A Gentleman's Wager (4 page)

Bella valiantly resisted the urge to smile. She’d never seen Louisa quite so animated. ‘She’s not here, Lou. You can do what you want, with whomever you want. I’m not going to tell her, and Joshua’s easy to fool.’ She clasped her friend’s cold hand and drew her indoors. ‘Come on, forget it. Tell me more about Wakefield instead. What regiment’s he from?’

‘The 33rd Regiment of Foot, Yorkshire West Riding,’ she recited carefully. ‘Under Colonel Wesley. He was fighting in Flanders until last year.’

Later that night, Louisa turned feverishly in bed, tangling her legs in the sweat-soaked sheets. Perspiration ran down her neck and over the pulse point, to pool in the
triangular
indent by her collarbone. A low, telling moan escaped her lips. She writhed, arched her back and clawed at the cotton beneath her, then with a shudder she awoke.

Within the shrouded four-poster bed, everything was black. Parched and sleepy, she felt for the edge of the curtain, so that she could reach out for the glass of water on the bedside cabinet. Its coolness rolled past her knuckles then, with a horrid clatter, it fell to the floor.

‘Blast!’ she cursed, and stuck her head below the curtains to see the intact but now empty glass. The liquid formed a slightly darker patch on the carpet, which was cool against her feet once she’d swung her legs free of the bedclothes.

There’d be port – something – in the dining room, and she simply had to have something to drink. Rainwater would do. For the first time she realised it was raining outside. Out on the landing, she heard the muffled patter of large heavy drops bouncing off the tiled roof, streaming into the gutters. Shimmering rivulets ran down the other side of the panes.

The hall clock struck a quarter to two as she espied the tray of decanters, and swallowed a mouthful of the first that came to hand. Fire rippled down her throat, making her eyes water. Brandy, quite coarse. She coughed, and found the port instead.

Across from her, the tell-tale flicker of light spilled from the back parlour. Thinking someone had forgotten to blow out the candles, she delayed her return to bed to investigate. It was hardly likely that anyone was still up this late, yet something stopped her pushing the door fully open. There was barely more than a breath of sound coming from within, so low she strained to hear it, but it made her cautious as she peered around the jamb.

It took a moment for the scene to register. Joshua was
sitting
in the old green armchair, facing her, his shirt unbuttoned so his chest hair was on show. To his left, a candelabra cast flickering light over his shoulder, but knelt before him with her plump round bottom on display was Emma, Bella’s maid. She was wearing only her stockings and stays. The rest of her clothing was strewn about the floor.

Louisa leaned against the doorframe in mute shock, with her heartbeat sounding like a bass drum in her ears. She shook her head in denial, stunned by what she beheld. Maybe there was some sense to her aunt’s warnings. She remembered what Bella had once told her about her grandfather, a notorious roué who’d split from the family, established the mine and built Wyndfell Grange. Evidently Joshua had the same degenerate streak. Anyway, it was disgusting.

Appalled, she took another peek at the lewd pair. From beneath the falls of Joshua’s nankeen trousers, a virile column of flesh sprang. Tiny, pearly beads hung from the tip. Louisa blushed self-consciously as she watched Emma lick away the silvered droplets. So that was what a man’s pride looked like. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to look Joshua in the face again without betraying herself, and she certainly wouldn’t let the maid dress her in future. The blushing heat that had started in her cheeks began to spread. When she looked down at herself, she was horrified to find her nipples erect and poking against her lawn nightdress, eager for some attention. Louisa rubbed them in a futile attempt to get them to return to their normal state. Instead, a dart of liquid delight shot through her excited body. It fizzled out between her clenched thighs, but not before it had set a different set of nerves alight, and a deeper need began to make her wet.

‘Come up here.’ Joshua patted his lap.

Emma obeyed and mounted him. Soon all Louisa could see of him were his limbs, his heavy ball sac and stiff member. He clasped Emma about the buttocks, lifting her up and down while sheathed inside her. She could see everything, every tiny detail how his shaft flexed, how its colour changed, darkened a more ruddy shade with each thrust, and how it glistened with Emma’s juices.

Louisa craved … something? She remembered that was what she’d been dreaming about. She’d been with Wakefield, somewhere … but in her mind, the details had been vague, as if seen through a veil. Now everything seemed clearer, more enticing than her fantasy.

