Sin (16 page)

“I’ll agree with you there, sweeting, though I’ve been told that it can be the most enriching experience there is.”

“By whom?” Venetia asked.

“My sister. And my father—though he wouldn’t have known love if it bit him on the arse,” Marcus said. He got up from the bed, tossed back the rest of his coffee, and carried his empty cup back to the coffee urn, thinking about love. Other than Min, he’d never had a discussion about love with a woman before. It was a dangerous path to tread. How had Min described love?
Intimacy. Friendship. Something glorious that both hurts and enriches. And you know that if you lost it, your heart might never mend.

Intimacy. He’d never shared intimacy like this with anyone. Was this what his sister found with her husband?

He’d never shared breakfast in bed, spilling crumbs and smearing butter, learning about a woman’s soul. No wonder his blasted father advised him against waking up with a woman—

“Did you truly have hot wax dropped on you?”

He wasn’t expecting that question. He set the urn back before filling his cup. “Yes,” he answered with a wry grin. “Though afterward I wondered if Swansborough had lied about his interest to entice me to do it. It’s the sort of bizarre joke he’d enjoy playing.”

Her green-flecked eyes were serious, contemplative. “He’s very like you, but he’s not.”

That surprised him. “A woman’s riddle.”

A whim had him lifting the carafe of chocolate. Filling his cup with the cooling treat. Carrying the cup, he paced back to the bed, aware of his erection swaying.

Venetia was kneeling on the bed in her sweet nightdress, legs curled beneath her. The picture of innocence. “No, I mean he is like you in that he is—”

“Handsome and charming?” He stirred the chocolate with his index finger.

“Bother you, yes, but I meant that he’s…rakish and jaded about the most shocking exploits. But with you I feel safe and comfortable. He makes me uneasy.”

“Has he propositioned you? Touched you?”

“No,” she said quickly. “No, he hasn’t.”

“Why the interest in Swansborough?” Even he heard the jealousy behind his light tone. He saw her tense as his finger approached her lips, a light coating of chocolate running down.

“I was thinking that if I were Lydia, I wouldn’t blackmail him. Or you. Or any of these men. You are all too dangerous. But he seems the darkest. He wants to be punished.”

He painted her mouth with the rich drink, and her tongue flicked out, licking his finger clean. A tremor raced down his body, thundered through his cock. “I understand now why your paintings are so exquisite.”

He undid the tapes of her nightdress, gently opened the neckline to expose her breasts. Dipping his finger again, he traced her nipples, circling them until they were dark with chocolate. He bent and sucked them, tasting the bitter tang, the sweetness of her skin.

“W—why?” Her eyes were wide.

“Because an artist’s eye can see into a man’s hidden soul,” Marcus said.

The thought startled Venetia. But in her pictures, she feared he could see her hidden soul. What if Marcus looked and realized that, at the end of the book, the roguish earl fell in love with the mysterious lady who had made love to him on his journey but who had never offered her heart? For that was the forbidden story behind
Tales of a London Gentleman
. The rake falling hopelessly in love.

“I didn’t know you when I painted those,” she protested.

“Now I must look,” he teased. “And I know Chartrand has a copy. Or perhaps I should have you paint my portrait.”

He painted her nipples again, making them large and dark. With a heavy-lidded gaze, he admired his handiwork, then surged forward to suckle.

How could she paint his portrait? Shock filled her, tumbling with desire, as he held her tight, as he nuzzled, nibbled, licked her breasts. She wished she could—but she couldn’t.

Every brush stroke would reveal how much she desired this man. How could she hide how awe-inspiring she found his wide shoulders? Shoulders that made her hands seem small and inconsequential. And his chest—she couldn’t help but lovingly depict the chest that made her feel warm and protected.

It would destroy her to draw his face—to put her skills to the test to capture the color, the life, the naughtiness, the kindness, the sensuality and the honor in his eyes. Anyone viewing his lips would know that they’d been drawn by someone addicted to the wide shape, the playful dip of his upper lip, the firmness, the seductive color—not quite pink, not bronze, but so tempting…

Those lips tempting her now. His eyes waiting for an answer.

