Three Times the Scandal (Georgian Rakehells) Read online

  It didn’t take long to realize something was amiss.

  At the dinner table, Giles was equally taciturn and it was a struggle to maintain any sort of conversation.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, stirring the food around her plate, after ten minutes of monosyllabic grunts from him in response to her conversation. “I thought... Well, you seemed so relaxed with it, so that I thought you didn’t mind. I didn’t realize. You see, I wanted him to kiss me.” She was explaining badly, but was there a better way? This really was beyond her experience.

  Giles paused mid-bite to look at her. Slowly, he lowered his fork and set it down upon the plate. “What are you talking about?”

  “Neddy,” she said. “You’re angry with me because of what happened.”

  His brow furrowed. “Whatever makes you think that?”

  “You’re scowling at me.”

  “Oh!” His expression softened slightly, but the hard sheen remained in his eyes. Giles clasped his wine glass and took a deep draft. “No, no, it’s not over that. I’m not jealous over what happened in the garden. It’s something else.”

  Something else. Heavens, what had she done?

  He took another swig of wine, and gestured for her to do the same. Fortuna turned the glass, within her palm, but barely wetted her lips with the ruby liquid.

  “I’m not jealous, or hurt.” The force of his words seemed to suggest otherwise. Truly. I believe in free love, Fortuna. I’ve explained that. I am hardly going to become upset because you allowed another man to kiss you. That’s your decision to make. I’m all for expression without shackles.”

  “It doesn’t make you feel even a tiny bit jealous that I might be imagining him naked, and not you?” she asked. His definition of what constituted free love, seemed to change with the moment. Yesterday it had been all about marriage. Today, jealousy seemed to be the issue. How exactly did taking multiple persons to bed at the same time fit into his agenda?

  “I was rather under the impression that you were thinking of us both. Which of course, is fine. It’s equally fine even if you were just thinking of Neddy. You’re free to love whomever you wish, and there’s nothing to stop you showing affection for more than one person at a time.”

  Fortuna chewed a forkful of meat. He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself as much as her. “Have you shared with Neddy before?” she asked.

  Giles gouged his lower lip with his teeth. “Yes. Once or twice.”

  “And with Lord Darleston?”

  “Yes, with him too. But don’t let your thoughts wander in that direction. Lucy is already making threats. She doesn’t love him any more than he loves her, but she’s using the knowledge that you’re here to manipulate him. She’ll keep quiet providing he has nothing to do with you.”

  “Is that why he was horrid in the garden?”

  “Possibly.”

  “He propositioned me just after we arrived back from the ball.”

  Giles nodded as if unsurprised by this revelation. “Evidently you didn’t bite, as we’re still enjoying a peaceful dinner.”

  “No,” she raised her head and met his gaze, “because I suspect he does bite. He scares me.”

  Giles snatched up his napkin and dabbed his mouth. “You’re scared of Darleston after having braved Pennerley? I think you have that backwards, although Robert’s tastes do run in some curious directions.”

  “Perhaps it’s because I’ve experienced Pennerley,” she replied.

  Their eyes locked and she felt some sort of shift in their understanding of one another. Giles turned away first. He drew his timepiece from his waistcoat pocket and rubbed the silver casing against the leg of his breeches.

  “Tell me one thing, Fortuna. Did you go willingly to Pennerley’s bed?”

  Tremulously, she inclined her head. “I foolishly sought him out. I don’t know what I expected. That I’d be the one woman to transform his black heart, I suppose. He seems so free, Giles. So unconstrained. But he’s not really, is he?”

  “He’s a rule unto himself. I won’t even attempt to dissect his anatomy. I don’t think you were foolish though. It’s not foolish to pursue something you desire. I just think you sought the wrong thing of the wrong man.” He rose and came to squat beside her chair. Fortuna turned towards him and settled her hands upon her lap. When he said no more, she reached out to trace the smooth bit of skin beside his ear.

  Giles flinched. He scuttled backwards, careening into another chair. “Oh, God, Fortuna.” He covered his eyes. “Dammit. Take it off. Take that damn dress off.”

