Lord Ruin (4 page)

Ruan saw to his own horse when he made the Abbey at about half past one in the morning. Thank heaven for a full moon and clear sky, or he’d have never tried to make Corth Abbey before morning. Good weather and good luck. The front door was unlocked. He didn’t need to rouse the servants. Greatcoat folded over an arm, he went upstairs. He heard voices from the parlor, his mother’s among them. Time enough for explanation in the morning, he decided, walking past with a silence learned on campaign. He did not particularly care to hear his mother’s reaction to Emily Sinclair tonight. If he made an appearance, he was in for an inquisition. He hadn’t the patience for it, not at this hour.

Whenever he came to Corth Abbey, he stayed in the same room. Just as Dev always had the same room if he spent a night at Cywrthorn or at the estate in Cornwall. The idea that by week’s end he would be an engaged man buoyed his spirits, quite unnaturally for a man of his temperament. He fully intended to break through that layer of disdain Miss Emily Sinclair had adopted toward him. The girl refused to be easily caught. Well, the hunt was on, and Emily Sinclair was no better than a hapless fox and him the baying hound. She would be his duchess. Lord Ruin ought to marry the most beautiful woman London had seen in many a season. Young, fresh, and so lovely he intended the shortest possible engagement.

His room was closest to the stairs. Dobkin, his valet, had traveled with his mother’s servants the day before and had in his usual thorough and methodical manner arranged the room in anticipation of his arrival. A fire warmed the chamber. On the nightstand, a lamp cast a soft glow so he didn’t have to fumble for a light. His trunk stood in one corner, and he knew his clothes were laid out in the wardrobe. He threw his greatcoat over a chair and decided not to wake Dobkin. Coat and waistcoat he let drop on a chair. Loosening his shirt, he made for the washstand and sluiced the travel grime from his face and neck. He was pulling off his boots when he realized he was not alone.

Panic had him reaching for his coat, but the fright passed. God knows a woman transformed any room she stayed in, and he did not see a single sign that the one in his bed was there for any purpose but the obvious. Her clothes would be somewhere. Perfume bottles arranged on the dresser, perhaps a pair of slippers near the bed, stockings or a shawl draped over a chair. On a suspicious whim, he threw open the wardrobe. And breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing but his own clothes inside. On the table was his shaving kit, laid out as if Dobkin were about to appear with a cup of foaming lather. Really, there wasn’t any doubt. Barefoot, he walked to the bed.

“Dev, you rogue you.”

The woman lay on her back, one arm thrown above her head. Sound asleep, despite the noise he’d made undressing. Not beautiful. Nor was she unaffecting. He sat on the edge of the bed. He rather liked her features, framed as they were by a few wisps of pale hair that had escaped a tidy braid. Sleeping, she looked as far from a whore as, well, the woman he intended to marry. The significance of her being in his room was not lost on him. One last hark to the wild life he and Devon were to leave behind.

“This,” he said in a whisper as he slowly drew the covers down to her waist, “is what comes of a man owning a brothel.” To his surprise, she showed no sign of waking. He adjusted the bedclothes so that nearly the whole of one leg came into sight. A very long, very lovely leg. Her nightdress had slid up while she slept, to nearly the middle of her thigh. The material was fine cambric. No common whore her, but then Devon never did anything the common way.

Thinking she must any moment awaken, he trailed a finger from her knee to mid-thigh. When it came to women, he was patience personified. She stirred, and he waited. But she only flung one arm over her chest. His attention diverted from her leg, he took it upon himself to remove her hand from her torso, gently laying it on the mattress. He shifted just enough to push aside the linens, for they were now most definitely a hindrance to him.

“Sweet Christ,” he breathed.

Her breasts were on the large side, more than a palm-full, a sumptuous, overflowing handful. Long and slender legs, small waist and those lovely round breasts that sent heat directly to his groin. He vowed never again to overlook a woman who did not have a conventionally pretty face. A ribbon held together the top edges of her nightdress. One tug on the end, and he was separating the two halves. Not, unfortunately, far enough to see all of her. But even what a man might see in any ballroom impressed him. He slipped a hand inside. With the pad of one finger he brought her nipple to a peak. She moaned softly and with her next breath he had more flesh against his palm than he could hold.

A vision of her calves touching his back prompted him to move his attention back to her legs. He inched the cambric higher. She stirred again, and he checked to see if she’d woken. Her chest rose with another breath, trembling on a sigh, but she still slept. He very much longed to touch her legs at a higher point. Pushing the nightdress up and past her hips called for a combination of strength and dexterity since the woman slept like a log. Now, though, he could not only see but touch the surprisingly dark nether hair. Lord, but her skin was soft. Unconscionably soft. She smelled sweet, felt warm and silken.

That soft skin of hers had him running a palm everywhere he could touch, feather-light strokes. A sigh came from her and with but a little encouragement her legs parted just enough for him to slip a finger between her thighs. His searching finger found the flesh that would make her moan in passion. Another sigh. Would that low sound become another man’s name? Devon’s, perhaps? He listened, but heard only her breath, faster now he’d brought her close to passion. Tension in her formerly lax body told him she was awake and, easing back a bit so as to both prolong and increase her climax when it came, he whispered, “You’re almost there, love.” There was nothing better than a grateful whore.

