One Naughty Night2 (28 page)

Lily traced her mouth down his ridged abdomen, trailed a kiss over his navel, both his sharp hip bones, biting lightly at one. His breath hissed in his throat, and she smiled.

She lifted her head to see that he was erect again, the vein on the underside of his penis throbbing. Moisture glistened at its tip. He
did
want her, as much as she wanted him.

She pushed herself up and straddled his hips, rubbing slowly up his hard length. His fists clenched against the bed, and she shook her head. “Don’t move, Aidan.”

He grinned up at her. “Whatever you wish.”

Lily braced her palms against his chest and lowered herself carefully, deliberately, over his length, her wet, open womanhood taking him deep inside.

“Damn it, Lily,” Aidan groaned, his head falling back onto the pillows. His eyes were closed, the muscles in his neck taut. “
Yes.
Just like that.”

She reached for the carved edge of the headboard and rode him, burying him to the hilt.

Then he did touch her, his hips arching up into her so hard she cried out. He sat up and wrapped his arms around her waist, his mouth closing roughly over her breast. His teeth scraped over her nipple. She wrapped her legs around his hips and squealed as he spun her down to the bed, still inside of her.

He plunged into her, thrusting deeper, harder, his arms braced to either side of her head as their damp bodies slapped together. His teeth trailed over her arched neck, and she tightened her legs around his hips to meet him thrust for thrust.

She suddenly exploded with the force of her pleasure, crying his name over and over. “Lily,” he shouted. With one more surge, he collapsed to her side, his back heaving as he tried to catch his breath.

But Lily couldn’t breathe at all. She could only float free, her whole body trembling with the aftershocks. She reached
out and gently stroked his shoulder, his sweat damp on her palm, his heartbeat thudding against her, into her.

Finally, when their breath had slowed and Lily’s body cooled, Aidan kissed her hand lightly and rolled out of bed. She drew the sheets up around her shoulders and watched as he knelt to stir the embers in the grate back to a warming fire. He was still naked, and she couldn’t help but admire the shift and movement of his lean back muscles and his long legs as he sat there. His skin glistened a pale gold.

He glanced at her over his shoulder, a half-smile on his lips. “Like what you see?”

Lily laughed. “You’re the one walking around naked. If I choose to look…”

“I like the way you look at me.” He pushed himself lithely to his feet and came to sit at the foot of the bed. He wrapped one of the blankets around his narrow hips. He reached for her bare foot and laid it on his thigh, his long, deft fingers massaging the arch, the ankle. His movements were gentle, as rhythmic as music, and she nearly purred with pleasure as her eyes closed.

“I’m sorry I was… rough with you tonight,” he said. “I just needed you. I thought about you all day. You’ve completely wrecked my concentration.”

Lily shook her head. “I liked it, everything about it. I think I needed you too. Too much.”

His fingertips slid over the ball of her foot, easy and sensual. “Lily, why did you never marry again?”

“I told you how it was with my husband. I never want that again.”

“Not every man is like that.”

“Really? Well, I haven’t yet met one who was different,
not one I wanted to marry.” Only Aidan was truly different from other men, and they would never marry.

“You must have had admirers.”

“Have I?” Puzzled by his quiet, tense tone, Lily opened her eyes and looked at him.

“Did you never think you might marry Freddy Bassington?”

Freddy Bassington.
Lily found she could hardly remember him or the trouble he had once caused between her and Aidan. “Freddy didn’t want to marry me. I think he only liked the pursuit. And I won’t marry again.”

Aidan was quiet for a long moment. Lily closed her eyes and felt him gently stroke her hair. “I am sorry, Lily,” he finally said.

“Sorry?”

“Sorry for not telling you I was looking for Freddy’s letters right off. Sorry for not trusting you. I wish you could believe me, trust me.”

“Oh, Aidan,” Lily said with a soft smile. “I do forgive you. How could I not after what you did for me? But as for trust—I have told you before. I fear I don’t know how to really trust anyone.”

Aidan sighed and pressed a kiss to her hair. “Oh, Lily. What a fine pair we make…”

“‘S
o you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing. I am’—line. Line! Lily, are you listening?”

Lily’s head snapped up at Isabel’s sharp words. Isabel stood on a small stool in the dressing room backstage, running her lines as Hero while the wardrobe mistress hemmed her costume. Lily was meant to be helping Isabel as she mended a pile of other costumes, hoping that the two tasks would keep her distracted from her thoughts. The play opened tomorrow, and there was so much still to be done.