  “What?” Fortuna lurched onto her feet.

  A nervous tick played in the side of Giles’s jaw. The tendons in his neck stood out, visible even below the line of his cravat. He continued to shield his eyes, and refused to look at her. “You’ve a chemise on, haven’t you?”

  “But this dress is beautiful.” Not to mention that she wasn’t used to being asked to strip at dinner. She looked down at the wash of pale blue-green silk in confusion and dismay.

  “Fortuna, please. I can’t stand it. It may seem irrational to you, but I need you to do this. The alternative is that I leave you to dine alone.”

  The request was highly irregular, but his face was so contorted with pain, she hastily plucked at the ribbons and pins, and having drawn her arms out of the short sleeves, let the watery silk slither to the floor.

  Feeling distinctly under dressed, in her plain chemise and half-stays, Fortuna resumed her seat.

  “You look much better now.” Relief swam in his eyes and softened all the creases in his brow.

  Fortuna dipped her chin and kept her gaze upon her plate. She stared at the food, but her appetite had shrivelled. “I look like a whore,” she mouthed.

  Giles crouched beside her again. He picked up the gown in a pincer-grip and cast it out of sight under the far end of the table. “You most certainly do not. I’m sorry about that. I should have picked something out myself instead of leaving it to Leach, but in truth I’ve been rather more preoccupied with what I’d be unveiling tonight, than what I was fastening you into.”

  She bit her lip. “I don’t understand.”

  “There are too many memories tied up in the weft of that gown. Bad—painful memories. I’ll call Leach and have him bring you another.”

  “No.” She reached out towards him. “I’m fine. I’d rather sit here in my chemise than have Leach see me half-dressed.” She pushed her plate away. “I don’t want anything more to eat, anyway.”

  Giles gently touched her cheek. “Me neither.” His touch slid down to her shoulder, where his thumb stroked back and forth along her collarbone. “That dress belonged to my sister. It was once her favourite.”

  Giles’s hand began to tremble. He rested his palm more firmly against her shoulder, but she could still feel the tremors running up his arm. Old pain swam in the depths of his eyes, grief still too raw to properly talk about. She sensed it seething, gnawing away at his heart.

  “How long?”

  “Last spring,” he replied. “She was supposed to have a child.”

  Fortuna tugged him firmly towards her, and cradled his head in her lap. As she stroked her fingers through the soft brown waves of his hair, she realized that in that respect she’d been lucky. She’d never lost anybody close to her, not even a sibling as a babe. She couldn’t really comprehend the pain, how it would feel to no longer have Gabriel, Alicia or Mae in her life, or one of her other sisters.

  “Do you want to tell me about her?”

  Giles raised and then shook his head. “Let’s do something less maudlin.” With a shake, he cast off his mood. “How would you like to spend the rest of the evening?”

  “In bed,” she said, and shocked by her own boldness, clamped her fingers over her mouth. How had that escaped? What a dreadful thing to admit.

  “My bed?” Giles teased. “Or are you still captivated by the thought of Neddy?”

  “Yours,” she whispered through her finge
rs. “I want you to kiss me all over.”

  “Kiss you, eh? You do realize you’re making that rather difficult.” He teased her fingers away from her mouth.

  Fortuna’s pulse raced, and her breath emerged as a gasp.

  “Like this?” he asked. His tongue wetted her skin, tickled as it traversed the pulse point in her neck. Fortuna clove to his upper body as her body warmed to his touch. “Tell me where you want to feel my caress.”

  “Upon my nipples.”

  Giles’s palm covered one breast so that the surface brushed roughly over the nipple. A dart of pleasure shot to her sex in response. Fortuna groaned and pushed herself more firmly against him.

  “Now a kiss,” he said and sucked the furled peak deep into his mouth. It made her ache and her body open to him. She remembered the sweet swift joy he’d brought her previously, as pleasure rolled through her breasts and made her puss seem heavy. She grasped his hand that lay upon her knee and urged it between her legs, desperate to feel him touching her there again. The way he’d stroked her, the way he caressed her now, made her toes curl.

