Carnal Pleasures (18 page)

Now if only he could devise a way of punishing the damn countess for manipulating both their lives.

Chapter Eighteen

Dulcie woke up slowly. She had slept deeply relaxed with no terrifying dreams. No sounds disturbed the room, she noticed, not even Simon’s garbled snoring. The house was as silent as a church’s graveyard. With eyes still closed, Dulcie snuggled under the covers, savoring a few moments more of comfort. As her senses came further alive and her brain responded, she jerked and sat up. The covers slid off her, stopping at her waist. Horrified, she grabbed them back up to cover her bare shoulders and breasts. A gasp caught in her throat. Swiftly, she realized she wasn’t in her bed nor her room.

Sunlight streamed through the undraped windows.
Impossible!
The thought slashed through her mind. Half in a daze, Dulcie’s heart pounded like a trip hammer, her cheeks burning with heat. She had spent the night in Griff Spencer’s bed! Had he spent it in there with her?

He wasn’t in the room now that she could see. Oh, thank God! But how could this have happened?

Dulcie took a better grip on her composure and slowed her breathing to a normal rate. Tucking the coverlet beneath her armpits, she clasped shaking fingers in her lap. Noticing something new, her eyes opened wider. There was a ring circling the third finger of her left hand. She didn’t have on her spectacles, so she brought the ring to her puzzled gaze. She knew where she had last seen the ring. It was her mother’s betrothal ring. Her father had left her mother’s wedding ring on her left hand when she was buried. Dulcie recalled seeing her mother’s betrothal ring on her right hand before that time. Her father must have removed it and kept it, because it now circled Dulcie’s finger. How in the world did it get there?

Dulcie cautiously slipped out of bed, wrapping the blanket around her. She noticed one of her new gowns thrown carelessly over a chair on top of her petticoat and corset. Her stockings and slippers lay scattered beside the bed. She felt sweaty and sticky as if she needed a cleansing wash. Quickly, she donned everything but her corset. Unable to keep the gaping gown buttoned in back, she knew how disreputable she looked. All she wanted to do was leave this room…and that bed. Dulcie ran to the door, opened it cautiously, and peeked out into the hall. Thank goodness, there was no one in sight. She scurried to her room next door, yanked the door wide, slapped it shut behind her, and leaned against the wood in one fluid movement, clamping her eyes shut.

Phew!

It took a few moments before she calmed down.

There was no one in her room, not even Simon. Where was he? She called to him, but he didn’t come from where he usually snoozed. Where had he gone? Could he have gotten loose and was roaming the halls? Omigod! The countess would send Simon to the stables! She had to find him.

Dulcie hurried to the wardrobe and yanked out one of her older gowns, one she could fasten down the front. Donning it quickly, she tidied her hair as best she could, and raced out into the hall again. She ran down the servants’ back stairs to the kitchen. When she burst in, the upper servants were eating breakfast.

“Have you seen Simon?” she asked, halting inside the doorway, out of breath.

Immediately, Bender rose from the large table where the staff ate. “There’s nothing to worry about, Lady Dulcina,” he said. “I saw Mr. Spencer walking the dog a short while ago.”

“Oh? How did he…I mean…you say he’s walking Simon?” Dulcie fought to cease her babbling. A frown still puckered her brow, as she didn’t understand her dog’s puzzling disappearance.

“I saw the pair trotting around the square.” The butler chuckled. “More than once. I believe Mr. Spencer likes fresh air and exercise as well as your canine does.”

“Oh?” She repeated herself, feeling quite foolish. “Then I assume everything is fine. Thank you, Bender.” Whipping around, Dulcie made her way up the back stairway, still a bit frazzled.

By the time she reached her room, a sick feeling had settled inside her. Rudimentary, painful twinges announced themselves in places that had never felt twinges before. Her breasts and the place between her thighs were especially tender. Reminded of the aches and the evidence she had discovered on her body, insight flashed though Dulcie, descending upon her with certain knowledge as to what it meant. She might be country-bred, but she wasn’t completely unknowing. She trembled quite violently, embracing anxiety for a short time, absorbing what must have taken place last night. Much of it was too vivid to ignore or forget this morning.

She thought again of the odd, troubling, unruly sensations that had crawled beneath her clothes and over her skin after supper. It would have been terribly rude to excuse herself, tear off her clothes, and scratch the parts of her that needed scratching.