She clutched the neck of the port decanter, gripping it as though she could squeeze some life into it. Joshua dug his fingertips into Emma’s round cheeks and energetically drove himself deep into her. He gave a strange strangled grunt, then their motion ceased.

A moment later, Emma removed herself from his knee and sought out her clothes. Joshua pressed a crown into her hand once she had dressed. ‘Breakfast at seven,’ he said, and gave her a wink. ‘Now get yourself to bed.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Emma slipped the coin into the cleft of her ample cleavage for safe-keeping, gave Joshua one last saucy smile, curtseyed, then flounced towards the door.

Louisa’s throat closed around her yelp of discovery, stopping the sound before it escaped. Her heart fell into her stomach. Then she fled back up the rickety staircase to the guest room and cowered behind the heavy drapes, still clutching the decanter.

She pulled out the stopper and swallowed two thirsty gulps. The contents calmed her, until the warmth reached her veins and she imagined Frederick Wakefield in the chair, exposed to her, his private parts begging to
be
touched. Then her blood seemed to boil. She pressed her palm to her brow, frightened by the image.

‘Be sensible,’ she muttered to herself. ‘You barely know him.’

Bella stared solemnly out of the leaded window-panes; the sky was dark and filled with the threat of distant thunder. The glorious summer had come to an abrupt end two days ago, when the morning mist had held until well after noon. ‘Perfect!’ she said sarcastically, as she watched the wind roll through the heather on the valley floor until the force drove the raindrops so hard against the glass that it was impossible to see out. ‘We can’t go riding in that.’

She twisted in her seat, turning her back on the dismal weather. She wanted to race across the fields to Lauwine with the wind in her face and her hair whipping around her; storm right up to Lucerne Marlinscar and kiss his Cupid’s-bow lips; cover him with tiny love bites to satisfy her craving. She briefly envisaged herself sitting astride his hips, riding his long cock, while his mouth played over her nipples and his fingers were entwined in her pubic hair, massaging her clit. The golden sun was behind them, warming their bare skin, and around them crickets chirped in the grass.

Bella gave a long sigh. Unless he was still here in the spring, that particular fantasy wasn’t going to happen. They’d both get pneumonia if they tried it now. Not that she had any certainty that any of her fantasies about Lucerne would happen. Certainly he’d teased her, but it was possible that was as far as it would ever go. She might have to rely on Mark for her fun, except she’d tried that last night when she’d gone to see him in his room above the coach house. It had been a mistake. Tired
and
in no mood to play her games, he’d been rough with her. Without bothering to kiss her, he’d pushed her over the foot of his narrow bed and entered her sharply from behind. The shock entry of his thick cock had felt good and she’d encouraged him to drive deeper. However, although he had pounded into her powerfully the encounter had only left her feeling more tense.

The door of the back parlour creaked as it opened, and Joshua’s shadow fell across the worn carpet.

‘I’ve something to cheer you up,’ he said, and waved an envelope under her nose. The faint scent of sealing-wax drifted off the paper. Bella peered up at her brother’s hawklike face. He seemed remarkably pleased with himself. His brow had crinkled above his left eye the way it did when he won at billiards or got a good price for the copper ore. She knew he’d recently done neither.

Over by the fire, Louisa put aside her sampler. ‘What is it?’ she asked Joshua, and Bella noted that, for some inexplicable reason, she blushed furiously when she spoke to him.

‘An invitation,’ he said candidly. He settled himself into the green armchair and reclined. ‘It’s from a certain favourite acquaintance of yours, Bella. Would you like me to read it to you?’

‘Just tell me what it is,’ she snarled. She was too wrapped up in herself to bother to catch his meaning. It was probably a dull proposal for a Halloween dance at the assembly hall. It happened every year with the same dull people attending.

‘Very well, if you promise to smile.’

Bella scowled instead.

‘It’s an invitation from Lucerne. He’s holding a ball at Lauwine so he can introduce himself to his neighbours. He asks if we would like to remain as his guests afterwards, possibly until Christmas. Interested?’

Bella clamped her lips together, determined to hide the smile that threatened to give her away. The result was an expression somewhere between sour and stubborn.

‘Bella, you’ve obviously charmed him – poor fellow. You could at least try to look pleased.’

