My Naughty Minette (15 page)

“Thank you,” she murmured, touching her lips. “Kisses can be very calming things for sleeping.” She said this as her heart raced and her blood thrummed in her veins.

“I wish you good night,” August said rather abruptly, then turned and strode out of the room.

Minette watched him until the door closed behind him, then collapsed back on the chaise, flinging the handkerchief onto the table. She’d take the stitches out later, and make him the
M
handkerchief he wanted. That would be the easy part. Patience would be harder, because he stirred her so.

At least he hadn’t given her another spanking. My goodness, she didn’t want him to see her as a childish, naughty wife. She wasn’t going to settle for a lifetime of paternal interaction and platonic spankings, and no other physical connection between them. She wanted his arms around her, and his lips against hers. She wanted his body and his passions, that he might desire her above all others. She was going to make August fall in love with her, and want her. She would never, ever give up.

August went to see Esme the following afternoon, with her erotic books rewrapped in paper and tucked beneath his arm. He had sent a note ahead for her to expect him, but of course she expected him anyway. She wasn’t a fool.

By some stroke of luck, there had been no gossip of Minette’s clandestine visit. Apparently no one had seen her, and Esme wasn’t the sort to talk, so there’d be no need for an ugly confrontation. He was only here to return the books, and perhaps lie down and lose himself for a while. He had stayed away from Esme’s out of some sense of honor, but his honor was straining along with his sanity, and if he didn’t relieve some of his sexual tension, he feared what he might do to Minette, and how he’d feel about it afterward.

When Minette had asked him for a kiss last night, he had thought,
how difficult could it be?
A peck on the cheek, or the forehead. But then he’d taken her in his arms and become aware—not for the first time—of her small waist and her large and beautiful breasts. She had always been small, but the last few years she’d grown audaciously feminine. Exquisitely so.

And so he’d been forced to realize that he didn’t so much see her as a sister, but a sister he wanted to do carnal things to. Which was so much worse.

“Esme,” he whispered to himself as he stood at the door. Esme would help him, as she had so many times before. Antha let him in, and he handed over his cloak, hat, and gloves. He kept the books and made his way to the parlor. Esme was curled in a divan with her nose in a novel, her black hair falling in a tangle across the back cushion. She looked up as he crossed to her.

“Lord Augustine. What a pleasant surprise.”

There was some gravity in her smile that unnerved him. “Hello, Esme. I’m sorry to visit outside your normal hours.”

“I expected you to come.” Her gaze dropped to the wrapped parcel, and he held out the books.

“I’ve brought these back to you.” He launched into half-hearted scold. “I wish you had sent her away. If anyone had seen her here—”

“Did anyone see her?”

“No. But if they had, it would have been a disaster. I would appreciate very much if you would not correspond with my wife or loan her salacious volumes. If I wish her to learn about such things, I can very well teach her myself.”

Esme looked more bemused than ashamed at his lecture. “Sit with me and have a drink, my lord. You look as if you could use one.”

August took off his coat while she poured him brandy, and tipped a bit into her tea. For the first time he could remember, he felt guilty in her presence, guilty to be standing in her parlor stripping off his coat and throwing it over a chair. It was an act he’d always done with great joy, and great anticipation of the pleasure to come. He couldn’t think of pleasure right now. He kept thinking about Minette.

“I wish you hadn’t spoken with her,” he said again. “It’s made things awfully awkward at home.”

“Things weren’t awfully awkward before?” Esme regarded him with one raised brow. “You haven’t been to see me. I thought it was a good sign, although I missed you on your birthday.”

Her smile was flirtatious. Her body language was not. Was that why he didn’t move closer and touch her, and kiss her, and stroke her skin?

“Have you come to say goodbye?” she asked. “It’s all right if you have.”

“No.” His terse answer sounded loud in the soft, pink parlor. “I haven’t come to say goodbye. It’s only that things are complicated right now. My father and mother... My wife... I’ve been very busy.”

“Your wife is delightful.”

He drew in a breath and pinched his lips together. He didn’t want to discuss Minette. He wanted Esme to open her arms and draw him to her breasts, and let him do all the indecent, needful acts his imagination desired.

