Chapter Fifteen
Her chin rose in the air, but her throat rippled in a nervous gulp. “It was here, in Lady Hadley’s library.”
A rough, impatient sound tore from Finn’s throat. It was an enormous collection, and every Marquess of Hadley had no doubt had a hand in shaping it. It was likely true enough she’d found it here, but that didn’t answer his question.
“You would never have known to look for this particular book if someone hadn’t told you to do so.” Finn took her chin between his fingers and held it until she looked at him. “You think to protect him? It’s far too late for that, Miss Somerset. Wrexley’s fate is sealed.”
Finn didn’t give a bloody damn if Wrexley was Lady Honora’s much-beloved cousin, or if he was a guest in Captain West’s home. Wrexley’s smooth lies and charming smile wouldn’t save him this time.
But Miss Somerset was shaking her head. “No, you don’t understand—”
“No. It’s you who doesn’t understand.” Finn’s temper was fraying at the edges, and he couldn’t bear to stand here and listen to her make excuses for Wrexley’s perfidy. “My God, are you so naïve you can’t see what he’s doing? He’s trying to ruin you.”
“Ruin me, by directing me to read a book? That’s absurd, and it wasn’t even Lord Wrexley who—”
“No, by directing you to read that book. Don’t play with me, Miss Somerset. I saw your face when I walked in here tonight. You were so flushed I thought you were on the verge of a swoon.”
“A swoon? Is that what you think, my lord? That a proper lady should be so timid she falls into a swoon after reading a few salacious words?”
“Oh, Wrexley didn’t send you after that book because he wants a proper lady. If you bothered for even a moment to consider his motives, you’d see he’s trying to lure you into an indiscretion.”
She grabbed his wrist and jerked his hand away from her face. “So a man like Lord Wrexley lays a snare, and a silly, naïve chit like me must fall into it? Is that what you’re saying, Lord Huntington? Dear God, you really do think me an utter fool, don’t you?”
“No. I think you’re an innocent, and you may trust me when I say Wrexley thinks it, as well. He relies on it.”
“Innocent, yes, but perfectly capable of making my own decisions, despite what our courtship and betrothal may have led you to believe. In any case, Lord Wrexley doesn’t have anything to do with—”
“You think to compare my courtship with Wrexley’s reprehensible scheme?” Finn clenched his hair in his fists, so frustrated he was ready to pull it out by the roots. “Wrexley isn’t courting you—he’s seducing you. That you don’t seem to recognize the difference shows you aren’t able to make a reliable decision. Not about this.”
Miss Somerset hadn’t the faintest idea how easy it would be for a man like Wrexley to manipulate her into a seduction. Tonight it was some titillating literature to put pictures and words to the vague ideas in her head. By tomorrow it would be an innocent kiss, and then another, the second one not so innocent. He’d work on her by degrees until he’d stolen her virtue, just as he’d done with Miss Hughes.
Once he’d ruined her, she’d have no choice but to marry him, and God knew what would happen to her then. Someone as debauched as Wrexley wouldn’t settle quietly into a respectable marriage. He’d very likely install Miss Somerset in his moldering country estate and leave her there alone while he traipsed off to London to squander her fortune on whores and wagering.
Finn ran a shaking hand down his face. Wrexley was leading her into an abyss, without her ever realizing she stood with one foot hovering over the edge.
It will be your fault if she falls.
If he hadn’t all but forced her to jilt him for his despicable behavior, they’d be betrothed even now, and she wouldn’t be vulnerable to the machinations of a man like Wrexley.
“Go to bed, Miss Somerset.” He stepped back so she could pass by him. “We can discuss this tomorrow.”
“There’s nothing more to discuss, my lord.” She held out her hand. “I’ll have my book back, if you please.”
He let out a short laugh. “I think not. You have no business reading it, and you know it yourself, or you wouldn’t have tried to run away before I could get a look at it.”
“If you think I ran away from you because I’m ashamed of it, you’re very much mistaken, Lord Huntington. I ran because I knew you’d disapprove and would do just as you have done—try and take it away from me.”
“You’re damn right I don’t approve, and I don’t think your grandmother would, either.” Finn tried to speak calmly, but dear God, this woman drove him mad. “And I haven’t tried to do anything. I have taken it away from you.”
“And now I’ll have it back.” She wiggled the fingers of her outstretched hand. “As I reminded you today in the stables, Lord Huntington, we’re not betrothed anymore, so what I choose to read, or what horse I choose to ride, is none of your concern. I shouldn’t have let you order me away from Chaos to begin with, and it was the last time you’ll issue commands to me. Now, my book, please.”
