Phantasmagoria Read online

  She did but she liked to deny it. Here in London she was masquerading as Vaughan’s cousin, chaperoned by some matron he’d plucked out of obscurity for a yearly wage of twenty guineas. Lucerne was her unofficial intended, but he’d never proposed. Vaughan was adamant that while the three of them were together, there’d be no exclusivity agreements, particularly one that excluded him.

  So here they were.

  Vaughan’s tongue dipped into the channel between her cheeks. He blew whispery kisses and petted her lightly, the licks slowly becoming firmer, more invasive, until he was delving into her hot dark spot and lighting endless sparklers of bliss.

  Bella’s hips rolled with the motions of the two men. Lucerne was getting close. She could hear it in his breathing.

  She hated when Vaughan did this to her. There was something twisted about it. Licking her there always seemed far more taboo than filling her bottom with his prick, and she knew he’d make a point of messily kissing her later. Still, she couldn’t tear herself away, even if she hadn’t been trapped between two bodies.

  ‘I’m going to tongue-fuck you until you come,’ he said, raising hairs all across her skin. ‘Then I’m going to molly Lucerne, and if you’re good I’ll let you watch.’

  He would too. Vaughan always kept his promises, and he loved licking and swiving arse almost as much as he loved Lucerne. Sometimes she wished he’d show her the same level of devotion.

  Vaughan found her pearl and rubbed. She didn’t want to come like this, at his hand, with him sucking greedily at her hole, but her body betrayed her. Her hips moved in time with Lucerne’s. She sought his lips, but he was already screaming into the air as she came hard around his cock.

  As her orgasm pulsed through her, the two men kissed over her shoulder, ignoring her as they focused on each other. When they showed no signs of parting, Bella sunk to the floor and crawled between Vaughan’s legs. So much for Lucerne being hers!

  Still, it wasn’t all bad. Bella made herself comfortable on the bed and lazily rubbed her clitoris as she watched them petting. Vaughan and Lucerne were sexy as hell, two flipsides of the same coin, and never more so than when they were together performing like this. While it pleased her more to be between them, she’d learned to accept this was part of the relationship, and had no qualms about getting herself off while watching them together.

  The two men stumbled out of the closet, limbs still entwined, clawing at each other’s clothing. Lucerne’s breeches were clinging to his thighs, his pale cheeks scored with the impression of Vaughan’s fingernails. True to his word, Vaughan soon bent him over the end of the bed. ‘I know what you need,’ he hissed into Lucerne’s ear. ‘Don’t even try to deny it. Your cock’s never lost its hardness.’

  Lucerne gripped the sheets. His feathery blond hair was stuck to his brow with sweat, obscuring his hazy-blue eyes. Lower, the muscles in his neck and those running down his arms were braced for what was coming.

  ‘It’s not what I need that you’re about. Bella was satisfying me just fine.’ Lucerne grinned at her and blew her a kiss.

  ‘So you say.’ Vaughan grasped Lucerne’s hips and pulled him back against his loins. No matter how many times she saw him do that, it still made her wet. Bella covered her quim with her hand and rubbed her thighs together. There was something incredibly sexy about the way he manipulated Lucerne’s body with such ease, and aroused him despite all protestations. ‘But you haven’t refused me.’

  A hot pink glow washed across Lucerne’s cheekbones. ‘I know better than to try.’ Resistance always made Vaughan even more determined. More than once their lovemaking had resembled a brawl, although Vaughan liked to pretend he was above fisticuffs.

  Bella kneaded her bud harder. Go on, deny him, she silently urged Lucerne. Make him work harder. She watched him reach back to lash at Vaughan’s arms, but it was already too late. His mouth went wide and he released an urgent gasp. Vaughan was inside him, already moving him to his own special rhythm. There was no resisting left to be done.

  Lucerne’s eyes rolled upwards. He shamelessly pushed back against the intrusion.

  ‘Nothing makes you feel quite like this, does it, Lucerne?’ Vaughan’s hands moved in fluttering circles over Lucerne’s arse, squeezing, moulding. He reached around, grasped Lucerne’s cock and tossed him off in time with their movements. ‘Feels good, doesn’t it? Ever since the first time, you’ve never been able to get enough.’

  ‘I’m not so desperate as you think,’ Lucerne snarled, his eyelids narrowed to slits. ‘I’ve always been content with a woman.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Vaughan milked him harder. ‘So slipping a finger alongside my cock won’t make you come so hard you’ll shoot yourself in the chest?’