  Giles sat back on his heels, having left a transparent wet patch on the fabric covering her nipple, and another over her puss. His eyes, vividly bright, lingered over her form. Fortuna shivered, unaccustomed to facing such obvious desire.

  Slowly, he closed one hand around her ankle. Up. His fingers tickled as they walked up her stocking, stopping only to pluck at her garter before sliding over the smooth expanse of skin above her stocking top, and into the thick wedge of curls covering her mound.

  “No fingers this time.”

  Barely able to breathe, she watched, mouth agape as his tongue followed the same path up her leg his fingers had just taken. As he neared her thighs, the throb of excitement in her womb grew stronger.

  “Spread your legs wider.”

  He knelt between them.

  The pink slit of her quim showed clearly beneath the down of golden curls. Self-conscious, she felt her cheeks burn. The first dab of his tongue set her shaking. He encompassed the whole of her puss with a long precise lick. He buried his nose in her curls, breathing her in.

  Fortuna clung to the tablecloth, bunching it tightly within her fist. The lash of his tongue seemed to light a thousand more nerves than when he’d rubbed his fingers in her slickness. He swirled teasingly around her clitoris, offering butterfly kisses, and harder flicks.

  Fortuna ached. It was almost too intense to bear. Arousal, lust, coiled and twisted inside her belly. Her puss grew slick with his saliva and her dew.

  “I’ve thought about doing this all day,” Giles whispered. “About how you taste, how you’d smell, about how amazing it’ll feel when I slide my cock into you.”

  “I want that,” she gasped. Fortuna drove her fingers into his wavy hair. She urged him upwards, sought his lips, the firm pressure of his body against her.

  Giles urged her upright, then backwards against the dining table. A glass toppled, wine splashed her fingertips, and seeped across the white tablecloth. Instinctively, she reached for a napkin to mop it.

  “Leave it.” Giles turned her about, and urged her forward at the hips. “We’re going to make a whole lot more mess her than one spilled glass of wine.” He lay her forward over the table, nestled amongst crockery and the remains of dinner.

  Giles’s hands kneaded her bottom. A cool draft, like a ghostly kiss tickled her back as he exposed her cheeks. Then bare flesh nuzzled up against her bottom.

  He was big. And, achingly hard.

  His lips teased the back of her neck, while one hand came forward around her hip, wriggling between her body and the tabletop. A single finger parted the slick lips of her cunt. All thoughts of modesty flown, Fortuna tugged down the top of her chemise, so that her bare breasts spilled over the top of her stays and her nipples rasped against the linen table-cloth as she rolled her hips in time with the rhythm of his hand.

  “Tell me how much you want this.” His cock slid against her thigh.

  Fortuna’s breath hitched as the fiery baton jerked against the slickness of her puss. She tried to wriggle to get him into position but he held her steady and leisurely fucked between her thighs for several teasing strokes. “Tell me.”

  “Please, Giles. I want to know how good it feels. I want you inside me.”

  * * * * *

  Giles felt so primed he was damn sure he would go off the minute he entered her, which was why he was resisting, even though it was hellish hard to do so. He’d been anticipating this moment ever since she’d foxed him at Hallowe’en, but he didn’t want this first time to be over in a matter of moments. Breathe, breathe, he reminded himself. The truth was he wanted her in a way that wrenched his guts and tied them in complicated knots. He wouldn’t be easily satisfied, not after taking her once, or even five times. Actually, it scared him to realize just how besotted he did feel.

  Fortuna rubbed her bottom back against his loins and perspective flew out of the window. He had to have her. Now.

  He pulled back a little, and used his fingers to guide himself in.

  Fortuna wriggled beneath him, trying to get him there faster, while continually making tiny ‘oh, oh’ sounds that made his heart turn over. He pushed in slowly, just the very tip to begin with. She might not be a virgin, but she was still tight.

  Tight but thoroughly willing.