“I don’t wish to talk anymore,” she whispered.

He laughed. “I’ve never had a woman accuse me of being too chatty.” But he fell back on the bed, pulling her with him. She sprawled over him, breasts still at his mouth. Her nightdress flew up. The ridge of his erection pressed against her mound. She mustn’t…she shouldn’t…she couldn’t resist.

She brushed her quim along his prick, the lips wet over the shaft. She kissed his shoulder, inhaling the musk of his underarms, and dabbed her tongue there, in the soft hair, to taste sweat.

He groaned. “No, sweeting. My juice is flowing. Even a touch risks pregnancy.”

She lifted her hips in a hurry. “Oh no! Not a bastard child.”

“There are all the other ways we’ve explored…” Eyes wild and wicked, he asked, “Do you want me? Or do you want more breakfast?”

He skimmed his hands down her spine and licked her neck, taking her to madness with a flick of his tongue. Her belly rumbled but she didn’t care. “You! Dear heaven, yes.”

“Then, onto your tummy, Vixen.”

As she rolled, presenting lush curves, a loud knock rattled the door once more. The footman called, “A message of importance, milord.”

Venetia collapsed into the mound of pillows as he shrugged on his robe, padded to the door. She wasn’t going to ask about his private business, but to her surprise he gave her the note to read.

My lord Trent,

Gentlemen are wagering on the identity of Vixen. I must meet you and your partner in the south drawing room before her identity is revealed.

Lydia

Lydia sat back with an exasperated sigh. Trent’s clever companion had locked her trunk. She rose and stole to the bedside table of Vixen’s room. The surface was bare, the drawer empty except for the obligatory ropes and a short riding crop. No key was to be found.

She stroked her sore neck—she could barely speak, it seemed her throat had swollen, and the pain had grown worse, not better. She had half a mind to publish Chartrand’s secret anyway.

Half a mind indeed—he’d kill her.

At least her ploy to lure Trent and his jade away had worked.

She should be recovering in bed and her door firmly locked. This was madness—but she wanted this business finished with haste, and if she wanted her money from Trent, she required leverage.

Stroking her poor bruised neck, Lydia sat down on the edge of the rumpled bed. Would this prove to be worth the money she’d paid to bribe the maid?

There was the escritoire. The screen around the chamber pot. The mantel. The wardrobe.

Her only hope might be the wardrobe but she doubted the key was to be found in the room. She pulled the doors open quickly, releasing the scent of lavender. She fingered the dresses, testing the quality of material.

There were few dresses—silks and muslins—but not the latest fashions or the best quality. The seamstress who had constructed them was adequate but not talented. Trent had not purchased these dresses, she would wager on that. There were too few of them. And he would insist on purchasing from the most fashionable modiste.

The girl’s underclothes were in the drawers and some were positively ghastly. Functional cloth not expensive silk. Plain and dull.

But it made no sense. Even if Trent had acquired a country girl as his paramour, he would buy her decent clothes.

Who was Trent’s lover?

Did she dare take the time to search Trent’s room? Really, what would she hope to find there? But she had this opportunity, one she would not have again…

Lydia moved swiftly across the floor. Smug delight soared when the doorknob of the connecting door turned beneath her hand—

Footsteps. Outside, in the hallway.

Numbing panic rose. What if Trent had seen through her ruse? What if he’d only left long enough to lure her to walk into a trap. He could accuse her of stealing. Have her arrested or transported—

Her legs felt mired in mud. She must stay calm. Her neck throbbed. She must remember she was not a desperate, friendless, penniless girl anymore…

Get out. Get out.
The words beat at her, like a desperate bird trapped against glass.

She ran for the door.

S
hadows filled the south drawing room, but exotic lamps illuminated the sensual entertainment on offer. Venetia blinked in astonishment.

It was only late morning, yet Chartrand’s events had already begun.

In the middle of the room, a woman was upside down! Suspended from the ceiling by a golden chain that winked in the candlelight, she twirled in the center of the large room. The chain bound her ankles together. She was nude and her large breasts hung toward her lips. Blond hair spilled down, a golden waterfall spiraling over the floor.