  ‘Grrn!’

  ‘Here it comes, Lucerne. Think you can hold out? Of course not. I know you. I know what gets you off.’ He nibbled Lucerne’s ear. ‘If I catch you playing dirty again –’

  ‘You’ll what?’

  Vaughan went silent. He held himself still, although Lucerne continued to move. ‘You’ll see. Are you ready?’ He wriggled a finger into Lucerne alongside his cock. Immediately, Lucerne held himself rigid. Tense shivers played out across his body. He was breathing hard, trying to control it, panting, determined to deny Vaughan his victory, but in vain. ‘You absolute bastard!’ he snarled.

  Bella watched him sag onto the sheets, where he continued to whimper and jerk for several minutes. When he finally rolled over, his lawn shirt and indeed his torso were sticky with his seed. He pulled the shirt off and mopped his chest.

  Vaughan stalked across to the washstand.

  There was something going on, Bella was sure of it, and it wasn’t the first time the thought had struck her. Vaughan was still erect and untamed, but he seemed content to do nothing about it. Not unusual in itself, but curious.

  Lucerne scrambled up the bed towards her. He cocooned himself in her arms. ‘You can’t change the way I feel about her, Vaughan,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Vaughan agreed as he tucked himself back into his pantaloons. ‘I don’t suppose I can.’

  She was definitely missing something, Bella was certain of it as she watched the candlelight glitter like black embers in Vaughan’s eyes. But whatever it was, they kept it to themselves.

  Vaughan watched the firelight lap at Bella’s skin with tongues of gold and orange. Lucerne’s head rested in his lap. Idly, he stroked his fingers through the blond strands. It was late, though he had no mind for sleep. His two lovers had both drifted off hours ago, but Lucerne’s words still churned in his head.

  ‘You can’t change the way I feel about her.’

  You can’t bully me into loving you, he may as well have said, and it was true. There was no getting around it. He’d been trying long enough.

  Of course, the situation was of his devising. Bella had been the compromise he’d made in order to get Lucerne in the first place. The man was too hung up on reputation and respect to risk scandalizing his peers. But neither Bella nor Lucerne were the same people he’d found himself so infatuated with on the wild Yorkshire moors. The city was turning Lucerne into a dissolute fop and Bella into another belle in a chintz frock. She was losing her fire. Oh, she still had a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of fun, but he’d liked her better when she wasn’t so vain and the colour in her cheeks wasn’t applied with a brush.

  He touched the ends of her hair where it lay loose across her back. He wished she’d open her eyes to how things had changed. In the beginning, he’d accepted her as a necessity, convinced that she’d lose interest or patience. No woman wanted to hang on for ever for a proposal. He was surprised she’d stuck it out this long without so much as a whisper of an engagement and, perhaps, slightly pleased.

  But Bella wasn’t even the real problem. He could handle her. It was the other witch. His lips twisted into a sadistic smile while his fingers tightened around a clump of Lucerne’s hair. He tugged in annoyance, inducing a groan of protest. ‘Shh, sleep,’ he
said, gently petting him. ‘Don’t wake. Don’t worry. Enjoy it while it lasts.’

  Vaughan sunk his teeth into his bottom lip. It was time. He might not be able to change how Lucerne felt about things, but he could influence the way Bella felt about Lucerne, or at least open her eyes really wide.

  Now. Tonight. It was starting … Ending …

  2

  BELLA WOKE COLD. Lucerne had stolen the covers again. He was turned away, coiled inside the array of sheets and blankets, while the bedspread clung to the bed in just one corner. Vaughan, she guessed, was on the floor beneath it. For all his preening and love of finery, he wasn’t afraid of hardship, unlike Lucerne. She’d once found him asleep on a windowsill.

  Bella snuggled up to Lucerne and rubbed her nose against the back of his neck, where his hair was shorn close. Last night had been fun, but now she was ready for an energetic wake-up call.

  ‘Still sleeping,’ he mumbled. ‘Stop jiggling. I need another hour, or three.’

  ‘Fine. You’re hopeless.’ Bella sat up. ‘I’m getting dressed. It’s cold in here and you’re hogging the blankets again.’ She slapped him across the rump, but Lucerne just huddled deeper into the covers and pulled a pillow over his head. It was half past nine. If he surfaced before eleven, it’d be a miracle or a sporting event.