“I want to lie with you,” he said in little more than a whisper. It was hard to get the words out.

“You don’t, Lord August,” Esme replied after a moment. “But that’s all right.”

“No, I have to.” His voice gained volume, along with an edge of panic. “If I don’t have you, I’ll have to have her.”

“That’s rather what I hope, for your wife’s sake. She loves you, you know. She’d do anything to make you happy. She told me so herself.”

He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. He could never take Minette the way he took Esme. He could never find that release with her, never in a thousand years. He might eventually manage to make love to her tamely, to beget children, but to expose her to the passion and vulgarity of his lusts... “I would very much like to come to you tonight,” he persisted, “if you haven’t any time to spend with me now.”

She reached to stroke his cheek with a wistful expression. “Dear sir, how I’ll miss you. So many memories, all of them magnificent, but I can’t see you anymore. I’m only glad I’ve had this chance to tell you in person, rather than sending a note.”

August stared at her, aghast. “You don’t mean that we are over...forever?”

“I’m afraid I do mean that.”

“But why?”

Esme frowned. “Why? Because of the look on your wife’s face as she poured out her feelings for you. The longing, the anguish, the desperation to secure your affections. I’ll not allow you to come here and waste your passions on a jaded creature like me, when you’ve got a treasure like her at home pining in your bed.”

“She doesn’t sleep in my bed,” he ground out.

“Not yet.” Esme took a deep swallow of his brandy. “But when you get desperate enough...”

He straightened his shoulders and glared at her. “If I pay, you’ll do whatever I like.”

“August, dear, I know you won’t wish to be ugly during our last visit together. I’m sure you feel frustrated and confused, but keep a civil tongue.”

His glare deepened, not that it did any good. How strange, to be powerless with Esme, when he had always been the one with the power in their relationship. He enjoyed wielding power over women, holding them down, fucking them hard, controlling them with pleasure. Esme liked submitting to such power, which was why they’d always been such a capital match.

“I need you,” he said in a gentler tone. “I need you now.”

“Minette needs you now. She wants to please you and love you. She asked me to teach her what you preferred, so she might make you happy.”

“My God. You didn’t oblige her, did you?”

“It’s not my place to teach her what you like, but
you
ought to try. You ought to show her your rough and passionate side. How do you know she won’t delight in it?”

“Because she’s too sweet, too innocent,” he said, pacing away from her. “I could very well lose her affection.”

“My affection has survived your tastes for years now,” Esme said, following him. “I love your force and intensity. I love your lustful imagination.”

“Minette doesn’t have a lustful bone in her body.”

“You think not? Because she’s sweet and pretty, and childlike? She’s not the wilting flower you imagine. She came to see me, didn’t she? Do you know any other woman of quality who would go to such lengths to gain the attention of her husband? You have given her some attention since then, I hope?”

“Not the sort she wished for. I would have paddled her bottom for visiting you, if her brother hadn’t shown up.”

Esme shook her head. “You’re a mess of seething, unsatisfied hungers, I see. Come lie on the bed. Take your shirt off and I’ll massage you for a while to put you in a better temper before I send you home.” She helped him undo his buttons in an irritatingly businesslike way. “Have you been releasing your masculine urges with adequate regularity?”

“Stroking myself, you mean?”

“Yes, to disperse some of this tension.”

“Is that what you recommend?” he said with biting sarcasm. Yes, he’d been stroking himself quite a bit, and was likely to continue doing so, now that Esme wouldn’t see him again. He could always go to Pearl’s, but he didn’t enjoy those women as much. With his father’s illness, he’d developed a healthy fear of the pox, and a desire for some measure of exclusivity in his partners. He trusted Esme. Her fingers traced over his skin, kneading and soothing tense muscles.

“You ought to let Minette do this,” she said. “Let her massage you and explore your body. I think she would enjoy it.”

He groaned into the bed pillows.

“I don’t understand the difficulty,” Esme sighed. “If you can’t be passionate with your wife—”

“She’s not just my wife. She’s my best friend’s sister. She pricked her finger last night, and do you know what I did? I kissed it, because that’s the sort of thing I did when she was eight years old, and I was a callow young lad who thought her the most precious thing.”