He stared into her furious blue eyes, his breath coming short. Christ, he couldn’t remember ever being so livid in his life. “So it’s to be ruination, is it?”
“Ruination?” She laughed, but she looked so enraged Finn half-expected her to leap upon him, knock him down, and snatch the book from his hands. “No, I thought I’d settle for a bit of reading for tonight.”
He turned the book over in his hands, but he didn’t offer it to her. “Very well, Miss Somerset, if you insist on having it, I suppose I can’t stop you. As you say, we’re no longer betrothed. Before I give it to you, however, a question, if you would. What kind of man sends an innocent young lady in search of something like this?”
“I don’t know, my lord. Perhaps the same kind of man who’d blindfold a lady with a cravat.”
Her voice was low and clear, but the silence echoed so profoundly after those words fell between them it was if she’d shouted them. But here it was at last, the part of the conversation she’d heard between him and Lady Beaumont she hadn’t dared to mention since that afternoon in her bedchamber.
She dared now. She dared all manner of things now, whether she should or not, because she didn’t know enough to be wary.
But wariness could be taught.
Finn moved closer to her and slid his thumb across her jaw in a light caress. “Ah, but the two things aren’t the same at all, sweet.”
Her eyes went wide, either at the caress or the endearment, or perhaps just at the look in his eyes. “No, they’re not. One is much worse than the other.”
“I agree. There’s no sin in blindfolding or binding a lady who’s aware of what she’s doing and consents to it for her own pleasure.”
His tongue curled on the word pleasure, lingered over it, and a small smile lifted the corners of his lips as she tried to suppress a shiver.
Tried, and failed.
“But a man like Wrexley, a man who’d use a young lady’s innocence against her, or prey on one who doesn’t yet understand her own desires? That man is a villain. But you don’t need me to tell you that, do you, Miss Somerset? You’d have me believe you know all about men like Wrexley, and men like me, as well. Isn’t that right?”
She didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I know enough.”
No, you don’t. Not yet. But you will.
“Once you read your book, you’ll know even more.” He held out the book to her, but when she tried to take it, he refused to let it go. “Go ahead, then. Read it.”
She gave him a suspicious look, but when she tugged on it again, he let it go. “I—ah, thank you. I wish you a pleasant evening, my lord.”
Finn hadn’t moved out of her way, and now he braced his hands against the bookshelf on either side of her shoulders, looked down at her and slowly shook his head. “No, Miss Somerset. Read it here. Now.”
“Here? But—”
“Yes, right here. To me.”
She blinked down at the book in her hands, then back up at him, and color swept from her bosom to her neck in a heated rush.
“You look warm, Miss Somerset. Whatever is the matter? You did say you weren’t ashamed of reading it, and why should you be? I’ve read School of Venus, you see. It was some time ago, but I remember it clearly enough.”
He moved closer and let his body brush against hers. “As you said, there’s nothing shameful in it. It’s just a forthright discussion of what happens between lovers, though without the cravats, of course.” Finn dipped his head toward her neck to breathe in her scent before he pressed his lips to her ear. “It’s quite detailed, if I recall, and contains some rather provocative drawings. Shall we look at those together?”
She’d refuse, of course, and once she did, he’d take the book away.
There was a brief, charged silence, but then Miss Somerset cleared her throat. “Very well, my lord.” She flipped through the pages, then stopped and looked up at him, her gaze fierce with challenge. “Shall I start where I left off when you came in?”
Finn went still with shock—everything but his stomach, which leapt with a confusing mix of anger and anticipation.
“My lord?”
He didn’t answer, but stared down at her, into that delicate face, at the sweet curve of her mouth, and wondered how he could ever have imagined she wasn’t anything more than she appeared to be, as if her story began and ended with her face.
She waited, but he remained silent, and after a moment, she bent her head and began to read.
“Hadn’t we better enjoy our pleasures? Truly I did not care how soon I parted with my maidenhead, and nobody be the wiser, which I believe may easily be done, if according to your advice some young fellow be employed in management of the secret affair?”
She paused and raised her eyes to his, but whatever she saw in his face made her gaze dart back to the book spread open in her hands. But when she began to speak again, her voice was different—lower, huskier, with a note of breathlessness.
“You cannot imagine the satisfaction you will take, when once you have gotten a friend fitted for your purpose, you may carry on your designs and order private meetings with your friend, who will secretly give you all of pleasure imaginable.”
