Pleasure For Pleasure (13 page)

E
liot Governor Thurman had been having a difficult week. Neither Darlington, Wisley, nor Berwick had appeared at the Convent, though he waited there until two in the morning. In one blow, he'd lost all three of the people he counted his friends.

There'd been others at the Convent whom he had believed to be friends, but when Darlington didn't appear, they gave him their shoulder. By midnight he was well aware that without Darlington's comments, and Berwick's wit, and Wisley's acid little nods, he was worthless. To these
supposed friends, he'd been nothing more than an open purse.

With all his heart he hoped that Darlington wouldn't find a wife. Who'd want him? Penniless and sharp-tongued as they come.

He was wandering disconsolately around his rooms, wondering if invitations would stop, once it was clear that he was no longer part of the entourage surrounding Darlington. He couldn't give up the life of the
ton
now. A ball would have no flavor if he was not around Darlington. Part of the most exciting gossip in the room.

He kept drifting from room to room, wondering what to do with himself. It had been miserable at the Convent. He wasn't a man who hungered for silence or private thought. He wanted to roar with laughter, thump the table, and order another round that he would gladly pay for.

Finally he decided that he had to go to Lady Mucklowe's ball on the morrow. Darlington would be there. He couldn't stay at home and have Darlington think that his feelings were hurt. No, he would go to Mucklowe's ball and—he fingered his cravat in the mirror over his mantelpiece—he would go to Mucklowe's ball and he would find the Scottish Sausage.

She
was the reason why Darlington had dropped him. She was the reason Darlington had started thinking about morality and didn't want the comfort of the Convent anymore.

He wouldn't do it so as to tell Darlington later either. He'd do it for himself, because he was just as clever as Darlington ever was. In fact, maybe he'd do something really witty, like make the Sausage think that he was courting her. As if he would ever do such a revolting thing. But he could trick her into it with a few compliments. Maybe he'd even kiss her, so that she would look at him with stars in her eyes, thinking that a man of substance had finally decided to court her. And then he'd spurn her. And finally he'd go to the Convent
and gather his own group of friends, tell them what he'd done and how funny it was.

He could see her plump cheeks right now, quivering with the pleasure of his kiss.

Perhaps he could find her in Hyde Park, and start his courtship now.

“Cooper!” he howled.

His man came running out of his bedchamber.

“I'm going to the park. Order my carriage; I'll wear the puce waistcoat. With the sage-colored costume.”

Cooper opened his mouth but caught his master's eye. Thurman was in no mood to be told what colors did and didn't go together. Darlington dressed with a casual flair and often put together colors that weren't as conservative as Cooper's choices. Now that he, Thurman, was going to be a leader of the
ton
, he must needs develop a style of his own.

It wasn't until Thurman was knotting a cravat with a casual violence that crushed most of the starch that he realized precisely what he meant to do.

He meant to be the new Darlington.

Darlington had retired, suffered a change of heart, turned pansy, weak-kneed, however one wanted to say it.

He, Thurman, hadn't lost his nerve, and he never would. He'd been standing in Darlington's shadow so long that people didn't realize that he could be just as clever, if he wished. That was clear at the Convent last night. They thought no one but Darlington had a witty comment to make.

They were wrong.

Either he'd use the Sausage or he'd find some other thing to be clever about. It was that simple.

T
he best suite at Grillon's Hotel had a large bed and a number of charming seating arrangements. There wasn't a hard-backed chair in the place. Darlington wandered about, touching the marble mantel to make sure there was no dust. The hotel was the opposite of the Bedrock estate, where he was raised. Bedrock Manor was made of a pinky-golden stone, and stood on a hill, so that in the summer the grass all around burned brown, and it took on an almost Italian aspect, like a Tuscan house dreaming in the
sunshine. It hurt to think about those days, running about in the vale with his two brothers, never knowing that there was nothing for him, that it was all for his brother Michael.

They don't tell you, when you're sprouting, that you're nothing more than a spare in case the eldest doesn't make it. They let you run free around the estate, in and out of stables, up and out of trees that would never belong to you. Because not even one tree would belong to you. They give you only two choices: go into the army and kill people; go into the church and bury them. Well, three choices. You could fix on a way to support yourself that disgraces the family honor, at least from the family point-of-view.

It's my failure that I didn't find a respectable third way, Darlington thought to himself. Instead I sank into a rage that apparently lasted for years. Father would never have considered raising me to a business, and yet no one—but no one—seemed to have noticed that doing nothing leads to no income.

He shook the thought away.

An appropriate third way was obvious, always had been. Prostitution. Marry for money, marry well, marry a dowry.

To kill, to bury, or to screw.

Really, there wasn't any choice about it at all.