“That’s a sweet story.” Esme laughed.

“Why do you think I can’t—” He groaned again. “I can’t bed her, Esme. I can’t. I don’t want to do those sorts of things to her.”

“What things? The things that have brought me such exquisite pleasure over the years? The things that will bring your wife pleasure, that she is eager and willing to learn? Here. Sit up and look at me.”

He obeyed in a sullen fashion, hunching over when she took his shoulders in her hands.

“Listen to me, my dear, gruff Lord Augustine. I’m going to miss you horribly, probably more than I’ve missed any other lover I’ve lost. But I have great hopes for you and your lady. It’s entirely possible to kiss her finger better, and then overtake her in your ardent manner of unbridled lust. You don’t believe so now, but you will come to think differently, and when you do, you must give yourself permission to act on both sorts of feelings. I promise your wife won’t mind.”

“I’ve known Minette for years,” he said in irritation. “You spoke with her for how long?”

“Less than an hour, but I’m a woman, and I know love when I see it. I warrant I know it better than you.”

August wasn’t sure this was true. Maybe. Well, probably.

“Lie down again,” she said. “You’re crotchety as a three-legged cat these days.”

“With good reason. My ladybird’s just told me not to come back.”

She dug hard into the tense knots of his shoulders. “Your ladybird wants you to be happy. Do you think I’m not every bit as put out as you? Blame your Lady Augustine. If she hadn’t come here and bared her heart, you and I might have kept on as we were before.”

“I’ll pay twice what I paid in the past, if you’ll keep seeing me.”

“No.” Esme kneaded a hand up his spine, the heartless vixen. “It’s over, dear August. You’re not to darken my door again.”

*** *** ***

August didn’t dare return to Barrymore House—and Minette—in his current mood. So Esme had cut him off, had she? And it was entirely his wife’s fault.

By God, he’d like to spank Minette until she couldn’t sit down. Perhaps he would, next time he saw her, which was another reason not to return right away. Husbands shouldn’t spank wives. Wasn’t that what she’d yelled at him in one of her tempers? It was awfully hard not to take out his frustrations on her bottom when she was ruining every aspect of his life.

He considered going to the gentlemen’s club, but when he was there everyone always asked after his father. Worse, Colton might be there, scowling at August and muttering words of condemnation in any available ear. He went instead to Townsend’s, and found his friend at home. The butler led him to the grand parlor, a study in marble and damask with a roaring fire. As soon as he was announced, Townsend strode over to greet him at the door. “August, how wonderful to see you. Is everything all right, man? You look put out.”

August stifled a sigh. “Remember when Lansing cut you off from all your women? After you married Aurelia? I’ve just been to see Esme—”

“I should have told you,” Townsend interrupted. “Warren and Arlington are here too.”

His friend—ex-friend?—Warren shot to his feet on the other side of the room. “You went to see Esmeralda?” he asked.

“To return the books,” August said quickly. “And to ask her not to meet again with Minette.”

“Esmeralda met with Minette?” The Duke of Arlington’s brows rose as he stretched out his long legs. “I’ve got to hear this story.”

“Minette is here too, by the way,” Townsend said. “She came with Warren and Josephine. The ladies are sitting by the fire in the library, talking about babies and nurseries, I suppose. Shall I send for them?”

“No,” said the other three gentlemen. August scowled at Warren while Arlington asked again about Esme and Minette.

“Are the two of them fighting over you?” jested the golden-haired duke. Easy for him to joke, when he was the only one still unfettered by the bonds of matrimony.

August flung himself in a chair, feeling supremely out of sorts. “They’re not fighting over me. If you must know, Esme has cut me off indefinitely.”

“Good,” Warren said.

“But how did Esme make Minette’s acquaintance?” asked Arlington.

“She didn’t,” August said. “Minette went in secret to see Esme because she’d overheard someone, probably one of you, talking about our relationship over the years. She went to Esme to ask for...marital advice.”

Townsend stifled a laugh. “And Esme gave her books?”