When Agina’s nephew asked her to stay with him a while, it was only polite to agree. She
had been
drawn to him from the beginning, because it was easy to like him when he made friends with Simon. And she wanted…needed…someone like Denny Wall with whom to connect. She allowed herself to trust Griff very quickly, simply because her dog accepted him.

She had thought a lot about her stepmother’s nephew ever since they met, wondering with whom he shared his time. And later she wondered who shared his caresses. Was he courting someone, dangling for a wife on the
ton’s
marriage market?

And then…oh, Lord…everything went awry after that.

Something had her wild with rampant desire for Mr. Spencer and his kisses. In what kind of weird spell was she caught? She remembered desperately needing those awful feelings assuaged, or else … and therefore, she never asked him to stop.

I should have known something was wrong, and why I felt so peculiar—all fevered, prickly, and itchy, but I couldn’t help myself. I was desperate. I NEEDED Griff Spencer.

She had to confess that she enjoyed his kisses, would like more of them. She had heard of women who could not leave a man alone. Was she becoming addicted to a man’s improper caresses? She had read of a sickness called nymphomania. Oh, goodness, was she catching it?

It was a quarter hour later when Marnie knocked on the chamber’s door. “I brung you some hot chocolate, milady. Shall I come in?”

“Yes. Yes, of course, Marnie, come in,” Dulcie said, brought back to reality and calling to her maid who waited on the other side of the thick door.

The girl bustled into the room, bright-eyed and full of morning goodwill and vigor. “I hope ye likes raisin scones, milady. They’re hot from Cook’s oven.”

“Er, yes. I-I believe I may be hungry enough to eat them.”

The maid put the loaded tray of food on a small table. “When ye didn’t come above stairs last eve, milady, I done what ye told me, and didn’t wait up for ye. I hope…Oh!” Marnie exclaimed, noticing the bed. “Did ye make up the bed yerself?”

Dulcie’s four-poster bed had the counterpane turned back, but the bed was pristine, not mussed or disturbed. Dulcie searched to give the maid a logical explanation. “Er, no. I wanted to write to the staff at Bonne Vista
,
so I stayed up rather late. And then I fell asleep in the armchair and slept the night through, I’m afraid.”

“Well, then,” the girl said, spotting Dulcie’s wrinkled gown. “I’ll freshen up your new blue gown for ye.”

“Oh, yes, please. I feel terrible. I’m afraid I tore it last evening playing with Simon. Do you think you can mend the tear?” Dulcie wasn’t absolutely sure how the new gown had been ripped, but she hated digging herself into a hole filled with falsehoods. Next thing she knew, the countess would be in here asking unanswerable questions.

Dulcie turned to her maid. “Marnie, will you ask someone to bring me hot water for a bath? I need a good soak in the tub. I’m rather stiff from sitting up in that chair last night.” She was anxious to rid herself of the strange musky smell that clung to her skin—fragments of memory bringing back what Griff Spencer had done to her.

“Of course, milady.” Quite suddenly, the amiable, bright-eyed maid chirped, “Ooh! I see you’re wearing a new ring. How beautiful!”

Dulcie looked down. She had forgotten the ring. Now, it tightened on her finger like a golden noose. Again, visions of last night bombarded her.

Suddenly, other things came to Dulcie in an explosion of knowledge. All of it—her stepmother’s stern demand that she come to London posthaste, Griffith Spencer’s earlier move into the countess’s town house, Dulcie’s captivity at the mansion until she bought a new wardrobe, and most of all, Agina’s nephew’s availability so that she and Griff were thrown together and left alone to…to perform all manner of improper things. It all been her scheming stepmother’s doing.

But if Griff Spencer had slipped her mother’s betrothal ring on her finger, how did he get it?

* * * *

Griff had lounged in the wing chair watching Dulcie sleep. His guilty conscience rode roughshod over him in the course of those early morning hours. When dawn peeked behind the roofs of houses in the square, he needed a breath of fresh air. As he closed his bedroom door, he heard Simon’s scratching and whining from the room next door. He opened it and sneaked inside. Dulcie’s bedchamber was much like his, only with lace and fripperies to fancy up the décor.

“Woof!” Simon greeted him.

“Ah, there you are. I wager you’re glad to see someone, old boy, aren’t you? Miss your mistress, do you?”