The blonde didn’t appear upset by her predicament. Her hands were free—she lifted one pendulous breast to her mouth, until she could lick her own nipple

Venetia’s legs trembled at the sight. Her breasts weren’t large enough for that…and as the tongue flattened over the swollen nipple, her legs swayed. As though she, too, were spinning.

A burst of applause broke in. Two men were reclining, watching the woman’s performance. Fully dressed, they lay amongst a jumble of silky pillows. It looked like a decadent scene from the East. A curious scent clung to the air—smoky, sweet, hazy. The men appeared half-asleep, in heavy-lidded languor, but their breeches were open, their cocks out, and they ran their hands lazily up and down the rigid lengths.

The iron lamps sent patterned light dancing over the men. One had dark brown hair. The other’s was raven black. Lords Brude and Swansborough.

“The scent is from an opium pipe,” Marcus murmured, “And I don’t see Lydia.”

The woman’s hand was at her quim, sliding something in and out of her. A long ivory toy. Her face was growing flushed and the position must be painful, but she only smiled enticingly.

Venetia couldn’t tear her gaze from the woman, hypnotized by the way her breasts pointed and swung, by her long, seductive strokes. She must think about Lydia. About danger. “Could she be late?”

She felt him watching her and glanced up, blushing.

He winked. “Do you wish to go in? To relax on the cushions and watch?”

“No.” But the men stood up from the cushions and strolled toward the woman. Their erect cocks protruded and she couldn’t look away. Swansborough approached the hanging woman from the back. He buried his face against her bottom.

Brude set to work on the woman’s cunny with his mouth. At first, the blonde thrust into herself with the wand, moaning as the men pleasured her. But then Brude withdrew the wand—impossibly long—and he held it down to the woman’s mouth. Obediently she flicked her tongue over it, then took it in deep and held it there. The jade couldn’t moan any longer, it acted as a gag.

Marcus brushed a kiss against her ear. “Shall we wait?”

This was naughty. Scandalous. To watch.

Marcus cradled her breast and she allowed it, loved it. His hot breath on her neck tangled her senses. “Do you wish to stay for the climax?”

Brude was tying the woman’s hands now. What would the ton’s ladies say if they saw their romantic poet doing that?

“The woman,” she whispered. “Who is the woman?”

“Sarah. A protégé of Rosalyn Rose.”

She’d guessed he would know but still her heart gave a twinge. He’d given her the name without a moment’s hesitation—as though it had been on the tip of his tongue.

“Is she…enjoying that? Or…is it just to please the men?”

“Sweetheart, in truth I can never tell when a woman is acting a part to please me. Does watching it excite you?”

“Yes.” She was ashamed that she’d admitted it.

He fondled her breast, her derriere, whispered, “There’s no shame in that, sweeting. Many women fantasize about bondage, and enjoy it.”

Venetia wanted to believe that he would understand. “I’ve looked at Belzique’s work. It…it fascinated me even as it horrified. But those pictures were impossibly tame compared to this. To what people truly do.”

Marcus was stunned. Innocent Venetia enjoyed Belizique’s depictions of dominance and submission? Already hardened by the display before him, by watching other men taste and enjoy an aroused woman, he felt his cock pulse in response to her words.

“Bondage can be playful and safe between partners who trust.” Even as he spoke, his brain screamed—
what in hell are you thinking?

“Are you…offering to try it with me?” she asked softly.

He conjured an image. Her naked legs spread wide, waiting to be bound and her quim exposed to him, soaked with her juices. He would tie her. Velvet ropes would bind her hands, truss her breasts, saw into her wet pussy. He would make her come just by the way he tied and tightened the ropes.

In the bottom of Chartrand’s box of toys had been clamps for her erect nipples. His great weakness was a woman with her nipples clamped, with chains or jewels dangling there. He loved to watch heavy gold weights suspended from a woman’s breasts, and he loved a woman stuffed with sexual toys, pleasuring herself with her every movement—

Swansborough was sliding a slim unlit candle into Sarah’s bottom. He added another and Sarah moaned around the carved dildo she held between her lips.

