was impatient, steely. Beatrice’s head shot up, and when she looked him in the eye, her heart sank. His glittering blue eyes were rigorous.

When Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie fixed a price, he fixed a price. Even when whoever it was he was doing business with wanted less!

How could anybody be so contrary?

“But two thousand is more than plenty, surely? It’ll pay mine and Charlie’s immediate bills … I think … with a little left over for me to purchase a typewriting machine and then take some lessons at the Moncrief Street Ladies Secretarial Academy. I saw it advertised in The Modern Woman just the other day, with splendid testimonials.”

“It’s twenty thousand, the debts paid, and the annuity, or nothing,” growled Ritchie, and to her horror, he tore her hastily penned offer into tiny fragments and dropped them like snowflakes into a little china dish that stood on a Malay mahogany side table. “And I’ll throw in a dozen typewriters and a course at your blessed academy and then you can set up a secretarial agency all of your own, if you want.” He smoothed out his own letter and glanced around the room until his gaze finally settled on the leather-topped secretaire in the corner. Striding over to it, he took a reservoir pen from his inner pocket, uncapped it, then held it out to her.

Beatrice gritted her teeth, every independent fiber in her body twanging taut. Ritchie was trying to take over her entire life, and her brother’s, with his obscene, seemingly limitless wealth. It was a prison sentence just as onerous as their debts were.

She stared at him, suddenly wishing for a different life and a different meeting. In his own way, Ritchie was quite beautiful, and she knew he could do wonderful things for her body. If there were no money and no debt and no buying or selling involved, who knew what there might be between them.

But hell and damnation, all those things were involved! Life was a knotty tangle and not easily resolved except in the sweetly idealized daydreams of idle ladies of comfortable means.

“It’s far too much, Mr. Ritchie.” She retreated to formality, as a shield. “Far too much. I think that unless you reduce it, Charles and I will have to resort to our own devices and manage some other way.”

“This is my final offer, Bea, and I urge you to take it.” His midnight eyes narrowed. He didn’t actually scowl, but his elegantly molded mouth hardened. “But bear in mind that even though I’ve bought up a large part of your foolish brother’s debt, he’s taken out additional loans from certain characters that you’ll find are even more despicable than you obviously believe me to be.” He twirled his pen at her. “And I saw a couple of very disreputable fellows lurking around across the road just now when my associate and I arrived, and they’re precisely the kind of ruffians a shylock might employ.”

A cold hand seemed to grip Beatrice’s vitals. Ritchie owned some of their debts? Just how determined was he to get her? It hardly bore thinking about, but the alternative was as frightful as it was true. There’d been some unpleasant scenes on the doorstep in the past few days, and it was getting harder and harder for Charlie or indeed anybody in the house to fob them off. The household was primarily an establishment of women, apart from her brother and Fred, a yard boy whose services they shared with their next-door neighbors. Charlie had no pugilistic skills, and tended to hide out at his club most of the time. They had no big, substantial male like Ritchie around to deal with any awkwardness … or worse.

Trapped. No choice. She had to sign. And hope that when it came to it she had enough natural bedroom skills. It wouldn’t do not to give Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie good value.

“Very well then, I’ll sign.” She marched over to the secretaire, snatched the pen out of his hand and scribbled her signature before she could give way to further doubts or the device could leak ink on her fingers. Charlie had purchased one a while back and made a terrible mess with it. “But I doubt if even the most experienced courtesan in the demimonde could give you a tumble worth that amount of money. No woman on earth could be as exotic as all that!”

The moment the words left her lips, the pen was out of her hand, capped and tossed aside. Ritchie grasped her fingers and bore them again to his mouth, pressing his lips first to her knuckles and then turning her entire hand over and pressing his mouth against her palm like a hot sweet brand. His tongue touched her skin, and he murmured,

“Ah, but a tumble’s the very least of what I want from you, my beautiful Bea. Don’t you know that?”

Beatrice couldn’t speak. Her mind circled like a carousel, fragmentary notions dancing in her brain while physical sensations cavorted around her body. She’d posed for Eustace, yes, but she was quite certain he hadn’t debauched her even though he’d had the chance. He’d been more interested in developing his precious plates than disporting himself with his laudanum-dosed model.