  As it turned out, Vaughan wasn’t on the floor, nor was there any sign of him downstairs. Bella ate breakfast alone, but as time went on and Vaughan still hadn’t appeared, she started to feel something was amiss.

  ‘Has Lord Pennerley gone riding?’ she asked William, their first footman.

  ‘Not as I know of, Miss Rushdale, but I’ve not seen him this morning.’

  Bella frowned. Nobody got in or out of the house without William noticing. It wasn’t like Vaughan to sleep this late, though, wherever he’d bedded down.

  She moved to the parlour, but the constant ticking of the mantel clock only made her more agitated. Tea didn’t help either. She wanted some company. Where was he? The house was far too quiet.

  Bella paused at the top of the stairs, hand clasped upon the banister. After several moments, she crossed the landing and knocked on his door. When there was no reply, she brazenly marched in. At worst, she’d catch him still abed and he’d throw something at her or, better still, he’d initiate her into some new art of erotic torture.

  The bed was unoccupied.

  ‘Damn.’

  Bella stared at the inky covers for a moment, imagining his hair like a dark cloud around his sleeping face, before her brow creased in confusion. The curtains were pulled back from the sash window so that the crisp October light streamed in and dappled the bedspread, like the autumn leaves on the pavement outside. There was something odd about the room. She turned her head about but couldn’t quite figure it. She didn’t come in here very often. There was nothing out of place, not even a discarded cravat or razor littering the surfaces, but Vaughan had always been spartan and neat.

  Actually, there was nothing in place, either.

  A chill trembled down her spine. Bella shook it off, crossed to the chest of drawers and wrenched open the top drawer. It was empty, as was the second.

  ‘Vaughan!’ Her hand came unbidden to her lips. ‘Oh, God!’ She bit her knuckles. He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t be. Why would he go? They were happy. ‘Lucerne!’ She ran though last night’s events in her head. There’d been that weird undercurrent, the strange, guarded conversation she hadn’t quite grasped the meaning of. ‘Lucerne!’

  Panic gripped her. Vaughan couldn’t really be gone, not without a goodbye. Her gaze fell upon the smooth bed again. That was it. The locket. The precious keepsake that held a single lock of blond hair and commemorated the first night Vaughan and Lucerne had spent together. If it was still here, that meant he’d be back.

  If she couldn’t find it …

  Her fingers closed over nothing more comforting than the cold sheets. In despair, she tore the pillows from the bed, shaking feathers loose in the process. They floated down around her, but there was still no locket. Not ready to give up hope, Bella thrust her hands down between the mattress and the headboard. Still nothing.

  ‘No-ooo!’

  Her shriek finally brought Lucerne. He sprinted into the room, half-dressed and trailing his valet, to whom he was attached by a long length of thread.

  ‘Bella!’ Lucerne pulled up sharp and looked at her curiously, his eyebrows impressively raised. ‘What are you doing? What the blazes were you screaming for?’

  She scrambled off the bed into his arms. To hell with decorum; besides, Ivo didn’t count and he knew perfectly well what the living arrangements for the household were. ‘Vaughan’s gone,’ she gasped into the open neck of Lucerne’s shirt. ‘He’s left.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He pushed her to arm’s length, allowing Ivo to duck between them and resume sewing him into his skin-tight breeches.

  ‘I’m not. All his things are gone.’ She frowned at Ivo, tempted to kick him.

  ‘Leave it,’ said Lucerne, tapping Ivo upon the shoulder. ‘You can go for now.’ He waited until the man had left the room, then took Bella’s hand and offered her a humouring smile. ‘He wouldn’t just walk out, Bella. Think about it for a moment.’

  ‘Look.’ She dragged him to the chest and wrenched open the top two drawers again.

  ‘Ah,’ he said in response to the absence of linen.

  ‘Now do you believe me?’

  Lucerne shook his head. ‘It doesn’t prove anything.’ He paced across to the window. Bella hesitantly followed. Vaughan was not, as she half-hoped, standing on the pavement laughing at them. Judging by his expression, Lucerne had been hoping much the same.

  ‘I expect he’s just been invited somewhere for the week and forgot to mention it.’ He dragged his hand through the front of his uncombed hair. ‘He’s been spending a lot of time with the Allenthorpes and their adopted frog recently.’

  ‘Now you’re being ridiculous,’ Bella chided. ‘He says the Vicomte smells like a fermented meadow, and even you don’t take your entire wardrobe away with you for a few days.’

  ‘Been through everything, have you?’ There was hint of amusement in Lucerne’s voice.