Marcus’ cock throbbed in time with her moans. With gentle strokes, Swansborough added another candle.

“Hold those in place,” Brude directed to Swansborough as he picked up a rod of pale ivory with a rounded end.

Marcus heard Venetia’s excited breathing as Brude filled Sarah’s cunny with the smooth rod. Swansborough picked up a third candle, holding it before Sarah’s eyes. She hesitated, then nodded.

God, he was going to explode in his trousers at the display. No, it wasn’t the display. It was watching the scene while thinking about slowly introducing Venetia to wilder and wilder games…exploring her innate sensuality….

Venetia whimpered as she watched Sarah reach her first climax. Sarah couldn’t scream for the dildo in her mouth, but she writhed and bucked in midair, swinging around on the rope while the men relentlessly fucked her.

Venetia panted heavily. The room was filled with hazy, drugging smoke and the wondrous scent of a woman’s pleasure.

Marcus groaned and pulled her tight against his lean, hard body. His solid thigh pushed between her legs, parting them. Pins scattered as his fingers slid through her hair. Heat flared as his mouth devoured hers. Wet. Firm. Masterful. Wonderful.

He pulled away, gazed into her eyes. “Which Belzique pictures fascinate you most, Vixen? The ones where the women torment the men or those where the women are bound to serve their masters?”

Shock, excitement, desire thundered in Venetia’s soul. What had her admission done? What did Marcus think of her? His fingers were harsh against her scalp, his thigh rubbed hard, but she loved the roughness of it. His sudden madness.

“Which do you wish to be?” he demanded, voice husky. “Dominant or submissive?”

“Marcus!” Her face burned—her skin was flushed, heated, dewy with sweat—but was it embarrassment or desire? What would it be like to be bound…to be at his mercy? To be under his control?

But she was already.

“We could try both,” Marcus continued, as alluring as Lucifer. “Expand your education.”

Breathless moments followed. She need only say ‘yes’ and then she would be plunged into a world of untold pleasure, untold adventure, untold sensuality.

Suddenly he groaned. A sound of frustration, not desire. “Blast. Lydia intended this to distract us,” he ground out, his voice tight. “We have to go back upstairs. Now.”

Panic raced through Venetia as they approached the door to her bedchamber. Her trunks were locked—Lydia couldn’t have discovered her paints and sketches, could she?

She heard her own frantic breathing…and another sound, a soft, steady thrum. His breaths? Not her heart—it pounded like a drum.

The sound grew louder—it was in her room—and something beyond the door rattled. Marcus had heard it too. Venetia’s hand clutched his arm; she felt him become alert as he eased away from her.

“There’s something wrong…the sound, that’s it. The wind is loud—can’t you hear it? And it’s cold.” She felt it now on her ankles. Frosty air eking out from around the door. “There must be a window open.”

“A forgetful maid? Do maids air rooms in the middle of storms?” Marcus frowned, approaching the door with lethal quiet. “Lydia wouldn’t open a window—she wouldn’t climb up a two story stone wall. There’s a terrace outside my room, but it still means a climb.” He twisted the doorknob. It turned freely and the door opened.

Icy air breezed out.

“Please, Vee, stay behind me.”

Vee.
He’d never called her that. Always temptress or vixen or sweet. Endearments that he could bestow on anyone. ‘Vee’ was special. It was hers.

Strange that it would matter so much when her heart was beating wildly.

She stayed so close her fingers brushed his back. Nonsensical detail struck—the deep green of his jacket, the whisper of trousers, the soft thud of his boots as he stepped in the room. Her slippers made no sound as she crept behind him—

“Christ Jesus.” Quick, harsh, the words raced out on his sharp exhale.

Her heart jumped and she reached out to Marcus but he was gone, by her bed. There was no one in her room. But something dark was on her bed. She could barely see around his broad back and she moved to his side to peek.

It was a shape. A body. The skirts of a violet gown spread wide over her sheets. The woman’s legs and hands were splayed, one hand dangled off the bed. A silent woman lay on her bed.

Waiting? Sleeping?

No. Venetia began to shake. Her knees. Her hands. Shaking.

