Grace Under Fire (2 page)

Atticus’s nerves strung tight as a bowstring while he watched Lady Grace…and waited. This was the moment—crucial, life-altering. She would either be open to the outrageous notion of being the wife of two men, in fact if not in law, and with it, the dire social consequences of that choice, or she would rush from the room in horror.

If the budding of her nipple beneath his hand and the scent of her rising arousal were any indication, her body had no objections whatsoever. Was receptive and even eager for their advances.

But she was an innocent, and what her body wanted, her mind might well reject. Should reject, if she had any wish at all to be accepted in polite society.

But he hoped she would not, for he longed to strip her cold, damp gown from her breasts and suckle their sweetness while Colin did the same. If she would only give them a chance to show her how much pleasure they could give her, he was sure she would be theirs forever.

Still, it must be her choice. If she decided their path could not be hers, she would suffer no ill consequences from this evening’s departure from the ballroom in their company. Colin had made certain of that.

She took a shuddering breath as he pressed his lips to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. “Do you understand, my lady, what we offer? What we require?”

Capturing her lower lip and rolling it between her teeth, she looked from him to Colin with wide, uncertain eyes. “I—I think you are saying that if I marry Lord Fitzgerald, you will both…occupy my marital bed.”

Colin nodded solemnly in answer. “That is true. We will both love and cherish you, in body and in spirit, if you choose to be ours.”

A sweet answer, perfectly pitched, Atticus thought, and wished he were half as silver-tongued as his friend. If it had been left to him, he likely would have told her that they both would touch her, kiss her, lick her, and fuck her until she was limp with ecstasy.

But that was something better demonstrated than declared.

“I s-see,” Lady Grace stammered, though it was clear she didn’t truly see at all. “And further, that if I marry Lord Fitzgerald, everyone will know—or guess—what we do together. And judge me for it.”

“Also true,” Colin agreed, his tone gentle, yet firm and unapologetic. “If you want a respectable union, you had best dismiss us immediately. Should you do so, I can assure you, no harm will befall you or your reputation.”

“But everyone saw me leave the ballroom with you,” she protested. Her eyes widened as if the severity of her predicament had just become apparent to her. “I am already ruined, for if everyone knows these things about you, they must know—”

“They know nothing,” Colin cut in. “Only that we escorted you from the ballroom. Whatever you decide now, be assured that rumor of your vehement and very public denial of our advances is already making its way to the ears that need to hear it.”

Lady Grace looked from Colin to Atticus and then down to where their hands fondled her beautiful, responsive tits. She bit her lip, considering, even as her eyes grew darker. Dreamier.

Atticus held his breath.

“And if I am not sure?” she asked, her voice breathy and tremulous. “If I need more time, more information?”

Colin drew back slightly, as if the possibility she would dither in her answer had not occurred to him. As if he had expected an instantaneous yes or no to so outrageous a proposition.

Atticus grimaced. Leave it to Colin to expect immediate results. As a nobleman, he was too much accustomed to having his every wish granted on a whim. Whereas Atticus, son of a lowly land steward, knew few things came easily.

Though he suspected Lady Grace would come easily if they could induce her to lift her skirts and allow them access to the sweet, musky flesh between her thighs.

But perhaps that was exactly the information she required. She was, after all, an unmarried lady of quality, and as such, a complete novice to the ways of men and women. Likely, if she had ever touched herself and brought herself to climax, she had done so furtively and without a true understanding of the nature—let alone the mechanics—of passion.

“I know what she needs,” Atticus said softly.

He slid the hand that rested on her leg up to the juncture of her thighs and bore down where he knew she must ache with arousal. The moment he touched her there, she squirmed, involuntarily telling him what she wanted. Massaging her in slow, firm circles with the heel of his palm, he watched her face. Her lips parted, and her cheeks flushed with arousal.

“She needs us to finish what we’ve started. Don’t you, sweetheart?”

She shook her head, but it wasn’t a denial. From the tempo of her respiration, from the heat of her pussy, from the color rising not just in her cheeks but across the swell of her breasts, she was on the brink of orgasm.

“I can’t…” she groaned, her hips grinding upward.

Atticus glanced at Colin.