  Bella glared at him, her temper rising. ‘No, I haven’t.’ She didn’t need to. The locket was the only thing of value Vaughan kept in the room, but she wasn’t sure if Lucerne knew about it. She was pretty certain Vaughan didn’t know that she knew about it.

  Lucerne sat down on the bed, patting the mattress for her to join him. ‘Don’t fret, Bella. He’ll turn up.’ He snuggled her to his side, still smiling. ‘He always does. Like a bad penny.’

  ‘Maybe.’ She allowed herself to be lulled by his embrace. She never doubted that Vaughan would crop up somewhere. But he could be halfway across the Channel by now. Not that France was an ideal destination while they entertained Madame Guillotine.

  Had he even slept last night, she wondered. He’d still been staring into the dark when she’d dropped off, which wasn’t unusual. There’d been no definite danger signs.

  Dammit!

  Bella sagged against Lucerne. She was missing something, something obvious. ‘Have you argued?’ she asked, rising up again so she could look Lucerne in the eye.

  He dragged his fingers through the front of his hair again, causing it to flop forwards over his brow. ‘You saw us together last night. Did we look as if we’d fallen out?’

  Bella sat a little straighter. ‘That’s just it. How am I supposed to tell when you routinely torture each other as a sign of affection? Even when you had that massive spat last May about the Act of Union, you still fucked like beasts.’

  ‘Bella!’ The skin around his eyes crinkled with annoyance. ‘Maybe being away from Vaughan will do you good. Leastways, it might improve your language. You never used to be so coarse.’

  ‘Don’t start a lecture. He’s gone. Can’t you see it’s a bloody disaster?’

  To her annoyance, Lucerne collapse
d back onto the bed snorting in amusement. ‘Oh, stop it. As if he’d really just leave in the dead of night. He loves what we have here. He’s responsible for the arrangement. Remember?’ He absently patted her leg. ‘Give it a day or two and he’ll be back and laughing off the fright he’s given us.’

  Bella kneaded her temples. She really wanted to believe that but it was difficult. It felt like a chasm was opening inside her chest. Lucerne’s hand was warm upon her thigh. His touch slowed to a caress. ‘Bella,’ he soothed, his voice laced with honey. He brought her fingers to his lips. ‘You know how he is. Everything’s a game. He’s probably just trying to provoke a reaction, and he’s succeeding.’

  Bella shook her head but allowed Lucerne to cuddle her. He tipped them both over so they sprawled across the soft eiderdown, face to face. ‘Don’t mope.’ His breath was warm against her lips. ‘You know how he is. If he was angry with either of us he’d have said something.’

  ‘Yes,’ she reluctantly agreed.

  Lucerne pressed a kiss to her nose, then another to her cheek. ‘Look at me.’ His thumb rubbed lightly over her lips.

  Bella looked. His smile creased the corners of his eyes, lit up their china-blue depths. ‘We’ve waited for this, Bella. Haven’t we? A chance to be alone together.’ He kissed her lips. ‘We can do whatever we want.’

  She felt like sobbing but mustered a smile instead. It was true, they’d had little time to themselves, Vaughan made sure of that. If she could only have been certain he was really coming back, then she’d have no qualms about leaping on Lucerne and having him any way possible. But there was just that niggling doubt.

  Maybe he’d moved the locket weeks ago.

  Lucerne stretched his arms above his head in an overstated gesture of surrender. ‘How about it, Miss Rushdale?’ He tugged his shirt from his breeches. ‘Shall we rumple the master’s bed?’

  Some hours later, Bella lay wrapped in Vaughan’s bedspread. Lucerne had gone to bathe and dress for his club. They’d spent the whole afternoon together, exploring the contours of each other’s skin, taking pleasure in simple contact, enjoying themselves. She sucked on her lip; a bitter taste accompanied her thoughts. Now that she’d salved her lust with Lucerne, Vaughan’s absence weighed on her conscience. Had she been responsible for his departure? Despite Lucerne’s reassurances, she couldn’t believe he’d simply return in a day or two, or even a week. Vaughan might be a creature of passions, but he was also stubborn and he never made any big decisions without thinking them through carefully. The absence of the locket aside, her instincts told her he was gone for good unless they did something to find him. She hadn’t the faintest idea where to look, let alone how to win him back. Whenever she’d deliberately tried to seduce him in the past, he’d played her for a fool. She didn’t think Lucerne would be any help, either. He was in denial, convinced it was all an elaborate game.