She was just late enough so that he thought she wasn't coming, and that the suite was to be wasted. It was after eleven when he heard the discreet knock on his door. He was sprawled in a chair, but he leaped up as a footman ushered in a heavily veiled female form and then left.

His heart bounded, and he walked over to her, laughing. “Is there anyone under these veils?”

“Oh no,” came a demurely smiling voice. “There's no one here but I.”

“And you are the Ghost of the Lady of Shallot, I suppose,” he said, lifting off one veil only to discover another.

“Was the Lady of Shallot the woman who dashed about on her horse wearing no clothing?” Griselda demanded when he had tossed aside her third veil.

“That's Lady Godiva,” he said, grinning down at her. He was clutching her hands with all the enthusiasm of a vicar greeting a sinner come to mass. “If you'd like to put on a performance, I'll be happy to be your steed.”

He saw the moment the jest made sense to her, because her eyes widened. Then a naughty chuckle erupted from her throat. “I'll have you know that I am a very proper widow,” she said severely, “and no one speaks in such a manner to me.”

“You aren't a widow tonight,” he said. She had turned and was wandering about the room, so he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.

“I'm not?” Her hair was the sulky yellow of a peach, and tied up in elegant ladylike ringlets that hadn't even been disturbed by her veils.

He nipped her in the ear. “You're not,” he breathed in her ear. “I think you're actually Lady Godiva, and you wandered into my room by accident.”

Her body was still, and he couldn't tell if she were the sort who would welcome imagination, or whether she was a woman of rigid common sense.

“And what am I doing, wandering into a gentleman's bedchamber?” she asked. His heart began to pound in his ears, because her voice was inquiring.

He ran his hands from her shoulders down the front of her pelisse, and then quick as a wink undid the twists that held it together. As he drew it off her shoulders, he said, “Well, you lost your clothing, of course.”

She turned around and smiled at him, and it was as if a perfect Dresden shepherdess leapt into vivid life, wrinkling her nose at him. “How did that happen?” She sauntered
over to the table where the champagne stood, wrapped in a cold wet towel. “I should tell you, Darlington, that I rarely lose my clothing.”

He was there, pouring champagne. “I somehow know that,” he said, handing her a glass.

“This will be my third such encounter,” she said, waiting until he had a glass as well. “And my last.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I've made up my mind to marry.”

These weren't flirtatious smiles, but the rueful sort shared by campaigners on the eve of leaving for a battle. “I as well.”

“You do need to marry,” Griselda said, sipping her champagne. She looked delightfully concerned for him.

He leaned over and dropped a kiss on her lips. “So do you.”

“I?” she asked, and one perfectly arched brow flew into the air.

“Surely Willoughby has been dead ten years,” he said. “And Lady Godiva has only found herself wandering three times?”

“For one night only in each case,” she told him. “An inflexible rule. I always think it is so helpful for everyone if we are quite clear from the beginning.”

“One night,” Darlington said, feeling a pang of regret that nearly felled him to his knees. He only had one night before he must begin his marriage campaign. But none of that mattered in the face of the ravenous desire he felt for Griselda.

She glanced around the room, and he decided to lay down a rule of his own. “I have never married, but I've heard that such encounters take place under the sheets.”

“Indisputably,” Griselda said, her face not revealing a thing about her marital relations.

“And I imagine that affairs among the nobility often have the same lack of vivaciousness.”

“If one considers setting vital to…vivaciousness.”

“One does,” he said simply. “Tonight Lady Godiva rides in the open.” And just to give her an idea of what he meant, he pulled off his jacket and threw it to the side, pulled off his shirt and sent it flying in the same direction.

He knew he was desirable to women. True, he'd made love to very few. He had no stomach to make love to a sour-smelling lass who'd give herself for free in a tavern, little money to pay one who might smell better, and no heart to flirt with a maiden to whom he couldn't offer marriage. But that didn't mean he hadn't seen their eyes follow him, seen a certain interest in her face when a woman surveyed his chest or glimpsed his forearm.

Griselda's eyes rested on his chest, but he couldn't tell what she was thinking.

“If we only have one night,” he said softly, “then I think that Lady Godiva should begin her ride, don't you?”

But she was not a woman to be hurried.

He took down her hair, pin by pin, and made a delicious discovery. Those ringlets, the lady's claim to propriety and beauty, were only for show. Down tumbled her hair, and it was thick as silk and straight, until it reached the end where it formed perfect little ringlets.

“I've never seen anything like it,” he said, pulling them and admiring how they curled back into a perfect spiral.

“My maid puts in the curl,” Griselda said.

“How does she do that?” He was entranced, wanting to know every detail. “Do you stand there, naked, flushed, warm from the bath?”

She laughed at him. “I sit, respectably clothed in my dressing gown, and she wields a hot iron behind my shoulders.”

“I'm your maid for the night.” He took his time removing
her gown, unlacing her corset, finally pulling off her chemise.