“Oh yes, you can, my lady.” Colin slipped from the settee and knelt in front of her. “You can, and you will.” Sliding his hands up under her skirts, he pushed her thighs further apart and dipped his head beneath the fabric.

For just a moment, Atticus envied Colin the first taste of their lady’s cunt, but then he smiled as he realized it meant he would have the first taste of her mouth. And in the end, he couldn’t envy Colin, his blood brother, for long. There could be no enmity between them. After what they had endured together, it was as though they shared one soul.

“Oh, I…oh my,” she gasped as Atticus lifted his palm and Colin touched her with his mouth. “I don’t think you should…”

“Ah, but he most certainly should,” Atticus corrected, loving the way she turned even pinker with both embarrassment and desire. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”

“I…yes, but I’m sure it shouldn’t.”

“Darling,” Atticus said, leaning closer, “the first thing you must learn before you can decide whether to accept our proposal is that anything that feels good is permitted. There is no shame in pleasure, and no pleasure in shame. Do you understand?”

“I—I think so.”

“Then let go, my love, and feel. Come for us.”

Her brows knit together in an almost comical expression of puzzlement. “Come where?”

“You’ll see,” Colin rumbled from beneath her skirts. He shifted his body slightly and did something that made her close her eyes and moan with ecstasy.

Atticus could almost feel and taste her himself. His cock throbbed. It would be heaven to bury himself inside her tight, juicy cunt.

And then, her eyes flew open, and she did see. With a cry that Atticus muffled by covering her mouth with his own, she fell apart in his arms as the spasms of climax gripped her.

As Grace floated back to earth, her limbs weak and tingling with bliss, the only thing she could think was that someone owed her an apology for making her believe ravishment would be a bad thing. If
this
was being ravished, then she was entirely in favor of it.

Atticus brushed her curls, damp with perspiration, away from her forehead and smiled down at her, a triumphant sort of joy writ upon his features.

Meanwhile, Colin extracted a kerchief from a pocket and patted dry her nether curls, which were far more than merely damp. When he was done, he drew the same kerchief over his mouth and chin.

“Was that sufficient information, my dear?” he asked as he hoisted himself up to sit beside her once again.

Grace’s pulse, which was only just beginning to resume a normal pace, faltered and quickened again. What they had done, what they had made her feel, was nothing short of miraculous. Never could she have imagined such delight, but now she could all too easily imagine experiencing it every day of her life from this one forward. And loving it.

But there was more to life than physical pleasure. Wasn’t there? She didn’t know the first thing about these two men, not even whether they were who they claimed to be. How could she agree to something as permanent and binding as marriage on the strength of a few minutes’ acquaintance and the rapture they’d given her? Absurd.

On the other hand, given how many of her contemporaries had been wedded off to this or that nobleman on little more than a smile and a handshake, perhaps it wasn’t quite so ridiculous as all that. But then, this was hardly a standard proposal of marriage, was it? They were asking her for something scandalously outside the realm of a typical aristocratic marriage, and she didn’t even understand what that would mean.

Other than shocking, wicked pleasure.

Colin pressed a finger to the tip of her chin and turned her face to his. To her surprise, his sharp blue eyes softened with compassion and understanding. He pressed his lips to the top of her head before heaving a long, slow sigh. Releasing her, he looked over her head at Atticus.

“We’re expecting too much of her too soon. She needs time to get to know us before she can decide.” He smiled at her, an expression that made his already handsome face so beautiful, Grace thought her chest might cave in and crush her lungs. No mortal man should look so much like a god. “Don’t you, darling?”

Grace nodded. “Y-yes. We’ve only just met this evening. I c-couldn’t possibly agree to marry anyone on such short notice, let alone agree to the sort of arrangement you’re proposing. I don’t even understand why—”

Atticus cut her off with a laugh. “Why two men would want to share one woman?”

“Exactly,” she said. She looked from Colin to Atticus and back again. “Why do you? Wouldn’t it be easier if you were more…?” She trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence.

“Conventional? Normal?” Colin asked, his voice harsh. Not with anger, she thought, but with pain.

“It’s not easy to explain something one doesn’t fully understand oneself,” Atticus said quietly. “Perhaps the next time we meet, we can explain why this isn’t something we chose, but something that was chosen for us.”