Marcus shifted, moving forward and through the space between his back and the bedpost she saw the face—or the place where the face should be. It looked like a palette—blotches of blue and red and purple. Shapeless. Not human. The face and the dark hair were one borderless mess of color. As though paint had spilled on the bed. Blue and red, running together to make a lake of purple, streaked by tendrils of the pure color…

The eyes. Suddenly she saw those. The whites of the eyes were stark, the irises deep blue. Lifeless. The glass eyes of a waxwork. And that…that was the tongue, discolored to black, like a charred stump of log, sticking out from blue lips, the teeth bared.

Lydia. Lydia’s face.

A whimper slid out. Her own tongue felt thick and immobile. She tried to speak. “M—”

He turned at once.

The room lurched. The house seemed to slide beneath her feet.

His hands closed on her shoulders. She feared he might crush them together and snap her ribcage. He was only trying to hold her up. Protect her. One moment Lydia’s face was in front of her gaze, the next she was staring into his waistcoat. Dragons. Embroidered dragons frolicked there, across his large chest.

“Out,” he commanded, pushing her backward. Her feet obeyed, even as her hands dangled as useless as Lydia’s and her eyes stared as fixedly. “Come, Venetia, back to my room. You must come out of here.”

His voice. Firm. Autocratic. Yes, of course she must do as he said.

But there was something she must do. That she suddenly could do.

Her lips parted, her lungs filled.

She screamed.

Venetia heard other screams. And voices. So many voices, pounding inside her head—shrill, deep, excited, frightened—screaming, shouting, arguing all at once.

She sat up on Marcus’ bed and put her hand to her head. The connecting door was slightly ajar—the catch hadn’t clicked and it had swung back after Marcus closed it. But no one had come in. She shivered beneath his counterpane—Marcus had bundled her in it, had rubbed her through it until her arms and legs began to feel warm, instead of heavy and…and dead.

But he’d had to leave her to deal with the guests barging into her room, making that awful discovery…

She should get up. Help him. Face this.

What sort of independent woman was she, cowering beneath the bedsheets? She kicked the bedclothes back with shaky legs. She couldn’t just hide here while he dealt with…with Lydia’s body.

She had to keep forcing herself to think of that. To think of the image she’d seen. She had to deaden herself to the shock.

Helping her mother aid village women had brought about enough shocks, enough to think she was a tougher woman, forged of sterner stuff. She’d seen women beaten to a pulp, punched until they didn’t look human, and she’d helped to tend wounds.

Those were times for true courage because there had been no other choice. But now she had choice. She could hide. Or she could be at Marcus’ side. She could be of some use instead of being a burden—

She had courage. The shock had robbed her of it, but she could find it again.

Venetia slid off Marcus’ bed and landed unsteadily on her feet. She pawed her skirts down as she took a step. Her legs shook. She clutched at the bedpost.

There was a knock now at Marcus’ door.

“Brandy, ma’am,” called a masculine voice. “For yer shock.”

Walking to the door gave her a chance to test her trembling limbs. She had to hold the bed, then the wall to ensure she didn’t fall, but once she reached the door, she felt improved. Still, her fingers fumbled with the doorknob. Of course, she couldn’t open the door. Marcus had the key.

Her voice shook as she tried to shout that through the door—the footman obviously had no master set because he left with a promise to return.

Perhaps brandy would be a good idea before she went back into her room.

Within a few moments, she heard the rap again, heard the soft scrape of the key going into the lock. The lock turned, the door swung open, and the footman swept in with a silver tray and a large balloon glass of brandy. It was the dark-haired servant—the one with black curly hair. The one who’d kissed Lady Yardley’s breasts. Earlier he’d worn a smirk on his handsome face, had looked cocky, now his face was ashen beneath his powdered wig, his mouth a grim line.

“I expect yer room’ll be set to rights, soon, ma’am,” he promised, his tray hugged to his hip and her brandy placed on the bedside table. “His lordship’s directed others to get a sheet. They’ll like as not move the poor lady to ’er own room.”

A sheet. A winding sheet. To cover her. To carry her.