Surely she would insist on the lamp being turned down?

But she didn't. She didn't even glance at the light. Under all that clothing, she was as ripe and delicious as a peach, her breasts falling into his hands with an abandon that made his laughter catch in his throat, laughter that couldn't make its way to the open air because he was in the grip of a lust so fierce that he'd never felt the like.

He was intoxicated by her long sweep of corn silk hair, with its little jubilant twists at the ends. He brought it over her breasts, and then pulled her in front of the mirror. They stood there together, she a study in creamy skin and silky hair, and he a harder, golden version of the same. “We look—” he said, and cleared his throat.

Griselda tipped her head back against his shoulder and watched him.

“I thought ladies were terrified by nakedness.” He was kissing her neck and talking between kisses.

“I've always liked looking at myself,” she said, watching his hands on her body in the mirror. “I like looking at you as well.”

He ran a hand down the curves of her side. She loved the intent look on his face.

“Willoughby was not fond of mirrors.”

“Hmmm,” he said, obviously only vaguely listening. It was half a caress, his touch, and half a shaping.

“Our wedding night was something of a fiasco.”

He raised his eyes.

“Neither of us had any experience in the area,” she said, laughing. She'd never told a soul about the night. It felt enormously freeing.

“Poor Willoughby,” Darlington said. “None at all?”

She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

“What happened?”

“We couldn't make it work. Not really. His belly was in the way, and it was mortifying for both of us, and so he kept losing his—his interest, as it were.”

“Poor sod!” Darlington said, horror in his voice.

“We tried again a few days later and it was more successful.” Darlington was beautiful: a muscled, young stallion of a man. Her two previous lovers had been cautious men in their forties, men who slid gently under the bedcovers and expertly, charmingly, made her as comfortable as they themselves were.

Darlington was another matter. She turned around so she could see him better, and found herself fascinated by the hollows in his hips, by the tight arch of his behind, by the golden sheen of his skin.

“Are you always like this?” she finally asked.

“Like what?”

“Naked. When you're with a woman.”

His eyebrow shot up. “Have you seen me wandering through ballrooms without my waistcoat?”

“No, foolish one. I meant when you're engaged in intimate activities.”

“Well, as to that,” he said. And pulled her against him, a shock of skin to skin. “I haven't found myself in many intimate situations, and that's the truth.”

“You haven't?” She blinked up at him, wondering.

He shook his head. His hands slid down the planes of her back, making her feel deliciously smooth…feminine.

“Why not?”

His hands dropped away. He turned and picked up his glass. “No money to pay for the privilege, no living to back up the indiscretion…how could I?”

It seemed he had a code of honor, this man whom half of London considered despicable.

“How did you afford this room?” Griselda asked.

He turned. “Mad use of funds,” he said. “Every person deserves a last madness before they settle into domestic slavery, don't you think?”

“Domestic slavery?”

He drained his champagne. “How else could one describe marriage?”

“Companionship,” she said. And thinking of Annabel's, Tess's, and Imogen's marriages, “Passion, friendship, love.” She added, “Children.”

“You're an optimist,” he said. “I see marriage as a fiduciary transaction. I will bring to the marriage little more than my skills in bed. My father made that clear to me at an early age. Under those circumstances, I've always found it hard to indulge an impulse to dally with a woman.”

“Because it took on the flavor of practicing your marriage-bound skills,” she said, sipping her wine and trying not to ogle the long line of his thigh.

“The taint thereof,” he corrected her. “But I do believe that I'm finally old enough to face my fate, coward that I am.”

She walked toward him, feeling her hair soft on her back. He had his back turned to her, so she ran her hands, palms flat, up the strong planes of his back. He shivered, but said nothing.

“'Tis a dismal way of looking at marriage,” she said, curving her hands around the muscles of his shoulders.

“Reality so often is disappointing.”

“Not tonight.” Then she came squarely up against him and felt his intake of breath through her body as well as his.

“I believe that we are in an altogether different realm than marriage.”

“I maintain, sir, that a marriage can be passionate.”

“I beg you to relinquish such unpleasant thoughts.” He turned around.

And what he was doing with his hands…well, it was enough to make every thought in Griselda's head fly away.

 

An hour or so later Griselda was boneless, weak, satiated. “It's time to leave,” she said, battling her own inclination to sink back into the bed. She bent over to pick up his dressing gown, but Darlington made a noise like a growl, a deep urgent noise in his throat, and she hesitated. And then he was wrapping his arms around her again.

She could feel his arousal, and her own blood sped into a throbbing melody in response. Some dazed part of her mind was measuring this evening against her other experiences and finding them to have no correlation. No other man had shown interest in more than one polite, cheerful coming together in which both parties were mutually satisfied.

“I don't—” she gasped.