Obviously it wasn’t working. Her fingers automatically slid the needle in and out of the cloth, but she couldn’t quit thinking about Aidan and those damnable letters. And what had happened between them in that hotel bed.

At this point in their heedless, headlong affair, she would have thought the lust would be burned out, sputtering like the spent wick of a melted candle. Tom Beaumont was gone; Aidan had nothing else to rescue her from, and they had made love in almost every possible way. She should be furious with him about Freddy’s silly letters, should be done with him and the way he turned her life so crazily upside down.

But she wasn’t done. Even their quarrel over Freddy’s letters showed her that Aidan cared about his friends, no matter how hard he tried to hide that. It just made her like him more, damn it all. And she did not want to
like
him.

“I’m sorry, Issy,” she said. “I seem to be woolgathering today.”

“You must be thinking of something very complicated indeed. You were frowning so fiercely just then.” Isabel held up her arms to let the wardrobe mistress measure the tight velvet sleeves. “Was it the assembly? Or perhaps a certain gentleman you saw there?”

Lily glanced warily at the gray-haired wardrobe mistress and her scurrying assistants. They seemed to be intently focused on their tasks, but they had all worked for the St. Claires for a long time and were always interested in the family’s doings. The last thing Lily needed now was for more gossip about Aidan to reach her family.

“I was merely thinking of everything that needs to be done before this play opens,” Lily said briskly. “And you were the one with all the suitors at the assembly. You’ll have to choose one of them someday soon.”

Isabel gave her head an adamant shake but went perfectly still at a stern look from the wardrobe mistress. “Not any one of
them.
They’re horribly dull, and they treat me like a stupid, breakable little china doll. There’s nothing intriguing about them at all.”

Intriguing.
Lily stabbed her needle hard at the shirtsleeve in her hand. That was the problem with Aidan; he was much too intriguing. Every time she thought she had him figured out, he went and revealed a new facet to her. He was never really what he pretended to be—the spoiled, gorgeous, hedonistic son of an aristocrat. He was so, so much more.

“More lines, Lily?” Isabel said.

Lily nodded, glad of any distraction. “Hero says, ‘I am yours for the walk, and especially when I walk away’…”

It was hours before she could escape from the theater to find some fresh air. James was listening to actors run lines in the wings, a task meant to keep him busy. The stage was a dizzying hive of activity, the carpenters hammering together the set of the palace at Modena, musicians tuning up in the pit, actors practicing their sword fights in the aisles. Dominic fought the fiercest, as if he were pouring out all his foul temper of the last few days into the stage blade.

“Damn it all, Dom!” his opponent shouted as Dominic knocked him hard to the floor again. “It’s just a rehearsal, man. You don’t actually have to wound me.”

Dominic just wiped his shirtsleeve over his brow and said, “Again.”

Lily thought it best to avoid him. She took Isabel’s arm and led her between the red velvet seats of the stalls as they headed for the exit. They waved to their father, who was hurrying across the stage to make sure the sets were to his specifications. Sawdust covered his coat, and his dark hair stood on end from all his frantic tugging.

“We’re going to find some luncheon, Father,” Isabel called. “Shall we bring you back some refreshments?”

“No time for that now,” William answered. “No, no! That balcony door does not go there.”

“We will bring you something anyway,” Isabel insisted. “Mama would be angry if she found out you weren’t eating.”

William just ran off again, grabbing a hammer to take care of the errant balcony door himself, and there was a
sudden shout from Dominic’s opponent and a crash as he went down again.

“Come on,” Lily said, tugging at Isabel’s arm. “Let’s get out of here now.”

“Good idea.”

They hurried out into the bright warmth of the day and turned toward the small park near the theater for a quick turn on the pathways. The fine weather had drawn lots of people outdoors, and the park was crowded with black-clad nannies ushering their charges along with their hoops and dolls. Ladies took shelter under lacy parasols, and couples whispered in the shade of the trees.

Lily took in a deep breath. With Tom Beaumont gone, the day seemed even lovelier. She seemed to walk lighter, and she had the sudden urge to laugh at absolutely nothing.

If only Aidan was there to share it with her…

No.
Lily shook her head sternly at herself. She couldn’t think that way. She could share nothing with Aidan but their secret meetings, and even those would have to end soon. She would have to move on with her life again. She could never be a duchess.

