A Gentleman's Wager (14 page)

Lucerne watched as Charles swigged noisily from his second tankard of ale and pushed aside the remains of a dish of Yorkshire pudding and gravy. Vaughan idly
dipped
a fingertip into his mulled wine and sucked the sweet red liquid away: a sure sign that he was bored.

‘We ought to head home,’ Lucerne reminded them. ‘I do have other guests.’

‘What? We haven’t had our pudding yet!’ Charles sounded close to panic. Lucerne shook his head in exasperation. He and Vaughan hadn’t eaten anything.

‘How much pudding can one man eat?’ sniped Vaughan, but Charles ignored them both and called over the buxom serving girl to order stewed plums. His eyes followed her plump breasts as she approached.

‘B’gad, I’d love to pour cream over those dumplings,’ he muttered.

Lucerne glanced across the table at Vaughan and they exchanged a mutual look of distaste. ‘Lucerne, about that matter we discussed …’ Vaughan said, and he stood abruptly.

Lucerne thought of deferring the issue, but he realised Vaughan would never let it go, and in some ways the bustling inn was preferable to the intimacy of Lauwine. He rose warily. ‘There’s a private room at the back. You don’t mind, do you, Charles?’

Charles glared disapprovingly at them, but just then the girl returned and leaned across the table to set a dish before him. Lucerne made use of the distraction to steer Vaughan towards the rear of the inn.

They found a small, comfortable room. Lucerne crossed to the fireplace and watched as Vaughan dropped the latch on the door, cast himself into the snug and lifted his elegantly heeled boots onto a chair. He’d been aloof and sullen since they’d come in, but he’d kept his remarks neutral in front of Charles. Lucerne had been thankful for that, but now he was clearly building to a confrontation. He wondered if they could keep this amicable, because the thought of Vaughan as an enemy
didn’t
rest well with him. If it came out at Court, the bucks would make a scandal into a tragedy.

‘This is already boring. Why don’t you speak your mind?’ Vaughan taunted as he returned his feet to the floor. Lucerne bowed his head and sighed to signal his intent. There was no avoiding it any longer.

‘You ask too much.’ Vaughan watched him expectantly. Lucerne pressed his fingertips to his temples. He’d never expected this to be easy. ‘Can’t you accept things as they are?’

‘No. I was spoiled as a child. I always have to have my own way.’ Vaughan left his seat and came to stand at Lucerne’s side, then gently touched his arm. Contrary to his words, his eyes held tenderness and devotion. ‘Please, Lucerne.’

Lucerne stared at the door and set his mouth. ‘It’s not what I want.’

‘Do you deny the temptation?’

‘No.’ He plucked hesitantly at his cuffs. ‘But I’m afraid of what it will mean.’

‘You’re damned stubborn,’ Vaughan growled softly.

‘So are you,’ countered Lucerne.

‘Agreed. I’m also persistent, so I ask you to surrender for the sake of my dignity.’

‘Never,’ hissed Lucerne, recognising Vaughan’s humour.

Vaughan drew himself up straight, and gave Lucerne a challenging stare. ‘So be it,’ he said, then grasped Lucerne by the shoulders and kissed him, quickly and fiercely. Lucerne opened his mouth to protest and found his words silenced by Vaughan’s tongue. Instead of struggling, he froze. Vaughan’s mouth tasted warm and spiced from the mulled wine they’d drunk. Vaughan’s hips pressed against his loins and the marquis’s strong hands caressed him through the seat of his breeches. Vaughan’s
scent
was all around him, male and very sexual. He trembled with fear and longing, growing fiercely and helplessly erect. Vaughan reached down and stroked him from the base of his cock to the tip, making him gasp despite himself. He felt a sudden terror that someone would enter the room, but the danger seemed to add to the thrill.

‘That’s damned unfair,’ he protested.

‘I know.’

Lucerne closed his eyes and offered no resistance to Vaughan’s intimate caress. So it had all come down to this. He could sometimes deny his attraction to the other man, but he didn’t have the willpower to force him away. The muscles of his stomach tightened and his mouth opened, but he didn’t make a sound. Vaughan’s thrilling attention was worth the risk of weathering discovery here or gossip at Court. He reached out to Vaughan and met his friend’s desire with an urgency of his own. Outside, the muted hubbub of the inn went on. He hoped the latch was firm.

