Chapter 24
Knot: A crew, gang, or fraternity. He has tied a knot with his tongue, that he cannot untie with his teeth; i.e. he is married.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
Nick slid open yet another desk drawer and blindly groped inside.
Empty. Not even the smallest scrap of paper that would give him leverage against Montfort could be found. Blast.
A frustrated breath escaped him. Then he heard it: the quick pick of a lock followed by the low moan of hinges turning. An agent working for Montfort must have tracked him. He ducked down and waited, expecting lanterns to be lit and exposure to follow.
The room remained pitch black. Whoever shared this room with him didn’t know he was here.
A few tense seconds passed before the other intruder began moving noisily. The sound was familiar. It was the swish of silk skirts. He peered around a solid walnut leg just in time to see a long swath of coral silk rush across the sliver of moonlight cutting through a cracked window.
Mariana.
It must have occurred to her to search Villefranche’s rooms, too. Except, she barely paused in this room, clearly Villefranche’s office. Instead, she strode straight through to the bedroom. Clever woman. She was beginning to think like a spy.
Of course, Villefranche would keep his closest secrets near him in his bedroom. Nick experienced another surge of pride for this quick, intelligent woman who was his wife.
Gingerly, he rose to his feet, stretching his long, cramped body, his ears trained on the sounds emanating from the other room—skirts shushing, bedcovers rustling—as she searched nooks and crannies for evidence. But why was she here in the first place? The question only just occurred to him. Didn’t she understand the danger was passed now that the plot to assassinate King Charles had been foiled?
Curiosity whetted, Nick padded softly toward the room. Her skirts went silent. She’d detected his tread, but didn’t yet know the other occupant was her husband. Unless . . . unless she’d followed him and saw him slip inside the room. That was the most likely scenario, but . . . Why hadn’t she acknowledged him if that was the case?
An unhelpful thought occurred to him: Mariana was in a bedroom. Blast.
Focus. He wasn’t here to make love to her in a bed. He was here to find evidence and wrap up this mission. There would be time for beds later.
Just beyond the doorway, he slowed to a stop when she came into focus. His brain needed a moment to process the vision greeting his eyes.
Stretched atop the Comte de Villefranche’s massive four-poster bed reclined a Mariana clad simply in a transparent white shift and stockings held up by silver garters. The shift reached just far enough to cover her . . . quim.
His breath caught in his chest. She resembled nothing so much as the world’s most delectable courtesan.
Her eyes trained on the doorway, she called out in a hushed whisper, “Lucien?”
One salient detail became instantly clear: she hadn’t followed him into Villefranche’s rooms. In fact, judging by the tentative expression on her face, she had no idea that her husband stood just outside the frame of light.
A riot of emotion assailed Nick as he stepped forward into a moonbeam. Her cautious smile froze, then fell, revealing more than she might want to tell. He could no longer deny the conclusion that had been staring at him from the instant she’d swished into these rooms. Mariana was here for Villefranche.
Through the noise of anger and betrayal, one last shred of hope sounded: perhaps she thought she still needed to seduce the man to obtain information. She could be confused.
Which made no sense. Mariana didn’t get confused.
But a drowning man would grasp at anything to prevent himself from going under. He forced himself to loosen his stance, lean a relaxed shoulder against the doorjamb, and paste an easy smile onto his lips. Nothing had ever been more difficult in his life. “I feel like an addendum to our last spy lesson is in order.”
Her arms crossed defensively. Good.
“When seducing a mark in his own bed, make absolutely certain he still is on premises.”
“He was here when last I saw him.”
“So you no longer need to exercise,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her, his hand sweeping toward the bed, “any means.”
Her head tilted inquisitively to the side. “Who says I no longer need to seduce Villefranche?” she asked, her eyes burning with the combustible light he’d detected earlier. “What about what I want?”
Nick’s insides went heavy with dread, her question confirming his deepest fear: she was indeed arrayed atop the Comte de Villefranche’s bed to seduce . . . the Comte de Villefranche.
Hurt and betrayal swept through him with the force of a tidal wave. “Did last night and this afternoon mean nothing to you?” he asked unable to curb the impulse.
“Last night and this afternoon meant pleasure to me. Pure and simple.”
“No, Mariana, it meant more to you than lust. I was there, remember?”
A laugh sounded from her. It resonated across his eardrums the way a bitter quince would across his tongue. “That was then,” she began, “and this is now. I seek a new experience.”
He stepped closer. “I may not know every detail of your mind, but I do know exactly who you want to experience.” He’d thrown down the gauntlet.
“I am here to experience a different man,” she replied, picking it up.
Cold determination tore through the hurt and betrayal. “You won’t be seducing Villefranche tonight.”
“Won’t I?” she asked, defiance writ clear across her face and in her words.
“No.”