“That’s nice.” She sounded sleepy, groggy with it. The neck of her nightdress opened wider when she strained upward into his hand.

“Yes, it is,” he replied. He stopped, waiting for a protest that didn’t come in the form of words. Her head tossed on the pillow when his finger slid inside her just long enough to find heat and wetness. Another moment, and he returned to his slow, stroking motion. He had her quickly at the edge. He left her there a moment longer than he should have because it was such a pleasure to watch her.

When at last he gave her release, she abandoned herself to her body. Not one blessed ounce of inhibition. The long muscles of her legs tightened. Her pelvis arched to him, inviting the intimacy of his hand. A short while later her hands fisted at her sides. Her face in her moment of extremity had a look of wonderment so that a vain man might have thought himself the first ever to bring her to orgasm. Being neither a vain man nor a stupid one, he knew that wasn’t so. Devon would have brought her to such a state more than once. All the same, he found the reaction quite appealing.

His fingers curled around her thigh just above her knee and stroked down. “There is something about a woman’s well-turned leg,” he murmured in a honeyed voice. “The exquisite blending of calf to knee.” God knows but her legs were exquisite. She winced, and he couldn’t imagine how he could possibly have hurt her. A glance at her foot told him how. A dark purple bruise ran from below her ankle bone forward to the middle arch of her very dainty foot. Probably hurt like the devil. “What have you done to your ankle?” He was only mildly curious, but he asked anyway. His fingers stroked upward, as far as her knee.

“Oh.”

His hand inched higher. “Yes, love?”

“Oh.” Now he had his hand on her thigh. Her very upper thigh. “You are a wicked man.” She giggled and despite it being a giggle, he wasn’t put off. The silly sound convinced him all was exactly as he supposed. A lover of Devon’s who had injured an ankle. The familiar accent of his own class suggested she was perhaps once a governess now come to a more profitable employment. With her in his room and so wonderfully the flirt, why should he think otherwise?

Devon was just the sort to give up a perfectly acceptable mistress because he fancied himself in love with some old maid from the country. He considered taking her right then, coyness be damned. As wildly as she’d come, perhaps she’d enjoy a hard, fast coupling. He stood up and shucked his trousers, watching as she recovered herself.

A small frown line appeared between her brows. That surprised him. He’d been expecting a soft smile, an inviting pout. Slowly, her eyes focused. She did not immediately look at him. When she did, the frown deepened. She closed her eyes, then opened them again. “Who are you?” she whispered. “A dream? Surely, a dream. A wonderful dream.”

“A man who wants you,” he replied.

“You aren’t Devon.”

“No.” He softly laughed. “Indeed not.” He stepped out of his underclothes and thought about how much he wanted to touch her breasts.

“Lord Ruin.” But for the odd vagueness about her, almost a blankness, he might have thought her better than pretty. Some men preferred their women on the feeble side. He never had. At the moment, however, he was more than willing to overlook any defect in her intelligence.

“The very same, my love.”

“Oh,” she said in a voice that sounded, to his ears, as if she were going to fall back to sleep. “Then it’s all right. I know who you are.” She laughed. “How fortuitous it’s you, though. Quite a stroke of luck. I did so hope to see you in private.”

“Did you now?” Even with the rather vague expression, he revised his initial opinion of her looks. Her features were more than a little enticing. Nice mouth, good cheekbones. In the soft darkness, her eyes showed indeterminate color and sleepy passion. Naked as the day he was born, he lay on the bed this time, leaning his weight on one elbow. “Whatever are you doing so far away from me?” He chuckled when he saw her looking at him. As if she’d never seen a man before. “Touch me,” he said softly. “Go on,” he whispered when she did nothing except gaze at him from half-lidded eyes. “I’d like you to.”

Shyly, she reached out. “Lord Ruin.” Fingertips traced the ridges of his abdomen down to his pelvis. She kept her attention on her hands. For a time, he watched her face, enjoying the slow increase of arousal in her eyes and the way her mouth curved ever so slightly. He groaned when she arrived at his pelvis, sliding over bone and sinew. He could almost believe her an innocent, the way she looked at him and how she started everything as if afraid she’d step wrong. But no innocent ever took a man’s balls in her hands, as the little witch was doing right now.

Devon was a fool. Flat out a bloody fool, to give her up. He wondered what Devon wanted from him that he’d gone to the trouble of finding a woman so unexpectedly to his taste. A specific desire popped into his head, and he rather thought she was just the woman to satisfy it. “Kiss me, take me in your mouth,” he whispered urgently.

For an instant, he thought she wouldn’t. Then, warm, damp pressure surrounded him, and he leaned back on his haunches. She began with deliberate slowness, learning him, practically committing him to memory, he thought. Whatever it was Dev wanted, he was going to see that he got it. “A little harder.” He took her head between his hands and showed her what he meant.