  Fire streamed through his body as she pushed back against him, taking in his entire length.

  A pool of warm surrounded him. Still on edge, Giles gritted his teeth and tried to conjure unsavoury images. Nothing worked. Not spiders, or street urchins, or conjugating Latin verbs. “Hold still.” Slowly, he drew himself back, then sheathed himself again in her warmth.

  Fortuna let out a long sigh. Her muscles fluttered around him. “Yes. Oh, yes. That’s good.”

  He built a rhythm, one deliciously tentative stroke at a time. But even then, he knew he was going to have to let go soon. Even his nose was tingling. His balls felt as though they were trying to climb inside him, or explode. Perhaps both.

  God help him, she was beautiful. He wanted to touch her, lick her all over, tasting each and every part of her skin. He wanted to fill her, come in her mouth, stroke his glans around her nipples and push himself into the valley between her breasts. He wanted each and every part of her. “Oh, God,” he gasped as if it were a prayer. “I’m going to come. Do you feel me?”

  “Let me see your face. I want to watch you come.” She gripped his arm tight, where it was still slung around her hip so that he could better massage her clit.

  Giles groaned. His breath ratcheted up so high, he was almost whistling, he pulled out and flipped her over so they were facing. “Up,” he lifted her onto the table edge, displacing more crockery, and pushed back into her in one deliciously smooth thrust.

  Right in, as deep as he could go.

  She watched him with her blue eyes wide, and clung to him, clawing at his shoulders and smearing kisses across his jaw.

  “Easy,” he soothed. Who was he kidding? He could barely keep himself him check never mind her.

  Giles stared at her freed breasts. He loved their delicacy, the way they were so dainty and rounded. Her nipples were huge though, even crinkled up into two dark pink peaks. He latched onto one, and sucked it deep into his mouth. It was his final undoing.

  She clung to him as he came, as he bucked into her long and deep. His climax seemed to pour out of him into infinity. She was thoroughly soaked when he pulled out. He was bathed in so much sweat his fringe stuck to his brow.

  “Giles,” she murmured. He looked down at her spread across the table as if she were the main course of a decadent banquet and smiled. His cock bucked, proving he hadn’t lost interest, not yet. Not ever.

  He tasted himself as his tongue pushed back between the lips of her cunt. She accepted two, then three fingers, and gripped him tightly as he laved her clit. Her hips lifted, he could feel her head turning from side to side, almost as if she were s
eeking another mouth to kiss.

  Was she thinking of Neddy again and what they’d tempted her with in the garden? Truly, he wanted her to himself, but he’d do his best to satisfy her every need.

  She was almost there. Giles fucked her harder with his fingers, and worked his tongue with increased vigour. He felt her stiffen. Then the delicious flutters washed through her as a keen rose from her throat. He drew back to look at her, replacing the pleasure of his mouth with the pressure of his thumb until she’d calmed. She was beautiful. Utterly enchanting. Her mouth open, lips the same engorged cherry red as her nipples and nether lips. He pressed a hand to the soft swell of her belly, then bent and nipped her there. She squeaked and half rose into a sitting position, before flopping back down in a sort of boneless swoon.

  Giles slid her off the table and into his arms. “And now, I think I’ll take dessert upstairs.” He laughed, and carried her from the room.

  * * * * *

  Across town, the Morton’s charity soiree was a minefield of heaving bosoms. With Lucy clutching his arm, Lord Darleston stoically endured the charade of charity. Yes, there were plenty of patrons in the house, but they each expected something in return for their donations. Prestige, in most cases, but there was plenty of political jockeying going on in the background too. Peers introducing their proxies for the lower house, and wives and chaperones championing their charges, while the girls themselves were busy perfecting the art of wordless conversations. He’d made numerous assignments of his own across a crowded room, without a word being spoken?

  If Giles had been present, Darleston would likely have involved himself in the debates occurring in pockets around the room. Inciting unrest among the various factions was always an excellent time passer, but he had no heart of such entertainment without his friend to back him up.