Villefranche wouldn’t have her. No other man would. She was his.
He unknotted his cravat.
“What are you doing?” she asked, startling forward, her eyes wide. “I’m not here for you. Didn’t you hear me?”
“Oh, I heard you.” He shrugged off his evening jacket and allowed it to drop to the floor. His fingers began on the buttons of his shirt.
In the near dark, he could see her eyes brighten, even as she dragged her feet closer to her body, effectively cutting off his view of all but her feet, shins, and luminous eyes. “It occurs to me that we haven’t yet made love in a proper bed. Not in years, anyway.”
“This isn’t about you, Nick.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It’s about what I need. And I need to break free of you.”
He took a step closer, slowly, deliberately. “You are free to leave.”
Her response was to take her bottom lip between her teeth and bite down.
“I won’t stop you.” He halted at the side of the bed, the long length of her body within reach. “You don’t want the uncertainty of a green fopling. You want a man who knows exactly what to give you and how.”
“Tastes change,” she said, a breathless hitch in her voice.
“Not those kinds.”
“What if I want to change my tastes?”
“You want what I have to offer. You always will. Mariana”—Each syllable of her name sounded an urgent and desperate plea—“let me touch you.”
“It won’t solve anything,” she whispered, her eyes at once imploring and wavering.
“Maybe not,” he said as he reached out to touch his fingers to her toes.
He bent forward and replaced his fingers with his lips. A measure of resistance drained from her body as her knees parted slightly and her eyes met his. He saw reflected there a burn of emotion mirroring his own: betrayal and anger, yes, but above all, desire, raw and unfiltered, so strong it rendered all other emotion insignificant until it was slaked.
He should stop now, he knew. He should investigate why she was so angry with him, and what had changed between this afternoon and this evening. He knew that, too. But he couldn’t.
His eyes lowered to upthrust peaks discernible beneath transparent silk before sinking ever lower to the view inches from his face: her naked quim tantalizingly visible beneath the hem of her shift. It was possibly the most erotic view of his life.
“Tell me what you want,” his voice rasped, his gaze lifting toward hers. He met a wildness there, one he’d never been able to resist. He wasn’t about to start tonight.
Her eyes shifted away, as if weighing her words, before returning to him, resolve in their depths. “Lick me,” she exhaled, “all the way up until I say stop.”
Without hesitation, he touched his tongue to the delicate arch of her foot and trailed it over ankle, up long leg, over bent knee to dewy, inner thigh. Her intoxicating, female scent had just reached him when he heard the word, “Stop.”
He obeyed, even as his swollen cock throbbed in protest. His eyes locked onto hers, but his focus remained on her bare quim, inches from his mouth. Wet and ready for him. She must feel every exhale of his breath across her sensitive flesh.
Audacity brightening her eyes, she brought her forefinger to her parted lips and licked it. Through the valley between her breasts, down her soft, flat belly, ever lower it trailed. “Now I want you to”—Her resolute finger slid to the glistening nub of her sex—“watch.”
As if he had a choice.
Slowly, her finger began to move, sliding down, then up, over the sensitive flesh, pink and swollen with desire. A moan sounded from deep within her throat. How easily his tongue could join her finger and double her pleasure. He shifted to the side and reached down to unbutton his trousers, intent on easing his aching cock.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her finger ceasing its erotic motion.
His gaze flew up to meet hers. “I think you know.”
“I haven’t given you permission to touch me . . . or yourself.”
“Is it your intention to torture me?”
“Perhaps.”
As if to illustrate her point, with her other hand she took a cherry-hard nipple between forefinger and thumb as she resumed rubbing the nub of her sex. Another moan escaped her, and her neck arched back.
It was all too much.
In a raspy, desperate voice he didn’t recognize as his own, he murmured, “I can help you with that.”
Her brows lifted, and she pinned him with a lust-glazed stare. “Oh?” was all she spoke, but he heard, Impress me.
He stretched forward, languid and sure, her flesh separated from him by a thin stretch of air. “I would do this.”
He touched his lips to her quim, almost primly, before his tongue flattened and moved against her in a long, slow stroke, eliciting a long, slow groan from her.
“Then I would do this.”
His hand slipped beneath her to slide one . . . two fingers inside her.
“Followed by this.”
His tongue stiffened to a velvet point and began tapping, finding a quick rhythm as his finger moved in and out of her.
She melted beneath his tongue even as muscles began tightening, a palpable tension clearly overtaking her as her head arced back and her hips thrust forward. A few more taps of his tongue, and her release would engulf her . . .
And then what? She would be done with him. He wasn’t ready for that.
His tongue abruptly stopped its motion, and his fingers slid out of her.
A groan of frustration, rather than one of release, poured out of her.
Her eyes flew open and fixed him with a fiery glare. “I didn’t give you permission to stop.”
“I know.”