Which left her a virgin, even if not completely naive. Like many women, she suspected, she’d picked up a variety of hints and whispers. Polly liked nothing better than to chatter about scandal and sexual antics, Charlie was sometimes careless with certain items of clandestine literature, and even the Ladies’ Sewing Circle was unexpectedly educational. Beatrice was well aware that games were played, diverse pleasures indulged in, and that in the privacy of their bedchambers, cosmopolitan men and women savored a whole cornucopia of outré entanglements that had little or nothing to do with procreation.

And this was exactly what Ritchie wanted from her. This was what he’d paid twenty thousand guineas for.

“Indeed I do, Mr. Ritchie, indeed I do.” Tentatively, she reached out and touched his thick fair hair. It felt like silk and, without benefit of Macassar oil or lotion, it curled waywardly.

“Ritchie,” he reminded her, straightening up, his teeth white in a wolfish smile, his dark eyes glistening. He was so far from the polished gentleman of last night that he might as well be a different species of creature entirely. Perhaps a perverse and very masculine angel had tumbled to earth in order to tantalize and goad her?

“Very well, Ritchie.” He was still holding her hand as if he owned her. Which he did, of course, now she’d signed the paper.

I’m a whore now. A fallen woman. I’ll never be respectable again and I’ll probably never marry. I’ll be an unmaidenly old maid, typing for others for the rest of my days if Charlie spends all the money.

Sobering thoughts.

“What are you pondering about, Bea?” Ritchie’s eyes were narrowed again, but his expression was paradoxically gentle. “Not having second thoughts, are you?”

“Not at all. I was merely reflecting on my new status.” She looked down at their hands. Ritchie’s was big, but elegantly shaped, and capable, as she knew from experience, of the most delicate mastery. Just thinking about how those fingers had felt between her legs made her anticipate them anew.

“And that is?” He lifted her fingers to his mouth again, the kiss more formal and courtly this time, before releasing her.

Beatrice stiffened her back, trying to ignore the melting, yearning, embarrassingly moist sensation he induced with every simple action. She cast her mind back to their conversation in the study at Lady Southern’s last night. It seemed like an aeon ago. “Well, Ritchie, as of now, I am the wicked woman that everybody believes me to be. I’m a whore.”

The declaration was exhilarating. Liberating. Like a huge rush of pleasure at Ritchie’s hand. Of course, the sensations weren’t quite the same but the excitement was comparable. She’d thrown off a set of metaphysical shackles and could now float free, do anything, feel anything, enjoy anything. Her month with Ritchie could be the grand adventure of a lifetime, if she so chose, not a shameful state into which she’d been maneuvered.

And after that? Who could tell what life might hold with twenty thousand in the bank and an annuity? She certainly wasn’t going to let Charlie get them into a horrible mess this time, that was assured.

She held Ritchie’s gaze throughout the entire revelation. Allowing him the freedom to observe her feelings was a facet of her new understanding, a new kind of power. His slow smile told her he recognized it too.

“Not a whore, Bea. I’d never say that and I’d never believe it.” He stroked his chin for a moment, and fascinated by even his smallest gesture, Beatrice admired the strong line of his jaw. “No, ours is a rational arrangement between two free-thinking adults who recognize a mutually pleasurable and advantageous situation when presented with it.” Such modern talk as he pushed back his jacket and reached into the inner pocket of his rustic jacket. “But if you must label yourself, I suggest you consider ‘courtesan.’“

Courtesan? Infinitely better!

Even to Beatrice’s relatively untutored ears, courtesanship conjured up images of luxury, decadence, sophistication and a state of willingness to be drenched in breathless, sumptuous pleasure.

Her eyes popped wide when Ritchie withdrew his hand from his pocket—revealing a thick bundle of folded white banknotes. For all her new resolve, the sight still shocked her.

But she willed her hand steady as Ritchie held out a portion of her remuneration on account.

Yes, she’d be a courtesan … and revel in it.

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