They clawed at each other’s clothing and ground their pricks together, rubbing and kissing, while Lucerne tried not to think too hard about what he was doing. He slipped his hand inside the waistband of Vaughan’s figure-hugging pantaloons, touched his friend’s sensitive glans and heard him gasp. The sound gave Lucerne a surprising sense of satisfaction, and he allowed Vaughan to pull away long enough for the marquis to pull his black cambric shirt over his head.

Vaughan’s body was lean but muscular and tapered neatly at the waist. His arms and shoulders were strong from his love of fencing, the same sport that had given him his oft-admired thighs. However, the most striking feature of his near-nakedness was the pale silvery line across his left side that marred the surface of his skin.
Lucerne
traced its length curiously with his fingertips, and then with his tongue. It appeared to be a duelling scar.

‘An unpleasant scrape,’ elucidated Vaughan, as he tilted his head forwards to watch Lucerne. A fiery gleam showed through the shadow of his dark lashes, while his lips curled into an aggressive smile. ‘Deuced Italians. I swear they’ve fire for blood.’

Lucerne smiled and pressed himself against Vaughan’s warm body, glad that whatever implement had caused the wound hadn’t done more damage. He felt Vaughan’s arms snake around him and pluck at his coat. Lucerne shrugged it off, for once letting it fall to the floor. Then he unknotted his cravat, while Vaughan drew the curtain across the small, grimy window.

They fell upon each other again, as if mere closeness was not enough. Lucerne sank to his knees, then felt Vaughan about to follow suit and stopped him. He eyed the erect penis before him uncertainly. This would be a first. He cautiously closed his mouth over the head. It tasted salty against his tongue.

Vaughan inhaled sharply and sagged against the panelled wall for support, holding Lucerne’s head to his cock as he moved. He didn’t speak, but Lucerne didn’t need him to. He knew how this felt, knew exactly how incredible such focused attention was. What surprised him was the pleasure he was deriving from the friction against his lips, and the addictiveness of having his mouth repeatedly filled.

Vaughan’s fingers tangled in his hair. His hips rocked slowly. Lucerne knew he was resisting the urge to thrust deeper. He tried to take a little more, but felt the tip brush the back of his throat and had to fight back the instinctive cough that threatened to explode. He circled his fingers over Vaughan’s arse cheeks, and then moved
one
hand to cup his friend’s balls. Vaughan stiffened. He gave a deep emotive sigh and his whole body flexed as he came, shooting his seed into Lucerne’s waiting mouth.

Lucerne released his hold and kissed him once, intimately. He watched Vaughan’s prick continue to twitch as the afterglow of his orgasm washed over his body, and saw a contented smile spread over his face. Vaughan’s eyes flicked open as Lucerne stood; they were dilated and unnaturally bright. They fastened on the trickle of come at the corner of Lucerne’s mouth.

‘Come to me,’ he beckoned.

‘No.’ Lucerne wiped away the evidence of their encounter. ‘Later,’ he soothed, when he saw anxiety cloud the joy in Vaughan’s eyes. ‘Somewhere more private.’ The risk of discovery suddenly felt very real.

Vaughan smiled and nodded. He rose to his feet and dressed quickly. There was a fresh glow to his skin now, and he positively radiated sexuality. Once he’d buttoned himself, he turned to Lucerne and caught his wrist, then forced a kiss on him. This time Lucerne accepted it without question, then they went out to collect Charles.

Bella closed the door to her room and sauntered towards the stairs. She felt listless with nobody around to spar with. The men were out walking, and Louisa was moping over Wakefield’s departure. This left Mark as her only viable option, and one she didn’t particularly relish. Compared with the breathless excitement she felt in Lucerne’s company, Mark left her feeling unaroused and vaguely bored.

She paused at the top of the stairs, above the freshly scrubbed marble. She’d missed the fight, having come through the front door just as everyone was sloping off to bed. Nobody had noticed her. She’d been surprised by Joshua’s news this morning: that the affray had been
between
Wakefield and Lucerne, not Vaughan, and that her brother was taking Captain Wakefield into town. She’d seen Lucerne only briefly after lunch; he had a long crimson scratch over one cheek, and was slightly yellow about the jaw. According to Joshua, the fight had brewed over the joke they’d played the night before. He flatly refused to relate any details and had changed the subject, extracting her promise to behave herself in return for permission to stay at Lauwine.

