A Gentleman's Wager (9 page)

‘We must flee,’ she said, and tilted her head to look up into his eyes. A dark ringlet brushed against her hand where she clutched his robe. ‘Vaughan!’ She realised. ‘No. Lucerne.’

A cold draft blew across her face. Bella drew up the covers the scene having switched to her bedroom. A lone candle flickered before her. It hovered in the air by the foot of her bed. Schedoni leered between the curtains. He tugged at the bedclothes, and a scream froze on Bella’s tongue.

‘Annabella?’

The images of her dream shattered then resolved into familiar surroundings. It was Louisa.

‘Louisa!’ Bella sat up in surprise. She hoped Wakefield hadn’t been driven to confess after all. ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’

‘No. It’s just that I wanted to talk.’

Relieved, Bella yawned and put her book aside. ‘It’s late. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

She turned her head when Louisa didn’t reply, and caught the reflective glint of tears. Her apprehension returned.

Louisa began to sob.

Bella decided to offer some comfort, and moved closer to place an arm around Louisa’s slender shoulders. ‘No need to cry,’ she said, then bit her lip. ‘Talk to me.’ If there was anything to be said, it would be best to get it over with.

The room was cold, the fire having long since died in the grate. Bella tugged back the covers and patted the mattress beside her. ‘Come on, no point freezing to death. It’s a good thing Joshua’s away from home. God knows what he’d think if he saw you wandering the corridors in your shift. Probably mistake you for a ghost and run for his life,’ she said, in an attempt at humour.

Louisa’s breaths continued to come out as desperate sobs, but she crawled beneath the covers. Bella plumped the pillows for her to rest against, and pulled the bedspread up to their shoulders. ‘Now, what’s the problem, dearest Louisa? What’s upset you so much?’

‘Oh, just everything. Nothing has been right since I left London. Well, since I met Frederick, actually.’ She pulled the covers tight up to her chin as her words dried up.

‘Is this to do with what happened at the party? I didn’t think –’

‘Millicent certainly didn’t help,’ Louisa cut in, preventing Bella from saying too much. She paused and chewed her lip, clearly weighing up the matter. ‘Do you think she’s a real threat?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Bella said, and gave a nervous laugh to defray her own feeling of tension. If Louisa was worrying about Millicent, she obviously didn’t know what had happened between her and Frederick. ‘Millicent has always been a trollop. Any man, any place, anyhow. She probably only did it for a bit of fun.’

Louisa sniffed and Bella found her a handkerchief.

‘It’s just that I’m so unsure about Frederick’s intentions. What he does feels so wonderful, but sometimes it scares me. Especially after what Marquis Pennerley did.’

‘Men,’ asserted Bella.

‘He kept saying it was my fault, that I’d started it. It all happened so fast. I just keep wondering what would have happened if Frederick hadn’t come along when he did.’

‘I see.’

‘Now I know why my aunt keeps me shackled to her side.’

‘Don’t say that. Not all men are like Vaughan. They don’t all pounce at the first opportunity. If you weren’t always glued to your aunt, you might be better at telling the difference.’

Louisa tossed the handkerchief onto the bedside cabinet. ‘I suppose. Maybe I should compile a list – men to avoid. Approach with extreme caution, all men with a title, long dark hair, too much charm –’

‘Arrogant, self-centred bastards,’ suggested Bella.

‘Good kissers –’

‘Is he?’

Louisa smiled so that a dimple appeared in her cheek. ‘I’ve not had much to compare him with, but I’d say so.’

‘Damn. What list are we compiling again?’

Louisa dropped her head on to her curled-up knees. She sniggered and shook her head. ‘I think he likes you – Vaughan, I mean. He’s always staring at you, and today he was the only one even slightly curious about why you’d disappeared into the church with Lucerne. In fact, he looked positively put out.’

The hairs on the back of her neck were standing up. Thinking about Vaughan had brought back the images from her dream and she didn’t like them very much. She certainly wasn’t interested in hearing about how he was supposedly attracted to her. ‘Do you still want some advice about Wakefield?’ she asked.

Louisa turned her head to one side. ‘I want to know how to keep hold of him, make him interested enough not to wander.’

‘Witchcraft.’

‘Bella, be serious.’

‘Sleep with him, then. It’s what I’d do.’