Finn remained frozen, listening to her, his skin burning, his muscles tensing and releasing as her soft voice rolled over him.
“To pass away the time till he comes, pray tell me what your Husband does to you when he lies with you, for I would not willingly altogether appear novice, when I shall arrive to that secret happiness—”
“Enough.” He was shocked to hear the rough rasp of his own voice, but it didn’t matter—nothing mattered but making her stop. She had to stop, or he’d touch her—
“I will briefly tell you all, first, he comes up a private pair of stairs, when all the household is in bed…”
Finn couldn’t take his eyes off her. His lips parted when her breathing began to quicken, and her color deepened and rose higher in her cheeks.
“…he finds me sometimes asleep and sometimes awake, to lose no time he undresses himself, comes and lies down by me, when he begins to warm he lays his hands on my—”
“Damn you, I said stop!” He tore the book from her hands and threw it aside.
There was a long, tense pause, then she said, “Isn’t that what you wanted, my lord?” Her voice was quiet. “For me to read to you?”
Christ, was he shaking? “I didn’t think—” Finn grabbed the back of his neck, dug his fingernails into the hot skin there, his gaze on the floor.
I didn’t think you’d do it.
Now she had, he’d forever have those words, in her soft, breathless voice, whispering inside his head.
“You thought to teach me a lesson.” She gave an awkward little laugh. “Well, it was a good deal more interesting than the pianoforte lessons, at least. But allow me to ease your mind, Lord Huntington. Lord Wrexley didn’t recommend the book. He has nothing to do with this.”
Finn dragged both hands down his face. “If not him, then who? Please tell me the truth. I can’t be easy until I know you understand it’s not safe for you to trifle in this way with a man like Wrexley.”
Her face softened. “Lady Tallant. She and I have struck up a…friendship of sorts.”
A friendship? He couldn’t imagine what Miss Somerset and Lady Tallant had in common. He didn’t begrudge Lady Tallant her pleasures—from what he’d heard of her deceased husband, she’d earned them—but she wasn’t a proper choice of companion for an innocent young lady like Miss Somerset.
Then again, Miss Somerset wasn’t like most young ladies, unless every debutante in London had the courage to linger in a dark library and blithely read erotic passages from School of Venus to a dangerously aroused marquess. “Lady Tallant recommended you read that book? May I ask why?”
“She’s helping me with something.”
“With what? What sort of help could she be giving you that includes reading School of Venus? Unless…” Finn wrapped his hands around her shoulders. “Is she teaching you how to seduce a gentleman?”
“No!” She squirmed loose from his grip. “Not seduction. That is, not only seduction, but about gentlemen, and how to judge a man’s character, and engage his affections. About…well, about marriage, and love.”
“Love?” Family connections, compatibility, fortune—these were all things one considered when embarking on a marriage, but love? It only got in the way of making a wise choice, and in the end, the best one could say of it was it didn’t last. At worst, it ripped families apart and left nothing but pain and destruction in its wake.
She frowned at him. “Yes, Lord Huntington. Love.”
An awful thought occurred to Finn then. “Are you in love with Lord Wrexley?”
She tried to laugh, but it was a hopeless sound. “My situation is such that I no longer hope for love. I’ll have to make do with friendship and affection, but as our courtship clearly shows, I can be easily misled as to a gentleman’s true feelings. From the very first I suspected you lacked affection for me, but if I hadn’t overheard you with Lady Beaumont, I never would have trusted my own instincts. I don’t wish to repeat that mistake.”
She said it quietly, and without a trace of accusation, but her words landed with such painful impact Finn staggered under them.
I made her doubt herself.
When he spoke, his voice wasn’t quite steady. “Even if there isn’t a deep affection, a proper gentleman will always be kind and respectful to his wife, Iris.”
Her eyes widened at his use of her given name. “And if a lady should end up marrying a man who isn’t a proper gentleman, Lord Huntington? Young ladies aren’t trained to be discriminating. Look at poor Lady Honora. She hadn’t any idea she was betrothed to a cheat and a villain.”
“I don’t pretend to defend Harley, but Lady Honora’s is an unusual circumstance—”
“It is, my lord? You’ve spent the better part of a week trying to convince me Lord Wrexley is a similar kind of scoundrel.”
He wanted to argue with her, but as soon as he opened his mouth, Finn found he didn’t have a word to say that wasn’t an utter falsehood. The truth was, Wrexley was a scoundrel, and if he hadn’t intervened, it was doubtful Miss Somerset would have realized it before it was too late.