“Woof!”

“Well, she’s still sleeping. But come on, I’ll take you for an outing.”

Griff buckled the leather leash he found nearby onto Simon’s collar. Together the two hurried into the hallway and down the stairs. One of the footmen greeted them as he opened the front door for them. Griff walked briskly, but stopped often for Simon to sniff his way around the square.

Wracked with chagrin, Griff needed to rid himself of a lingering guilt and an overabundance of tension. He whistled to Simon and the two started to sprint around the square.

Simon seemed to have a great time. He gamboled alongside Griff, panting with the fresh air and exercise. Meanwhile Griff clung tightly to the lead, finding it wasn’t easy to stay abreast with the young dog’s speed. After two trips around the square, both of the runners were puffing.

Griff pulled up and slumped onto one of the benches located on the perimeter of the small park. Simon immediately dropped to the ground next to Griff’s boots, put his head between his front paws, panting heavily, and let his tongue loll out of his jaws.

“Good boy,” Griff rasped, praising the dog. “We should do that…umm…more often, you and I. Getting soft, ain’t we?” He grinned down at the large canine and stroked the glossy, black fur.

When his breathing slowed, Griff gazed across the square at Eberley House. His thoughts swung almost immediately to the woman asleep in his bed. He wondered if she was awake yet. And if so, what she was thinking—or doing? He knew he had to face her soon, most likely this morning. The countess would make certain of that. He had no idea what kind of confrontation would take place. He hoped to explain if he got an opportunity.

Griff believed himself courageous while fighting the French, but today he was less so. He was anxiety-ridden and nervous. Nevertheless, he slapped his thigh, chirped to Simon, and strode back to the house. If he were fortunate, Dulcie would have gone back to her room. He badly needed a bath, a shave, and a clean set of clothes if he were to face the music—meaning Dulcie and the countess—with any kind of bravura.

* * * *

Griff handed Simon’s leash to a footman, asked him to return the dog to Lady Dulcie’s bedchamber by way of the back stairs while he loped up a front staircase by twos. Griff opened the door to his chamber tentatively and poked his nose inside. His room was deserted, the messy bed already straightened by a maid. He strode to the bed and flipped back the counterpane. The linen was fresh. The stained linen must have been removed for laundering by one of the housemaids.

How could he fabricate a story? He might lie and say he was clumsy, broke a glass and cut his hand, then bled onto the sheet. He would need to walk around with a bandage for a day or so, but … no, that wouldn’t work. Whoever tidied the room would look for glass shards or counted the number of glasses still intact on the liquor tray.

Blast the devil!
He told himself.
Why am I making up stupid stories? Why am I guilty at all? I did what I was ordered to do. The servants will know soon enough. The countess wants it known that Dulcie lost her virginity in my bed, and Agina will surely announce to her friends that Dulcie and I are soon to tie the knot.

Griff straightened the bed as best he could and turned to complete his daily ablutions. With nothing else to keep him after he shaved, washed, and dressed for the day, he made his way slowly to the morning room. Neither Dulcie nor the countess joined him. He ate breakfast alone and read the newspaper.

While glancing through
The
Times
, he noticed a tiny announcement on the back page. After reading it, he asked a footman to have Bravo saddled, then went to his room to procure his top hat, gloves, and riding crop. He listened but heard nothing from either side of his bedchamber. He was truly glad not to meet either woman face-to-face before he left on his errand.

Randolph Titus lived a short ride from Eberley House. Upon Griff’s arrival at his friend’s town house, a groom tied his horse to a hitching post while Griff sprinted up to the mansion’s entry. He rapped lightly on the double doors and was allowed inside when he announced his name to the butler.

“Lord Titus is not receiving,” the black-garbed servant said. “May I leave your card?”

“Sorry, old chap. No card, but you’ve seen me here previously. Be a good fellow and tell your employer that Griffith Spencer needs to speak with him.”

The butler frowned since the caller arrived at such an early hour. Nevertheless, he said, “Please make yourself comfortable in the green parlor while I see if my lordship is available, Mr. Spencer.”

Five minutes later, Griff heard the thumping of boot heels coming down the central stairs. Rand stuck his head through the doorway of the small receiving parlor. “Hi ho, Griff, what brings you here? Not in trouble, I hope.”