“What a lovely day,” Isabel said. “And so wonderfully quiet out here. I always forget how very chaotic the theater gets just before a show opens.”

Lily laughed. “Do you wish you were still on holiday with Mama, then?”

“Not at all. I love the theater, even the loud parts of it. And the seaside wasn’t as peaceful as everyone seems to think.”

“Was it not?”

Isabel shook her head. “James kept vanishing off someplace, and Mother couldn’t quit fretting about everyone.
She is quite convinced we are all making very unwise decisions lately, especially when it come to romance.”

“She might not be very wrong about that,” Lily murmured. She turned what Isabel said about James over in her mind. “Where did James go?” Were his days of seeking out rough neighborhoods and dangerous people not as behind him as she had thought?

“I have no idea. No one tells me anything. It’s very tiresome.” Isabel stopped at a cart to buy a cone of sugared almonds, and they shared the treat as they went on with their stroll. “Tell me, Lily, do you know very much about Lord Aidan’s brother?”

Lily, who was still worrying about James and what he might be up to, gave Isabel a sharp, surprised glance. Did she have to worry about Isabel now as well? “Not much. Aidan says Lord David prefers to keep to himself in the countryside. I said he seldom appears in town.”

“A hermit duke. How fascinating.” Isabel munched thoughtfully on an almond before she added, “He was very handsome, don’t you think? Almost as handsome as your Lord Aidan. Perhaps their gouty old father was good-looking in his youth and passed it on to his sons? Though I hope they won’t age like him. It would be a shame to lose such gorgeousness.”

Lily choked on a laugh. “Issy! They are Huntingtons.”

“So that means they can’t be handsome? Oh, Lily, come now. You know that the evil, tempting sorcerer is always sinfully handsome. I wonder how I could contrive to meet with Lord David. Would your Aidan help me with that?”

“No, he would not. It would be a very bad idea for you to encounter Lord David Huntington. And besides, he is
not
my
Aidan. He was merely helping me with a task that is now over.”

“Oh, Lily,” Isabel sighed. “I would never have thought you would become as tiresome about the Huntingtons as Dominic and Brendan. Should we find some food to take back to the theater? Father will never eat if we don’t make him.”

“Of course,” Lily said automatically, still caught up in thoughts of Aidan, James, and being “tiresome.” They came out on the other side of the park, onto a busier street lined with bustling shops and cafes. It was very near where she met Aidan the second time, when he asked her to tea.

A newsboy stood on the corner, waving a broadsheet over his head as a crowd gathered around him.

“Criminal madman escapes from Newgate!” the boy cried. “Read the tale here, hot off the presses. Danger stalks London! Death around every corner!”

A bolt of ice shot through Lily as she heard the words, and she felt far away from the buzz of fear and excitement from the gathered crowd. The warm, lovely day went hazy around her, as if a freezing fog had swept in and covered the whole world in an instant. Her hand tightened on Isabel’s arm, and she barely heard her sister call out her name.

It couldn’t be. It could
not.
He was locked away, he would be executed soon, and he was out of her life for good. No one could escape from Newgate.

But she knew with a terrible certainty that it was true. That this was not a dream. She drifted toward the newsboy and his crowd, half aware of Isabel scurrying after her. She didn’t feel as if she were in the world at all, not the world of pavements and buildings and parks.

She tossed the boy a coin and snatched up the smudged,
hastily printed sheet. E
SCAPE FROM
N
EWGATE
! the headline read, and below it was a sketch of a wild-eyed, gaunt-faced Tom Beaumont being wrenched to the ground by constables. Below it was a drawing of the prison itself with arrows pointing to the roof of one of the towers.

Lily leaned back against a shop wall and hastily read the story. It was an amazing tale. It seemed that Beaumont had seen an iron and granite cistern at one corner of the wall in the prison airing yard, one that reached up above the roof and the spiked railing along the roofline. When the guards were changing shifts, he kicked off his boots and used the traction of his bare feet to climb the cistern. He pulled himself to the rim and gripped the spiked iron railing and hung on desperately with lacerated, bleeding hands. He worked his way around the flat roof and then jumped onto a ledge below, moving from building to building until he was past the prison and onto Newgate Street, where he could disappear back into the twisted slums from whence he came.