Lady Be Good (29 page)

“You think you’ve painted yourself low? Because you’ve stolen, now and then. Because you were born to a family you would not have chosen.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it. His question felt like a trap. “Do you mean to say you don’t think me so very bad?”

He made a noise of amusement, low and husky. It startled her. And then, in conjunction with his slight, growing smile, it seemed to brush across her skin like fingertips, stirring a thrill that made her stomach dip.

“Well,” she said, barely audible, “I am a thief, you know.”

“Very bad,” he murmured. “Irredeemably wicked.” He leaned forward, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. “
J’accuse
. You say I am hard on myself. But you’re no different in that, Lilah.”

Her brain was broken. It interpreted his expression as tender and affectionate. The way he looked at her made her chest heavy and full, so she could not breathe.

“If you think me better than a thief,” she whispered, “then you really have no cause to blackmail me, you know.”

“So I don’t. Look where you laid my tie. Those are for you.”

She had ignored the documents. But now, as she stood and nudged aside the neckcloth, she recognized the shape of the papers. She flipped them over, then looked back at him, amazed. “But I haven’t . . .”

He rose. “You’ll take them back to London,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow. Your obligations here are done.”

Back to London
. What a curious sensation, to have such a great weight removed so suddenly, without warning. Her troubles with Nick were over. She would be free of this nightmare. And . . . free of Palmer, too. Her blackmailer. The only man who would ever know her truly—who would recognize her as the girl who had
climbed out of Whitechapel into the marbled halls of Everleigh’s.

A testament
, he had called that.

She did not want to leave him just yet. “You go too easy on me,” she said softly. “Won’t you demand anything else before I go?”

His fingertips settled against her cheek, five points of infinitely light contact, which seemed to electrify her whole body. “Yes. I think I will.”

“Then take it.”

His eyes narrowed. That was all the warning he gave her before he pounced. His hands at her waist, strong and commanding, lifted her; he carried her across the room.

By the window sat a low daybed, fashioned in a much earlier age, when women’s panniers had spread six feet across. He laid her down there. Stripped off her dress with quick, sure movements. She made no sound. Simply watched him. She had made her choice.

He reached across her, toward the knife he’d laid down earlier when he’d disarmed himself. It felt right to turn for him, to let him cut her free of her underlinens. If he asked, she would bare her throat for him tonight. He knew her. He could do as he pleased.

The blade clattered as it landed in some distant corner. He looked her over, his nostrils flaring. She recognized his expression. Desire and fury were not so different. Both burned. She reached for him, but he shook his head, a small, precise tic.

“I’ll look, first.” His words were rough. He caught her arms and laid them above her. Then, with the back of his hand, he traced down her body. The base of her throat. The swell of her naked breasts. He took an audible
breath as he passed over her nipples, which peaked for him. She shifted, restless beneath his devouring gaze, and saw how it affected him; the tensing of his jaw, the ruthlessness that came into his face.

“For weeks now,” he said, his voice almost soundless, “I have made love to you in my mind. But I did not . . .” He placed his thumb in her navel, his mouth a hard line. “I did not do your body justice.” His hand skated down to her hipbone; he gripped her there as he leaned down to take her nipple in his mouth.

No gentleness. She wanted none. His lips closed around her, a hard, sucking pressure. Her body replied, clamoring in pulsing throbs as he laved her. His other hand charted the fullness of her hip, massaged the back of her thigh.

Her hands found their own mind. They landed on his hard waist, clutching at the fabric that kept his skin from hers. “Take this off.” That was her voice. “Do it.” She would have her fill of him. No posturing, no disguises.

He retreated, straddling her with his knees as he ripped off the offending layers. She understood then why he’d castigated his own fantasies. She’d dreamed of his body—she had imagined she knew its shape. But laid bare, his chest was broader, more powerfully developed than she’d guessed. She reached up to touch it, smoothing her palms over the sparse blond hair, then lower, to the animal flex of muscle in his abdomen. She hooked her fingers in the waistband of his trousers. The front was now tented so prominently that she hesitated, a moment’s fear fracturing her desire.

His hand caught hers. “Go ahead,” he said very softly. “Take what you want.”

Yes.
She
wanted this. The buttons looked complicated. But there was no lock, no fastening she could not coax open. She fumbled once, then figured out the way of it. The first button yielded. Then the second. The heel of her hand brushed the head of his cock, and he hissed out some unintelligible sound, a spell perhaps, for it triggered a wash of heat through her. She quickened her work. Now the third button. The fourth, ah, God, he was large; the trousers yielded and she pressed her palms to his lean flanks, smoothing over the hot muscled density of his hips as she shoved off the trousers.

His thighs were brawny, strapped with muscle. And what lay between them . . .

She laid her hand against his cock. The thick, solid length of him.

He groaned. Caught her hand and pulled it free. He laid his large body down onto her, a heavy hard weight that trapped her with his cock pressed between them, an inch shy of where she needed it. She squirmed, trying to twist herself into position, but he breathed, “No.” Then his hand slid through her hair. Hooking it in a strong grip, he pulled her head back, so he looked into her eyes.

“Tell me your name,” he said.

She stared up at him, panting. “Please.”

He adjusted his hips, so the head of his cock pressed solidly against the opening of her quim. “Your name.”