Louisa sat up straight. ‘I couldn’t, not until we were married. It’s not proper. Besides, Frederick’s too much of a gentleman; he says he won’t because it would be taking advantage.’

Bella coughed into her hand. Gentleman when it suited him, maybe. All right, she’d initiated the encounter in the gazebo, but he hadn’t exactly protested. ‘Ask Vaughan for another lesson, then,’ she snapped, instead of disillusioning her friend. ‘I’m sure he’d have no qualms about taking your maidenhead, and then Wakefield wouldn’t have to have it on his conscience.’

Louisa winced, but Bella continued regardless.

‘Of course, if you don’t fancy that, there’s Charles, but you’re not his type. Lucerne? I don’t think deflowering virgins is his forte. Besides, he’s shown no interest in
you
. Or there’s Joshua. Yes, you could always try my brother. That would please your aunt.’

Louisa bit her lower lip, draining the colour from it. ‘Why are you being so crude?’

‘You asked.’

For several seconds they glared at each other, Louisa in affront, Bella in derision. Then Bella began to smirk. ‘Alternatively,’ she said, ‘there’s me.’

Louisa’s scowl held for several seconds, before it gave way to a confused frown. ‘You … How?’

Bella gave her a silky grin and pushed back the covers. ‘Wait here, I have just the thing.’ She hurried across the room, unlocked a small compartment in the bottom of her wardrobe and brought out a box. She returned to the bed before removing the lid. Louisa looked into it and gasped. A highly polished phallus of closely stitched leather lay framed by the delicate tissue paper; it even had balls.

‘Of course, Joshua doesn’t know I have it. I found it amongst my grandfather’s things in the attic,’ Bella explained, as she noted her friend’s strange fascination. ‘Probably used it on the servants after his own vine withered. It’ll certainly give you an idea of how a man feels inside you. Tempted?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s up to you. It’s not as good as the real thing, but it’s pretty good.’

Bella watched the rapid rise and fall of Louisa’s breasts. Her pert nipples were clearly visible through her white shift, while her eyes were fixed on the dildo. At that moment, Bella could see the appeal Louisa had to men. She was so delicate, so pliable.

‘Trust me.’

‘All right.’

Louisa tensed for the space of a heartbeat, then breathed eagerly as Bella untied her nightgown. Their lips met and Bella began to explore her friend’s delicate mouth. Conceiving herself as Captain Wakefield, she tried to touch as he would, to feel as a man. She imagined that the sudden throb of longing between her thighs intensified and extended into a thick erect cock. With it came a deep desire to touch herself, and to sheath herself inside a warm safe place.

‘Close your eyes. Think of Frederick,’ said Bella. She crawled on top of Louisa and used her knees to press her friend’s legs apart, then sucked and licked at her nipples, sometimes nipping ever so softly, sometimes not being quite so gentle. Her own moisture was gathering thickly between her thighs. She wondered if the same was true for Louisa, who was making only quiet mewls.

The impression of her nails left a red trail across the curve of Louisa’s stomach. Bella tangled her fingers in the golden curls over her friend’s mound, then dipped her tongue to the velvety folds. She tasted very different to a man, though not unpleasant. However, the crow of joy she received in response to flicking the tip of her tongue across Louisa’s clitoris was akin to the response she got from Mark, when she lapped at his shiny cock-head.

‘Is that good?’

‘Mmm. Nice.’

As she continued to lick and suck, she sought out the leather phallus from where it lay discarded on the sheets. The shaft felt cool and smooth. Bella warmed it between her thighs before worming it into Louisa’s honeyed vulva. She continued the tease for several minutes. Each touch, each glancing bump elicited another gasp of desire from Louisa. Suddenly, with a sharp thrust, she gave what was promised.

Louisa jerked up off the mattress at the shock invasion, wide blue eyes lit startlingly bright in the candlelight. Bella began to work her wrist, driving the phallus deep, and using her thumb on Louisa’s clitoris. ‘Say something, Louisa.’

‘More … please!’

Bella knew how long she could endure this sort of stimulation herself before reaching climax, and Louisa didn’t prove any different. Her delicate nipples puckered, her skin flushed, and she came in a long tremor. Her muscles contracted around the slick baton, almost tugging it from Bella’s grasp.

Her eyes opened in wonder.

‘Did you enjoy that?’ said Bella, and she gave a Harlequin smile.