She was shaking her head. “You see the trouble, my lord. Ladies are expected to find a suitor, someone with a fortune and a title, and once we’ve accomplished it, no one seems to care much about anything else. It’s almost as if we cease to exist once we become a wife.”
Finn’s chest went tight at the dejected look on her face, but before he could give in to the strange urge he had to press her head against his chest, the look was gone.
“None of this explains why Lady Tallant recommended you read School of Venus, Miss Somerset.”
She regarded him in silence for a moment, then reached behind him and retrieved the book from the table. “Those ladies you mentioned earlier—the ladies who don’t understand their own desires. What happens to them?”
Finn frowned. She was naïve, but she must understand at least the basics of what happened in the bedchamber. “They marry, and their husbands teach them.”
“I see. So once a gentleman marries, it’s his duty to attend to his wife’s desire and pleasure?”
“Yes.” It was his duty to get an heir on her, at least. That was nearly the same thing, wasn’t it?
“The gentlemen—husbands, that is—generally have a great deal more experience in those matters than their brides, I believe?”
“One hopes so, yes.”
“And their brides have less experience than courtesans and mistresses as well, I imagine? A lady of birth and connections in particular—the sort of lady who might marry a marquess, for instance—I think she must be among the most ignorant of brides when it comes to matters of the bedchamber.”
“If you’re asking if such a lady is a virgin when she first comes to her husband, then yes. That is, again, one hopes so.”
“But an experienced gentleman—the sort of gentleman with mysterious dark desires and handfuls of cravats—mightn’t he find such a lady quite dull? Predictable, that is.”
Finn couldn’t prevent a faint smile. She’d chosen that word deliberately. “Do you mock predictability, Miss Somerset? Some would say it’s a desirable quality in a wife.”
“Yes, I believe I’ve heard gentlemen say so, but as much as they pretend to want it, they scorn it, as well. One can’t blame them entirely for it, I suppose. Such a lady can’t be terribly exciting.”
No, but then neither was marriage, and it wasn’t meant to be. “As to excitement—”
“Exciting in the bedchamber, I mean. That’s what the mistresses are for, isn’t it, my lord?” A sly smile curved her lips. “For the gentleman with more exotic tastes, or those with insatiable appetites? I’ve heard such gentlemen can be most demanding.”
Was she flirting with him? She never had before, and he’d never encouraged her to, but it was a far more pleasant sensation than Finn would have anticipated, like having a playful kitten bat at his nose.
Unable to resist, he caught a loose lock of her hair between his fingers. “Tell me, Miss Somerset. What sort of tastes do you imagine a demanding gentleman indulges in the bedchamber? Now you’re so well read, I’m certain you can enlighten me as to the details of a gentleman’s satisfaction.”
“Me, enlighten you, my lord, on the matter of your satisfaction? No, I think not. I don’t like to bore you, and we can both agree I know very little about it.”
“Oh, I think you know more about it than you’re letting on. Please, explain it to me.”
“Well, I suppose it varies by the gentleman. I imagine some are more determined to satisfy their desires than others, as dark as those desires might be. It must be rather difficult to please that kind of gentleman, but there are ways to do so, I’m sure.”
Finn blinked. It was midnight, she’d just read aloud to him from a book that would make a sailor blush, and now they were discussing the myriad ways in which a lady could please a demanding gentleman in the bedchamber. His cock was harder than he could ever remember it being, and they were alone in a dark library. He couldn’t imagine anything more improper.
Or more arousing.
He should put a stop to this at once, but he couldn’t imagine that, either. “Yes, I believe there are ways to please a more challenging gentleman. What do you suppose they are?”
If she had any notion of what this conversation was doing to him, she didn’t let on. She cast him a demure look from under her lashes, and then, without a trace of embarrassment in her voice, said, “Restraints, my lord. Blindfolds, perhaps, or a chase around the bedchamber?”
Restraints. Blindfolds. Chasing.
He swallowed back a moan as his entire body exploded with heat. “I…well, those would be very…but a gentleman doesn’t expect his wife to know—”
“Ah.” She looked up at him, the tiny smile still curving her lips. “That, Lord Huntington, is what the book is for.”
Finn didn’t often find himself speechless, but all he could do now was stare at her with his mouth open, like a fish dangling on a hook.
She went on before he could answer. “But most wives can’t provide such amusements, can they? I would think a gentleman accustomed to those things would much rather spend time with his mistress, and if a gentleman should be so preoccupied with his mistress he neglects his wife, what becomes of the wife’s desires then? I ask, my lord, because I imagine it happens all the time in aristocratic marriages. After all, a proper wife—and most gentlemen do want a proper wife—must look dull indeed in comparison to a mistress or a courtesan.”