Grace blinked in confusion. “The next time? Why not now?”

Colin chuckled. “Because if we are all three missing from the ballroom for much longer, you will have no choice but to admit you’ve been compromised and marry me post-haste. And as
much as we desire that outcome, we would rather you came to us of your own choice.” He nodded toward Atticus, and they both rose from their places beside her, each straightening his coat and cravat in nearly identical motions.

“But when will we meet again? You can’t be thinking to ask my father’s permission to court me.”

Atticus gave a little snort of disgust and shook his head. “No, your father would never permit a gentleman of Colin’s persuasions to court you. No sensible, loving father would.”

“Then what will we do?”

Colin took her hands and pulled her onto her feet. “We shall have to proceed by stealth and cunning, much as we did tonight.”

Grace’s eyes widened as comprehension—and outrage—flooded her brain. “You…you arranged this! You tripped me.”

Atticus grinned, and she vacillated between wanting to laugh at the mischievous glee that infused his features and wanting to slap him. “You didn’t really think you fell into Colin’s arms by accident, did you?”

Well, yes, of course she had, for it was exactly the sort of thing she was wont to do. And yet, now that she knew, she couldn’t find it within her to be angry. Not when they both looked as her as they did now, as if she were a long-held and distant dream made flesh. Perhaps they had deceived her, but how could she object when they had given her such incredible rapture—and treated her like a desirable woman instead of Society’s favorite laughingstock?

Truly, they had made feel her laugh-out-loud happy tonight, and she wanted more than anything to feel this way again.

“So, what will you do to spirit me away the next time, gentlemen?” she asked as a saucy grin pulled at her cheeks. “Set my skirts on fire?”

Colin’s eyes sparked, their ice-blue depths scorching with sudden purpose. With a low growl, he yanked her hard against him and lowered his mouth to hers. His kiss was nothing like the gentle, soothing one Atticus had bestowed earlier to capture her cries of pleasure.

No, this was a direct, frontal assault, a demand for possession and submission. Colin’s tongue swept across her lips, his teeth nibbled at them, and when she opened her mouth, he thrust inside with a raw insistence that reminded her instantly of the way his fingers had moved inside her down there. The memory brought with it a rush of liquid warmth between her thighs and a weakness to her knees. Everywhere, she was ablaze, and like a stack of logs too long exposed to a flame, she threatened to collapse.

Just as she thought she might slide to the floor in a boneless heap, Atticus moved in behind her. Bolstering her. Supporting her with the hard, hot pressure of his body. His hands slipped around to cup her breasts, his thumbs tracing circles over her rapidly hardening nipples. He rocked his hips against her backside, the ridge of his arousal nestling into the crevice between her buttocks. Soft as a butterfly’s wings, his mouth traced the curve of her neck from nape to earlobe, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.

It was wrong, allowing two men to touch her as they did. And yet, it felt nothing but good and right. Already, she could no more choose between the uncompromising demand of Colin’s kiss and the sweet supplication of Atticus’s touch than she could choose between breathing and having a heartbeat. She wanted both. Needed both.

Abruptly, she was released.

“You may trust, my lady, that the next time we see you, it will not be your skirts we set on fire.”

Then, with two identical courtly bows, they were gone.

Although Grace waited for several minutes after Colin and Atticus departed for her breathing and color to return to normal, when she returned to the ballroom, her damp, disheveled dress clung to her breasts, revealing the still hardened tips of her nipples. Anyone with any discernment at all would surely see them and her lips, swollen and reddened from both men’s kisses, and brand her for the harlot she clearly was. Instead, to her amazement, a group of matronly ladies swooped in upon her and, rather than denouncing her, set about fussing over her like mother hens.

“Oh, you poor dear, to be beset upon like that!” Mrs. Lawrence clucked, draping her arm over Grace’s shoulder and giving her a sympathetic squeeze. “You should be very proud of yourself.”

“Indeed, you are a brave young lady,” Lady Darlington crowed, as she and several other women crowded around Grace and voiced their agreement with this pronouncement.

“Quite extraordinary.”

“Remarkable presence of mind.”

“Come now, ladies, give the child a bit of space.” The dowager Countess of Aberdeen, whose skirts Grace had tripped over the other night, pushed her way through the throng. “And for heaven’s sake, bring her a lemonade. She must be perishing of thirst after her ordeal.”