‘She is,’ Louisa said, clearly delighted by the prospect of being closer to Wakefield. ‘She’s just being contrary.’

BELLA’S HEAVY RIDING
skirt swished against the stone steps at the entrance to Lauwine Hall, dusting aside the dead leaves as she hurried towards the open door. Two weeks had passed since they’d received the invitation, and those fourteen days had crawled by so slowly that she’d started checking the clocks every half-hour to see if they’d stopped. Captain Wakefield had called twice, much to Louisa’s delight, but they’d seen nothing of Lucerne. Bella optimistically assumed he was too busy with the party preparations.

She had been supposed to take the long road by carriage with Joshua and Louisa, but Bella didn’t care for the claustrophobic leather interior and had sent her maid, Emma, to travel in her place, while she rode the six straight miles across the moors with Mark. The chill wind and the brisk gallop had put the colour back in her cheeks after too much time stuck indoors, and she felt invigorated and alive.

She paused on the threshold and swept her gaze over the polished marble surfaces beyond as Mark took their horses to the stables. She’d wanted to know what lay beyond this door ever since she’d been old enough to rattle the handle in vain, and she was determined to savour the moment now it had come. The plain chequer-board floor contrasted heavily with the decorative plasterwork ceiling, and the huge oil paintings, coloured predominantly black, orange and brown, created a rather dark atmosphere. She guessed that Lucerne had gone to
a
lot of trouble making the place habitable again. Lauwine had been neglected for over a decade.

She walked in unchallenged, surprised that nobody came running at the sound of her echoing footfalls, and passed through an archway into a second vast chamber. To her right lamplight flickered around the edge of an open doorway. A smile came to her lips as she crossed to it, picturing herself coming upon Lucerne unaware.

However, the room’s sole occupant was not Lucerne, but another man with long dark hair that spilled over his shoulders in loose ringlets. His eyes were closed, and he was cradling a brandy balloon in one palm. Bella removed her kid gloves and yawned to draw his attention.

Bright, violet-coloured eyes settled on her then narrowed under long dark lashes. ‘Lord Marlinscar is in the drawing room,’ he drawled, then returned to his drink.

Her curiosity roused, Bella rested her head against the doorframe while she watched him sip. Graceful to the point of being languid, he drank so that the smooth liquid only just moistened his lips. He was very beautiful, even more so than Lucerne, but darkly saturnine. And, she suspected, cruel and jealous as a lover. She wondered who he was.

After a few minutes of enduring her gaze, the man turned towards her again. This time he rose from the chair. Bella’s eyes lingered on his firm thighs, emphasised by his knee-length boots and black close-fitting pantaloons. As he neared the door she extended her hand for him to take, but instead of accepting it he rudely brushed past her into the hallway. Stunned, she watched him fade into the shadows of the staircase.

‘Arrogant bastard,’ she swore, more hurt than angry, and turned her attention back to his empty chair. A new
light
now spilled fresh shadows over the carpet on the far side of the room.

‘I see you’ve met Vaughan,’ Lucerne Marlinscar remarked, as he closed the cunningly disguised door behind him, so that it again blended perfectly with the bookcase. He was dressed plainly in cream and beige, and his expression was far more open and welcoming than the other man’s had been.

‘Evidently,’ Bella said, and glanced over her shoulder into the hallway, unable to resist looking for him again. ‘Another guest?’

‘Yes. Vaughan Peredur Forvasham, Marquis of Pennerley, an old acquaintance. He’s recently returned after several years in Italy.’

‘Is he always so friendly?’

Lucerne replied with a non-committal shrug of his broad shoulders, leaving her to draw her own conclusions. He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to the soft skin of her wrist in a vexingly intimate manner that had her leaning towards him, eager for closer contact.

‘I regret that nobody was here to greet you, Miss Rushdale, but you are rather early.’ He cocked an elegantly arched eyebrow. ‘I was expecting you to arrive with your brother. I have to wonder what you are so eager for. Not to see me … I’m sure you’ve already seen enough?’

Bella bowed her head in response, but she couldn’t stop herself smiling at the memory of him, nude and magnificent in the long grass. She glanced slyly at the crotch of his tailored breeches, wondering what he would look like close up, and if she’d ever get the chance to find out. All of his guests would be vying for his attention tonight; she’d better stake her claim now. She just wasn’t sure how to make the first move.