Bella put her back to the banister and stared across the hall. If she was at home she’d have gone riding or sneaked into the kitchen and got her hands dirty kneading pastry, taking out her frustrations on the dough. She couldn’t very well do that here.

The door to Charles’s bedroom was ajar. On impulse she strode across the landing and peered into the room. His possessions covered all the surfaces in a higgledy-piggledy fashion. Combs and shaving brushes lay alongside tatty books, while half burned candles made hangers for discarded neckcloths. She turned over a few of the volumes and scanned the cracked spines – military texts and poems, which summed up Charles perfectly.

She tried the door of Lucerne’s room, keen to see how it differed from Charles’s comfortable disorder. An ancient four-poster dominated his surprisingly sparse bedchamber. All his accoutrements were laid out on the dresser. She picked out his shaving brush and tested it against her neck. The soft bristles tickled, reminding her of the butterfly kisses she’d exchanged with her father as a child. The razor she left untouched. She didn’t know how he could bear it near his throat, even in the trusted hands of Ivo.

The closet was packed tight. She searched through the garments by touch, and found the black velvet coat he’d worn on the night of the ball. The pile was thick and
silky
against her cheek as she pressed against his absent shoulder. They’d come so close to an understanding that night, and then she’d ended up astride the captain instead. The memory made her frown. She replaced the coat and took out another familiar garment: the blue silk he’d put aside that day in September to take a swim. The light in the chamber gave it a deeper hue than she remembered. From the hem, she removed a dried blade of grass that still held the faint but tantalising sweetness of the riverbank. She pushed her arms through the sleeves, and turned before the mirror to admire herself. It didn’t work with her chemise dress, and it was not cut for a feminine figure: too broad across the shoulders, and too tight around the bust. But it did have a certain daring appeal. She wondered if he’d be prepared to let her borrow it.

Finally, she let herself into Vaughan’s room, expecting to find implements of torture or a girl tied to the bed, but it was meticulously plain and masculine. She slumped onto his big soft bed and swung her legs petulantly.

‘Trust … Vaughan … to keep … all … his … secrets … to himself,’ she intoned as her heels drummed an accompaniment to her words on a solid object beneath the bed.

Bella paused.

She experimentally tapped her heel against the wood again and heard the hollow echo.

The metal corners of the trunk grated loudly against the floorboards as she dragged it from beneath the frame. It was a sea-chest, slightly wormy, and stamped in gold with Vaughan’s initials.

‘Bugger, padlocked,’ she grumbled, as she lifted the weighty metal clasp. Where could he have hidden the key?

For someone of such refined tastes there was precious little in the way of filigreed snuff boxes in which to hide his treasures, and the drawers revealed only practical, if expensive, underwear. ‘Damn him,’ she cursed, returning to the bed. Trust Vaughan to be selfish. He probably carried the trunk with him just in case anyone dared enter his room to snoop.

Bella raised her head from the fluffy top pillow and puffed a stray eider feather from her fringe. The bed linen smelled of him. An image of his dark hair cascading over the pillow beside her swam in her mind. There was no use denying the attraction, but she owed him a reckoning for last night. A title didn’t give him the right to treat anyone like that. These weren’t feudal times, and she was nobody’s whore.

She smashed her fist into the pillow, fracturing his image, and let her breath out slowly. Only then did she notice the gold chain dislodged by the impact. Bella drew it out. At the end was a small ornate locket. It held a lock of blonde hair, and was engraved with a date from three years earlier – 15 June 1794. ‘How curious!’

She turned it speculatively in her palm. It seemed certain that she held something she could use to get back at him, but without knowing the full history of the item she’d be relying on heavy guesswork. Knowing there was a woman in his past was hardly a revelation; there were probably hundreds. Nevertheless, knowing he held enough affection towards one of them to sleep with a memento under his pillow might come in useful. She doubted he’d want anyone to know.

Her ears pricked at the sound of voices in the courtyard below. ‘Hellfire!’ If Vaughan’s room wasn’t the worst place to get caught … She rubbed the locket on her dress to remove her fingermarks, pushed it back beneath the pillow, and then frantically smoothed the
coverlet
. Thankfully, the corridor was still clear when she poked her head around the door, so she dashed across the carpet into the long gallery. Skirts flapping wildly, she sprinted the length of it, then stopped to compose herself at the far end. Finally she walked calmly into the upstairs parlour and sat down as if she’d been there all afternoon.