Well, Grace had to admit the countess was quite correct about that—she was, in fact, perishing of thirst. But she could scarcely describe her encounter in the retiring room as an “ordeal.”

What on earth did these women imagine she had done? Certainly, they didn’t think she had spread her legs and let one man touch her
there
with his mouth while another kissed her and fondled her breasts. The memory brought on an instant wave of heat and a wobbly sensation to her knees, and she swayed dangerously.

“Look, the poor dear is about to faint dead away. Step back and let her breathe.” The other ladies obeyed Lady Aberdeen’s command.

Before she quite knew what was happening, Grace found herself being steered to a chair and handed a cup of lemonade, which she managed to sip without spilling.

She desperately wanted to ask what she had done to merit such fawning attention from these women, who had heretofore treated her with a mixture of pity and disdain, but of course, to do so would thoroughly destroy whatever charade she was supposed to be playing. Faced with no alternative, she simply nodded in agreement with whatever they said, eventually piecing together the facts such as her admirers understood them.

When Viscount Fitzgerald and Mr. Stilwell had culled her from the herd like a lamb for slaughter, Lady Aberdeen had immediately recognized the threat to Grace’s virtue. Though slowed by the throng, the countess followed the three of them into the main entryway, arriving in time to observe Grace deliver a stinging blow to Lord Fitzgerald’s cheek and a sharp knee to Mr. Stilwell’s groin. Firmly set back in their attempts at seduction, the two men had made a swift exit—or as swift an exit as was possible in Mr. Stilwell’s now pained condition—while Grace ducked into a retiring room to compose herself. Lady Aberdeen considered knocking on the retiring room door to confirm the young lady was unharmed, but decided it was more important to return to the ballroom and relay the news of Lady Grace’s valiant resistance.

Grateful as she was to Lady Aberdeen for preserving her reputation—and perhaps even improving it—Grace was flabbergasted by this turn of events. For if Lady Aberdeen had, indeed, followed her, Colin, and Atticus from the ballroom, then she knew precisely what had transpired…and it had surely not been the cutting set-down the countess had described. Lady
Aberdeen’s reputation as an upstanding matron of the ton was even more sterling than Grace’s should now be tarnished.

Why on earth would such a woman concoct a patently false tale to protect a young lady she scarcely knew and could have no particular interest in keeping from harm? If anything, the countess should be trumpeting Grace’s fall from grace from the highest peak, not attempting to sweep it up beneath her voluminous skirts.

But Grace had no opportunity to discover her unlikely guardian angel’s motives. Before she knew what was happening, she was fielding introductions to the eligible male relatives of the matrons who now found her “worthy” of the affections of their sons, nephews, or cousins. Soon, her dance card for the rest of the evening was full and she was being whirled about the floor by one gentleman or another, leaving her dizzy and…deflated.

She should be overjoyed. Her parents certainly would be when they heard she had danced (and failed to tread upon) two barons, one viscount, one heir to an earldom and the younger brother of a duke. For the first time in her life, she had what she had always coveted—the
right
sort of attention, from the right sort of people.

And all she wanted was to know when she would once again have the wrong sort of attention from the very wrong sort of men.

Colin stretched his legs toward the hearth and accepted the tumbler of whisky Atticus handed him. Relief washed through his limbs at the safe, familiar surroundings of his library, its walnut shelves lined with hundreds of books that spoke volumes but demanded no answers. With books, there were no expectations and no judgments.

God, he hated Society. He would never have suffered tonight’s gathering, rife with sly glances and whispered innuendo, if Atticus hadn’t been so certain about Grace Hannington.

Now, with the earthy-sweet taste of her fresh on his tongue and her authentic, unguarded response to their combined touch at the forefront of his mind, Colin shared his best friend’s belief. He only hoped Lady Grace would be willing to trade respectability for pleasure…and eventually for love.

Atticus leaned against the mantel, grabbed the iron poker from its filigreed stand, and stirred the embers. Although he was making an effort to appear relaxed, his stiff posture betrayed his physical discomfort. “Perhaps we should have pressed her harder. We could have been halfway to Gretna Green by now,” he muttered.