The November moon was low in the sky as Frederick Wakefield walked over the moors, his pace brisk as he retraced their daytime path. A thick mist had settled just above the heather since their earlier excursion, and now it clouded the valley floor. The distance was lost to vision, and only the lonely granite cross of the church was visible through the shifting haze.

Louisa – he had received a note, a midnight assignation in the graveyard, a
danse macabre
. He could only blame Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe for inspiring the setting. Why, like Shakespeare’s Juliet, couldn’t Louisa have chosen a garden or, better still, a rug in front of a fire? He guessed Bella had something to do with it. Thankfully, she had been discreet; he might have been drunk, but his conscience still plagued him over the night of the ball. He doubted that Louisa was the type to understand or forgive infidelity.

In its hollow, the church was almost swallowed by the choking mists. Would she come? He had his doubts, but
he
was here now. The grey stone of the boundary wall loomed out of the mist just yards away, fuzzy edged and foreboding.

It had been simple to slip out of the house. The others had retired early after dinner and a few rounds of billiards. They were planning a dawn trek across the moors, and perhaps he would join them. He had not decided; so much depended on tonight. By tomorrow, he might be the happiest man alive.

Vague grey forms spiralled out of the mist as he went down the broad steps to the church door, making him think he was being watched or followed. He shook off his suspicions, rationalising them as phantasms of his own heightened awareness. He wouldn’t be put off by a few graveyard spectres.

The mist ended in a wall of grey ether at the door to the little church. From within, the faint rustle of silk against stone caught his attention.

She had come.

‘Louisa, is that you?’ he hissed.

The church door creaked ominously on its hinges as he opened it. Moonlight spilled, blue, green and rosy through the stained-glass panes. An ethereal figure stood at the far end of the chapel amidst a sea of rose petals that someone had scattered over the floor. The glint of honey-blonde hair spilled out from beneath a hood, as she turned slightly in response to his footsteps.

All around him the still air smelled of church mould, dust, clay, and the faint essence of roses. He felt like he was conducting a love affair with a ghost. If only the location was a little less eerie, he might not feel so nervous. Reaching her, he pulled back the pink hood and pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. He moved his mouth to her upturned face and tasted the soft comfort of her lips, which were tinged blue from the cold.

All too soon he realised that the woman he held, who peered up at him from beneath delicate, fluttery eyelashes, was not Louisa. This was not his beloved’s smooth skin that he brushed his fingers against, and the knowledge hit him like a blow to the chest. Meanwhile, the girl coaxed him with an interminable kiss that sucked the breath from his lungs and made his head spin at its intensity.

‘All’s well from this end,’ Joshua announced, emerging from the fog to startle his friends.

‘Do you have to sneak up?’ Charles complained. ‘This infernal fog is bad enough without you for a bogle.’ He fanned the air ineffectually as if to disperse the mist.

‘Shhh, Charles,’ called Lucerne from behind the hedge where he lay with Vaughan, observing the church door. Charles grunted and scowled at Joshua.

‘Everything is fine from this end as well, Josh – he’s so smitten, he doesn’t suspect a thing. I assume you got the girl.’

‘He’s going in,’ observed Vaughan.

‘That’s all right. She’s already in place. I took her in through the back entrance since we were a trifle late.’

‘Why?’ asked Charles.

Joshua deliberately ignored his accusatory glances and gave his attention to Lucerne.

‘Back entrance? I didn’t notice a back entrance, and I went all over the place earlier today.’

‘Through the crypt. There’s a tunnel set into the bank. You come up in the south-west comer.’

They heard the latch drop on the church door.

‘Come on,’ Joshua cried, bounding off down the slope. ‘We can watch from round the side, peer in the window, eh?’

‘Won’t we be a bit obvious?’ whined Charles.

‘No. There are some very convenient gravestones.’ He beckoned for them to catch up. ‘If you can cope with the grass stains, that is.’

Her body was slight like Louisa’s, with small hips. There the similarity ended, apart from the golden hair. Her skin was also honey-gold, tanned by the summer sun. Her bust was ample, soft, and more than he could cup in his hands. ‘I think this is some kind of mistake,’ Frederick muttered as the girl drew him close. He now knew he was the butt of some joke by his so-called friends, and he tried to push her away. He could picture them spying on him, laughing at his expense. Yet her kisses and skilled touch bewitched his senses, and aroused a cruel longing in his loins.