Well. She’d paid close attention to the argument she’d overheard between him and Lady Beaumont, and she hadn’t forgotten one word of it. “I suppose a marriage like that might prove a lonely one for the wife. Is that what you wish to hear me say?”
“I don’t wish for anything at all from you.” She blew out a soft sigh. “You’re not to blame for this, Lord Huntington. You’ve only done what’s expected of you, just as I have. You found a proper lady, engaged in a respectful courtship, and became betrothed to her. Nearly every lady in London would have been delighted to receive your addresses and felt themselves amply compensated for any lack of affection in the marriage by the title of marchioness. You simply chose the wrong lady.”
Something inside Finn howled with rage at that. He tried to force it back, to shove it down into the deepest recesses of his chest, because she was the wrong lady. Everything about her was alive, and vibrant, and different. She was extraordinary, and extraordinary was dangerously unpredictable.
But the harder he shoved, the louder that part of him roared and clawed to get loose, and he was tired, so tired of keeping it down, holding it back—he’d never understood how tired, until he found her.
If I set it free for a moment, just a moment only…
“Tell me about your book, Miss Somerset,” he murmured, sliding his hands around her waist. “Tell me what you’ve learned about gentlemen.”
She stiffened slightly, but she didn’t move, or push him away. “I—what I’ve learned?”
“Yes.” He dragged his hands from her waist to her hips, then moved closer—close enough to feel the outline of her thighs through her skirts. “What do gentlemen like?”
She sunk her teeth into her lower lip, torturing the tender pink flesh, and he reached up and gently pulled it free. Did she know what it did to him when she bit her lip like that?
“Do gentlemen like to be touched?” he asked, his voice low, husky.
She slicked her tongue nervously over her lip where she’d nibbled on it. “Yes.”
Finn bit back a groan. “Where? Show me.”
His skin heated, every inch of it straining toward her, aching for her touch. It didn’t come for a long time—so long he thought she would deny him—but then she reached a trembling hand toward him, and brushed her fingertips against his lips. “Here.”
His eyes drifted closed. “Yes.”
Her fingers stroked lower, and she pressed the pad of her index finger into the dimple in his chin. “Here. Or maybe that’s more for me.”
He opened his eyes, gazed at her flushed face, her parted lips. “It’s for both of us.”
She dragged her fingertips down the length of his throat, slowly, torturing him with the light caress. “Here.”
This time Finn couldn’t hold back his soft moan. “Yes.”
She hesitated when she reached his cravat, as if unsure what to do, and he knew they should stop, that he should send her away before this went any farther, but he couldn’t bear to give up her sweet caresses and the innocent wonder on her face as she touched him.
He took both her hands in his and brought them up to the knot in his cravat. “Take it off.”
He didn’t move while her fingers worked on the knot, or when she loosened it at last, reached up, and pressed her warm hands on either side of his neck.
“Here,” she whispered.
Finn let his head fall back, offering her his throat again. His lips opened on a guttural moan when she took his offer, and traced her fingers over his throat. She slid her hands under the opening of his shirt to caress his collarbones, then let them dip lower to stroke his chest.
“Yes. God, yes.”
He wanted her mouth, her beautiful pink mouth, hot and open, moving over every inch of his skin, biting at him, sucking and licking—
“Here.” Her warm hands slid lower on his chest, moved over his belly, then lower still to the waistband of his breeches, and he was so hard for her, and her hands were so close, and he wanted her hands on him everywhere, more than he’d ever wanted anything, but if she touched his erection he’d lose control, and he wouldn’t be able to stop…
He took her wrists in gentle fingers and moved them away from his body. “No, sweet.”
“But…” Her gaze darted down to where his cock was straining against his breeches. “I thought…don’t gentlemen liked to be touched there, too?”
A half-laugh, half-groan tore from his throat. “Yes. Too much.”
“Oh.” Her brows drew together, and he couldn’t help but kiss her then, softly, just the lightest touch of his mouth against her warm lips. Her body melted into his and her breath caught, but Finn didn’t let himself taste her deeply, because if he did, there was no way he’d leave her alone tonight, and that would make him no better than Wrexley.
“It’s late. I should let you go to bed.” He dragged his thumb across her lower lip one last time and then forced himself to back away, but he couldn’t keep from turning at the door to catch one last glimpse of her.
She was leaning against the bookshelf, watching him, one hand clutching the book to her chest, the fingers of the other pressed against her mouth.