Yes.
Yes
, that was where she’d wanted him. “Lilah,” she gasped.

His hand tightened in her hair. It should have pained her. But in this terrible state, strung on the edge of need, it registered only as another kind of pleasure, fierce and sweet. “Your real name,” he ground out.

Lily
. The syllables formed in her mouth. What did it
matter now if she spoke them? He saw her. He knew her in every way that counted.

But one shred of sanity remained to her. It was the rule of Whitechapel, the rule of survival: never surrender everything.

She jerked her hips. He hissed out a gasp. She’d found her mark. The tip of him pressed into her, a blunt, burning pressure.

His grip loosened; his hips moved. He pushed, slowly opening a place she’d not known existed. Not like this. For a frightened beat, it was too much. He was too large. Or she too small. She tried to draw back—squirm away.

But he was done with hesitations. His hands closed around her hips. Pinned her in place, his eyes as fierce as suns. He thrust, a hard sharp move that brought his hipbones into hers. Filling her. Full beyond measure. She could not breathe. She . . .

He retreated. Penetrated her again. Leaned down and filled her mouth with his tongue, allowing no retreat, brooking no resistance. Her hands found his buttocks, closing around them, a merciless muscular flex, rhythmic now as he fucked her.
Fuck
. That word had never made sense . . . a man’s word, unbearably dirty.

But he was fucking her now. And her body welcomed it. The discomfort was gone. She could take him forever.
Never stop
. The rhythm was leading somewhere.
Keep me here
. His strong, hard body was pounding into her, his hips slapping into hers, his gaze locked so fiercely on her face,
make me yours
, she was so hot, soft, melting beneath him. She would take him forever and ever, until . . .

He was whispering in her ear. She could not make sense of it. She was only sensations, a building crisis. He
eased away to reach between them, to the spot where they joined, and through her fever she registered this sight, the hard muscled plane of his belly, the sight of his cock moving deeply within her, his muscular thighs flexing as he thrust, as his thumb slipped over her quim and touched that spot—

She cried out.
There. That
. She caught his hips, dragged him against her as she convulsed around him. His teeth closed on her shoulder. He went very still, locked inside her, rigid as stone as the pleasure ebbed away.

And then he moved once more, one deep thrust that caused her to contract again, on a startled gasp, no, there could not be more, but there was—

He pulled out of her. Spilled his seed across her thigh as he kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her throat and shoulders. Yes, it was what she deserved. She closed her eyes and felt a smile drift across her mouth. He kissed that, too, as he came back over her. His fingertips, so light, skated across her mouth.

“Yes?” he said roughly.

Oh, yes
.

That poor butcher.

One of the maids dragged Lilah out of bed just before noon. “Begging your apologies,” Holly said, “but Miss Everleigh wishes to speak with you.”

Groggy, Lilah stumbled to her feet. Her corset lay discarded on the floor, the laces loosened to their ends. If Holly wondered at the cause, she did not ask as she set to tightening them again.

But the sight brought Lilah to full alertness. She blushed as the maid helped her dress. Her body felt . . . different. More sensitive. The corset seemed to crush her breasts. And when she stepped into her gown, she felt a soreness between her legs, a twinge that triggered a deeper quickening.

She’d not slept much. Before she had left Palmer, she’d made him try to coax her name from her again. And then again . . .

Holly was speaking. “. . . much recovered. The doctor is with her now. She’ll be on her feet by tomorrow.”

But Lilah would not be here to see it. She’d been sacked. Among other things. Smiling to herself, she followed Holly out into the sitting room.

“Oh.” Holly picked up an envelope from the tea table. “His lordship sent this before he left.”

“Left?” Lilah opened the envelope. Enclosed was a train ticket, and a brief note.

“To Sussex,” Holly said. “A telegram came this morning. Some trouble with his family.”

She smiled at the edict—then faltered beneath a premonition of oncoming foolishness. She was not going to weep on the train, was she? She’d gotten exactly what she wanted. Regrets would be idiotic. What did she imagine—that he would offer marriage? Of course not.

But to be given only a single night with him . . .

From the doorway, Holly cleared her throat. “Miss Everleigh was
most
anxious to see you, miss.”

Yes, most eager to remind her she’d been sacked, no doubt. Lifting her skirts, Lilah hurried after the maid.

In Miss Everleigh’s bedroom, the doctor was packing up his bag as his patient lounged among a dozen pillows. She looked pale and fatigued, but her hair was neatly plaited. The open windows had aired the room of any lingering reek. “Miss Marshall,” she said, her voice slightly hoarse. “The maids said you were shut up in your rooms. Why is that?”

No thanks for having nursed her, but Lilah expected none. “I could not leave before I saw you well.” She hesitated, realizing that if she wished to keep her position as a hostess, she had no choice but to grovel. “I do hope you will forgive me for the other day. My behavior was—”

“No.” Catherine struggled to sit upright. “I mean, why aren’t you at work?” She knocked her plait behind her shoulder. “This ridiculous man tells me I must remain bedridden until tomorrow, but that’s no reason for
you
to dawdle.”

Dr. Hardwick inched toward the door. Lilah stepped aside to let him pass, taking the opportunity to ponder her best reply. Had the sickness given Miss Everleigh amnesia? “I . . . before, you said—”