“And your cock would be appeased instead of hard as that poker.”

Atticus looked up from the sparking bits of wood with a scowl. “You’re no better off than I am,” he observed, casting a meaningful glance at Colin’s crotch.

“Never said I was. But you were right. She needs to choose us for the right reasons, not because we forced her hand.”

“And if she doesn’t choose us?”

Colin could only shake his head. “I don’t know. But let’s give Abby a chance to do her part before we assume the worst, shall we?”

Atticus set the poker back in its place and scowled. “I just hope she doesn’t do her part too well.”

Openmouthed with surprise, Grace shuffled through the stack of calling cards and invitations, counting them a third time.

Fourteen, fifteen,
sixteen
.

With a small
oomph
, she collapsed onto the settee and looked at her mother in disbelief. “Are you quite certain these are all for me?”

Mama patted her carefully coiffed hair with unconcealed glee. “Of course, they are. You were the belle of the ball, my dear. I knew the day would come.” The way she primped and preened, one would think her daughter’s dubious—not to mention entirely fictional—achievement was her own.

Grace looked down at the surfeit of envelopes and cards clutched in her hand and tried to compass this sudden shift of fortune. Six calling cards from the gentlemen she’d danced with last night, another six from the matrons who had come to her aid, and four envelopes containing invitations she had yet to open.

All because Lady Aberdeen had inexplicably lied on her behalf.

Grace had lain awake until well past dawn, her mind twisting itself into knots in an effort to fathom the why and wherefores of the countess’s actions. Even when she had given up, she’d been unable to sleep, her body heavy and raw with the memory of her encounter with Colin and Atticus. Only after she had given in to the shameless need puckering her nipples and throbbing between her thighs and relieved the tension with her own fingers had she been able to drift off into slumber.

Though it had hardly been restful, for her dreams were rife with erotic images she would never before have been able to imagine in words, much less visualize in excruciating, tantalizing detail. Two men touching her nude body, caressing and kissing her, anywhere and everywhere. They licked and nibbled at her mouth, her nipples and the sensitive flesh of her sex, massaged the firm globes of her breasts and buttocks, rubbed the rigid evidence of their arousal against her belly and backside…

“Aren’t you going to open them?” Her mother’s eager question interrupted Grace’s inappropriate woolgathering.

She blushed, grateful that her mother could surely not guess where her thoughts had wandered, then blushed hotter as it occurred to her to wonder whether her mother and father had ever…
But no
. That was entirely impossible, something she would prefer to die than contemplate.

“Yes, of course, Mama.” She might be clumsy and ill-at-ease at Society events, but she had always been obedient.

Dutifully, she unfolded the envelope encasing each invitation and read it aloud to her mother’s crows of delight.

“An at-home to be held by the Honorable Mrs. Thomas Darby next Tuesday beginning at three o’clock p.m.”

“That should be quite nice,” Mama commented, “but perhaps you should not respond just yet.” In the polite but cutting language of societal hierarchy, Grace knew this meant her mother considered the Darbys socially acceptable, but only just. She wanted to be sure Grace was not committed to a less-than-ideal engagement in the event something “better” came along.

“A party at Vauxhall Gardens, hosted by the Earl of Wesmouth, a week from Wednesday.”

“Lovely,” her mother squealed. “And the earl is yet unmarried.”

And, Grace thought with a shudder, with his potbelly and the tufts of hair that stuck out over his ears, he resembled nothing so much as a potted plant. His conversational skills did little to dispel the impression.

“A fancy dress ball at Buckingham House in two weeks’ time.”

“Buckingham House!” Mama exclaimed, clutching at her heart. “To think you have been invited there.”

While Mama continued to wax rhapsodic over the prospect of attending a ball hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham—“She is royalty, you know! And they have the most amazing gardens!”— Grace opened the final invitation and read it silently. Her eyes widened, and her pulse stuttered with excitement.

Countess Aberdeen requests the honor of a private audience with Lady Grace Hannington at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.

It was not merely the prospect of at last learning why Lady Aberdeen had covered the truth to save her reputation that made Grace’s heart beat erratically. No, it was what was written in a slashing, unquestionably masculine hand upon the tissue paper that had been placed inside the thick parchment.

Please come. C